Учебное пособие 1771

Scientific Journal “Modern Linguistic and Methodical-and-Didactic Researches” Issue № 3 (18), 2017 ISSN 2587-8093

(Wie teuer ist jene Uhr?) NOM = Nominativmarker GEN = Genitivmarker INT = Interrogativmarker

Lee (1996, 40) interpretiert die Verwendung des Ko-Morphems dahingehend, dass der Sprecher durch die Verwendung dieses Morphems auf einen Gegenstand verweise, dessen Position durch ihn selbst determiniert werde, während die Verwendung des So-Morphems markiere, dass sich der thematisierte Gegenstand in der Nähe des Angesprochenen befinde.

Die Verwendung des A-Morphems in dem Satz

weist nach Lee (1996, 41) darauf hin, dass die in der Äußerung thematisierte Uhr sich sowohl vom Kunden als auch vom Verkäufer entfernt, außerhalb des Bereichs der Sprechsituation befindet.

Dem japanischen Ko-So-A-System entspricht das ebenfalls triadische i-ku-ce-System des Koreanischen. Während das i-Morphem auf die Position des Sprechers verweist, ist die ku- Deixis auf die Position des Angesprochenen bezogen (vgl. Lee 1996, 44). Die ce-Deixis befindet sich, analog zur A-Deixis im Japanischen, außerhalb des Bereichs der Sprechsituation, aber innerhalb des Blickfelds von Sprecher und Hörer.

4 . D e r R e l a t i v s at z i m J a p a n i s c h e n

Lehmann (1984, 70) beschreibt das Japanische als eine suffigierend-agglutinierende SOV-Sprache. Ein Satzende mit dem Verb und alle Modifikationen sowie der Objektsatz würden vorangestellt. Anstelle von Präpositionen existierten Postpositionen, und Konjunktionen würden ebenfalls nachgestellt. Die Kasusmorpheme könnten auch enklitisch an eingebettete Sätze angeschlossen werden. Die Satzkonstruktion sei weitgehend akkusativisch und das Verb flektiere nach Honorativstufen (Honorifika).

Die Einbettung eines Relativsatzes sei durch seine Stellung vor dem Bezugsnomen bezeichnet:

Scientific Journal “Modern Linguistic and Methodical-and-Didactic Researches” Issue № 3 (18), 2017 ISSN 2587-8093

→Dies ist der Mann, der ein Buch geschrieben hat. (Lehmann 1984, 70)

Für den Nukleus gelte, dass dieser im Allgemeinen keinen Repräsentanten im Nebensatz aufweise und die syntaktische Funktion im Relativsatz nicht ausgedrückt werden könne.

Mary-ga John-o sasi-ta naihu.

John-ga Mary-o syookaisi-ta isya

→Arzt, dem Hans Maria vorstellte. (Lehmann 1984, 70)

Im Relativsatz könne der Nukleus allerdings dann in Gestalt eines Determinators vertreten sein, wenn er als Genitivattribut auftrete.

Maria, deren Freund Thomas traf, ist dort.

Eine zweite Möglichkeit des Auftretens eines Nukleus in Gestalt eines Determinators bestehe in seinem Vorkommen als Komplement eines Postpositionalsyntagmas.

Tier, um das Kinder sich gesammelt hatten. (Lehmann 1984, 70)

5.Fazit

15

Scientific Journal “Modern Linguistic and Methodical-and-Didactic Researches” Issue № 3 (18), 2017 ISSN 2587-8093

Beim Japanischen handelt es sich um eine agglutinierende euroasiatische Sprache, die eine Verwandtschaft zum Altaischen und Uralischen aufweist. Die japanische Sprache gilt als eine weitgehend Topik-prominente Sprache, in der die Topik-Kommentar-Struktur eines Satzes hervorgehoben ist. Ähnlich wie das Koreanische verfügt auch das Japanische über ein komplexes Honorativsystem zur Markierung der personalen Deixis. Grammatisch konventionalisierte Respektsund Unterwüfigkeitssignale markieren das Verhältnis zwischen den Kommunikationsteilnehmern. Die zum Ausdruck gebrachte Höflichkeit kann entweder partneroder stoffbezogen sein. Bei letzterer markiert ein Sprecher durch seine höfliche Referenz auf Dinge und Gegenstände seine Höflichkeit gegenüber dem Gesprächsteilnehmer.

Hinsichtlich der Markierung der lokalen Deixis zeigt sich im Japanischen eine besondere Nähe-Ferne-Markierung. Anders als bei der dualen Gliederung der Lokaldeixis im Englischen und Deutschen (here-there, hier-dort) besteht im Japanischen ein Triadensystem, in dem zwischen Proximaldeixis, Medialdeixis und Distaldeixis unterschieden wird (Ko-So-A-System). Die Morpheme Ko, So und A dienen dabei zur Markierung der räumlichen Distanz.

