- •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
12. Methods of phonological analysis
The aim of phonological analysis is to establish distinctive difference between sounds, create the inventory of the phonemes and describe the phonemic system of a language. In other words, the aim of phonological analysis is the identification of the phonemes and their classification.
Each language has its own system of phonemes. Each member of the system is determined by all the other members and does not exist without them. The linguistic value of articulatory and acoustic qualities of sounds is not identical in different languages. In one language community two physically different units are identified as "the same" sound, because they have
similar functions in the language system. In another language community they may be classified as different because they perrorm a distinctive function. English speakers are not aware of the difference (of some similar phonemes) because it is of no importance in the communication process.
So the aim of the phonological analysis is, firstly, to determine which differences of sounds are phonemic and which are non-phonemic and, secondly, to find the inventory of the phonemes of a language.
There are two main approaches to phonological analysis. Formally distributional approach1 (распределительный подход) practised by American structuralists is focused on the position of the sound in the word, or its distribution. Semantic method2 attaches special importance to meaning. It is widely used in this country.
Distributional method of phonological analysis.
The formally distributional method consists in grouping all the sounds pronounced by native speakers into phonemes according to the two laws of phonemic and allophonic distribution. The laws were discovered long ago and are as follows:
1. Allophones of different phonemes occur in the same phonetic context.
2. Allophones of the same phoneme never occur in the same phonetic context.
Two conclusions follow:
I. If more or less different sounds occur in the same phonetic context they should be allophones of different phonemes. In this case their distribution is contrastive. (контрастная дистрибуция)
2. If more or less similar sounds occur in different positions and never occur in the same phonetic context they are allophones of one and the same phoneme. In this case their distribution is complementary. (дополнительная дистрибуция)
There is another method of phonological analysis widely used in Russian linguistics. It is called the semantically distributional method or semantic method. It is applied for phonological analysis of both unknown languages and languages already described. It is widely used in this country.
Semantic method attaches special importance to meaning. The analysis is performed through the system of phonological oppositions. It is based on the following fundamental phonological rule: phonemes can distinguish the meaning (words and morphemes) when opposed to one another in the same phonetic context ( day – they, sheep – ship). So to establish the phonemic status of a sound it is necessary to oppose one sound to some other sound in the same phonetic context. This procedure is called commutation test.
To conduct this test we must find the so-called minimal pairs. A minimal pair is a pair of words which differ in one sound only. So we replace one sound by another sound and try to find out if the opposed sounds belong to the same or different phonemes.
Now, the commutation test may have three possible results:
1. Pin – sin | the meaning is different so the opposed sounds belong to different phonemes.
2. P(h)in – pin | the meaning is the same so the opposed sounds belong to the same phoneme.
3. Pin – hin | we have a meaningless word, so we can’t make any conclusion about the phonemic status of the second sound, we can’t identify it.
It should be noted that there are different types of oppositions.
If the members of the opposition differ in one articulatory feature the opposition is called single.
Pen – ben | [p] is fortis (voiceless), [b] is lenis (voiced).
If there are two distinctive features, the opposition is double.
Pen – den | [p] is labial, fortis, [b] is forelingual, lenis.
If three distinctive features are marked, the opposition is triple (multiple).
Pen –then | the differentiating features: occlusive – constrictive, labial – interdental, fortis – lenis.