1. Phonetic transcription - a transcription intended to represent each distinct speech sound with a separate symbol. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet. Most phonetic transcription is based on the assumption that linguistic sounds are segmentable into discrete units than can be represented by symbols. There are two general types of alphabetic phonetic transcription: broad transcription and narrow transcription. Broad transcription is usually just a transcriptions of the phonemes of an utterance, whereas narrow transcription encodes information about the phonetic variations of the specific allophones in the utterance. Phonetic transcription should be enclosed in square brackets ("[ ]"). A transcription that specifically denotes only phonological contrasts may be enclosed in slashes ("/ /") instead. If you are in doubt, it is best to use brackets, for by setting off a transcription with slashes you are making a theoretical claim that every symbol within is phonemically contrastive for the language you are transcribing.

For phonetic transcriptions, there is flexibility in how closely you transcribe sounds. A transcription that gives only a basic idea of the sounds of a language in the broadest terms is called a "broad transcription"; in some cases this may be equivalent to a phonemic transcription (only without any theoretical claims). A close transcription, indicating precise details of the sounds, is called a "narrow transcription". These are not binary choices, but the ends of a continuum, with many possibilities in between. All are enclosed in brackets.There are also several possibilities in how to transcribe the word phonemically, but here the differences are not of precision, but of analysis. For example, pretzel could be /ˈprɛtsl/ or /ˈpretsəl/. The special symbol for English r is not used, for it is not meaningful to distinguish it from a rolled r. The differences in the letter e reflect claims as to what the essential difference is between the vowels of pretzel and pray; there are half a dozen ideas in the literature as to what this may be. The second transcription claims that there are two vowels in the word, even if they can't both be heard, while the first claims there is only one.

Occasionally a transcription will be enclosed in pipes ("| |"). This goes beyond phonology into morphological analysis. For example, the words cats and dogs could be transcribed phonetically as [kʰæʔs] and [d̥ɑgz], and phonemically as /kats/ and /dɑgz/. Because /s/ and /z/ are separate phonemes in English (unlike Spanish, for example), they received separate symbols in the phonemic analysis.

In iconic phonetic notation, the shapes of the phonetic characters are designed so that they visually represent the position of articulators in the vocal tract. This is unlike alphabetic notation where the correspondence between character shape and articulator position is arbitrary. This notation is potentially more flexible than alphabetic notation in showing more shades of pronunciation (MacMahon 1996:838-841). An example of iconic phonetic notation is the Visible Speech system created by Scottish phonetician, Alexander Melville Bell.

Another type of phonetic notation that is more precise than alphabetic notation is analphabetic phonetic notation. Instead of both the alphabetic and iconic notational types' general principle of using one symbol per sound, analphabetic notation uses long sequences of symbols to precisely describe the component features of an articulatory gesture (MacMahon 1996:842-844). This type of notation is reminiscent of the notation used in chemical formulas to denote the composition of chemical compounds. Although more descriptive than alphabetic notation, analphabetic notation is less practical for many purposes (e.g. for descriptive linguists doing fieldwork or for speech pathologists impressionistically transcribing speech disorders). As a result, this type of notation is uncommon.

Two examples of this type were developed by the Danish Otto Jespersen (1889) and American Kenneth Pike (1943). Pike's system is particularily interesting in its challenge against the descriptional method of the phoneticians who created alphabetic systems.

In Pike's notation there are 5 main components (which are indicated using the example above):

M - manner of production ( i.e., MaIlDe )

C - manner of controlling ( i.e., CVoeIpvnn )

description of stricture ( i.e., APpaatdtltnransnsfSpvavdtlvtnransssfTpgagdtlwvtitvransnsf )

S - segment type ( i.e., Srp )

F - phonetic function ( i.e., FSs )

2. Function of stylistic that investigates speech on the level of phonetics is called phonostylistics. It studies the functional differentiation of pronunciation.

It studies the way phonetic means function in various in extra-linguistic situations. Extra-linguistic situation determines the functional differentiation of pronunciation.

The extra-linguistic situation includes all the factors that form and modify phonetic styles. It can be defined by 3 components purpose, participants and setting. The purpose directs the activity of the participants. We never fail to guess what the person is doing instructing us or amusing. Each of these variations makes a speaker select a number of functional phonetic means to make the realization of the aim more objective. Analysing the purpose we should mention the general activity type and the subject matter. The subject matter may be the same. Ex.: Literature. Usual talk. But the general activity type is different.

Speaking about the participants we should take into account following: 1. Age, 2. Sex, 3. Emotional state. Speaking about setting it is important to take into consideration: 1). The number of the participants involved into communication. The speech may be public or private, impersonal or personal, high-cultured or low-cultured. As for the form of communication it may be a monologue or a dialogue.

The degree of formality should also be mentioned. Speech may be formal or informal, prepared or half-prepared, spontaneous.

3. The phoneme theory and its main trends

The founder of the Phoneme Theory was the Russian scientist Boudoin-de-Courtenay who was the head of the Kazan Linguistic School. He defined the phoneme as a physical image of a sound. He also regarded phonemes as fictitious units and considered them to be only perceptions. This approach is called mentalistic/ physical.

Ferdinand de Saussure viewed phonemes as the sum of acoustic impressions and articulatory movements. He also viewed phonemes as disembodied units of the language formed by the differences separating the acoustic image of one sound from the rest of the units. Language in his opinion contains nothing but differences. This approach is called abstractional.

Trubetskoy (the head of the Prague Linguistic School) defined the phoneme as a unity of phonologically relevant features. Relevant feature is the feature without which we can’t distinguish one phoneme from another. This approach is called functional.

Phonemes can be neutralized. In this case we receive an archi-phoneme. That is a unity of relevant features common to both phonemes. In case of archiphoneme we cannot distinguish one phoneme from another. Thus the distinctive function of the phoneme is lost.

Another kind of approach to the nature of the phoneme was expressed by a British scholar, the head of the London School of Phonology, Daniel Jones. He defined the phoneme as a family of sounds.

The American Linguistic School (Blumfield, Sapir) defined the phoneme as a minimum unit of distinctive sound features and as abstractional unit.

The materialistic approach was expressed by Leo Tsherba. Academician Tsherba defined the phoneme as a real independent distinctive unit which manifests itself in the form of its allophones. This approach comprises the abstract, the functional.

5. English-based pronunciation standarts of English. Received pronuncation.

British E Pronunciation Standards and Accents(BEPS) comprise English English(EE), Welsh English(WE), Scottish English(ScE) and Northern Ireland English(NIE).

EE: roughly speaking the non-RP accents of E may be grouped like this:

1. Southern accents

1)Southern accents (Great London, Cockey, Surray, Kent, Essex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire);

2)East Anglia accents (Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire);

3)South-West accents (Gloucestershire, Avon, Somerset, Wiltshire).

2. Northern and Midland accents.

1) Northern accents (Northumberland, Durham, Cleveland)

2) Yorkshire accents:

3)North-West accents (Lancashire, cheshire)

4)West Midland (Birmingham,Wolverhampton)

Received Pronunciation A pronunciation model is a carefully chosen and defined accent of a language. In the nineteenth century Received Pronunciation (RP) was a social marker, a prestige accent of an Englishman. "Received" was understood in the sense of "accepted in the best society". The speech of aristocracy and the court phonetically was that of the London area. Then it lost its local characteristics and was finally fixed as a ruling-class accent, often referred to as "King's English". It was also the accent taught at public schools. With the spread of education cultured people not belonging to upper classes were eager to modify their accent in the direction of social standards. A more broadly-based and accessible model accent for British English is represented in the 15th (1997) and the 16th (2003) editions – ВВС English. This is the pronunciation of professional speakers employed by the BBC as newsreaders and announcers. Of course, one finds differences between such speakers - they have their own personal characteristics, and an increasing number of broadcasters with Scottish, Welsh and Irish accents are employed. On this ground J.C. Wells (Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 33rd edition - 2000) considers that the term BBC pronunciation has become less appropriate. According to J.C. Wells, in England and Wales RP is widely regarded as a model for correct pronunciation, particularly for educated formal speech.

6. Functional aspect of speech sounds.

Ph studies sounds as articulatory and acoustic units, phonology investigates sounds as units which serve communicative purposes. The unit of phonetics is a speech sound, the unit of phonology is a phoneme. Phonemes can be discovered by the method of minimal pairs. This method consists in finding pairs of words which differ in 1 phoneme, e.g. if we replace [b] by [t] in the word ban we produce a new word tan, ban-tan is a pair of words distinguished in meaning by a single sound change. 2 words of this kind are termed minimal pairs.

The phonemes of a lang form a system of oppositions, in which any one phoneme is usually opposed to any other phoneme in at least 1 position.

The founder of the phoneme theory was Baudouin de Courteney. His theory of phoneme was developed and perfected by Shcherba, who stated that in actual speech we utter a much greater variety of sounds than we are aware of, and that in every lang these sounds are united in a comparatively small number of sound types, which are capable of distinguishing the meaning and the form of words. It is these sound types that should be included into the classification of phonemes and studied as differentiatory units of the lang. The actually pronounced speech sounds are variants or allophones of phonemes. Allophones are realized in concrete words. They have phonetic similarity, at the same time they differ in some degree and are incapable of differentiating words, e.g. in speech we pronounce not the sound type [t] which is asperated, alveolar, forelingual, apical, occlusive, plosive, voiceless-fortis – according to the classificatory definition, but one of its variants, e.g. labialized in the word twice, dental in the word nineth, post-alveolar in try and so on. The number of sound types, or phonemes, in each lang is much smaller than the number of sounds actually pronounced.

Phonemic variants or allophones are very important for lang teaching, their mispronunciation doesn’t influence the meaning of the words, their misuse makes a person’s speech sound as foreign.

The variants used in actual speech are called subsidiary. Susidiary allophones can be positional and combinatory. Posit alloph are used in certain positions traditionally. Combinatory allophones appear in the process of speech and result from the influence of the phoneme upon another.

Each phoneme manifests itself in a certain pattern of distribution. The simplest of them is free variation, that is the variation of one and the same phoneme pronounced differently. Complementary distribution is another pattern of phoneme environment, when one and the same phoneme occurs in a definite set of context in which no other phoneme ever occurs. Contrastive distribution is one more pattern of phoneme environment.

Minimal distinctive features are discovered through oppositions. This method helps to prove whether the phonemic difference is relevant or not, whether the opposition is single, double or multiple, [d], [t] have only one distinctively relevant feature – single opposition. If there are two distinctively relevant features, the opposition is double. Бодуэн-де-Куртене defined the phoneme as a physical image of a sound, he originated the so called “mentalist” view of the phoneme.