Ex: Dr.Jonson talks like a doctor → he is likely to be at hospital; at home – husband

Usually age of participants is also an important category. Age is associated with the role structure in the family and social groups. With authority and status. The speech behavior of a person not only conveys the information about his/ her own age but also about (the age) of listener.

Ex: Old people speak and are spoken to in a different way with young people. Elderly female – high pitch voice. We generally use higher pitch when talk to children.

The sex of the speaker is another factor which is included in a participant’s component. There is a tendency for women to produce more standard correct pronunciation, use more polite pattern of speech. Women tend to use certain intonation patterns that men usually not – “surprise” patterns (high pitch).

The emotional state of the speaker at the moment of speech production also reveals pronunciation markers.

3) It’s defined by several features:

Physical orientation of participants. This is determined by the activity they’re engaged in. While lecturing the speaker stands at some distance from the listeners. Speech over the phone and face-to-face communication is obviously phonologically different. Scenes may be arranged differently. Dimensions: polite-casual, high/low cultured, personal-public. In any case we may expect pronunciation features to be markers of the scene.

Variations of phonetic means. Constant features of the situational circumstances of this or that language event.

Extra-linguistic factors which result in phono-stylistic varieties:

1. the purpose/ aim of the utterance

2. the speaker’s attitude to the situation

3. the form of communication

4. the degree of formality

5. the degree of spontaneity (preparedness)

Reference of an oral text to a written one. They are interdependent and interconnected.

1. The aim that affects pronunciation. On the phonetic level. There’ve variations related to describe what language is being used in a situation (teaching, amusing…). Each variant makes the speaker select a number of functional phonetic means in order to make the realization of the aim more effective. In terms of phonostylistics we may analyze various phonetic ways of reflecting the speakers’ role in the situation.

2. A communicative situation is part of our everyday life situation. It’s natural for a language user to consider the situation from his own point of view, revealing his personal interest in what he’s saying. So its most common linguistic realization varieties which can be numerous like emotions.

3. Monologue – speaking by one individual in such a way as to exclude the possibility of interruption by others. If he’s speaking in such a way as to invite the participation of others – it’s a dialogue. From the linguistic point of view only one feature is relevant – the length of the utterance. Normally, monologues are more extended. Naturally, phonetic organization of either of the 2 varieties cannot be phonological.

4. The process of speaking is very often a recognition of social roles and relationships. The interaction of individuals depends on their accepting of the roles of social behavior. Formality results from mutual relations. Variations may range from extreme degree of formality to extreme degree of informality.

The influence of this factor upon the phonetic form of speech is revealed by variations of rate oа articulation. In a formal situations the speaker tends to make his speech distinct, thorough, precise. In informal – would prefer less explicite and more rapid form.

Speech may be public and non-public. Speech is qualified as public when a speaker is listened to by a group of people. Non-public communication occurres in face-to-face situations.

Linguistic realization of the formality on both segmental/ supersegmental segmental levels is very important. An unappropriate usage of intonation may give the wrong meaning.

In Russian: “До свидания” can be pronounced with low rise and low fall – neutral (correct). But in English: “Good bye” with low fall – rude, with rise – neutral (correct).

The types of speech situations which leads of spontaneous speech include: class-room teaching, TV, radio interviews, sport commentaries, conversation between experts. But although people whose profession are verbal have no written texts in front of them. Some elements of preparation and repeating.

• Fully-spontaneous utterance – verbal realization is taking place at the moment

• Fully-prepared utterance – prepared in advance, written text, it is actually read.

Thus, the primary distinction should be drawn between 2 kinds of speech: speaking and reading.

These two kinds of oral texts differ quite considerably in the way the phonetic means of the language are used. Speaking and reading being processes of communication – are two psychic processes. When a written text is being read aloud and the script had been prepared in advance, a reader need not think of what to say, how to shape the ideas into words, because the only thing he has to do is to make the graphic the symbols sound. The usage of phonetic means is characterized by a high degree of regularity – melodic, temoral, rhythmic organization is even, pauses are made within and between the sentences. The text sounds loud and distinct if it is read.

While spontaneous speech is taken place when no notes are used, the process of psychic activity consists of two equally important items:

1. searching information and the ways of expressing it verbally

2. the process of giving information

The speaker should choose an adequate linguistic form in order to express his ideas. So naturally the psychic mechanisms of generating the utterances are different. Thus phonetic means of the language are also used differently. the difference being the marker of the form of speech activity.

