On the prosodic level the field researches provide us with data that help us to do some generalizations.

1. Conversations fall into coordinated blocks, consisting of suprasegmental and supraphrasal units tied up by variations within the length of pauses, speed, rhythm, pitch ranges, pitch levels and loudness.

2. Since there are no restrictions on the range and depth of emotions which might be displayed oin conversation speech situations they will allow entire range of prosodic effects.

3. In the description of prosodic characteristics of this intonational style we will being by saying that intonation groups are rather short, their potentially length tone units tend to be broken. These short interpausal units are characterized by decentralized stress and sudden jumps down on communicative centers.

4. As for the nuclei, simple falling and rising tones are common.

5. The tempo of colloquial speech is very varied. The natural speed might be very fast but the impression of “slowness’ may arise because of a great number of hesitation pauses both filled and non-filled within the block. However, the speakers may have no pauses between their parts, very often they speak simultaneously, interrupt each other.

6. Interpausal stretches have a marked tendency towards subjunctive rhythmic isochrony.

25. Main prosodic peculiarities of the publicistic (oratorial) phonostyle.

The term “publicistic” serves for many kinds of oratorical activities, that is why this intonational style is often called “oratorial”. Publicistic style is commonly called by phonostylists volitional and desiderative. Its manifestation can be heard in political, judicial, oratorical speeches, in sermons, parliamentary debates, meetings. It is evident that intonation has always been of primary importance there and surely needed accurate training and exaggeration to achieve excessive emotional colouring. The use of prosodic contrasts makes the speakers sometimes go to extremes and become needlessly dramatic. Another feature of publicistic style speeches is that they are never spontaneous. It is accepted that any professional talk is a “voyage”, and it should be charted, but it is strongly advisable not to use notes during the speech performance because they destroy the listener’s interest. The purpose of oratorical exercises is to stimulate, inspire the listeners, to arouse the enthusiasm in them.

It should be noted here that in publicistic speeches of famous writers, public figures etc. there may be deviations from formality and a contrast is often to be seen between the highly formal and rather ordinary and in some instances even colloquial language, when various illustrations, example, jokes are produced.

Public oratorial speeches are so removed from everyday informational narratives and so vividly marked ion the grammatical, lexical and prosodic levels that are immediately recognized be listeners and labeled as oratorial skills and exercises.

26. Main prosodic peculiarities of the academic (scientific) phonostyle.

This intinational style is often described by phonostylists as both intellectual and volitional. It is determined by the purpose of the communication as the speaker’s aim is to attract the listener’s attention, to establish close contact with the audience. It is frequently manifested in academic and educational lectures, scientific discussion, at the conferences, seminars and classes.

Specific features of the academic style:

1. A scientific text read aloud in public in front of a fairly-sized audience conveys both intellectual and volitional information. So the attitudinal and emphatic functions of intonation are of primary importance here.

2. A lecture always sounds self-assured, authoritative, instructive because any scientific style talk should be well prepared.

3. A scientific style presenter sounds much louder than an informational style reader as any public oration is produced face to face with fairly-sized audience.

4. The prosodic features of the academic style reading are rather varied as intonation correlates the lecture’s attempts to get his meaning across clearly and to obtain the balance between formality and informality. This variety is created by:

a) The alternation of pauses, types of heads, pitch levels and terminal tones.

b) The ample use of variations and contrast of the tempo to help the listener to differentiate between the more and less important parts of the overall flow of speech.

5. The rhythmical organization of a scientific text is properly balanced by the alternation of all prosodic features which gives the acoustic impression of “rhythmicality”.

6. High falling and high rising terminal tones are widely used as a means of both logical and contrastive emphasis.

27. Main prosodic peculiarities of the informational phonostyle.

This informational style is sometimes qualified as “formal”, “neautral”. It is purely manifested in the written variety of an informational narrative read aloud. The majority of these texts are of a purely descriptive character and are simply called descriptive narratives. The written speech, the reading, should not be subjected to the contextual variables and the commonest and “ideal” situation for this register is the reading such texts in class. They may be labeled as educational informational descriptive narratives.

Spoken speech is less impartial, the spoken variety of such texts expresses more personal concern and involvement. They may be presented in different forms: monologues, dialogues, polylogues.

28. Main prosodic peculiarities of the declamatory (artistic or belles-letter) phonostyle: fiction, drama, poetry.

The scholars suggest that this is a highly emotional and expressive intonational style, that is why it needs special training. Attitudinal, volitional and intellectual functions of intonation are of primary importance here and serve to appeal to the mind, will and feelings of the listener. This intanational style can be heard on the stage, on the screen, in a TV studio or in a classroom during verse speaking and prose readings. In order to appreciate a prose passage it is not enough to understand its meaning: it is necessary to grasp the author’s intentions and the means he has employed to full them. In a sense good narrative and descriptive prose have much in common with poetry. Dialogues texts are author’s reproduction of actual conversation and in reading aloud a reader should bear in mind the characters of the speakers, their social background and the atmosphere, the environment in which the conversation takes place.

