Principles of classification of speech sounds

Phonetics.

Phonetics is the science that studies the sound matter of the language, its semantic functions and the lines of development. Phonetics as a branch of linguistics studies sounds in their broad sense. The sound system of the l-ge comprises 2 levels: segmental sounds (vowels and consonants) and prosodic (suprasegmental) phenomena (pitch, stress, tempo, rhythm, pauses). Ph. also studies how the sounds are produced. It studies the acoustic property of sounds. Ph has a long history. It was known to ancient Greeks. Asa science with its subject and methods it began to develop in the 2^nd half of the 19 century in Western Europe and in Russia. Depending on which of sound phenomena is studied, phonetics is sub­divided into four main branches: articulatory, acoustic, auditory, functional. Articulatory -how the air starts moving, all the movement of speech organs while producing sounds. It is concerned with the study of sound as a result of the activities of speech organs. It deals with our voice—producing mechanism and the way we produce sounds, and prosodic phenomena. It studies respi­ration, phonation (voice—production), articulation and also the mental pro­cesses necessary for the mastery of a phonetic system. Methods employed in articulatory phonetics are experimental and the method of direct observation. Acoustic deals with acoustic aspect of sounds, it studies how the air vibrates between the speaker’s mouth and listener's ear. It studies speech sounds with the help of experimental (instrumental) methods. Auditory (perceptual) studies the hearing process, man's perception of segmental sounds, pitch variation, loudness and duration. It studies the ways in which sound perception is determined by the phonetic system of a language. The methods used in perceptual phonetics are also experimental. They in­clude various kinds of auditory tests. Functional (phonology, social) - i t is a purely linguistic branch of ph, it deals with sound phenomena. This aspect was 1^st introduced in the works by Russian linguist де Куртене. He was the founder of the phoneme theory. Later this theory was developed by Russian Щерба, Реформатский. They even claimed that phonology should be differentiated from phonetics. They were for that separation because they considered ph to be a biological science while only phonology could be described as a linguistic science. But the linguists of other countries disagree with division. It is not logical to separate form from functionand exclude ph from linguistic sciences. The other branches of phonetics: special (concrete language), general (speech mechanism), historical (historical development), descriptive (in particular period), comparative (comparative study of ph sys of 2 lan-ges), applied/practical (practical applications), theoretical (theory).

Aspects of sound phenomena.

Sound phenomena have different aspects, which are closely interconnected: the articulatory aspect, theacoustic, the auditory and the linguistic. The articulatory (sound—production) aspect ( speech sounds are products of human organs of speech: the diaphragm, the lungs, the bronchi, the trachea, the larynx with the vocal cords in it, the pharynx, the mouth cavity and the nasal cavity. Sound production is impossible without respiration, which consists of two phases — inspiration and expiration. Speech sounds are chiefly based on expiration, though in some African languages there are sounds produced by inspiration. Expiration, during which speech sounds are produced, is called phonic expiration. In speech, ex­piration lasts much longer than inspiration, whereas in quiet breathing inspi­ration and expiration take about the same period of time. One part of sound production is phonation – voice-production). The acoustic aspect (like any other sound of nature speech sounds exist in the form of sound waves and have the same physical properties — frequency, intensity, duration and spectrum. A sound wave is created by a vibration which may be periodic or non-periodic, simple or complex. The vocal cords vibrate in such a way that they produce various kinds of waves simultaneously. The basic vibrations of the vocal cords over their whole length produce the fundamental tone of voice. The simultaneous vibrations of each part of the vocal cords produce partial tones (overtones or harmonics). The number of vibrations per second is called frequency (hertz or cycles per second). Intensity of speech sounds depends on the amplitude of vibration. Changes in intensity are associated with stress in those languages which have dynamic stress. Intensity is measured in decibels. Like any other form of matter, sound exists and moves in time. Any sound has a certain duration. The duration of a sound is the quantity of time during which the same vibrations continue (is measured in mil­liseconds)). The auditory (sound—perception) aspect (speech sounds may also be ana­lysed from the point of view of perception. The perception of speech sounds involves the activity of our hearing mechanism. Our hearing mechanism acts as a monitor of what we ourselves are saying. The process of communication would be impossible if the speaker himself did not hear the sounds he pronounces. If the link between listening and pronouncing is disturbed, disturbances in the production of speech sounds are likely to appear. The better we hear the differences between the sounds, the better we pronounce them). The linguistic aspect ( segmental sounds and prosodic features are linguistic phenomena. They constitute meaningful units — mor­phemes, words, word—forms, utterances. All the words of a language consist of speech sounds. Most of the meaningful distinctions of the language are based on distinc­tions in sound. Sounds and prosodic features serve to differentiate the units they form. Simultaneously, the sound phenomena enable the listener to identify them as concrete words, word—forms or utterances. Thus, segmental sounds and prosodic features of speech perform constitutive, distinctive and identificatory functions.

