Let me preface by saying that this class is probably not what you think it is. This class goes DEEP into intonational theory. It was a small class when I took it -- I think there were only 5 or so undergrads. This is also a cross-listed class every even year (2024, 2026, etc) so half the class was also grad students. At least a few of us took this class because intonation SOUNDS cool, but this class takes a much different approach to the point that it can seem needlessly technical.

The first six weeks go over the intonation of English to intense detail: all the different ways to say a sentence that you may not even realize or hear the differences between. Knowing how to transcribe is a must for the HW and exams. There's some phonology like 119A/120A: i.e., some tones change into other tones after blah blah, and there's phonological domains, but you don't write any rules; you just have to recognize/hear the principles.

The remaining weeks survey the intonations of Japanese, Korean, and French. To be honest these lectures aren't all that important if you're just trying to get a good grade. Just understanding the similarities and differences between each one (including English) should be enough to get you by.

The homeworks can be hard -- it's 4 assignments where you're given audiotracks on Praat of various English sentences and have to transcribe them according to the intonational system that we use (ToBI). Then there's one "easier" HW in the middle of the quarter where you draw a pitch track according to some intonational transcription. When a homework is due, she'll spend half the lecture reviewing it and so many people would sigh whenever we had made a mistake. Exams are split into half transcription (like the homework) and half free response questions (I think around 20 each for midterm and final). Sun-Ah plays the audio during the exam and you transcribe. There aren't any tricks as long as you know the material well.

Sun-ah is pretty forgiving, and at least when I took her, she curves generously. During homework reviews, she would often say "I think it's this, but I can see why you wrote this, so you won't lose a point there" and it was so nice. She's also super experienced in intonation (she's written like 3 books on this stuff), so if you're genuinely curious then go ahead and take this class. This class is very special and it's one of my favorite classes I've taken here, but I just don't think it's for everyone and don't want people to get disappointed like many of my peers did. If you're just looking for an easy linguistics elective, there are definitely easier (and probably more interesting) ones to take.