3. Інтонаційна система сучасної англійської мови. Структура інтонаційних одиниць. Функції інтонації

Intonation is the way in which the level of the voice changes in order to add meaning to what is being said. The level of a person's voice is changed to show different attitudes, for example to show sarcasm, impatience, anger, or disbelief. It is the "music" of a language. It is perhaps the most important element of a correct accent.

Components of intonation:

On the perceptual level, sentence intonation is a complex unity of 4 components, formed by communicatively relevant variations in:

1. Voice pitch, or speech melody;

2. The prominence of words, or their accent;

3. Tempo (rate), rhythm and pausation of the utterance;

4. Voice-timber.

All the components of intonation, though in different degree, take part in shaping a sense-group or a tone-group or the tone-unit. A tone-unit is the phonological unit greater in size than the syllable, and it is the basic unit of intonation. In its smallest form a tone-unit may consist of only one syllable so it would in fact be wrong to say that it is always composed of more than one syllable. A syllable which carries a tone is called a tonic syllable or nucleus.

Tone is a pitch contour that begins on an accented syllable and continues to the end of a tone group: that is, up to but not including the next stressed syllable. Simple tones move only in one direction: fall and rise. Conventionally, the structure of a tone-unit/intonation pattern or tune is made up of the following components:

− a nucleus or tonic syllable (an obligatory element) – carried by the stressed syllable of the most important word in the utterance.

− a pre-nuclear component part (non-obligatory) consisting of an optional head (that part of a tune starting with the first accented syllable and continuing up to the nucleus) and a pre-head (all the unaccented syllables before a head).

- a post-nuclear part (optional) - called tail which usually consists of the unstressed syllables after the nucleus. Sometimes a tail can contain stressed words but without pitch change as in Well, ‘say something, then!

Functions of Intonation:

1. Constituting function- intonation carries a sentence

2. Delimiting function- intonation shows if something is finished or not (i.e. a falling nucleus in counting)

3. Accentual function - pitch gives prominence to a syllable

4. The function of showing meaning: grammatical or semantic meaning

5. Attitudinal function- intonation expresses an attitude of the speaker

6. Grammatical function - to identify grammatical structure

7. Focusing - to show what information in the utterance is new and what is already known

8. Discourse function - to show how clauses and sentences go together in spoken discourse

9. Psychological function - to organize speech into units that are easy to perceive, memorize and perform.

4. Сучасний стандарт англійської мови. Соціолінгвістичні фактори варіантності вимови.

The four components of the phonetic structure of any language (phonemic, syllabic, accentual and intonational) constitute its pronunciation. One of the things that everybody knows about languages is that they have different accents. Languages are pronounced differently by people from different geographical places, from different social classes, of different ages and different educational backgrounds. All the national variants of the English language have very much in common but they differ from standard pronunciation governed by the orthoepic norm. It is the pronunciation of the educated circles. It is used by radio and television, and is regionally neutral. But only 5 per cent speak RP. In the British Isles the regional types of the English language are: 1) the Southern English; 2) the Northern English and 3) the Standard Scottish; Welsh and Northern Ireland English. In the United States of America the regional types of the American variant of the English language are: 1) the Eastern type; 2) the Southern type; 3) the General American type.

The social standard within Britain is the so-called Received Pronunciation or RP. It is the teaching norm at schools and higher learning establishments because of 1) the degree of understandability in English-speaking countries, 2) the extent of RP investigation, 3) the number of textbooks and audio-visual aids. Prof. Gimson speaks about 3 types of RP: 1) conservative used by older generation and, traditionally, by certain professions or social groups (lawyers, priests); 2) general most common in use and typified by the pronunciation adopted by the BBC; 3) advanced used by young people of exclusive social groups – mostly of the upper classes, but also for prestige value, in certain professional circles. Differences between these types lie in the system of vowels.

In the United States of America the most wide-spread type is General American. Like RP in Great Britain GA in America is the social standard: it is regionally neutral, it is used by radio and TV, in scientific and business discourse, it is spoken by educated Americans.

Some peculiarities in the pronunciation:

/r/ - this sound is one of the most characteristic of GA pronunciation. /r/ is more sonorant in GA than in RP. When preceded by /t, d, θ, ʃ/ is pronounced with an audible friction. GA /r/ is pronounced not only initially but also before a consonant and in the word final position, e.g. /fɒ^rm, bɜ^rd, sistə^r/.

Most of the GA speakers use the dark /l/ in all positions: initially, medially and finally.

/h/ - voiced in intervocalic position; lost initially in unstressed or weak forms within a phrase.

/ju/ may change into /tʃ/, /dʒ/ in due, tune.

/ɛ/ lower than RP /e/.

/æ/ - long, mostly nasalized, may turn into /e/ as in marry, carry. /æ/ may be used instead of /a:/ as in ask, past, dance.

/∧/ turns into /ɜ^r/, e.g. /hɜ^ri/ - hurry.

/ɑ/ instead of /ɔ/ as in doll, hop, rob, quality.