Phonetics as a Branch of Linguistics

Лекция 1

outline - план

subject matter – тема обсуждения

branch – раздел

utterance – высказывание

peculiarity – особенность

separate - отдельный

meaning – значение

phenomenon – явление

sequence –последовательность

to convey – передавать

to consider – рассматривать

to take into consideration – принимать во внимание

to be connected with – рассматривать

to be concerned with – рассматривать

to deal with – иметь дело с

to state – заявлять

to characterize – характеризовать

to differentiate – дифференцировать, проводить различия

to distinguish – различать

to define – давать определение, определять

to determine – определять, устанавливать

to view – рассматривать

to concern – заниматься ч-л, касаться ч-л

to dwell upon – подробно останавливаться

to investigate – исследовать

to observe – наблюдать, замечать

to analyse – анализировать

to apply – применять, употреблять

voiced consonant – звонкий согласный

voiceless consonant – глухой согласный

syllable - слог

 

Phonetics as a Branch of Linguistics

Four Branches of Phonetics

“Phonetics” is of Greek origin. It’s a subject matter dealing with voice and sounds (roughly speaking).

Phonetics came into existence long ago. It’s a part of Linguistics standing side by side with Lexicology and Grammar. Phonetics is a basis of all the other disciplines. Why is it of great importance? Because, first of all, we must pronounce the words to convey any message. It’s concerned with human noises by which the thought is actualized. Phonetics studies the sound system of the language. The Phonetic structure of the language consists of the components:

§ The sound sequence

§ Word stress

§ Syllable structure

§ Intonation

Phonetics is the most fundamental branch of Linguistics. Neither Linguistic theory nor Linguistic practice can do without Phonetics. That’s why Phonetics is an independent branch of Linguistics like Lexicology, Grammar or Stylistics. And thus it claims to be of equal importance with them.

As is known Phonetics is connected with non-linguistic sciences as well – physiology, psychology, logic.

The connection with Grammar, Lexicology and Stylistics is exercised (проявляется) through orthography (орфография), which in its' turn is very closely connected with Phonetics.

Phonetics formulates the rules of pronunciation of separate sounds and sound groups, for example:

daughter - [ d :t ə ]

“au” - [ : ]

“ght” - [ t ]

“er” - [ ə ]

So through the system of reading rules Phonetics is connected with Grammar and helps to pronounce correctly

• Singular and plural forms of nouns:

The plural suffix

“S”

[ s ]                                  [ z ]                                 [ iz ]

shops                              a) bags, trains                             boxes, foxes, noses

Books                             dolls, dogs, hands                     strawberries

looks                               b) bees, plays, flowers

after voiceless            a) after voiced consonants    after “x”

consonants                  b) after vowels

• Past tense forms of regular verbs:

 “ed”

[ t ]                                          [ d ]                                          [ id ]

Wished                                          begged, cleaned                        needed, travelled

Switched                                                     

Washed                                        

after voiceless            after voiced consonants        after “t/d”

Consonants                 

 

One of the most important Phonetics phenomena (sound interchange) is another manifestation of the connection of Phonetics with Grammar.

Again this connection can be observed in the category of number, for example:

Leaf – leaves

Wife- wives

Calf – calves

House – houses

[ s ] - [ z ]

Connection with Lexicology

It’s only due to the presence of stress in the right place, that we can distinguish certain nouns from verbs. Serves to differentiate parts of speech.

 

È object – to ob È ject

È increase – to in È crease

È insult – to in È sult

È transfer – to trans È fer

È conduct –  to con È duct

È abstract – to ab È stract

 

Due to the position of word stress we can distinguish between homonymous (омонимы) words and word groups. Phonetics is also connected with Stylistics mainly through intonation.

 

È blackbird - дрозд

È black È bird – чёрная птица

Two courses of Phonetics in the institutes are introduced:

• Practical Phonetics, which studies the material form of Phonetics phenomena

§ Theoretical Phonetics, which is supposed to discuss those problems of modern Phonetic science which are concerned with teaching of English language.

 

Phonetics itself is divided into 2 major levels:

• Segmental Phonetics, which is concerned with individual sounds or segments of speech.
• Supersegmental Phonetics, which deals with larger units of connected speech (связная речь) (syllables, words, phrases and texts)

 

• Special Phonetics, the aim of which to study the sounds of one language at a particular period of time
• General Phonetics, which studies the sound systems of several languages. It’s also a part of General Linguistics.

• Comparative Phonetics, which compares the sound systems of 2 languages
• Experimental Phonetics, which deals with research work

 

Branches of Phonetics

Phonetics has 4 following branches:

1) ArÈticulatory

2) AÈcoustic

3) ÈAuditory

4) ÈFunctional (linguistic)

Articulatory Phonetics studies speech sounds from the point of view of the articulation and in connections with the organs of speech by which they have produced.

The branch of Phonetics that studies acoustic effects produced by the organs of speech is called Acoustic Phonetics.