Principles of classification of speech sounds

In all languages speech sounds are traditionally divided into two main types — vowels and consonants. From the articulatory point of view the main principles of the division are as follows: the presence or absence of obstruction; the distribution of muscular tension; the force of the air stream coming from the lungs. Vowels are speech sounds based on voice. There is no obstruction in their articulation. The muscular tension is spread evenly throughout the speech organs. The force of the air stream is rather weak. Consonants are speech sounds in the articulation of which there is an obstruction (plosion or friction). The muscular tension is concentrated at the place of obstruction. The air stream is strong. The articulatory boundary between vowels and consonants is not well marked. There are speech sounds that occupy an intermediate positionbetween vowels and consonants and have common features with both the of them. These are sonorants [m, n, ŋ, j, I, w, r]. There is an obstruction in their articulation and the muscular tension is concentrated at the place of obstruction as in the production of consonants. Like vowels they are based on voice. The force of the air is weak as in the case of vowels. Due to their great sonority some sonorants can be syllabic in some particular positions. But generally sonorants do not perform the function of syllable formation. That is why they are attri­buted to consonants. From the acoustic point of view vowels are complex periodic vibrations — tones. Consonants are non—periodic vibrations — noises.

English vowels

Vowels are speech sounds based on voice. There is no obstruction in their articulation. The muscular tension is spread evenly throughout the speech organs. The force of the air stream is rather weakThe various qualities of English vowels are determined by the oral resonator — its size, volume and shape. The resonator - movable speech organs — the tongue and the lips. The position of the speech organs in the articulation of vowels may be kept for a variable period of time. All these factors determine the principles according to which vowels are classified: acc to the horizontal movement of the tongue: front (i:, ǽ, e, ei, eə, ai, au), front—retracted(I, iə), mixed (Λ, ə, 3:, əu), b a c k—advanced (u, uə), b a c k (u:, a:, uə, oi, o:, o); acc to the vertical movement of the tongue: close/high (i:, I, iə, u:, u, uə), mid (e, ei, eə, ə, 3:, Λ), open/low(ǽ, a:, ai, au, o:, o); acc to the position of the lips: rounded (o, o:, u, u:),unrounded (all the rest);acc to the degree of muscular tension: tense (long vowels), I a x (short); acc to the force of articulation at the end of the vowel: checked (historically short vowels under stress), free (long monophtongs and diphtongoids, unstressed vowel); acc to the stability of articulation: monophthongs (I,e, ǽ, a:, Λ, o, o:, u, ə), diphthongs (ei, ai, oi, au, ou, iə, eə, oə, uə), d i p h thongoids(i:, u:); acc to the length long, short.

Consonants

Consonants –speech sounds in the articulation of which there is an obstruction(plosion or friction). The muscular tension is concentrated at the place of obstruction. The air stream is strong.There are following types of obstruction in the produc­tion of consonants: complete occlusion; constriction; occlusion—constriction. Classification: acc to the type of obstruction and the manner of articulation: occlusive (plosive – p, b, t, d, k, g; nasal sonorants – m, n, ŋ), constrictive (fricative – f, v, s, z, Ө, ð, ƒ, 3; medial sonorants – w, r, j; lateral sonorant - l), affricates – tƒ, d3; acc to the active organ of speech and place of obstruction: labial (bilabial – p, b, m, w; labio-dental – f, v), lingual (forelingual: apical-alveolar – t, d, n, l, s, z; interdental – Ө, ð; cacuminal – r; palate-alveolar – ƒ, 3, tƒ; midlingual-palatal – j; backlingual-velar – k, g, w, ŋ), glottal – h; acc to the presence or absence of voice: voiced, voiceless; acc to the force of articulation: lenis, fortis; acc to the position of soft palate: oral, nasal (m, n, ŋ).

The phoneme

A phoneme is the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language.

