Prosodic Peculiarities of Formal and Informal Speech

The peculiarity of each of the styles may be seen in two ways: 1) as statistical preference of the pattern in comparison with the others; 2) as modifications from the normal characteristics of the basic patterns.

The basic prosodic patterns are most readily identifiable with two intermediate stylistic subvarieties: formal neutral and informal ordinary. There is a considerable overlap between them, and they both can be taken as representing the norm, while the two subvarieties- formal official and informal familiar-can be characterized in terms of distinctions between each other, on the one hand, and each of them and the norm, on the other.

Some of the contrasts between the two polarities are clearly felt: official, and first of all, public speaking will obviously be louder and slower, more careful, distinct and tense in articulation than informal familiar speech.

The fast speed of delivery in the informal conversational style and the slow tempo of formal speaking are closely connected with the number of stresses in an utterance: in a slow delivery there is more time to stress all the words that can take stresses, while in a rapid delivery the stresses are limited to those words that are really important, and the intervening groups of unstressed words become longer.

As a result , there is a noticeable difference in the rhythmic patterns used in the varieties of spoken English being compared.

Informal speech:

1. a very high proportion of falling(descending) types of head and the low narrow variety of the falling tones. Such tones are especially common for monosyllabic response-utterances.

2. a wide use of low rising and falling-rising tones in complete statements to show the informal friendliness and politeness

3. a common means of expressiveness in informal conversation is the use of complex tones and emphatic varieties of simple tones in the prenuclear part and the nucleus, the high prehead,the sliding or scandent heads.

4. An important point about informal conversation is a wide use of contrastive ( not final ) placement of nucleus and the frequency of pause (silent or voiced) within an utterance for the purpose of expressing hesitation.

5. The speed of informal conversation is generally described as quite fast.

Formal speech: it occurs in formal discourse where the task set by the sender of the message is to communicate information without giving it any emotional or volitional evaluation.

The characteristic feature of formal style is the use of (Low pre-Head+)Falling Head+ Low Fall(Low Rise +Tail),normal or slow speed of utterance and regular rhythm.

In formal style intonation never contrasts with the lexical and grammatical meanings conveyed by words and constructions. Internal boundaries placement + (pausation) is semantically predictable, that is, an intonation group here always consists of words joined together by sense. Besides, it is important to note that intonation groups tend to be short, duration of pauses varies from medium to long.

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