 

Both of them use special methods of research work. There are two groups of methods:

1) Methods of direct observation

2) Instrumental methods

 

Methods of direct observation are applied without special instruments for analyses. In this case an investigator analyses his own speech or the speech of the informant (native speaker).

 

Instrumental methods were introduced in Phonetics in the second part of the 19^th century. In this case, certain technique and devises are applied. When analyses segmental uses: hand mirror, laryngoscope, photographs, X-ray photographs, gramophone records and the latest technology. If you want to investigate Supersegmental Phonetics you need an intonograph.

 

Articulatory Phonetics is one of the oldest branches of Phonetics. Articulator research of speech sounds is conducted on the basis of physiology. Talking about physiological system we can distinguish 4 mechanisms:

• Power mechanism (силовой)
• Vibration mechanism
• Resonant mechanism (резонаторный)
• Obstructer mechanism (образования преграды)

 

The function of the power mechanism is to supply force necessary of the production of speech (breathing mechanism). The function of the vibration mechanism is to generate (порождать) sounds. The function of the resonant mechanism is to modify tones and overtones (обертоны). The function of the obstructer mechanism is to form obstructions to the stream of air.

 

“Articulatory basis” (артикуляционная база) was introduced by the Russian linguist – a set of pronunciation tendencies characterizing speech gestures (работа органов речи) with a special reference to members of a given language community.

 

Auditory Phonetics is concerned with auditory impressions made by Phonetics’ segments. The method used in Auditory Phonetics is called the listener’s test (аудиторский анализ).

 

Functional Phonetics or Phonology is concerned with the meaningful value of articulatory, acoustics and auditory features. Phonetics is older than Phonology (1850^th). The foundation of Phonology was laid down by Иван Алексеевич Бодуен де Куртене.

 

Nowadays Phonetics is sharply divided into Phonetics and Phonology. They are closely related and independent. They are two different sizes of the same coin. The central category of Phonology is phoneme. A sound and a phoneme are also two different sizes of the same coin.

 

Phoneme – is the smallest, further indivisible (более неделимая) language unit that exists in the speech of all the members of the given language community as such speech sounds which are capable of distinguishing one word from another one or one grammar form of a word from another one of the same word. (профессор Васильев). Phoneme – a minimum linguistic unit realized in speech in the form of speech sounds.

3 aspects of the Phoneme:

• Material (real and objective)
• Abstractional and generalize
• Functional

Лекция 2

principal – главный

subsidiary – вспомогательный

environment – окружение

to affect – влиять

distinctive features – отличительные черты

relevant – значимые, важные, релевантные

irrelevant – не относящиеся к делу, нерелевантные

to treat – толковать, трактовать

scholar – учёный

 

 

Modern functional Phonetics

Allophones are variants of one and the same phoneme which never occur (встречаться) in identical positions. They are actual speech sounds.

 

The phoneme is material. It means it exists in the speech of all people belonging to the language community. It exists in speech in the form of speech sounds – its allophones. All allophones of the same phoneme have several articulatory features in common. Allophones of the same phoneme should meet the following requirements (отвечать требованиям):

1) Allophones of the same phoneme must have one or more articulatory features in common, but they are different.

2) Allophones of one and the same phoneme never occur in the same phonetic environment (context) and thus they are incapable (неспособны) of differentiating words and their grammatical forms. Allophone, which is used in the isolated position or in any other position in which it’s not influenced by neighboring sounds is called the principal allophone. All the others are called subsidiary allophones. They are positionally determined (определены). Thus in a certain position we can have different allophones.

[t] – principal

Occlusive (смычный)

Plosive (взрывной)

Alveolar

Fortes (сильный)

Voiceless

Aspirated

• “Tea” – slightly palatalized
• “Not they”

“Let them” – dental (assimilation)

• “Not common”

“Not clear” – not aspirated

“Store”, “Stay”, “Storm” – not aspirated (after “s”)

• “Tray”, “Tram”, “Try” – post alveolar (before “r”)
• “Little”, “Kettle” – lateral plosion (before lateral “l”)
• “Not many”, “Not clear” – nasal plosion
• “Twice” – a bit labialized (before “w”)

Occlusive

Fore lingual

Fortes

Non of these three characteristics can be changed, cause if we change occlusive ® constrictive [si:], if we change fore lingual ® back lingual [ki:]

 

This “bundle” is sometimes called invariant (инвариант). There features that are common to all the allophones. These common features form the certain invariant, neither of these features can be changed.

 

It’s impossible to pronounce a phoneme cause we pronounce allophones. A phoneme can’t exist apart from speech sounds. Impossible it in isolation.

[pen], [ten]

Both are occlusive, fortes, but [p] is labial, [t] is fore lingual

 

This difference in articulation serves to differentiate the meaning, so we can say they are allophones of different phonemes. Those articulatory features that mark sounds and allophones of different phonemes are called distinctive or relevant features. Those that don’t serve to differentiate the meaning are called non-distinctive or irrelevant. The phoneme can perform its distinctive function if it is opposed to some other phoneme in the same phonetic context. Such are called phonologicals.