In connected speech sounds are greatly modified by their phonetic environment, by the place they occupy in a word and by prosodic features (stress, tempo, speech melody). (t)-occlusive, apical-alveolar, fortes, voiceless, oral; ten-without aspiration; pot-non-plosive; two-rounded. In different words [t] can he pronounced differently. Different (t)-sounds in these words differ in the manner of articulation and acoustic qualities, but they do not differ functionally (phonologically) because if we substitute any of them by another the meaning of the word will not change. That's why native speakers don't observe any difference between all variants of t, but it is important for them to distinguish between [t] and [d], [s] and [ z ]because they distinguish different words; tie-die. Thus t-d. s-z are different elements of the English sound system, we call them phonemes (the shortest functional unit of a language). And the substitution of one phoneme for another influences communication. Every 1-ge has a limited number of phonemes: Bnglish-20 vowel phonemes, cons-24; Russian-6 vowels, 36 cons. Allophones - variants of one and the same phoneme, which never occur in identical position. They do not distinguish words. Their articulatory and acoustic distinguishes are conditioned by the surrounding sounds (dark and clear L). In one l-ge 2 physically different sounds are considered to be allophones, while in a differentl-ge those sounds can belong to different phonemes. Dark and clear 1-allophones in English, while in Russian I and 1' are different phonemes. 3 linguistic functions: constitutive, distinctive and identificatory. Щерба gave the distinction between phonemes and allophones to distinguish between 2 types of mistakes made by foreign 1-ge learners. He classified them as phonological (when an allophone of one phoneme is substitute by an allophone of a different phoneme: think-sink, wine-vine) and phonetic mistakes, when a student uses the wrong allophone of one and the same phoneme (aspiration or non-aspiration).

TYPES OF TRANSCRIPTION

Transcription – the system of signs in which sounds are symbolized. There are different types of transcription: phonemic or broad contains as many symbols as there are phonemes in the language (phoneme is usually enclosed between diagonals - /t/); phonetic or narrow or allophonic – “one symbol to allophone”. The symbols of this transcription are placed between square brackets – [t]. To mark different allophones of one phoneme scholars use diacritic marks – additional symbols used to characterize separate phonemes of their allophones (й). Diacritic marks help to use the inventory of the letters of the alphabet, without enlarging it. Allophonic transcription is the most convenient so that is why one can hardly do without it in foreign language teaching. The first attempts to represent speech sounds visually by means of special symbols were made in 16 century. The modern phonetic transcription that is most widely used now is the lnternational Phonetic Transcription devised by the International Phonetic Association in 1904. This tr-ion is a phonetic alphabet which may be applied to most of the languages. One of the principles of this transcription is to use the fewest symbols of the simplest possible shape. Most of the symbols it uses are letters of the Latin alphabet. Besides, it contains a series of diacritic marks. Jones took from this type of transcription some symbols to English (I, i:, e, ǽ, ə, a:, o, o:, u, u:, ei, ou, au, oi, uə). Diacritic marks: ~ nasalization; • devoicing; ǔ voicing; + advanced variety; - retracted variety;: length mark, etc

Function of the syllable

Constitutive Function. Syllables constitute words, phrases and sentences through the combi­nation of their prosodic features: loudness — stress, pitch — tone, dura­tion — length and tempo. Syllables may be stressed, unstressed, high, mid, low, rising, falling, long, short. All these prosodic features constitute the stress pattern of words, tonal and rhythmic structure of an utter­ance, help to perform distinctive variations on the syllabic level. Distinctive and Differentiatory Function. If we compare the words: lightening освещение and lightning молния, we may observe that their syllabicity is the only minimal, distinc­tive feature: /'laitnirj vs. 'laitnirj/. It is an example of the word-distinctive function of the syllable. There are rather many combinations in English distinguished from each other by means of the difference in the place of the syllabic boundary: a name — an aim, ice cream — / scream: /a 'neim/ — /an 'eim/, /'ais'kiim/ — /ai 'skitm/. The distinctive, differentiatory function of the syllabic boundary makes it possible to introduce the term "juncture". Close juncture or conjunc­ture occurs between sounds within one syllable, e.g. a name, I scream: in the first example the close juncture is between /n/ and /ei/, in the se­cond — between /s/ and /k/. Open juncture, disjuncture or internal open juncture occurs between two syllables. If we mark open juncture with /+/ then in our examples it will occur between a +name, I + scream. Ameri­can scientists H. A. Gleason, L. S. Harris and K. Pike consider the open juncture a separate segmental phoneme. They include /+/ into the inven­tory of phonemes as a separate differentiatory unit. Identificatory Function. This function is conditioned by the pronunciation of the speaker. The listener can understand the exact meaning of the utterance only if he perceives the correct syllabic boundary — "syllabodisjuncture", e.g. my train мой поезд— might rain возможен дождь. The existence of such pairs demands special attention to teaching not only the correct pronunciation of sounds but also the observation of the correct place for syllabodisjuncture.

