Lectures

1. You should notice the large amount of attention which the lecturer pays to the organization and presentation of his material. He spends a considerable amount of time on telling his audience what he is going to say, and how he is going to say it, and also reminding them of where he has got to, how he wishes them to take some of his points.

2. Lecturers have the choice of reading the whole of what they wish to say from the script, or of speaking with the aid of a set of notes. They may in addition to these two possibilities abandon any kind of written form whatsoever and speak entirely without notes.

3. No public speech is ever completely spontaneous, in the manner of conversation, since all such speeches, even those in which no notes are used, will have been to some extent prepared in advance.

4. Another common influence on public speakers comes from the fact that, if they are to do their job properly, they must take into account what they sound like to the audience. Certain requirements of clarity and audibility are difficult to escape, and the need to quite understanding by means of careful use of pause and intonation — what is usually called “timing” and “phrasing” — nearly always has some effects on the language use.

5. This attempt to control sound may be seen as a result of trying also to control the audience — or at least their attention. Another result of audience control is to be seen in the tendency to adopt “rhetorical” forms of speech, in which the listeners are addressed or questioned directly so as to persuade them that they are in contact with the speakers and to get them more readily round to his way of thinking. Another effective tool of controling the audience is the use of direct address.

6. The language of public speaking is often a language of addition. Extra facts and extra arguments are tagged on to those that have gone before — frequently in a similar grammatical form — so that a speaker may make point clearer by adding detail or more emphatic or persuasive by repeating it in a slightly different way.

The Intonational Peculiarities of Scientific Style

Attention is focused here on a lecture on a scientific subject and reading aloud a scientific prose. That is the type of speech that occurs in the written variety of language in prepared, public, formal discourse.

This style is usually used by university lecturers, school teachers or by scientists, it is manifested in academic and educational lectures, scientific discussions, at the conferences, seminars and in classes.

The lecturer’s purpose is:

1) to get the message of the lecture to the audience;

2) to attract and guide the attention of the audience;

3) to establish contact with the audience.

This aim is achieved with the help of intonational means.

Table 7

Phonostylistic characteristics	A lecture
timbre	authoritative, imposing, instructive, self-assured
loudness	increased, sometimes very loud
levels and ranges	remarkably varied, either diminished or increased
tempo	normal, slow on the most important parts of the lecture (rules, conclusions, examples). It is as flexible as the lecturer wishes it to be.
pauses	rather long, especially between phonopassages; hesitation pauses and breath-taking pauses are possible; are not always semantically predictable
rhythm	properly organized; alterating
terminal tones	High Fall + Low Rise; Fall-Rise; a great number of high categoric falls
pre-nuclear patterns	stepping and falling heads; alteration of ascending and descending scales

Phrases used at lessons, lectures:

1. for this reason, emphasis is (should be) given to...

2. In other words...

3. It is no wonder...

4. In addition...

5. It may be said that...

6. In the case of (English)...

7. If we are to examine...

8. Our primary concern will be...

9. It’s true to say...

10. It is well to remember...

11. The lecture is primarily concerned with...

12. It should be remembered...

13. I’d like to remind you first of all, listeners, about...

14. Well, now, today we are going...

15. And we must leave because our time is up...

16. In our next talk we shall have...

17. Is that quite clear, listeners?

18. Well, today we want to start talking about...

19. I expect some of the listeners are asking themselves what happens...

20. Last time, you may remember, listeners, we spoke about...

21. Listen closely...

22. There’s quite a lot more to say about the... but we shall leave it until next time.

23. I hope you understand...

24. I think we should explain a little more fully about... which is so important in, and rather difficult to understand.

25. And now our time is up. In our next talk we shall show you some of the ways which... Good-bye until then...

26. There are three points I’d like to make...

27. ...And another thing.

28. I propose to divide this course of lectures into three main sectors.

29. I could just point out, right at the beginning...

30. Now by the way of introduction, I’d like to try and give some indication of how...

31. Now in my next lecture I hope to demonstrate in detail... as we might call it...

32. But for the moment all I want you to do is to keep the fact of this (double...) in mind and to consider in a fairly general way what...

33. Well, the first consequence, I suppose, is that the importance of...

34. But in addition to this...

35. But now, before mentioning some of the other consequences — and there were many of them, some very important and some much less so — now I’d like you to consider what...

36. But it’s not (the...) that I’m concerned with just now — I shall go into this in greater detail later in the course...

37. So let me concentrate on the...

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