 Allophones don’t have functions of differentiation the words. They usually occur in different positions of the word. They can’t be opposed to each other. We can speak about 2 types of mistakes:

• Phonological
• Phonetic

If you replace one allophone of the phoneme by an allophone of some other phoneme – the mistake is called phonological.

Bed – bet

Ship – sheep

Full – fool

The meaning is different

If an allophone of the phoneme is replaced by an allophone of the same phoneme – phonetic mistake.

[ t eibl] – [ т eible]

t able – т ейбл

Лекция 3

to govern - управлять

orthoepic  - орфоэпический

to undergo changes – подвергать изменениям

to be subject to – быть подвергнутым

to attach prestige – придавать значимость

cockney – кокни

 

Standards in pronunciation

English dialects

Received pronunciation

 

More than 300 million people speak English as the first language. It’s the national language of Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the greater part of Canada. Besides it’s native for many people who live in Malta, India, Israel. Though every national variant has some differences in pronunciation, lexics and grammar; they all have much in common, which gives us ground to speak of one and the same language.

 

National language is the language of a nation. Standard pronunciation is the pronunciation which is governed by the orthoepic norm. It’s the pronunciation of educated people. It’s used by radio and TV and what is more it’s recorded in pronunciation dictionary as the “correct” pronunciation. Language is a living body, so standards are not fixed, they undergo constant changes. Pronunciation is subjects to all kinds of innovations. Consequently some pronunciation forms which once were acceptable may become obsolete (устаревший) and vise-verse some “new fashions” in pronunciation maybe entered in the inventory of standard pronunciation.

often – [  f ən ] and [  ft ən ]

Every national variety of language falls into territorial or regional dialects. Dialects are distinguished from each other by differences in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. When we refer to variety only in pronunciation, we use the word accent.

Dialects may be geographical that is spoken by people living in certain areas. Differences may arrive from education, social surroundings, occupation – sociolinguistic dialects. They may be defined as varieties that are spoken by a social limited number of people, be characteristics of certain localities.

 

Pei said: “Like other local differences of food, dress, customs, dialects are often a nuisance. Yet they lend (придают) picturesque variety to languages, and variety is the spice of life”.

Normally, for certain reasons (political, social, cultural, economical), one of the local dialects becomes the standard language and its pronunciation becomes the national standard pronunciation. In the history of the English language in Great Britain dialects follow this similar pattern: in the 15^th century there were lots of regional dialects. This was basically the London form of south-east dialect. Yet in the course of time (с течением времени) it lost some of its local characteristics and was finally fixed as the speech of the educated class, aristocracy and the court. What’s more it was the pronunciation of people at public schools because it’s through these schools that the pronunciation, known as RP was perpetuated (увековечен).

RP (received pronunciation) is not the pronunciation of any region, it’s regionless. It’s considered to be a prestige accent of an Englishman. In the 19^th century the word “received” was understood in the sense of accepted in the best society. Today because of its use on radio and TV within Britain RP has become the social standard. Because great prestige is still attached to this accepted social standard. Thus RP is often identified with “BBC English”. It’s the form of pronunciation which is commonly described in the text books on phonetics; it is traditionally taught by foreigners. It would be wrong to think that RP is used by the entire population of Great Britain (повсеместно, всеми без исключения). It’s the accent of the minority (by only 3%) of the English population. Moreover, the present day RP is not homogeneous (однородный).

There are 3 types of RP:

1) The conservative RP (is used by older generation and by people of certain professions or certain social groups)

2) General RP (most commonly adopted (принимать) by the BBC)

3) The advanced RP (is used by young people and exclusive social groups for prestige value; besides it is used in certain profession circles)

The linguistic situation is changing due to the influence of communication, greater mobility, influence of films, pop-music from other English-speaking countries, especially the USA. Some members of the younger generation reject RP, because of its association with the “Establishment” (государственный аппарат).

Are not identical

Which – witch

· Rolled, trilled (раскатистая; Russian type) [r] is used instead of [r] in all positions

More

Beer

Born

Price

· Dark [ € ] (l) is used (Л всегда твёрдая)

· Initial [p,t,k] are usually non-aspirated]

· [ Х ] (русская Х) is used in

Loch – [lQх]

Caught – [kQxt]

• Ing ® [in]

Shilling

Dancing

• A specific Scottish feature is a pronunciation [ T r] ® [ S r]

Through ® [[Sru:]

 

Of all the 3 types of English Pronunciation in the British Isles the literature standard language may have differences which are manifested in the pronunciation of … typical and local dialects.

Лекция 4

To weaken – слабеть

To omit – опускать

To vocalize – произносить звонко, озвончать

Resemblance – сходство

To involve – затрагивать

Distribution – распределение

Intervocalic – согласный между двумя гласными

 

The main differences in intonation concern the direction of the voice pitch and the realization of the terminal tones. In GA the voice doesn’t fall to the bottom mostly. This explains the fact, that English speech for Americans sounds affected, pretentious or even sophisticated. And for the English Americans sound dull, monotonous, indifferent, unemotional and even dry.

