27. Main prosodic peculiarities of the informational phonostyle.

This informational style is sometimes qualified as “formal”, “neautral”. It is purely manifested in the written variety of an informational narrative read aloud. The majority of these texts are of a purely descriptive character and are simply called descriptive narratives. The written speech, the reading, should not be subjected to the contextual variables and the commonest and “ideal” situation for this register is the reading such texts in class. They may be labeled as educational informational descriptive narratives.

Spoken speech is less impartial, the spoken variety of such texts expresses more personal concern and involvement. They may be presented in different forms: monologues, dialogues, polylogues.

28. Main prosodic peculiarities of the declamatory (artistic or belles-letter) phonostyle: fiction, drama, poetry.

The scholars suggest that this is a highly emotional and expressive intonational style, that is why it needs special training. Attitudinal, volitional and intellectual functions of intonation are of primary importance here and serve to appeal to the mind, will and feelings of the listener. This intanational style can be heard on the stage, on the screen, in a TV studio or in a classroom during verse speaking and prose readings. In order to appreciate a prose passage it is not enough to understand its meaning: it is necessary to grasp the author’s intentions and the means he has employed to full them. In a sense good narrative and descriptive prose have much in common with poetry. Dialogues texts are author’s reproduction of actual conversation and in reading aloud a reader should bear in mind the characters of the speakers, their social background and the atmosphere, the environment in which the conversation takes place.

The experimental data of the research works on the declamatory reading allow us to say that its prosodic organization depends on the type of the literary text – descriptive, narrative, dialogue; on the character of the described events, schemes and objects (humorous, tragic, romantic, dreamy, imaginative and so on) and of course on the skills of the reader.

On the prosodic level the markers of the declamatory style reading are:

1. Slow tempo, caused by the lento rate of utterances and prolonged pauses, especially at the passage boundaries.

2. Stable rhythmicality

3. The use of the falling terminal tones in initial intonation groups, the increase of their range with the emphasis.

We have made attempt here to describe 1 type of the declamatory style reading, which we claim to be valuable for teachers of English. Language teachers should pay a great deal of attention to the expressive declamatory reading as it enables written literature to be accessible, to broaden the pupil’s horizons.

29. Dialectology and dialects studies. The linguistic atlas of England and the United States. National pronunciation standards of English in the English-speaking countries. Orthoepic Norms and the choice of the teaching norm.

Sociolinguistics is the branch of linguistics which studies different aspects of language – phonetics, lexics and grammar with reference to their social functions in the society. Some scholars consider functional stylistics to be a branch of sociolinguistics since it studies the distinctive linguistic characteristics of smaller social groupings. In the case of English there exists a great diversity ion the spoken realization of the language and particularly in terms of pronunciation the varieties of the language are conditioned by language communities ranging from small groups to nations. Speaking about the nations we refer to the national variants of the language. It is common knowledge that language exists in 2 forms: written and spoken. The literary spoken form its national pronunciation standard. Standard national pronunciation is sometimes called an ‘orthoepic norm’.

Every national variety of the language falls into territorial or regional dialects. Dialects are distinguished from each other by differences in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. We must make clear that, when we refer to varieties in pronunciation only, we use the word ‘accent’. It is true that there is a great deal of overlap between the terms dialect and accent. For certain geographical , economical, political and cultural reasons one of the dialects becomes the standard language of the nation and its pronunciation or its accent – the received standard pronunciation.

British sociolinguists divide the society into the following classes: upper, upper middle, middle middle, lower middle, upper working, middle working, lower working. Correspondingly every social community has its own social dialect and social accent.

English was originally spoken in England and south-eastern Scotland. Then it was introduced into the greater part of Scotland and southern Ireland. Welsh English is very similar to southern English, although the influence of Welsh has played a role in its formation. Then in 20^th century American English began to spread in Canada, Latin America, on the Bermudas and in other parts of the world.

30. The orphoepic norm of English and its types. Phonetic changes in the present-day standard English. Regional and social variants in the British English pronunciation.

Sociolinguistics is the branch of linguistics which studies different aspects of language – phonetics, lexics and grammar with reference to their social functions in the society. Some scholars consider functional stylistics to be a branch of sociolinguistics since it studies the distinctive linguistic characteristics of smaller social groupings. In the case of English there exists a great diversity ion the spoken realization of the language and particularly in terms of pronunciation the varieties of the language are conditioned by language communities ranging from small groups to nations. Speaking about the nations we refer to the national variants of the language. It is common knowledge that language exists in 2 forms: written and spoken. The literary spoken form its national pronunciation standard. Standard national pronunciation is sometimes called an ‘orthoepic norm’.