Obwohl es sich beim Japanischen um eine suffigierend-agglutinierende SOV-Sprache handelt, werden Modifikationen aller Art in einem Satz vorangestellt. Auch die Einbettung eines Relativsatzes ist durch seine Stellung vor dem Bezugsnomen gekennzeichnet. Der Nukleus weist im Allgemeinen keinen Repräsentanten im Nebensatz auf. Im Relativsatz kann der Nukleus in Form eines Determinators repräsentiert sein, wenn er als Genitivattribut oder aber als

Komplement eines Postpositionalsyntagmas auftritt.

Bibliographic list

(References are given in the author's view)

[1]Abraham, Werner: „Zweitspracherwerb und Deixis. Die Interaktion von Pragmatik und Syntax im universellen Grundmuster der Verben kommen und gehen“. In: Grazer Linguistische Studien 41 (1994), 1-18.

[2]Benedict, Paul K.: Japanese/Austro-Tai. Ann Arbor: Karoma 1990.

[3]Green, G.M.: Pragmatics and natural language understanding. Hillsdale/New Jersey 1989.

[4]Hoeksema, Jack: „The Head Parameter in Morphology and Syntax”. Vortrag auf dem holländischen Morphologie-Tag in Utrecht und am Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik in Nimwegen: (Frühjahr 1990).

[5]Kamei, Takashi: The relationship of Japanese to the other languages of East Asia. To-

kyo 1961.

[6]Lee, Nam-Seok: Deixis und Honorifica. Allgemeine deiktische Phänomene und die pragmatische Komponente des Koreanischen. Tübingen 1996.

[7]Lewin, Bruno: Japanese and Korean: The problems and history of a linguistic comparison. Journal of Japanese Studies 1976, 2 (2): 389-412.

[8]Li, Charles N.; Thompson, Sandra A.: "Subject and Topic: A New Typology of Language". In: Charles N. Li. Subject and Topic. New York 1976, 457–489.

[9]Ohno, Susumu: Nihongo no seiritsu (The formation of Japanese). Tokyo 1980.

[10]Ono, Susumo: Nihongo o sakanoboru. Tokyo 1983.

[11]Polivanov, E.D.: One of the Japanese-Malayan parallels (1918).

[12]Shibatani, Masayoshi: The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press 1990.

[13]Yamashita, Hitoshi: „Höflichkeitsstile im Deutschen und Japanischen“. In: HeinzHelmut Lüger (Hrsg.): Höflichkeitsstile. Frankfurt am Main 2001, 315-334.

16

Scientific Journal “Modern Linguistic and Methodical-and-Didactic Researches” Issue № 3 (18), 2017 ISSN 2587-8093

UDC 811.111

THE FUNCTIONAL ASPECT OF INTONATION IN BUSINESS DISCOURSE

E.N. Malyuga

____________________________________________________________________________

Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University)

D.Sc. in Philology, Professor, Head of Foreign Languages Department, Faculty of Economics Elena Nikolaevna Malyuga

e-mail: malyuga_en@pfur.ru

____________________________________________________________________________

Statement of the problem. The article is devoted to the study of the pragmatic function of intonation in the context of business discourse. The intonation contours of British and American businessmen are analysed in the lecture register. The issue of exemplary intonation is considered, and speech of lecturers is analysed with the help of Speech Analyzer software.

Results. In the framework of British English public speech, the lecture register commonly incorporates the following contours: High Level + Fall-Rise, Low Level + Low Rise, Low Level + Fall-Rise, Low Level + Low Rise, and High Level + Fall-Rise. Thus, it seems possible to reduce the intonation of the lecture register of business speech to a limited number of intonation contours.

Conclusions. The pragmatic function of intonation as a component of business discourse implies transformation of words into communicative units (utterance) that can convey the speaker’s communicative intention. Businessmen need to master a set of intonation contours, as their correct use contributes to the appropriate formulation of utterances in terms of linguistic, situational and pragmatic contexts.

Keywords: intonation contour, business discourse, pragmatic function of intonation, speech of businessmen.

Introduction. The issues of English intonation have been one of the central subjects of phoneticians’ research for a long time now. However, a lot of questions pertaining to this field of study remain controversial and unclear, which is mainly due to the lack of a systemised theoretical basis that could be used to easily explain the facts retrieved by intonologists. This has a lot to do with the multifunctional nature of intonation and its orientation towards the reflection of an individual’s emotional-volitional perceptions [1].

Intonation analysis commonly involves the study of speech melody, pauses, the system of stress allocation within a sentence, as well as the features of intentional pretext, rhythm, volume, tempo and timbre evidenced in an utterance. Yet some of these intonation components have not received comprehensive coverage. While scholars have focused extensively on speech melody and stress, some other aspects, such as intentionality and pragmatic implications of the intonation contours used by the speaker, can be considered understudied. It hasn’t been until quite recently that these issues have been subjected to some productive analysis that has yielded significant results.