Fall-rise in RP.

Лекция 5

Connected speech – связная речь

Flow of speech – поток речи

Fluent, rapid speech – беглая речь

Partially – частично

Assimilation – ассимиляция

Accommodation – аккомодация

Elision – элизия

Alteration – изменение

Interaction – интерактивность, взаимодействие

Cluster – пучок, группа

To preserve – сохранять

To merge – сливаться

Mutual – обоюдный

Reciprocal – обоюдный

Preceding – предшествующий

Assimilation

Elision

Vowel reduction

Accommodation

 

As it is known the complete articulation of a speech sound when said in isolation consists of three stages:

1) On-glide, during which the articulating organs move to the position necessary for the articulation of a sound.

2) Holed stage, during which the articulating organs are kept in the position for a certain period of time.

3) Off-glide, during which the articulating organs return to the position of rest.

 

Actually, speech sounds are seldom said by themselves, they are used in combination with other sounds in connected speech. Speech sounds influence each other in the flow speech (поток речи), normally in the process of speech the articulatory organs are moving continuously and the sounds merge into one another. Often these 3 stages of articulation are not preserved (не сохраняются). The off-glide of the preceding sounds serves as the on-glide of the following sound.

Locked – [lokt]

The 3^d stage of the consonant [k] merges into the 1^st stage of [t] sound. So the consonant [k] has the 1^st and the 2^nd stages, while the consonant [t] has only the 1^st and the 2^nd stages.

So, in connected speech the sounds are subjected (подвергаются) to 2 main types of influence line – the reciprocal influence of neighbouring sounds and the influence by larger speech units and their elements.

Thus the 1^st group of processes is called the combinative changes, the 2^nd group – the positional changes. As a result of mutual interaction in connected speech there are a number of phonetic processes such as: assimilation, elision, vowel reduction and accommodation.

 

Assimilation is a process of alteration of speech sounds as a result of which one of the sounds becomes fully or partially similar to the adjoining sounds. By the way assimilation exists in every language. There are several types of assimilation. They can be distinguished according to:

1) Direction

The influence of the neighbouring sounds in English can act in a regressive and reciprocal direction. When some articulatory features of the following sound are changed under the influence of the preceding sound, which remains unchanged. Assimilation is called progressive.

a) The pronunciation of the plural suffix “s” depends on the quality of the preceding consonant [z], [s], [iz]

Dog – dogs

b) Within the words “sandwich”, “grandmother” under the influence of [n] sound the consonant [d] changes into [n] and then disappears

Sandwich – [s Q nwit S ]

Grandmother – [gr Q nm à D «]

But when the following sound influences the articulation of the preceding one assimilation is called regressive.

At them – [ «t D em]

The alveolar [n] and [t] become dental before the interdental [T], [D]. [t] undergoes regressive assimilation to [n] which follows it.

On the table

This type of assimilation is common in Russian, too.

Абсолютно

В кино

Субпродукт

Reciprocal assimilation means complex mutual influence of the adjoining sound.

Tree

The sonorant [r] is partially devoiced under the influence of the voiceless [t]. And the alveolar [t] becomes past-alveolar before [r].

Try

Tram

Trace

2) Degree of completeness

According to its degree assimilation can be complete and incomplete (partial). Assimilation is called complete if two adjoining sounds become alike or merge into one. It always takes place when two sounds differ only in one articulatory feature. We find cases of complete assimilation within words and at the word junction but in fluent speech.

Cupboard – [k à b «d]

Horseshoe – [h :s S u:]

Less shy

By the way complete assimilation is also found in Russian.

Отделать

Отдать

Сжать

Без сил

Брат друга

Assimilation is called incomplete when the likeness of the adjoining sounds is partial as the assimilated sound remains its major articulatory features.

[w,v,l] are partly devoiced when precedes by the voiceless [p,t,k,s,f, T ]

Sweet – [swi:t]

Place – [pleis]

Try – [trαi]

3) Degree of stability

Many assimilatory phenomena of older stages in the development of language have become obligatory. Such changes which have taken place over a period of times within words are called historical.

Orchard (фруктовый сад) – [ : t S «d ]

Originally it was pronounced [ :dj «d]

Besides there are a lot of widely spread non-obligatory uses of assimilation, which can be traced mainly at word boundaries.

Ten minutes – [tem minits]

Light coat – [lαik k Î U t]

Has she – [he S S i]

Didn’t you

Could you

Non-obligatory assimilation are characteristic of fluent spontaneous informal or careless speech and surely should be avoided by teachers.

 

Elision – loss of a sound. Reduction of some consonant clusters was established long ago.

1) The initial (начальная) [w,k,g] may be dropped

Write

Know

Gnat

Knit

2) The medial sounds are dropped [t,d] in a cluster of three consonants

Listen – [lisn]

Often – [fn]

Wednesday

3) The final [b] is dropped in the cluster [mb]

Lamb – [lQm]

Dump – [dÃm]

In the present day English the reduction of clusters continuous to take place.

