6.2.4. Rhythm

American rhythm is due to a great amount of secondary (or/and tertiary) stresses, compared with RP, which, together with a narrowed pitch range, produce the effect of smoothly flowing, monotonous, slurred speech: the proportion of accented vs. unaccented syllables is 1:1, while in British English it is estimated at 1:2. RP speech is described as clipped, pointed, contrastive in the length of accented and unaccented syllables. Thus, for instance, in our research data the average accented syllable in British women's talk is longer than the unaccented one by 1.7, in American women's speech the contrast drops to 1.5 (in Russian duration contrast is still lower — 1.3). The length contrast is supported by pitch contrast in which again the British RP group scored highest.

6.2.5. Intonation

The monotony of American speech is created by regular recurrence of similar pitch patterns: mid-level wavy head plus high fall or level-rise. Thus compared to RP the intonation group in GA starts at a lower level (like in Russian) but the pitch configuration is specifically English: sliding on each accent group within a narrow range until it comes to the terminal (final) fall with an initial rise, similar to an RP intensified fall or a rise-fall. Compared with the Russian language the final element is very prominent acoustically, and that is where the most important information point is normally located (in 80% of cases). Compare: RP 'What are you 'going to *do about it ? GA 'What're you 'gonna "do about it?

In specialist literature one can often find commentary on specific use of level-rising tones in special questions and statements in American English and also in Northern British English: What'syour flame? .Bradford.

The linguists explain the use of sustained, tentative (not categoric) kind of tone in the response as a back-channel device by means of which the speaker is checking if he understood the question correctly, and whether he is being attended to, also to encourage further conversation. In other words, the rising tone is directed at the listener, as was universally established for most languages of the world.

6.2.6. British regional features

• Northern /u/ in cut, much, love

• Scottish /u/ in soot, took, book

• /a/ in bad, bath /hw/ in which, where /x/ in Loch Ness, Loch Lomond

• /q/ in licht trilled /r/ in murder

• Irish /r/ in all positions: river

• clear /1/ in people, milk

All the regional types of British accents are characterized by a narrower (compared with RP) pitch range which gives the effect of more levelled-out, monotonous speech. The most common pitch patterns are level and rising-falling. The former is especially common for Irish speech, while the latter is a feature of Scottish intonation. In big cities, such as Edinburgh in Scotland and Cardiff in Wales, educated people show a specific combination of Gaelic (Celtic by origin) and English intonation patterns when they start a tone group with a very high rise-falling tone and then drop to a mid-level continuation. Russian learners of English also do the same in reading an English text but manage to drop their pitch level still lower, to the very bottom of the pitch range, then rise again. The fine perturbations of pitch show, as we can see, habitual norms in speech melody. RP is unique in having a very wide pitch range and smoothly, gradually descending pitch pattern, at least in reading and formal speech. Regional speech is described as monotone because of its narrow pitch range.