Intonation. Prosodic units.

Intonation is a complex unity of non-segmental, or prosodic features of speech: melody (pitch of the voice); sentence stress; temporal characteristics (duration, tempo, pausation); rhythm; timber (voice quality). It organizes a sentence, determines communicative types of sentences and clauses, divides sentences into intonation groups, gives prominence to words and phrases, expresses contrasts and attitudes. There are two main approaches to the problem of intonation in Great Britain. One is known as a contour analysis and the other may be called grammatical. The first is represented by a large group of phoneticians. Their theory is based on the assumption that intonation consists of basic functional "blocks". They pay much attention to these "blocks" but not to the way they are connected. The most phoneticians in our country agree, that intonation express the speakers thoughts, emotions and attitude towards the hearer. Intonation is a broad phenomena, which is realized in a number of prosodic units. The main of them are: the syllable, the rhythmic unit, the utterance. The syllable is the smallest prosodic unit, which constitutes higher units. Its prosodic features depend on its position and function in a rhythmic unit. The rhythmic unit is a number of stressed and unstressed syllables. Unstressed are called clities, stressed-nucleus. The unstressed syl. preceding the nucleus are called proclitics, following-enclitics. All this proves that the r.g. is a separate prosodic unit. The i.g. Various phoneticians use dif. terms: breath g., sense g., syntagme, tone-g., etc.

Utterance stress and Rhythm

Sentence stress is the second component of prosody. It’s a certain prominence given to one or more words in a sentence, that are semantically more important than the others. The effect of stress is produced by vibration in pitch, loudness. Length and quality. The subsystem of utterance stress in English includes 3 basic types: nuclear stress; non-nuclear stress; partial stress. The main difference between them is how the syllables that carry them are marked. Nuclear stress is marked by the kinetic tones, non-nuclear stressed syllables are marked by static tones, partially stressed syllables are not pitch prominent. Their pitch characteristics depend on the pitch pattern of the preceding fully stressed syllable. The distribution of stress in a phrase is determined by several factors: semantic factor (notional parts of speech are usually stressed, auxiliary parts of speech are not). The stresses are on those words to which the speaker wants to attract special attention. Thus, the semantic factor determines the location, the type and the degree of stress. (! The nuclear tone attracts more attention than static tone of fully stressed in an utterance); grammatical factor (eg You must do it?/Must you do it? (The inverted word order presupposes the appearance of the stress on the words which are not usually stressed); rhythmical (eg safe and sound; neat and tidy; slim and slender). English speakers favor the constructions that have rhythmic alternation (чередование). Rhythm. It is considered to be the third component of prosody. Though rhythmic units have different number of syllables they tend to follow one another at regular intervals. In rhythmic groups of unequal length the syllables of the longer groups are compressed by very rapid pronunciation. And the syllables of shorter ones are subconsciously lengthen to confirm a certain interval (eg Peter went to London./Peter has gone to London./Peter must have gone to London.).

Tempo and pauses

Tempo – the rate of utterance. On the acoustic level tempo is measured by the number of syllables per second. Tempo is determined by different factors. It may differ depending on: the size of the audience; the acoustic quality of the room; the individuality of the speaker. Tempo can express speaker’s attitudes, emotions (fast – anxiety, excitement; very slow – relax, indifferent, calm, tired). The rate of speech can be of 3 types: Normal; Slow; Fast. The speech continuum is divided into smaller portions by means of pauses. Pause – a short period of time when sound stops before starting again. Pauses are closely related with tempo. The number and length of pauses influence the general tempo of speech. Pauses can be of 3 types: silent pauses (a complete stop of phonation); pauses of perception (there is no period of silence. The effect of such pause is created by a sharp change in pitch direction or by variations in duration. They ate often called syntactical pauses. In the text it is marked by a wavy line by the junctions of intonation group – eg The teacher says John is a bright student); voiced=filled pauses (have the quality most often of central vowel. They are called hesitation pauses = pauses of doubt). Silent pauses according to their length can be short, long (between 2 utterances), extra long (between paragraphs). Pauses perform segmentative and delimitative functions, also constitutive function, semantic, syntactic role, attitudinal function, for emphasis, to attach special importance to the word.

