Punctuation: Exclamation Point or Period?

Question

Is there any way to determine whether a sentence should end in a period or an exclamation point? In English, there is generally a difference in the tone of voice: a regular, matter-of-fact tone usually indicates a period, while an excited tone (angry, happy, etc.) usually indicates an exclamation point. For most of the sentences in the dictation exercises, I don't hear anything that lets me determine which one I should choose. In this exercise, the only sentence that seems to me to require an exclamation point is the very last one: « Miam ! »

I know that intonation in French is different from English, but I just don't grasp how some punctuation works in French.

Accepted Answer

Bonjour Jeff !
Indeed, here I have to plead guilty :) I do have a tendency of using exclamation points liberally in my writing - I guess I'm that enthusiastic about my work! - which I'm working on and trying to limit more and more. In the case of this dictation, listening to the audio, I agree with you that these exclamations were not reflected so much and therefore, I decided to remove most of them :)
So as Chris pointed out, these are used exactly the same way in both languages.
I hope that answers your question.
Bonne journée !

Answer

I'm not aware that the use of the exclamation mark in English or French would be different.