Last time – [lα:stαim]

Mashed potatoes – [m Q S poteit «s]

Next day – [neksdei]

Old man – [ Î U l m Q n]

The alveolar sound of the negative form “-nt” is often reduced before a consonant.

You mustn’t do – [m à sn du:]

The reduction of consonant clusters is also typical in the Russian language.

Сердце

Солнце

Поздно

Чувствовать

Vowel reduction is a historical process of weakening, shortening, disappearance of vowel sounds in unstressed position. In English vowels in unstressed syllables are normally reduced.

The phonetic phenomenon as well as assimilation closely connected with the general development of the language system. Reduction reflects the process of lexical and grammatical changes.

Modifications of vowels in a flow speech are determined by a number of factors such as: the position of the vowel, accentual structure, tempo of speech, rhythm, etc.

 

The neutral sound represents the reduces form of almost any vowel in the unstressed position.

Combine – [k Q m È b α in ] – noun

To combine – [k «m È bαin] – verb

 

We see the vowel sounds of the two related words are in contrast because of different stress positions, so reduction is realized:

• In unstressed syllables within the words
• In unstressed form words (служебные), auxiliary (вспомогательные) modal verbs, personal and possessive pronouns within intonation groups and phrases.

I can [kən] do it.

Can [k Q n] you do it?

There are 3 types of reduction:

1) Quantitative reduction – shortening of a vowel sound in an unstressed position. It affects mainly long vowels.

He [hi: - hi -hı] (I know that he will do it)

See [si: - si – sı]

$ He [hi:] did it!

He [hi] will do it.

2) Qualitative reduction – one vowel in unstressed position turns into another one.

[ Q – ə ]

Vowels in unstressed position (form words and notional words) undergo both quantitative and qualitative.

To [tu: - tu – tə] (I want to tell you)

3) Elision of vowels – in an unstressed position.

I am ready [ai ə m redi] – [aim redi]

Remarkable phenomenon, while elision is a very common process in connected speech, we also find sound being inserted (intrusive – навязчивая [r]), which is sometimes pronounced between the vowels.

Asia_and Africa

The idea_of it

In compound words there is no reduction.

 

Accommodation – is anadaptation of vowels to different adjacent sounds; the modification in the articulation of a vowel under the influence of an adjacent consonant or vice-versa. The accommodated sound doesn’t change its main phonetic features and is pronounced as a variant (allophone) of the same phoneme, but slightly modified under the influence of the neighbouring sound.

 

3 types of accommodation:

1) When an unrounded variant of the consonant is replaced by its rounded one under the influence of the following vowel “u”.

Too [tu:], [t] is a bit labialized

m [mu:n]

So here we can speak of the labialization of the preceding vowels

[  ], [ u:] – in Russian – больно, поздно, лучше, конь, думать

2) A fully-back variant of a back vowel is replaced by slightly advanced variant under the influence of the preceding [j] sound.

Booty [bu:ti] – beauty [bju”ti]

Moon [mu:n] – music [mju:zik]

3) When a vowel becomes more open under the influence of the dark [ € ] sound.

Pen [pen], net [net]

BUT

Bell [b E € ], tell [t E € ], sell [s E € ]

As a result of the mutual interaction of speech sounds in connected speech there are a number of phonetic processes such as assimilation, elision, vowel reduction and accommodation. And in our speech we should mind today certainly.

 

Syllable

Во - пить, рубль, вихрь

 The structure of the Russian syllable is characterized by more complex and numerous initial (начальные) clusters. No similar combination in English.

Far-mer, ci-ty

3) An intervocalic consonant tends to belong to the following syllabic structure

A-bout, wri-ting

4) English diphthongs are unisyllabic. They consist of one vowel phoneme. English triphthongs are disyllabic because they consist of two-vowel phonemes.

science – ['sai- «ns], flower – [fla U - «]

As to the number of syllables in the English word it can vary from 1 to 8 (unintelligibility – 8 syllables).

A name – an aim

Ice-cream – I scream

We loan – will own

An ice house – a nice house

An ocean – a notion

My train – might rain

Sometimes the difference in syllabic division might be the basic ground for differentiating sentences.

My train – might rain

One zone – One’s own

Plum pie – plump eye

Fine day – find “A”

Russian learners of English should be well-aware of the syllabic structure, because wrong syllabic division on the articulatory level leads to misunderstanding or even confusion.

 

Word stress

Police, machine, garage

3) A manifestation of constant accent in word derivation. We are speaking of the retentive tendency. This is the tendency to retain the accent in a derivative on the same syllable on which it falls in the original or parent-word. The retentive tendency manifests itself in the retention of the primary accent of the parent word.