PROSODIC NOTATION SYSTEMS

Any system of notation is a generalization of a great variety of linguistically relevant sound phenomena. The extent of the generalization may vary. Depending on what the notation is intended for, it may be broad (it is intended to reflect only the most relevant prosodic features by using the fewest possible symbols) and narrow (it is intended to be more detailed). There is a number of means to denote prosodic features: the musical notation; interlinear staves with dots, dashes and arrows; the head and nucleus system; the tonetic stress—mark system; the intonation contour system. Musical notation was the 1^st because recently intonation was defined as melody. But such a notation is unsatisfactory because the voice does not pass from one pitch to another at definite intervals as in singing. The next important development in the system of denoting prosodic phenomena was a notation within a line of the text (Palmer). He used arrows in the text to mark the pitch change in the nucleus. Palmer also used special symbols to indicate the pitch of the syllables that precede the nucleus (∕ ¯ _). Palmer also used a fuller notation in which the tune of the whole tone—group is shown by dots. Small dots correspond to unstressed syllables and thick dots mark the stressed syllables. A rather accurate system was developed by Kingdon. It is known as tonetic stress-mark system. One and the same mark indicate stress and tone simultaneously. He distinguishes stressed syllables of two kinds: those in which the vocal cords remain at a given tension (Static Tones); and those in which their tension changes (Kinetic Tones). Static Tones: High Level Tone -It's 'now or 'never; Low Level Tone:,How did you,manage,that? Kinetic tones: high rising, low rising, high falling, low falling, falling-rising, rising-falling, rising-falling-rising. Also there are interlinear systems of pitch change, pitch level, pitch range, as it represents the pitch of every syllable. One more system is that of Crystal. It includes symbols to mark various degrees of pitch variations, pitch range, pauses, loudness, speed, tension. Besides that, he considers to analyse the role of paralinguistic features, such as voice qualifiers (whisper) and voice qualifications (laugh, cry).

 

Bilingualism, interference.

Bilingualism is the practice of alternate use of 2 languages. It can be acquired naturally and artificially (as a result of foreign language learning). Language interference is a process and a result of the interaction and mutual influence of the language systems being in contact. Interference takes place on all the levels of the language: phonetic, grammatical and lexical. On the phonetic level – 2 types of interference: phonetic and prosodic (deviations from the prosodic norm of a language which is the result from the influence of the other language).

Interference characterizing melody of speech (deviations): higher initial and final pitch levels; wider pitch interval of the rising tone; lower final pitch level of the falling tone; lower initial of the utterance (in Russian and Belarusian the pitch movement is more monotonous. There is no sharp pitch contrast in the prehead and head, and other parts of the utterance); the use of the pitch patterns which are not a characteristic of English, e g the use of the Rise instead of Fall. Interference in stress and rhythm: Russian and Belarusian speakers tend to stress more words in an utterance than Englishmen which results in distortion (искажение) of the rhythmic patterns of English; The shifting of the nucleus stress to the left (towards the beginning of the utterance); Exaggerated prominence of the nuclear syllable; Variability of the duration of the rhythmic units in English utterances spoken by Russians is greater than in the same utterances pronounced by Englishmen. Distortions in rhythm are also due to the slowed down pronunciation of different sounds and sound combinations.

Interference concerning tempo: The tempo of English utterances pronounced by Russians is slower; Unstressed syllables are not reduced to the same degree as in the English norm; Stressed syllables are longer than they should be.

Received pronunciation (RP)

It is considered to be regionless though historically it appeared on the bases of London dialect belonging to the group of the Southern regional type. It was accepted as the phonetic norm in the second half of the 19^th century. It is spoken all over Britain but by a very small number of people =5% of population. RP has some name – Public School Accent - because there are the most prestigious type of school, with classical type of teaching, they provide pupils with knowledge which gives them the opportunity to enter famous universities, pupils of such schools belong to higher level of society. BBC English members of BBC use it. Royal English members of Royal family speak it. Though these varieties of British English are carefully reserved in Public school, modern RP differs greatly from the former RP of the previous century. Thus 3 variants of RP are distinguished today: the conservative RP – older generation; general RP – used mostly on radio, television; advanced RP – by young generation, very often it reflects temporary passion. The main changes that have recently taken place in RP concern mainly vowels: diphthongization of historically long vowels; smoothing of triphthongs and diphthongs; the change of the former diphthong (centring of the nucleus). This tendency is so strong that the transcription symbol has been changed in British dictionaries. In the system of consonants the main changes are: devoicing of final B,D,G (dog, mood, mob)/voicing of T in intervocalic position (better); the assimilation of the sounds; loss of initial H esp in rapid speech. Smt it is dropped completely; the use of the intrusive “R” (the intrusive R is pronounced where their is no letter R in spelling. Some 30-40 years ago it was carefully avoided by RP speakers).

