2.2.4. Which of the words in the text are stressed and which are accented? Study the words in the two boxes below and divide them into two groups — the stressed words and the

accented ones:

created, charm, moulded, long, tradition, history (in "the history

that surrounds them"), history (in "the history of England"); answer, water, assimilated; character (in "what is the character."); character (in "the psychology of the English character"), achieve-ments, spirit, lived, conscious, look, shape, sense.

people (in "and the people of the 'island nation"'), still, runs, villas, impossible, free, traditional, Englishmen, royal, continuity, remind, sought, impossible, recognized, what (in "what were those achievements andjailures"), what (in "what is the character..."), non-English-man, failures (in "The achievements and failures of those centuries").

2.2.5. Study the cases of "and", "is" and "of" that occur in the text in terms of stress. Pay special attention to their behavior in the flow of speech, especially, at the "word-junctures". Why are "more", "rural", "English" and "stretch" phonetically degraded?

2.2.6. Study the rhythm within every part of the text singled out by pauses.

a) Analyze the simple rhythm-units into three groups — monobeats (M), trochees (T) and dactyls (D). Use the following analysis as a model:

'The English world \ is the world that English men and women \ have created and lived in through centuries of history'.

The English world

T M

is the world that English men and women

T D+l T

have created and lived in through centuries of history

________D M T_________D_________D

Note: Although there are no punctuation marks in this sentence, the speaker uses two pauses — one after the opening words 'The English world' and the other one after 'women'. Both are syntactically important as they separate the extended group of the subject from the following predicate. Our analysis of simple rhythm-units is based on the pausation of the spoken text.

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b) Explain the rule of the English rhythm which is observed in the case of

"let us look more closely..."; "much rural charm";

"the history of the English nation and the psychology of the English character";

"a wide stretch of water".

2.2.7. Study each of the prosodic contours in the text.

— Use the following analysis as a model.

The first sentence of the text consists of three contours. The first one is:

"The English world"

a) There are no accents here.

b) The contour is a short Descending Scale which contains only one step (the one which relies on the first stressed syllable of the word "English") and which ends in a low-rising tone on "world".

The remaining two contours of the sentence are described prosodically along the same lines.

2.2.8. What prosodic means are used in different cases of accent in the text?

2.2.9. Comment on the use of

— Low-Falling tones in the text;

— Low-Rising tones in the text;

— Mid-Falling tones in the text;

— High-Falling tones in the text;

— Falling-Rising tones in the text.

2.2.10. Comment on the modifications of tempo, loudness, and diapason in the following parts of the text:

To answer these questions, let us look more closely at the English landscape' — a green and pleasant land that still retains much rural charm despite the Industrial Revolution";

the knowledge, unconsciously assimilated since childhood, that there was a wide stretch of water that separated Englishmen and 'foreigners'".

Englishmen have always been conscious of the history that surrounds them, and, from the traditional royal and parliamentary ceremonies to

Tudor style villas in the suburbs, have sought, at every level, to revive and remind themselves of that history".

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— What is the function of these modifications in each of these cases?

2.2.11. How do the three rhetorical questions ("What were those achievements and failures?", "What is the character of the country and the people that have experienced them?", "What is "the English spirit", that runs if the history of England, recognized, though not always understood, by the non-Englishman?") correlate in terms of prosody?

— What is it that makes them a "rising sequence"?

— 2.3, The English Articulation Basis — Sounds ——

2.3.1. Listen to the way the following words are said by the speaker on the tape.

— Transcribe them with the help of the 'English Pronouncing Dictionary'.

2.3.2. Explain the principal difficulty in pronouncing the stressed vowels in the words below.

— What peculiarity of the English articulation basis affects the quality of the stressed vowel in each of these cases?

experienced

created

war-torn

recognized

achievements

failures

unconsciously

assimilated

separated

rural

security

continuity