The issues associated with the implementation of specific intonation contours in business discourse have been gaining ground in recent years [2; 3]. At the same time, the emphasis has shifted to the peculiarities of the pragmatic consequences proceeding from the choice of specific intonation contours in the framework of business communication.

The present article aims to study the pragmatic function of intonation in the context of business discourse, which encompasses a variety of intonation contours used by business partners to address specific communicative tasks and achieve specific pragmatic effect.

__________________

© Malyuga E.N., 2017

17

Scientific Journal “Modern Linguistic and Methodical-and-Didactic Researches” Issue № 3 (18), 2017 ISSN 2587-8093

The issues associated with the intonational sentence arrangement are considered key problems in the framework of contemporary language studies. While scholars formerly focused on specific situations to provide their phonetic description [4], they are now more often than not resorting to specialised analysis in an attempt to offer a systemic account of phonetic phenomena observed in various languages [5]. In particular, there arises a need to address a number of questions in order to define the basic features and place of intonation in business discourse. To pursue this line of research, one will have to consider applicable methods of intonation analysis.

Scientific representation of intonation is first of all aimed at characterising the phonological system of intonation mechanisms found in specific languages, and implies defining its functions. One of the fundamental functions of intonation is the pragmatic function that allows the participants of business communication to ‘regulate the process of communication and coordinate joint efforts through the speech they produce’ [6, p. 58].

While native speakers will commonly find it easy to perceive the interrelation between the intonational characteristics of their mother tongue and the corresponding pragmatic implications, for a foreigner any attempt to adequately capture the intricacies of intonational structures is more often than not associated with a number of significant challenges hindering communication [7].

The analysis of mechanisms that underlie the intonational arrangement of an utterance is a demanding process, because whenever assessment of intonational parameters is concerned, one will have to take into account the speakers’ personal characteristics, including their sex, age, emotional state, geographical background determining the specific features of dialects being used, etc. [8].

In the framework of pragmatic research, such analysis is designed to identify the intentions determining the choice of specific intonation structures, which, in its turn, allows to not only register the differences between the intonational peculiarities associated with the speaker’s personal characteristics, but also detect differences between the intonational features inherent in a particular language in general. Corpus pragmatics is an efficient instrument that can be used to describe intonation and define the general patterns of intonational arrangement of utterances within specific speech registers [9].

Studying intonation contours typical of a specific language, one will have to consider grammatical, pragmatic, and emotive components of analysis. Intonational and lexicalgrammatical structures interact differently in different languages [10]. For example, a native speaker of English, which rhythmical organisation is based on syllabic utterance arrangement, will most probably encounter difficulties speaking a language, where the rhythm of speech depends on the way stressed elements are being distributed within the utterance [11].

The way the pragmatic implications of business discourse are being understood and interpreted largely depends on the choice of intonation contours, which fact often complicates the process of assimilation of foreign intonation structures. For example, it is quite common for a person to assimilate only a limited number of intonation contours, which he or she would later on use almost exclusively while speaking a foreign language [12].

Any change in the structure of intonational arrangement of an utterance, which might at first glance seem insignificant, triggers modifications in both the semantic and pragmatic content of the end message. Inaccurate choice of intonation contours may cause a communicative failure, thus entailing pragmatic consequences that would hinder business communication considerably.

Business partners who are native speakers can process lexical and contextual information, routinely choosing the most appropriate intonation contours in order to accomplish a planned communicative task in the framework of business discourse. The choice of intonation structures is in this case determined by prior experience and the skills of speech interaction [13].

18

Scientific Journal “Modern Linguistic and Methodical-and-Didactic Researches” Issue № 3 (18), 2017 ISSN 2587-8093

Methodology. When studying the intonation contours found in business discourse, the main line of research involves form-to-function analysis. However, in the course of such studies, a rational alternative would be to combine such approach with the inverse procedure of function-to-form-analysis [14].

As to the methodology of research to be applied in investigating the pragmatic function of intonation as a component of business discourse, it is imperative to evaluate two aspects – instrumental and acoustic [15]. When it comes to the analysis of the pragmatic function of intonation realised in the framework of business discourse, instrumental data appear especially efficient if the research implies assessment of such data from the perspective of the function and significance of various components found within the language system in general [16].

We believe that the issue of role-model intonation (its norm or its standard) should be addressed in the same way one would handle the issue of pronunciation norm in general, i.e. it shouldn’t be investigated based on statistical data averaging, but should rather be approached based on a conscious choice of exemplary patterns. In case of our study, such exemplary patterns are represented by the intonation of British and American businessmen who possess considerable lecturing experience and whose speech is widely accepted as correct and expressive. For this purpose, the available material was processed and analysed using Speech Analyzer – a computer programme for acoustic analysis of speech sounds.