RP is the teaching norm of the teaching of English because it has been investigated and described more thoroughly, more than any other type of British Pronunciation. It is a teaching norm because of the degree of understandability in English-speaking countries, and the number the textbooks and audio-visual aids. Yet, there are many educated people in Great Britain who do not speak RP but their English is good and correct because they speak standard English with accent.

British English.

Northern regional type: [a:]→[ǽ] – is fronted (glass, after); [ǽ] is more open like in [a] (beg, bad [bag, bad]); [Λ] is pronounced like [u] (half, love); diphthong [əu] is pronounced like monophthong [o:] (go [go:]); [əi]→[3:] (say [s3:], take [t3:k]); all tones are dropped and speech is generally slower that in southern English – Low-Rise is used much more often and it gives a sing-song quality to the speech. Scottish regional type: they don’t have diphthong [iə] and [3:] (here [hir], bird [bird]); [au]→[u] (down [dun]); [Λ]→[ǽ] (grass [grǽs]); all vowels are short, length isn’t a distinctive feature ([ka:st=ka•st=kǽst]); voiceless labio-velar fricative is used [m=hw] (which-witch [hwitƒ]).The British people distinguish between RP educated regional types of pronunciation on the one hand and local dialects on the other. One of the best examples of local dialects is Cokney used by the less educated in the working class areas of London. It has certain striking peculiarities: [əi]→[ai] (lady [laidi]); [au]→[a:] (loud [la:d]); P,T,H – are heavily aspirated; the final [ŋ] sounds like N or NK (nothing [nΛfin, nΛfink]); [ð, Ө]→f, d, r, v ([nΛfin, nΛfink]); [L] - vocalic (milk); instead of P, T, K they pronounce glottal stop? (butterfly [bΛ?flai]).

American English

American English pronunciation is the national variant of English in America, it has peculiar features in vocabulary, grammatical structure and pronunciation. It dates back to the English language of the early 17 century (the epoch of Shakespeare). American English at present is not homogeneous The most widely used regional types of AE pronunciation are the Eastern, the Southern types and the General American (GA), also known as Northern America it is considered to be the pronunciation standard of the USA. The peculiarities of GA lie in: a) pronunciation of sounds; b) differences in stress patterns of words; c) differences in intonation.

Peculiarities of pronunciation of GA sounds: [r] - is more sonorous than the corresponding RP sound; [l] is always dark; [ j] is omitted before [u]: duty ['du:ti], news [nu:z]; intervocalic [t] is voiced: better [‘bedə], or may drop out: twenty ['tweni], or it is replaced by a glottal stop before [ m,n,l,r ] - certainly [sə:?nli]; [k] is omitted before [t]: asked [ǽst]; the presence of a voiceless labiovelar fricative [m]; GA vowels are not differentiated by length, they are all long; besides they are mostly nasalized. Nasalization is often called an American twang; [ǽ] is used instead off [a:] in words which do not contain [r]: glass, path, laugh; GA has no [o], instead of it [a:] is pronounced; [əu] is much less diphthongal than in RP, it may be represented as [o:]. Peculiarities in stress patterns: American speakers make much greater use of tertiary stress, or post-tonic stress than British speakers do. The tertiary stress falls on the suffixes -ary, -ory, -mony: 'dictionary, 'territory; the words of French origin in GA retain the original stress on the final syllable, while RP has it on the initial one: ballet, café; some words have different pronunciation in contrast to RP having the stress on the first syllable: 'magazine, ^lcigarette, ^laddress. Differences in intonation: the most important differences between British and American pronunciation involve intonation rather than pronunciation itself. British intonation is often characterized as having "wider melodic curves" and more rapid changes than AE intonation. As a result of such intonation patterns, the speech of an Englishman sounds abrupt, manneristic to American ears. At the same time American speech often sounds unemotional, rather dry, monotonous and colourless to an Englishman. The thorough analysis of both types of intonation reveals both structural and functional differences. The structural differences: a) in pre-terminal pitch contours - in RP the most common contour is Gradually Descending Stepping Head, while in GA the intonation group has a level pre-terminal contour. Thus, in GA there is almost no need to single out the prehead, the head, etc. b) in the realization of the terminal tones -in GA the starting point of practically all tones is at the medium pitch level, while in RP the starting point can be observed at the low, medium or high pitch levels. The functional differences; 1)In GA the most frequent intonation contour for General Questions is the tune beginning low, rising to a high level and then steadily falling (Did he ask you to do it?). Even if General Questions are pronounced with a rising tone, it rises from a low pitch level and ends on a high pitch level. 2)RP requests are normally pronounced with a Low Rise, while in GA the speakers pronounce them with Fall-Rise undivided (GA - Hurry up. Shut the door. RP -' Hurry up. Shut the door. 3) Leave takings: GA - Good-bye. RP - Good-bye. So^ long. On account that the features that distinguish AE from BrE are so numerous, some linguists thought that AE cannot be considered a variant of the English language and must be defined as American language. But most linguists express the opposite point of view.

