4. Informational style.

The informational style is qualified as forma,l neutral. It occurs in the written variety of some information read aloud. Here two main realizations of informational style pieces will be discussed – informational educational texts press reporting and broadcasting.

When speaking about informational educational texts it should be noted that there distinguished two varieties of such texts – read aloud and spoken. Reading and speaking each requires directed intensive efforts. Consequently, the phonetic features of these varieties of texts would be basically different.

To show the opposition of spoken and written informational texts read aloud there given a comparable table containing the phonostylistic parameters of these varieties.

Press reporting and broadcasting, especially the reading of the news over the radio is characterized by a high degree of formality as the reader tends to sound impartial when reporting routine news. The central function here is to inform, to present a certain number of facts to a listener or a viewer with the effect of giving the impression of neutral, objective,factual reporting.

It should be noted that the speech of radio and television announcers is sometimes different – the ability to be seen on the screen helps a TV news reader to guide better understanding to the viewers by means of facial expressions and gestures while the radio announcer, being isolated in a studio, tends to use certain prosodic features to be better understood by a listener.

Nevertheless, it is possible to speak about phonostylistic regulations in radio and TV news reading as these two realizations have much in common.

5. Declamatory style.

The term “declamatory” serves for many kinds of linguistic activity. Two varieties of oral representation of representation of written literary texts will be discussed here:

1) reading aloud a piece o descriptive prose (the author’s speech or a monologue);

2) the author’s reproduction of actual conversation (the speech of characters or a dialogue);

MONOLOGUE: The intonation of reading descriptive prose has many features in common with that of reading scientific prose.

In the pre-nuclear part the Low Pre-head may be combined with the Descending Falling Head, or the Broken Head.

The nuclear tone in final intonation groups is generally the Low Fall, or less frequently - the High Fall. The principle nuclear tones is non-final intonation groups are the Low Fall, the High Fall and the Fall-Rise. The Low Fall, especially the one which does not reach the lowest possible pitch-level is preferable here.

The speed of utterance in reading descriptive prose is relatively slow and as a result there are no marked variations in rhythm. Pauses may be different in length but long pauses are more common.

DIALOGUE: The intonation adequate for reading dialogue is remindful of actual conversation, but there is no one-for-one correlation between them. It is not a pure and simple reproduction of the intonation that might be heard in the natural speech of living people (spontaneous dialogues).

In the pre-nuclear part the Low or High Pre-Head may be combined with any variety of the descending, ascending or level heads.

In the terminal tone both simple and compound tunes are widely used, especially - falling-rising tones.

The pitch level in most utterances is generally high and the range is wide.

The overall speed of the utterance is normal or increased as compared with natural speech and as a result the rhythm is more regular. Pauses are always semantically or syntactically predictable. Hesitation pauses do not occur unless they are deliberately used for stylization purposes.

Questions for self-control:

1. What is typical for everyday speech?

2. What style is described as both intellectual and volitional?

3. What are the phonetic peculiarities of the publicistic style?

4. How is the informational style qualified?

5. What are the two main oral variations of linguistic activity?

Список литературы

для подготовки к семинарским и практическим занятиям:

1. Теоретическая фонетика английского языка. Соколова М.А.,М.,Владос, 1996

2. Практическая фонетика английского языка. Соколова М.А.,Владос, 2001

3. Intonation of Colloquial English, O’Connor J.D., Longmans, 1962

4. Enjoy Practising Phonetics. Левицкий А.Е., Гаращук Л.А., Винница, 2004.

5. Практический курс английского языка, под ред проф.Аракина В.Д., 1, 2 ч., Владос, М., 2000.

6. Курс лекций по теоретической фонетике. Сост.ст.преп. Матвеевой Л.В.

7. Глоссарий по теоретической фонетике. Сост.ст.преп. Матвеевой Л.В.

8. Pronunciation Dictionary. J.C.Wells, Longman, 2000.

9. English Pronunciation Dictionary. D.Jones, Советская Энциклопедия, М., 1963.

Seminar 1.

1. The subject of phonology. Language and speech.

2. Phonetics and speech sounds. The speech process and its main stages.

3. Phonetics and its branches. The connection of phonetics with linguistic sciences.

Seminar 2.

1.. The notion of the phoneme. The main trends in phoneme theory.

2. Phonemes and their allophones.

3. The distributional and semantic methods in phonology.

Seminar 3.

1. The English phonemic system.

2. Syllabic and accentual structure of English words.

3. Stress and rhythm. Two main types of speech rhythm.

Seminar 4.

1. Prosody as a complex of prosodic elements. Parts of the descending scale.

2. Rhythm as a linguistic notion.

3. The main intonation patterns and their functions.

Seminar 5.

1. Phonostylistics and its development.

2. Extralinguistic situation and its main constituents.

3. The problem of classification of phonetic styles.