The obtained findings are presented in the form of the main intonation contours found in the same speech register – namely, the register of public speech. Holding a public lecture featuring some pre-arranged material is associated with a specific speech situation, which most comprehensively corresponds to the tasks of this research:

firstly, it is in this particular register that sense groups establish various sequences of various length;

secondly, the boundaries of the sense groups can in this case be defined rather accurately;

thirdly, it is this speech register that is supposed to be characterised by relatively stable intonation contours [17].

Results. Based on the analysis conducted, we can state that in terms of the speech register concerned in this study, the general range of tone change is practically the same with British and American businessmen. In the framework of BrE public speech, the lecture register commonly uses the High Level + Fall-Rise:

(British English) It is interesting to know that nowadays most companies use social media but it is not always clear why they do this.

Fig. 1.

19

Scientific Journal “Modern Linguistic and Methodical-and-Didactic Researches” Issue № 3 (18), 2017 ISSN 2587-8093

(American) Which is to write a short report on one of four themes.

Fig.2.

Contour: High Level + Fall-Rise:

(British English) I want to introduce you to a really interesting topic today.

Fig.3.

(American) It is important to remember that accounting is so important for a business.

20

Scientific Journal “Modern Linguistic and Methodical-and-Didactic Researches” Issue № 3 (18), 2017 ISSN 2587-8093

Fig.4.

These contours are commonly used to structure the intonation for declarative sentences. If only a single word is stressed in a sentence, it is this word that would assume the falling tone. The unstressed words preceding and following the stressed one will be pronounced at a low level. If, however, the sentence incorporates several stressed words, the falling tone will then be realised within the word carrying the fundamental semantic load. As a rule, this is the last stressed word in the sentence. However, in the English language one may find quite a lot of exceptions from this particular rule.

From the functional perspective, all falling tones are the same, which is mainly due to their structural similarity. In addition, speakers often use an interim falling tone, which can be attributed to the categories of both falling and high falling tones.

Contour: Low Level + Low Rise.

(British English) Let’s come back to these. Anyone else?

Fig.5.

(American) Ok, well today’s lecture is about employment law.

21

Scientific Journal “Modern Linguistic and Methodical-and-Didactic Researches” Issue № 3 (18), 2017 ISSN 2587-8093

Fig.6.

Fall-Rise bears greater functional load in public speech declarative sentences. The potential to express a variety of functions is determined by the very structure of the tone, i.e. availability of the falling element associated with completeness, definiteness, accentuation, on the one hand, and the rising element indicating incompleteness, uncertainty, doubt, etc., on the other [19].

Thus, Fall-Rise highlights a word in the sentence (in order to contrast this word or amplify its lexical meaning), and at the same time indicates that this sentence does not present a mere statement of facts, but contains a hint, which can usually be easily grasped in the context of a specific situation [20]. Let us call the first of the above functions the function of contrast, and the other – the function of appeal (since in the latter case the speaker is clearly trying to attract the listener’s attention to what is being said and encourage feedback).

Low Level + Fall-Rise is commonly used in interrogative sentences.

(British) You need to think about what performance priorities do we need to be good at?

Fig.7.

This contour can hardly be recommended for a businessman as a go-to intonation structure, because the entire set of meanings expressed by this contour is generally associated with disapproval that might have something to do with either the listener or the situation.

22

Scientific Journal “Modern Linguistic and Methodical-and-Didactic Researches” Issue № 3 (18), 2017 ISSN 2587-8093

Generally, the lecture register of AmE business discourse comprises Low Level + Low Fall and High Level + Fall-Rise tones. These can be described as somewhat monotonous.

(American) I’ll start with a few definitions and then we’ll use some case studies.

Fig.8.

(American) So, so part of this is, is the performance priorities.

Fig.9.

Based on the study conducted, we can affirm that intonation typical of the lecture register in business discourse can be reduced to a limited number of intonation contours. The cases that couldn’t be interpreted in the context of this speech register were scarce. All of these cases in the interpretation of English businessmen were associated with vivid emotional connotations that presented a deviation from the general emotional tone, which the experts defined as ‘calm’, ‘categorical’ and ‘confident’.

With the intonation contours found in business discourse, prosodic contrasts and oppositions are highlighted, which facilitates speech perception, i.e. such words as the other, another, secondly, different prompt emphasis (High Fall, Fall-Rise or the rising tone, etc.). Besides, there is a group of emphatic constructions that are used specifically for the purposes of intensification of meaning: completely, absolutely, unbelievably, etc. In addition, some words suggest the simplest types of figurativeness (for example, limit, finiteness, depth) and are accentuated by the falling tone.

23