Characteristic of spontaneous speech – hesitation. When generating a text a speaker has no time to make sure of the correct form of the chosen expressions, because he is simultaneously planning what he’s going to say next and also monitoring what he’s saying. And the wording is taking place simultaneously with pronouncing.

The speaker hesitates to remember a further piece of information, to choose a correct word, a grammar structure and etc.

The phenomenon breaks regularity and evenness of phonetic form. And there appear micro pauses, pauses of different length and quality, lengthening of sounds within the words. A spontaneous text is characterized by a number of features both on segmental and supersegmental levels. Here we can speak about: assimilation, reduction, elision, uneven rhythm, abundance of pauses, varying loudness, narrow range of voice, varying tempo. All these features may be considered as the specific phonetic markers of a spontaneous text. A student of English should be specially taught such peculiarities. Otherwise the speech becomes unnatural.

These extralinguistic factors form a framework for the description of phonetic styles. In everyday life situations all of them are interconnected and interdependent and normally it’s a combination of several of them that determines this or that phonetic style.

Certain non-linguistic factors can be correlated with variations of phonetic means.

Problem of classification of phonetic styles

One of them is belonging to Гайдучик (Минск). He distinguishes 5 phonetic styles:

• solemn

• scientific-business

• official-business

• everyday

• familiar

These styles are differentiated on the basis of spheres of discourse.

One more classification (Дубовский):

• informal-ordinary

• formal-neutral

• formal official

• informal-familiar

• declamatory

This division is based on different degrees of formality between the speaker and the listener. The approach of “Moscow phonetic school” is a bit different. Thus, Moscow phoneticians assume that there are 5 intonational styles single out according to the purpose of communication:

• informational – it is used in a very formal discourse. The main purpose of the speaker is to communicate information without giving it any emotional evaluation. It’s considered to be a stylistically more or less neutral style. It is used by radio and TV announces, when reading news programmes, weather forecast or in various official situations.

• academic (scientific) – the speaker’s purpose is not only to present certain scientific information, but also to direct the listener’s attention to the message. It used by lectures, school teachers, scientists.

• publicistic – aim is to exert influence n the listener, to convince the listener that the speaker’s interpretation is the only correct one and to cause him to accept his point of view expressed in the speech, to make the listener react in a particular manner. This task is accomplished not only through logical argumentation, but more often through persuasion and emotional appeal. It is used by political speech makers during congresses, conferences

• declamatory (artistic) – the speaker’s aim is to appeal simultaneously to the mind, the will and feelings of the listener by image-baring devices. Declamatory style is acquired by specific/ special training. It is used in stage-speech, classroom recitations (публичные чтения) or reading aloud fiction.

• conversational (familiar) – непринуждённый – the language of everyday communication. It occurs both within a family group and in any informal relationships.

Any style is rarely realized in its pure form. Each generated text often includes phonetic features of different styles. We can speak about overlapping (fusion) of styles. Practically no style occurs for a lengthy period of time without incursions of some other style. So phonetic styles are related to social-setting and circumstances. We speak differently in different situation (chatting, talking to a friend or to the teacher). In real life we can use a collection of styles because the choice of a speech style is always situationally determined.

Problems of phonostylistics:

1. classification of phonetic styles

2. to work out the typology of speech utterances regarding the following factors:

   1. forms of speech (oral and written)

   2. forms of communication (monologue or dialogue)

   3. the relation of the utterance to a written text (prepared or unprepared)

   4. the number of listeners (public or not)

   5. the status of interlocutors – the relations between the participants (whether they are on official or unofficial terms)

3. to find a stylistically neutral form to start teaching with

4. to find variants of pronunciation that are stylistically marked

Phonostylistic studies the way the phonetic means of the language function in various oral texts. It’s a new way of looking at phonetic phenomena which includes extralinguistic situations and factors. Any learner of English should develop the awareness of different phonetic styles of the language.

“There are 50 ways of saying “yes” and even more ways of saying “no” and there is only one way to write it.” Bernard Show

Phonostylictics is concerned with how a person talks about some things rather than what he talks about. Teaching a spoken foreign language means teaching the ability to communicate. The interest in phonostylistics is constantly increasing.

The outline:

1. the subject matter of phonostylistics

2. functional and phonetic styles

3. the speech situation and extralinguistic factors that constitute it

4. the problem of classification of phonetic styles