 

Phonostylistics

Phonostylistics is a quickly developing branch of Phonetics. Its aim is to study various phonetic means and how they are used in this or that particular situation. A concrete situation is determined by various extra-linguistic factors. Human speech is characterized by a certain norm and in fact the speech behavior of a person is his adaptation to social circumstances (eg a lawyer: acting in court; every day communication; ordering a dinner in a restaurant; telling a joke to a familiar company). This adaptation can be natural or purposeful. Each native speaker uses several varieties of the language (at home, at work, addressing audience).Each of these varieties may differ in the use of vocabulary, grammatical structure, but the most striking distinction are phonetical (We can trust him to do it well). The main extra-linguistic factors that cause speech modifications are as follows: 1) the aim or purpose of speech: to instruct, to persuade, to analyse, to narrate, to chat. The aim of the utterance greatly influences pronunciation. The speaker chooses a certain strategy and according to it he selects a member of functional phonetic means which make the realization of his purpose more effective; 2) the speaker’s attitude to the situation and to what he is saying. His speech behavior in this case may reveal his personal interest and participation in what he is talking about (These things may (dis)satisfy him). They may please him or not, he can express his emotions through speech. In this case different intonation varieties will give subjective coloring of oral speech; 3) The nature of interchange of the form of communication. It means that our speech may suggest only listening or listening and exchanging remarks. The form can be: a lecture, a discussion, a conversation. Some linguists consider that this factor influences the division of the language into 2 varieties: a monolog; a dialogue. This forms differ on lexical, grammatical, phonetic levels; 4) The degree of spontaneity or preparedness we distinguish between prepared and unprepared speech (Prepared: delivering a lecture, report that was rehearsed at home, rehearsing a poem. Unprepared: short commentaries, class speech). This factor has a decisive influence on the phonetic organization of a test and most phoneticians for the aim of their analyses distinguish between speaking and reading. Reading is characterized by a very high degree of regularity. As a result, the text sounds distinct and loud. 5) A number of social phonological factors which determine the degree of formality and the attitude of the speaker as well. Formality reflects how the speaker interacts with the listener (whether hi is formal, casual, familiar). The degree of formality is reflected in the use of segmental and suprasegmental units. This group of social factor may include age, sex, speaker’s individuality, his social background etc.

Consonants

The phoneme

TYPES OF TRANSCRIPTION

Function of the syllable

Intonation. Prosodic units.

Utterance stress and Rhythm

Tempo and pauses

PROSODIC NOTATION SYSTEMS

Bilingualism, interference.

Modifications of consonants

Received pronunciation (RP)

British English

American English

Phonostylistics

Phonetics.

Phonetics is the science that studies the sound matter of the language, its semantic functions and the lines of development. Phonetics as a branch of linguistics studies sounds in their broad sense. The sound system of the l-ge comprises 2 levels: segmental sounds (vowels and consonants) and prosodic (suprasegmental) phenomena (pitch, stress, tempo, rhythm, pauses). Ph. also studies how the sounds are produced. It studies the acoustic property of sounds. Ph has a long history. It was known to ancient Greeks. Asa science with its subject and methods it began to develop in the 2^nd half of the 19 century in Western Europe and in Russia. Depending on which of sound phenomena is studied, phonetics is sub­divided into four main branches: articulatory, acoustic, auditory, functional. Articulatory -how the air starts moving, all the movement of speech organs while producing sounds. It is concerned with the study of sound as a result of the activities of speech organs. It deals with our voice—producing mechanism and the way we produce sounds, and prosodic phenomena. It studies respi­ration, phonation (voice—production), articulation and also the mental pro­cesses necessary for the mastery of a phonetic system. Methods employed in articulatory phonetics are experimental and the method of direct observation. Acoustic deals with acoustic aspect of sounds, it studies how the air vibrates between the speaker’s mouth and listener's ear. It studies speech sounds with the help of experimental (instrumental) methods. Auditory (perceptual) studies the hearing process, man's perception of segmental sounds, pitch variation, loudness and duration. It studies the ways in which sound perception is determined by the phonetic system of a language. The methods used in perceptual phonetics are also experimental. They in­clude various kinds of auditory tests. Functional (phonology, social) - i t is a purely linguistic branch of ph, it deals with sound phenomena. This aspect was 1^st introduced in the works by Russian linguist де Куртене. He was the founder of the phoneme theory. Later this theory was developed by Russian Щерба, Реформатский. They even claimed that phonology should be differentiated from phonetics. They were for that separation because they considered ph to be a biological science while only phonology could be described as a linguistic science. But the linguists of other countries disagree with division. It is not logical to separate form from functionand exclude ph from linguistic sciences. The other branches of phonetics: special (concrete language), general (speech mechanism), historical (historical development), descriptive (in particular period), comparative (comparative study of ph sys of 2 lan-ges), applied/practical (practical applications), theoretical (theory).