'person - 'personal

'reason - 'reasonable

'interest - 'interesting

'change - 'changeable

4) Semantic tendency determines accentuation in certain categories of words. These are words with the so-called separable prefixes and compound words. The majority of these classes of words have two equally strong stresses – the so-called double-stress. Both parts of such words are considered to be of equal semantic importance.

a. Words with certain prefixes (underestimate, unknown)

b. Compound adjectives (Well-bressed, blue-eyed, hard-working, easy-going)

c. Compound verbs with preposition like adverbs (sit down, get up, take off, put on)

d. Numerals (from 13 to 19)

e. Compound numerals (41, 22…)

f. When compound noun denote a single idea it’s only 1 stress. ('walking-stick)

The rhythmic tendency is very strong in modern English, because in fluent speech words with 2 stresses can be pronounced with one stress under the influence of rhythm. A small group of English words which have free accentual variants. By free accentual variants we mean different but orthoepically equally correct accentuation which must be distinguished from unorthoepic accentuation used in local dialects or professional jargons or simply by uneducated people. (творог – творог are equally correct, but компАс, рапОрт are pronounced by sailors only).

 

Word stress performs 3 functions:

1) A constitutive function. It constitutes a word, it organizes the syllables of a word into a language unit having a definite accentual structure.

2) A recognitive function. It consists in a correct accentuation of words which facilitates their recognition and comprehension, because misplaced word stress betrays (выдавать) a foreign accent; do not only hamper understanding but very often produce a comic impression. Word stress enables a person to identify a succession of syllables as a definite accentual pattern of a word. It is just correct accentuation to make a listener to make a process of communication easier. Misplaced word stress prevent from normal understanding.

3) Distinctive function meaning that word stress is capable of differentiating the meaning and forms of words. The opposition of the primary stress can differentiate parts of speech. Similar expressions can be found in Russian.

4)

Nouns	Verbs
'conduct	con'duct
'export	ex'port
'subject	su'bject
'insult	in'sult

 

 

Similar examples can be found in Russian:

' молодец - моло ' дец

'атлас - ат'лас

' здорово – здо ' рово

' замок - за ' мок

The opposition of the secondary stress to the absence of stress of it is also distinctive.

to ¸ re'cover (to do sth again)

¹

to re'cover (to get well)

In conclusion: be careful in using not only primary stress but also secondary stress in English polysyllabic words.

Intonation

1. The concept of intonation in our country and abroad
2. Anatomy (тщательный анализ) of an English intonation group (pattern)
3. Functional approach to intonation

Prosody – просодия

Optional – необязательный

Attitude

Timbre – тембр голоса

Nuclear – ядерный

To emphasize – подчёркивать, ударять

Descending – нисходящий

Ascending – восходящий

To imply – подразумевать, означать

To fulfil - осуществлять

To interpret – интерпретировать

As is known, the information conveyed by a sentence is expressed not only by proper word and grammatical structure, but also by intonation. No sentence can exist without intonation. As Allan says “Sounds constitute the body of words. Words give only a rough guide to meaning, while intonation is the soul of speech”. Different phoneticians define intonation differently.

Soviet phoneticians stayed that intonation is the complex unit of 3 components, formed by variations of voice pitch, loudness (the descendent stress) and tempo (the rate of speech with pausation). Some linguists regard speech timbre as the fourth component of intonation. But up to now timbre hasn’t been sufficiently investigated. Moscow phoneticians speak of three prosodic components of the intonation. The word “prosody” substitute the term intonation. This complex unit together with the grammatical structure and the lexical composition of the sentence serve to express the speaker’s ideas or thought, his emotions, feelings and attitude, towards the contents of the sentence or reality.

Foreign linguists have another approach to intonation. In the British tradition intonation is associated only with a pitch variation (melody) only. They think it has an important function of conveying a message. Armstrong and Ward: “By intonation we mean the rise and fall of the pitch of the voice when we speak”. Daniel Jones: “Intonation may be defined as the variations that take place in the pitch of the voice in connected speech”. Later he had to admit “there are, however, important relations between intonation and stress in English”. Jimson also interprets intonation as “variation of pitch – rises and falls in pitch level, emphasizing the fact that various degrees of accentuation in an utterance may be signaled by means of intonation”. American phoneticians do not consider stress as a component of intonation, although they also regard voice pitch and stress closely connected with each other. As is known, each syllable is pronounced with a definite voice pitch, each syllable also bears a certain stress; together with tempo they form an intonation pattern (group).

Parts, the intonation pattern consist of:

1) The nuclear tone (ядерный тон) is the most important and imphonic part

Kingdom (a famous British linguist) singles out 7 nuclear tones – low fall, high fall, low rise, high rise, fall rise, rise fall, rise fall rise. First 5 are obligatory, while rise fall and rise fall rise are optional and can be substituted by fall rise.

2) “The tail” (заядерный тон) that follows the nuclear tone, but is not independent. It follows the direction of the nuclear tone and together with the nuclear tone it forms the so-called “terminal tone” (терминальный, конечный тон)

it’s summer                   

 

3) The pre-head (предшкала), which is not so much important. The first unstressed syllable. We can distinguish low pre-head anв high pre-head.

