The emergence of a pronunciation standard. Received Pronunciation (RP). Present-day situation

There is a wide range of pronunciation varieties of the English language. These varieties reflect the social class the speaker belongs to, the geographical region he comes from, and they also convey stylistic connotations of speech.

Every national variant of the English language has an orthoepic norm of its own: RP or Southern English for BrE, General American for AmE, the Australian Standard Pronunciation for AustrE. It is generally considered that the orthoepic norm of BrE is RP. Received Pronunciation was accepted as a phonetic norm of English about a century ago. It is mainly based on the Southern English regional type of pronunciation, but has developed its own features which have given it a non-regional character, i.e. there is no region in Britain to which it is native. RP is spoken all over Britain by a comparatively small number of Englishmen who have had the most privileged education in the country - public school education. RP is actually a social standard pronunciation of English. It is often referred to as the prestige accent.

National and regional variants of English pronunciation

There exist numerous varieties of pronunciation in any language, in English as well. The pronunciation of almost every locality in the British Isles has peculiar features that distinguish it from the pronunciation of other localities. The varieties that are spoken by a socially limited number of of people and used only in certain localities are called DIALECTS.

1. NORTHERN DIALECT (northern part of England)

- [u] instead of [/\] (cup, love, much)

- [o:] instead of [ou] (go, home)

- [e] or [з:] instead of [ei] (may, say, take)

2. SCOTTISH DIALECT

- [ir], [er], [/\r] instead of [з:] (bird, heard)

- [u] instead of [ou] (down)

- no distinguishing between [æ] and [a:] (bad, path, dance, half)

3. COCKNEY (less educated classes of people, part of London)

- [ai] instead of [ei] (today, late)

- [з:] instead of [æ] (bag)

- [h] doesn't occur, only in stressed position (think of (h)im, but History)

- [f, v, d] instead of dental consonants (thin [f], this [d])

- glottal stop instead of [p, t, k] and between vowels (back door [bæ? do:]

Other well-known dialects in Britain:

1) Geordie (Newcastle-on-Tyne)

2) Scouse (Liverpool)

3) Cornish (Cornwall)

etc.

American English pronunciation. Peculiarities of General American pronunciation compared to British English

AmE, which is the variant of English, has developed its own peculiarities in vocabulary, grammatical structure and pronunciation. It embraces a wide range of pronunciation varieties. The most widely used regional types of American pronunciation are the Eastern, the Southern and the General American types.

The GA pronunciation is usually referred to as the standard pronunciation of AmE, though it is often debated whether there is a standard pronunciation in the USA. Nevertheless, it is the GA that has the greatest "acceptability", if not prestige, in the United States.

Peculiarities:

- [l] is always dark (film - look)

- [ш] is voiced in words like "excursion, version, Asia"

- [h] is often dropped in weak syllables (I saw (h)im)

- [j] is omitted before [u] (student, duty)

- glottal stop is used instead of [t] before sonorants and semi-vowels (cert[?]ainly, that[?] one)

- no differentiation in length of vowels (all vowels are long)

- [æ] is used instead of [a:] in words which do not contain [r] in spelling (path, glass, dance)

The syllable as a prosodic unit. Word stress, its nature and functions. Linguistically relevant types of word stress

The SYLLABLE is widely recognized to be the smallest prosodic unit. It has no meaning of its own, but it is significant for constituting hierarchically higher prosodic units. Prosodic features of the syllable (tone, stress, duration) depend on its position and function in the rhythmic unit and in the utterance. A rhythmic unit is either 1 stressed syllable or a stressed syllable with a number of unstressed ones grouped around it. The stressed syllable is the nucleus of the rhythmic unit. There are as many rhythmic units in an utterance as there are stressed syllables in it. The unstressed syllables are called CLITICS. Those preceding the stressed syllable - PROCLITICS, those following it - ENCLITICS.

WORD-STRESS can be defined as the singling out 1 or more syllables in a word which is accomplished by the change of the force of utterance, pitch of voice, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of vowels.

Types of word-stress:

1. TONIC STRESS - refers to the syllable in a word which receives the most stress in an intonation unit.

2. EMPHATIC STRESS - if you decide to emphasize sth, you can change the stress from the principal noun to another content word such as an adjective or an intensifier.

3. CONTRASTIVE STRESS - is used to point out the difference between one object and another; tends to be used with determiners like "this, that, these, those".

4. NEW INFORMATION STRESS - when asked a question, the requested information is stressed more strongly (the rule of theme and rheme).

Degrees of word-stress:

1) primary

2) secondary

3) tertiary

4) weak

Functions of word-stress:

1. CONSTITUTIVE - unites syllables into words

2. DISTINCTIVE - helps to differentiate the meanings of words or their forms

3. IDENTIFICATORY - helps to identify a succession of syllables as a definite accentual pattern of a word.

The accentual tendencies in English. Basic word stress patterns in English

Accentual tendencies:

1. RECESSIVE - 1st and 2nd syllables in Germanic languages are usually stressed

2. RETENTIVE - the borrowed word retains its stress

3. RHYTHMICAL - causes the appearance of secondary stress in polysyllabic words

4. SEMANTIC FACTOR - the most important element of the word is stressed

Basic word-stress patterns:

1) 1 syllable - stressed (drink)

2) 2 syllable - 1st stressed (father)

3) 2 syllable - 2nd stressed (today)

4) 3 syllable - 1st stressed (energy)

5) 3 syllable - 2nd stressed (Canadian)

6) 3 syllable - 3rd stressed (employee)

7) 4 syllable - 2nd stressed (psychology)

8) 4 syllable - 3rd stressed (reputation)

Speech prosody. Its perceptible qualities and acoustic properties

PROSODY includes constant non-segmental characteristics of speech: variations in the pitch, loudness, tempo and timber of the voice. Prosody is a synonym to INTONATION - a study of principles and means of division of speech and connection of divided parts such as melody, dynamics, tempo and pausation. Prosody is a broader notion than intonation as it deals with various sound sequences (from syllables to texts), while intonation is applied to speech units no longer than syntagmas.

Perceptible qualities of speech prosody:

1. SPEECH MELODY (rising and falling of the basic tone)

2. SENTENCE STRESS (distributing strong and weak stresses in an utterance)

3. TEMPO (relative acceleration and deceleration of speech)

4. RHYTHM (regular occurance of pattern in time)

5. TIMBRE (tone quality, tone colour)

Acoustic properties of speech prosody:

1. FREQUENCY (=pitch) - Hz, cycles/sec

2. INTENSITY (=loudness) - dB

3. DURATION (=length) – msec