- •16. Intonation and prosody. Prosodic subsystems; their acoustic and auditory properties. Functions of intonation/prosody and its subsystems.
- •18. Utterance stress, its types and problems of classification. The interrelation of word-stress and utterance stress.
- •19. Speech melody as a subsystem of intonation. Functions of its components. Nuclear tones in the system of English intonation.
- •20. Pausation and tempo in the structure of English intonation. Their functions.
- •21. Rhythm as a linguistic notion. English speech rhythm. Types of rhythmic units. Guidelines for teaching English speech rhythm.
- •22. Utterance stress, its types and problems of classification. Nuclear tones in the system of English intonation.
- •25. Main prosodic peculiarities of the publicistic (oratorial) phonostyle.
- •26. Main prosodic peculiarities of the academic (scientific) phonostyle.
- •27. Main prosodic peculiarities of the informational phonostyle.
- •28. Main prosodic peculiarities of the declamatory (artistic or belles-letter) phonostyle: fiction, drama, poetry.
- •31. Received Pronunciation and estuary English as a recent development of standard British English. The sociolinguistic aspect of Estuary English.
- •3 Main types:
- •32. Regional types of English pronunciation. Major differences between regional variants of English pronunciation and Received pronunciation.
- •1. Southern accents
- •2. Northern and Midland accent
- •In consonants.
- •In vowels
- •In consonants
- •In vowels
- •In consonants
- •33. American-based pronunciation standards of English. Major differences between General American and received pronunciation on the segmental and supersegmental levels.
- •Stress differences
- •Intonation differences
18. Utterance stress, its types and problems of classification. The interrelation of word-stress and utterance stress.
Utterance stress is the special prominence given to one or more words in an utterance. On the auditory level the special prominence is achieved by pitch, loudness, length and quality. Acoustically, utterance stress is determined by variations of fundamental frequency, intensity, duration and format structure. The effect of utterance stress is created not by a single acoustic parameter, but by the interaction of different parameters. The subsystem of utterance stress in English includes the following basic types: nuclear stress (marked by a kinetic tone), non-nuclear full stress (often marked by static tones) and weak stress (syllables are not marked as a rule as they are not stress.) The distribution of stress in an utterance depends on the following factors: semantic (which determines the placement, type and degree), singles out the utterance semantic center by this or that nuclear, or primary stress, carries the greatest semantic importance, grammatical (grammatical structure of the utterance also predetermines its accentual structure) and rhythmical (the distributions of stress in an utterance is also affected by the rhythmical laws of English.) All these factors are closely linked, the semantic factor being the most important.
19. Speech melody as a subsystem of intonation. Functions of its components. Nuclear tones in the system of English intonation.
Speech melody is the variations in the pitch of the voice which take place with voiced sounds. Describing the speech melody we determine the relevant pitch levels, pitch ranges, rate and directions of pitch movement in the terminal tone of the intonation group and the type of interval at the juncture of intonation group segments. The pitch level of the whole utterance or intonation group is determined by the pitch of its highest-pitched syllable. It shows the degree of semantic importance the speaker attaches to the utterance in comparison with any other utterance, and also the speaker’s attitude and emotions. Parenthetical phrases, for example, and other semantically less important intonation groups of and utterance are characterized by a lower pitch level than the neighbouring intonation groups. The pitch range of an utterance is the interval between its highest-pitched syllable and its lowest-pitched syllable. According to circumstances the speaker changes his voice range: it may by widened and narrowed to express emphasis or the speaker’s attitude and emotions. The rate of pitch variations may be different depending on the time, during which these variations take place, and on the range of the variations. The falling tone for instance, is stepper when it is pronounced within a shorter period of time, its range being the same.
20. Pausation and tempo in the structure of English intonation. Their functions.
Pause is the means of speech continuum division into units of different length and hierarchy. The main function of a pause is to segmental connected speech into utterance and intonation groups. Phoneticians distinguish 3 main types of pauses: silent pauses (short pauses which may be used to separate intonation groups within a phrase; longer pauses which normally manifest the end of the phrase; very long pauses, which are approximately twice as long as the 1st type, are used to separate phonetic wholes), pauses of perception and voiced or filled pauses. A silent pauses is a stop in the phonation. Pauses of reception are marked by a wavy line and its effect is produced by a sharp change of pitch direction or by variation in duration. Filled pauses are used to signal hesitation or doubt.
Functionally they may be distinguished syntactic, emphatic and hesitation pauses.
Syntactic pauses separate phonopasseges, phrases, intonation groups.
Emphatic pauses serve to make especially prominent certain parts of the utterance.
Hesitation pauses are mainly used in spontaneous speech to gain some time to think over what to say next. They may be silent or filled.
The tempo of speech is the 3rd component of intonation. The term “tempo’ implies the rate of the utterance and pausation.
The rate of speech can be normal, slow, fast. The parts of the utterance which are particularly important sound slower. Unimportant parts are commonly pronounced at a great speed than normal.