 

Will you do me a favour?                                         low pre-head

With pleasure                                                 mid pre-head

 

I saw my friend yesterday.

Thus, if two sentences of the same grammatical structure and the same lexical composition differ in intonation only, we may say that it is a minimal pair of sentences, but when the meaning is changed by means of intonation only, we can say that intonation fulfils a distinctive function.

Why? – not much interest is shown (low fall)

Why? – you seem to be interested in the subject (low rise)

Why? – you seem to be worried, much concern and surprise is implied (high fall)

 

Intonation is the most powerful means of communication. One of the aims of communication is the exchange of information. That’s why we shall consider the communicative function the main function of intonation, and it’s realized in various ways. It serves to indicate the type of the sentence (command/ order or the request). Intonation conveys connotational meanings and attitudes such as surprise, annoyance, enthusiasm, anger. There is no general agreement about the number or the headings of the functions of intonation. Again we can speak about the difference in the approach to the subject matter by some prominent phoneticians. Since intonation is a powerful means of the communication it is impossible to divorce any function of intonation from them of the communication. Among other functions, serving the purpose of communication we can speak of the constitutive function (the aim - to constitute a meaningful utterance from a meaningless collection of words). Each sentence consists of one or more intonation groups. An intonation group is a word or a group of words characterized by a certain intonation pattern. Distinctive function (the intonation serve to distinguish the actual meaning of a sentence, speaker’s emotions and attitudes towards the content; it also serves to distinguish communicative types of sentences). It is the most important function.

1) Syntactically distinctive – when the intonation pattern differentiates the communicative type of the sentence

2) Attitudinally distinctive (эмоционально-дифференцирующая) – we show our attitude to the situation.

3) Recognitive function. It consists in the use of the right tone in the right situation

 

Sentence stress is a prominence given to certain words in an utterance (фразовое). Stress may be normal and logical. By normal stress we mean a certain stress pattern of utterance when every more or less lexically significant words is made prominent.

ex: ΄How ΄do you ΄think we ΄ought to start?

All the notional words are stressed. By logical stress we mean the shift in stress.

ex: ΄How do ± you think we ought to start?

The stress becomes logical.

Both of them can become emphatic of it is intensified.

ex: She ± loves you dearly. - normal

ex: She loves ± you dearly. – logical (becomes emphatic)

 

Tempo. The rate of the speech and pauses are very meaningful too. Normally important parts are pronounced slower than unimportant. Maybe: slow, normal, fast.

ex: What I want to say to you (quicker) is that you should come tomorrow (slower).

Pauses may be different according to their length: short, normal and long. Functionally we distinguish syntactic, emphatic and hesitation pauses.

Syntactic are used to separate syntactical units such as phonetic passages, phrases and intonation groups. Emphatic – emphasize this or that part of the utterance. Hesitation pauses are mainly used in spontaneous, unprepared speech. They serve us to gain some time to think over what to say next. May be: silent, filled and mixed. Besides certain words (form words) may be prolonged.

Phonostylistics

 

to overlap – частично совпадать

to vary

appropriately – соответствующе

verbal – устный

even – ровный, чёткий

spontaneous – спонтанный

interaction – взаимодействие

psychic

Phonostylistics is a rapidly developing field of study. It’s not a new branch, but rather a new way of looking at phonetic phenomena.

During the first half of the 20^th century linguistics showed interests mainly in written form of the language. The emphasis was laid an analyzing written speech. But later when new technical aids appeared the situation changed → linguists got a good opportunity of studying oral speech which had been ignored.

In real life we find ourselves in various and numerous situations and in these situations language is used appropriately. It stands to reason that much of what people say depends on the situations they’re in. So variations of language in different situations are various. But on the other hand, they have much in common that means that there’re patterns of variation. Language means which constitute any utterance are characterized by a certain pattern of selection and arrangement. The principles of it as well as the ways of combining elements form “the style”.

Style integrated language means and at the same time differs one utterance from another. The branch of linguistics – functional stylistics.

How phonostylistics overlaps with functional stylistics. There’s no simple correspondence between phonon and functional styles. Functional styles we defined as a subsystem of language which function in certain fields of communication and are aimed at to a definite affect: to inform, to persuade, to establish contact, to entertain, to impress, etc.

Many attempts were made to work out a classification. still an open question – there is no universal classification.

There exist various styles:

• scientific
• publicistic
• business
• belles-lettres (беллетристика)
• colloquial

It’s of interest to note that in the process of studying the characteristics of functional styles phonetic level of analyses has been completely ignored.

Oral speech has its own specific characteristics. It’s clear that description and comparison of all variation is a matter of great complexity.

The sets of phonetic style forming features do not correspond to functional styles. They’re characterized by different qualities. Phonostylistics studies the way phonetic means are used in this or that particular situation. Its aim is to analyze all possible kinds of spoken utterances with the purpose of identifying the phonetic features (segmental/ supersegmental) and secondly to explain why such features have been used, and what is more to classify them into categories.

