Questions and practical tasks on the unit

1. What are the suprasegmental (or prosodic)properties of speech sounds     and what are their significance?

2. What is tone language? Is English a tone language? What is the     difference between tone and non-tone languages? Give examples. 

3. What is intonation? What is the difference between terminaland non-terminal (intonation) contour? Exemplify your explanation.

4. What is stress? What are its symbols in transcriptions? Exemplify your      explanations.

5. What is syllable?

6. How many factors does A.C. Gimson list to bring in the effect of      prominence of syllables?

7. What is the definition of word-stress or accent given by an English      linguist D. Crystal?

8. What is tonic component? What is its significance? Exemplify your answer?

9) What is the importance of qualitative and quantitative components of word stress? Exemplify your answer.

10) What is prominence? What is the difference between “stress” and prominence? What is the factor causing “prominence” in speech?

11. What is the significance of the placement of word stress? Exemplify your answer.

12. Stress in English words can be shifting. What is the significance of it?

13. How many degrees of stress are there in English? The scientists’ different approaches about the degrees of stress.

14. What are the characteristics of the English word stress on each of the Recessive, Rhythmical and Retentive tendencies?

15. What functions does word stress perform in a language?

Lecture 9 The classification of functional phonetic styles

Intonational style – a system of interrelated intonational means which is used in a social sphere and serves s definite aim of communication.
There is no universally recognized classification of styles. Vinogradov distinguishes 3 styles:
1) Colloquial (COMMUNICATION)
2) Informing (scientific styles are included)
3) Emotive ( publicistic, belletrestyle).
This classification was criticized. There are 2 next marginal layers:
formal – suggests careful articulation of styles, relatively slow speed of the pronouncing
informal – everyday communication, rapid, colloquial, conversational
Stylistic use of intonation:
1) Informational - in press reporting, educational descriptive texts. May be represented in monologues, dialogues, polylogues. Phonostylistic characteristics: Loudness normal or increased; pauses are rather long; rhythm is stable, properly organized; falling tones on the semantic centers, falling-rsisng or rising in the initial intonation groups
2) Academic (scientific)- style of lectures (conferences, seminars). It is determined by the purpose of communication as the speaker*s aim is to attract the listener*s attention, to establish close contacts with the audience and to direct the public attention to the message carried in the contents of the text. Phonostylistic characteristics: Loudness increased; pauses are rather long; rhythm is properly organized; high proportion of compound terminal tones (high fall + low rise, fall – rise, rise-fall-rise), a great number of high categorical falls.
3) Publicistic (oratorical)-this term serves for many kinds of oratorical activities (especially this style uses in political speeches). Phonostylistic characteristics: Loudness enormously increased; pauses are definitely long between the passages; rhythm is properly organized; tones mostly emphatic, especially emotionally underlined semantic centers, in non-final intonational groups falling-rising tones are frequent
4) Declamatory (artistic)- this is the style of declamation. 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 style can be heard on the stage, on the screen, in a TV studio, thus we see that it is always a written form of the language read aloud or recited. Phonostylistic characteristics: Loudness varied according to the size of the audience and to the emotional setting; pauses are long especially between the passages, prolonged emphatic pauses are used to underline the emphasis; rhythm is properly organized; common use of categorical low and high falls in final and initial intonation groups and on semantic centers.
5) Conversational (familiar) - this kind of English is a means for everyday communication, heard in natural conversational interaction between speakers. This style occurs mainly in informal external and internal relationships in speech of relatives, friends, well - acquainted people and so on. So this is spontaneous, colloquial, informal, everyday speech.

MODERN TENDENCIES IN BRITISH PRONUNCIATION

The orthoepic norm of a language is the standard pronunciation adopted by native speakers as the right and proper way of speaking. It comprises the variants of pronunciation of vocabulary units and prosodic patterns which reflect the main tendencies in pronunciation that exist in the language. It is used by the most educated part of the population. Though attempts are generally made to preserve the norm as it is, new pronunciations which are in common use gradually become 'acceptable' and are included into the norm. On the other hand, some of the pronun­ciations, which had been acceptable, fall out of use, are labelled as 'old-fashioned' and are, consequently, excluded from the norm.

It is generally considered that the orthoepic norm of British English is "Received Pronunciation" (RP). It was accepted as the phonetic norm of English about a century ago. It is mainly based on the Southern Eng­lish regional type of pronunciation, but it 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 English people (from 3 to 5 per cent) who have the most privileged education in the country - public school education, public schools being the best and most expensive fee-paying schools in the country. RP is not taught at these schools, "it is absorbed automati­cally by the pupils", as D. Jones, the author of Everyman's English Pro­nouncing Dictionary, puts it. As almost all the leading positions in the Cabinet, the armed forces, the judiciary are occupied by those who have had public school education, RP is actually a social standard pronuncia­tion of English. It is often referred to as the 'prestige accent'.

Though RP is carefully preserved by the public schools and the privileged class in England, the RP of today differs in some respects from the former refined RP used half a century ago. A. Gimson claims that the exclusive purity of the classic RP has been diluted, as some features of regional types of speech are "received" now, though some 50 years ago those features were considered to be regional, non-RP.