The experimental data of the research works on the declamatory reading allow us to say that its prosodic organization depends on the type of the literary text – descriptive, narrative, dialogue; on the character of the described events, schemes and objects (humorous, tragic, romantic, dreamy, imaginative and so on) and of course on the skills of the reader.

On the prosodic level the markers of the declamatory style reading are:

1. Slow tempo, caused by the lento rate of utterances and prolonged pauses, especially at the passage boundaries.

2. Stable rhythmicality

3. The use of the falling terminal tones in initial intonation groups, the increase of their range with the emphasis.

We have made attempt here to describe 1 type of the declamatory style reading, which we claim to be valuable for teachers of English. Language teachers should pay a great deal of attention to the expressive declamatory reading as it enables written literature to be accessible, to broaden the pupil’s horizons.

29. Dialectology and dialects studies. The linguistic atlas of England and the United States. National pronunciation standards of English in the English-speaking countries. Orthoepic Norms and the choice of the teaching norm.

Sociolinguistics is the branch of linguistics which studies different aspects of language – phonetics, lexics and grammar with reference to their social functions in the society. Some scholars consider functional stylistics to be a branch of sociolinguistics since it studies the distinctive linguistic characteristics of smaller social groupings. In the case of English there exists a great diversity ion the spoken realization of the language and particularly in terms of pronunciation the varieties of the language are conditioned by language communities ranging from small groups to nations. Speaking about the nations we refer to the national variants of the language. It is common knowledge that language exists in 2 forms: written and spoken. The literary spoken form its national pronunciation standard. Standard national pronunciation is sometimes called an ‘orthoepic norm’.

Every national variety of the language falls into territorial or regional dialects. Dialects are distinguished from each other by differences in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. We must make clear that, when we refer to varieties in pronunciation only, we use the word ‘accent’. It is true that there is a great deal of overlap between the terms dialect and accent. For certain geographical, economical, political and cultural reasons one of the dialects becomes the standard language of the nation and its pronunciation or its accent – the received standard pronunciation.

British sociolinguists divide the society into the following classes: upper, upper middle, middle middle, lower middle, upper working, middle working, lower working. Correspondingly every social community has its own social dialect and social accent.

English was originally spoken in England and south-eastern Scotland. Then it was introduced into the greater part of Scotland and southern Ireland. Welsh English is very similar to southern English, although the influence of Welsh has played a role in its formation. Then in 20^th century American English began to spread in Canada, Latin America, on the Bermudas and in other parts of the world.

30. The orphoepic norm of English and its types. Phonetic changes in the present-day standard English. Regional and social variants in the British English pronunciation.

Sociolinguistics is the branch of linguistics which studies different aspects of language – phonetics, lexics and grammar with reference to their social functions in the society. Some scholars consider functional stylistics to be a branch of sociolinguistics since it studies the distinctive linguistic characteristics of smaller social groupings. In the case of English there exists a great diversity ion the spoken realization of the language and particularly in terms of pronunciation the varieties of the language are conditioned by language communities ranging from small groups to nations. Speaking about the nations we refer to the national variants of the language. It is common knowledge that language exists in 2 forms: written and spoken. The literary spoken form its national pronunciation standard. Standard national pronunciation is sometimes called an ‘orthoepic norm’.

31. Received Pronunciation and estuary English as a recent development of standard British English. The sociolinguistic aspect of Estuary English.

In the 19^th century “received” was understood in the sense of “accepted in the best society”. The speech of aristocracy and the court phonetically was that of the London area. Then is lost its local characteristics and was finally fixed as a ruling-class accent. It was also the accent taught at public schools. With the spread of education cultured people not belonging to the upper classes were eager to modify their accent in the direction of social standards. We may definitely state now that RP is a genuinely regionless accent within Britain; if speakers have it you cannot tell which area of Britain they come from; which is not the case for any other type of British accents.

Only 3-5% of the population of England speak RP. British phoneticians estimate that nowadays RP is not homogeneous.

3 main types:

the conservative RP forms, used by the older generation, and, traditionally, by certain profession or social groups; the general RP forms, most commonly in use and typified by the pronunciation adopted by the BBC, and the advance RP forms, mainly used by young people of exclusive social groups – mostly of the upper classes. This last type of RP reflects the tendencies typical of changes in pronunciation. Some of its features may be results of temporary fashion, some are adopted as a norm and described in the latest textbooks. It is very important for a teacher and learner of English to distinguish between the 2. RP speakers make up a very small percentage of the English population. Many native speaker, especially teachers of English and professors of colleges and universities have accents closely resembling RP but not identical to it. So various types of standard English pronunciation may be summarized as follows: Conservative RP; General RP; Advanced RP; Near-RP southern.

Не нашли, что искали? Воспользуйтесь поиском: