- •1. Phonetics as a branch of linguistics.
- •2. Phonetics and other disciplins.
- •3. The role of pronunciation in the process of communication.
- •4. The role of phonetics in foreign language teaching.
- •5. The material aspect of the phoneme
- •6. The abstract aspect of the phoneme
- •7. Phonetic transcription. What type of broad transcription is preferable for teaching pronunciation?
- •8. Which method of broad transcription do you prefer? why?
- •9. The functional aspect of the phoneme.
- •10. The conceptions of the phoneme.
- •11. Main trends in the phoneme theory
- •12. Methods of phonological analysis
- •13. Semantically-distributional method of establishing the phonemic status of speech sounds (I.E. Phonological analysis)
- •15. Degrees and position of word stress.
- •16. The definition of intonation. Components of intonation.
- •17.Intonation pattern and its components
- •18. Which component of the intonation pattern is the most important one? why? (то же самое)
- •19. View intonation on the functional level
- •20.Communicative function of intonation
- •21. The distinctive function of intonation
- •22. What kinds of meaning can be differentiated by the opposition of terminal tones?
- •23. The role of intonation in structuring the information content of the utterance.
- •24. Organizing function of intonation: delimitation and integration
- •25. Pragmatic function of intonation
- •26. Is intonation always in balance with the grammatical structure and word content?
- •27. Rhythm in english
- •28. Phonostylistics. Phonostylistic approach to the description of phonetic phenomena
- •29. Extralinguistic situation and its components
- •30. What extralinguistic factors play the leading role in phonetic styles formation?
- •31. Stylistic modifications of speech sounds
- •32. Which classification of phonetic styles do you prefer?
- •33. In which spheres of communication is informational style used? what are its main prosodic characteristics?
- •34. In which spheres of communication is academic style used? what are its main prosodic characteristics?
- •35. Rp as a pronunciation standard and teaching norm
- •New tendencies in the pronunciation of present day english
- •Intrusive “r”, inserted before a following vowel even though there is no “r” in spelling. (idea of, China and)
- •37. Principle types of pronunciation in britain
- •General american
6. The abstract aspect of the phoneme
Phonetics studies the sound system of the language. When we talk about the sounds of the language, we should understand that the term "sound" can be interpreted in two rather different ways.
For instance, if we say tie – die, we can see that there are two different sounds. The point is that they differ in the articulation and influence the meaning of the words, thus being functionally significant. But if we say let us – let them, the sounds differ in their articulation as well but they don't possess functional significance. That is why the linguist uses two separate terms: phoneme (in the first case) and allophone (the second case).
The phoneme is a minimal abstract language unit realized in speech in the form of speech sounds opposable to other phonemes of the same language to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and words. (the definition is based on the conception of Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba)
It is possible to single out three aspects of the phoneme. The aspects of the phoneme reflected in the definition are:
material
abstract (generalized)
functional
The abstract (generalized) aspect is reflected in the following part of the definition: ”the phoneme is a minimal abstract language unit”.
The phoneme belongs to the language, while the allophone belongs to the speech. Language is an abstract category, it is an abstraction from speech. Speech is the reality of language. Thus the phoneme as a language unit is materialized in speech sounds.
So the phoneme is an abstraction from speech sounds, it is also a generalization of actually pronounced speech sounds. A native speaker doesn’t pay attention to the difference between allophones of the same phoneme, he is not aware of the difference which doesn’t affect the meaning. The native speaker has a generalized idea of a complex of distinctive features, which can’t be changed without changing the meaning.
The invariant of the phoneme – a bundle of its distinctive features.
Relevant or distinctive features of the phoneme – the articulatory features that can’t be changed without the change of meaning. (thus, they form an invariant of the phoneme)
Non-distinctive (irrelevant, redundant) features of the phoneme – the articulatory features that do not serve to distinguish meaning. (for example, aspiration: we can't oppose an aspirated [p] to a non-aspirated one in the same phonetic context to distinguish meanings)
As for example we can analyse the English phoneme [d]. Its distinctive (relevant) features are occlusive, forelingual, lenis – they form the invariant of the phoneme [d]. Neither of these features can be changed without affecting the meaning:
occlusive [d] => constrictive [z]: breed – breeze;
forelingual [d] => backlingual [g]: dear – gear;
lenis [d] => fortis [t]: dry – try.
The native speaker generalizes these features (occlusive, forelingual and lenis) into the invariant of the phoneme [d].
We see that the phoneme is, on the one hand, objective and real, because it is realized in speech in the material form of speech sounds, and, on the other hand, it is an abstract language unit.