2.5. Auditory Test

• Delimit the message. Mark the pauses.

• Identify the highlighted (tonic and pre-tonic, pre-nuclear) syllables.

• Single out the intonation group constituents (pre-head, head, nucleus, tail)

(ph) (h) (n) (t)

• Consider the pitch-change in the pre-nuclear part.

E.g. Their new chief executive officer Roger Enrico decided that the message of the Pepsi Challenge had been made clear enough and that what their advertising needed was more youth and glamour.

• their new chief executive officer

□  □ □  □ □ □ □ □ – head: the High level Head (one-peak)

ph h n t

• Roger Enrico

 □ □  □ – head: the High level Head (one-peak)

h n t

• decided that the message of the Pepsi Challenge

□  □ □ □  □ □ □  □  □ – head: the Gradually Descending Stepping High (mixed), etc

ph h n t

N ote:  - partial utterance stress

Analyse these combined tunes:

1. Your Royal Highness, how prepared were you for the pressures that came with marrying into the Royal family?

2. What were the expectations that you had for married life?

3. How aware were you of the significance of what had happened to you, after all you’d become Princess of Wales, ultimately with a view to becoming Queen?

4. How did you handle the transition from being Lady Diana Spencer to the most photographed, the most talked about woman in the world?

5. It’s been suggested in some newspapers that you were left largely to cope with your new status on your own. Do you feel that was your experience?

6. Well, would you mind telling me something about your educational background?

7. And … what was your grade, the grade you got in your BA?

8. … and political problems, but really it could have been anything. It was a very interesting experience.

9. er … I, well, I was leader of the group … of the debating team … er … and we went on some tours around different parts of the country.

10. I desparately wanted to work. I desparately loved my husband. And I wanted to share everything together.

11. Well, it took a long time to understand why people were so interested in me. But I assume it was because my husband had done a lot of wonderful work.

12. We went to erm … Alice Springs to Australia. And we went er did a walk-about, and I said to my husband: “What do I do now?”

Score level criteria

Excellent: relevant to assigned model.

Good: relevant number of intonation groups but lack of accuracy in the pre-nuclear contour identification.

Fair: limited knowledge, inadequate delimitation at times, intonation group structure distortion.

Poor: not enough to evaluate.

Score – mark

12-11 - 5

10-8 - 4

7-5 - 3

4 -… - 2

2.6. Reading Technique

a) Delimit the text “Linguistic Gaps” into intonation groups, utterances and phonopassages. Use the set of symbols to mark the pauses observing the specifics of timing. What about the hesitation phenomenon? Is it observed here? If not, why?

b) Try and focus on the structural components of the intonation groups (pre-head, head, nucleus and tail). What heads are predominantly used in reading this message aloud? Do you think the pre-nuclear pitch change (head) is correlated with the semantic potential of the message?

c) Consider the specifics of the intonation groups correlations within the combined tunes.

d) Focus on the expressive contours (compound tunes), their tonal specification.

e) Try and read out loud the chains of intonation groups focusing on their coordinative or subordinative relations.

f) Practise over the compound tunes of the message in isolation.

g) Be careful to properly punctuate thought; keep to the length and function of pauses.

h) Get ready to present the text reading it out loud to the best advantage. Follow the instructions. Go ahead!