 

Extra-linguistic situation can be defined by 3 components:

1) purpose

2) participants

3) setting (scene)

1)  A situation is connected with the purpose and the topic of communication. The purpose directs the activities (considerable number) of the participants. The notion of purpose requires the specification of contents at a more detailed level. Subject matter of activity.

2) Basically speech varies with participants in numerous ways. It’s a marker of various characteristics of the individual speakers as well as relationships between them, and here social relationships may be of great interests.

ex: Dr.Jonson talks like a doctor → he is likely to be at hospital; at home – husband

Usually age of participants is also an important category. Age is associated with the role structure in the family and social groups. With authority and status.  The speech behavior of a person not only conveys the information about his/ her own age but also about (the age) of listener.

INTRODUCTORY FILLERS

It’s very rare to meet a native speaker who doesn’t produce some sort of filler when he is asked direct questions and expected to produce an immediate reply.

The most common filler: “Well…” closely followed by some non-verbal noise. For example –er-.

· Well – er – we can certainly rely on him

· Well – em – I’m not quite sure.

In all cases this introductory filler’s followed by a pause. These forms have a so-called “channel – holding” function. They give notice that the speaker is about to produce a reply and (that) indeed he’s working on it. A different pattern of behavior can be observed in the speech of those who initiate utterances, who open a conversation or enter a conversation or enter a conversation without replying directly to a question.

A very common introductory technique is to utter a phrase which suggests that this is a personal opinion of the speaker, rather than an agreed one.

• I think | this is a grow intendancy among the teenagers.
• I would agree with you | except for one thing
• I have an impression | that there are some people who will approve it differently

The point is that it not whether the speaker believes what he is speaking is true, but he writes to avoid the directness of the statement. He’s making it clear it clear he would like other speakers to react to this point. He makes it easy for other people to express different or even contrary opinions. This is a particularly important in the conversation between people who are anxious to hold a successful social interaction.

There’re occasions when a speaker wishes to mark a statement as an assumption which all members of the group will agree with. He’s expressing what he thinks to be a consensus of opinion.

 

• There’s no doubt | -er- that’s going to be a hard rode to tread.
• It undoubtedly | -er- presents –er- a huge problem.
• Obviously | -er- we should do our –er- utmost.

This sort of form generally marks the view that the speaker doesn’t require further discussion, sincere everyone is expected to agree. Much advertising is based on inserting into the minds of the public something that’s presented as common assumptions.

 

• And what will mother give her when she is under the weather?
• Obviously, she’ll give he “Coldrex Hotram”

Rhythm

1. Rhythm as a linguistic notion. The concept of rhythm
2. Sentence stress
3. Rhythm as an effective means of speech expressiveness

beat

peak

monotonous

notional words

form words

flow of speech

to perceive

enclitics

proclitics

recurrence

Every language has its own characteristic of rhythm. Rhythm is said to be one of the most difficult areas in learning a foreign language. It is based on the regular interchange of stressed/ unstressed syllables. The rhythmic beat in the English language is the stressed syllable. The more organized the speech the more rhythmical it will be. Thus, prose read aloud by a fluent reader has a much more obvious rhythm than conversational speech (full of poses, false starts).

It’s fair to say, if a fluent speaker speaks for a long time and the beat … boredom very rapidly sets in. And the speech sounds monotonous. If the speaker attempts to speak for some time without establishing rhythm with jerky stops/ starts, uneven pauses, the listeners will find it difficult to figure out what it is that he’s saying.

The rhythmical beat provides a necessary structure for the utterance.

 

The linguists divide languages into two groups:

1) Syllable-timed

2) Stress-timed

 

The stressed syllables of the rhythmical units form picks of prominence. They tend to be pronounced at regular intervals. The regularity is provided by the strong beat.

 

Come and see me tomorrow.

Read and retell text 5.

These regular stress-timed pulses of speech seem to create the strict abrupt and spiky effect on English rhythm. Russian – more flexible and smooth. In order to bring the meaning of the utterance the stress syllables of the notional words are given more prominence and the unstressed (form words) are left very weak. So speech rhythm is traditionally defined as recurrence of stressed syllables at more or less equal intervals.

Professor Антипова: «the basic rhythmic unit is a rhythmical group. It’s characterized by one stressed syllable + one/ two/ more unstressed, attached to it.”

Unstressed have a tendency to clin to the preceding stressed. They are called enclitics. Or they have a tendency to the following – proclitics.

Each sense group is pronounced at approximately the same period of time. Normally unstressed are pronounced more rapidly. A rhythmic group may comprise a whole phrase like “I can’t do it” or a single word: “unfortunately” or even a one-syllable word “yes”.

There are some differences between the rhythmic patterns of speech realization, rhythmic organization of:

1) Disapproving monologue – is different form a familiar emotional conversation.

2) Informal spontaneous dialogues reveal a rich variety of rhythm organization and the change of rhythmic patterns. The beginning of the rhythmic unit is said on