Aspects of sound phenomena.

Sound phenomena have different aspects, which are closely interconnected: the articulatory aspect, theacoustic, the auditory and the linguistic. The articulatory (sound—production) aspect ( speech sounds are products of human organs of speech: the diaphragm, the lungs, the bronchi, the trachea, the larynx with the vocal cords in it, the pharynx, the mouth cavity and the nasal cavity. Sound production is impossible without respiration, which consists of two phases — inspiration and expiration. Speech sounds are chiefly based on expiration, though in some African languages there are sounds produced by inspiration. Expiration, during which speech sounds are produced, is called phonic expiration. In speech, ex­piration lasts much longer than inspiration, whereas in quiet breathing inspi­ration and expiration take about the same period of time. One part of sound production is phonation – voice-production). The acoustic aspect (like any other sound of nature speech sounds exist in the form of sound waves and have the same physical properties — frequency, intensity, duration and spectrum. A sound wave is created by a vibration which may be periodic or non-periodic, simple or complex. The vocal cords vibrate in such a way that they produce various kinds of waves simultaneously. The basic vibrations of the vocal cords over their whole length produce the fundamental tone of voice. The simultaneous vibrations of each part of the vocal cords produce partial tones (overtones or harmonics). The number of vibrations per second is called frequency (hertz or cycles per second). Intensity of speech sounds depends on the amplitude of vibration. Changes in intensity are associated with stress in those languages which have dynamic stress. Intensity is measured in decibels. Like any other form of matter, sound exists and moves in time. Any sound has a certain duration. The duration of a sound is the quantity of time during which the same vibrations continue (is measured in mil­liseconds)). The auditory (sound—perception) aspect (speech sounds may also be ana­lysed from the point of view of perception. The perception of speech sounds involves the activity of our hearing mechanism. Our hearing mechanism acts as a monitor of what we ourselves are saying. The process of communication would be impossible if the speaker himself did not hear the sounds he pronounces. If the link between listening and pronouncing is disturbed, disturbances in the production of speech sounds are likely to appear. The better we hear the differences between the sounds, the better we pronounce them). The linguistic aspect ( segmental sounds and prosodic features are linguistic phenomena. They constitute meaningful units — mor­phemes, words, word—forms, utterances. All the words of a language consist of speech sounds. Most of the meaningful distinctions of the language are based on distinc­tions in sound. Sounds and prosodic features serve to differentiate the units they form. Simultaneously, the sound phenomena enable the listener to identify them as concrete words, word—forms or utterances. Thus, segmental sounds and prosodic features of speech perform constitutive, distinctive and identificatory functions.

Principles of classification of speech sounds

In all languages speech sounds are traditionally divided into two main types — vowels and consonants. From the articulatory point of view the main principles of the division are as follows: the presence or absence of obstruction; the distribution of muscular tension; the force of the air stream coming from the lungs. Vowels are speech sounds based on voice. There is no obstruction in their articulation. The muscular tension is spread evenly throughout the speech organs. The force of the air stream is rather weak. Consonants are speech sounds in the articulation of which there is an obstruction (plosion or friction). The muscular tension is concentrated at the place of obstruction. The air stream is strong. The articulatory boundary between vowels and consonants is not well marked. There are speech sounds that occupy an intermediate positionbetween vowels and consonants and have common features with both the of them. These are sonorants [m, n, ŋ, j, I, w, r]. There is an obstruction in their articulation and the muscular tension is concentrated at the place of obstruction as in the production of consonants. Like vowels they are based on voice. The force of the air is weak as in the case of vowels. Due to their great sonority some sonorants can be syllabic in some particular positions. But generally sonorants do not perform the function of syllable formation. That is why they are attri­buted to consonants. From the acoustic point of view vowels are complex periodic vibrations — tones. Consonants are non—periodic vibrations — noises.