Components of intonation(prosodic features)

Acoustic fundamental intensity duration spectrum absence of

L evel frequency speech signal

P erceptive pitch force length timber interval in

L evel I phonation

Sentence accentuation

Perceptive

Level II melody loudness tempo voice pause

Quality

Rhythm

9. The specific character of English prosodic basis (as compared with Russian). Functions of prosody. Functions of intonation.

Prosody(English-Russian specifics). Prosody/prosodic feature a term used in suprasegmental phonetics and phonologyto refer collectively to variations in pitch, loudness, tempo and rhythm+voice quality. When comparing intonation systems of diff langs- the method of finding systemic differences(pitch patterns)/ Intonation of conversational E:1)nuclear tone termination2)pitch level of the head(low head/high head)3)pitch level&interval of nuclear tones(low fall/low-rise;high fall/high rise),4)nuclear tone configuration(simple tones, complex tones- rise-fall,fallrise;compound tones fall+rise).Russian intonation(7 pitch patterns):1)relative pitch levels(precentre, centre, post-centre)2)pitch configuration(rising,falling,falling-rising,rising+falling)3)intensified word accent.4)voice quality(glottal stop)presence. Comparing the 2 systems we can see similarities/dissimilarities in pitch configurations, the structure of basic patterns etc. And there are diff in use. Common features of pitch and other prosodic features( word accent R – уже-уже E import-to import; focus R – И он уехал-И он уехал E- and he left-and he left.

.Prosody-functions. Prosody/prosodic feature a term used in suprasegmental phonetics and phonologyto refer collectively to variations in pitch, loudness, tempo and rhythm+voice quality. 1)structural function – the speaker has to organize/listener to identify the hierarchy of info units starting from the most prominent syllable in a word, the most prominent word in an intonation group, the varying prominence and the cohesion of intonation groups in longer utterances such as speech paragraphs or the whole text. In a dialogue/polilogue the speaker-listener interaction is reflected in the unity of one topic with key words brought out by prosodic means, followed by special boundaries tones,pitch range,tempo variation to signal translation to a new topic. 2)social function- prosodic means of signaling social rels between speakers may correlate with the permanent social status/with the situational social role. Prosody is an important markerof personal/social identity: different occupations – lawyers, sport commentators are readily identified through their distinctive prosody( a higher and wider pitch range+ slower tempo – sign of dominance/a faster tempo+narrow pitch range – submissiveness; in people’s introductions on a formal occasion pitch level and loudness level increase.

Functions of intonation.1)syntactic f-n:a)phrasing or the division of utterances into meaningful units which are called intonational groups(used to be called syntactic bec boundaries between intonational groups generally correspond with clause and major syntactic boundaries. Besides pitch change often marks such boundaries: pause, changes in tempo etc. Proper phrasing helps to disambiguate sentences like: Those who sold quickly/made profit//&those who sold/quickly made profit//.The correspondence with a syntactic unit is considered to be the basic(the neutral/unmarked)case of intonation grouping. When speaking slowly in a formal style the speaker may choose to break up a S into a large number of phrases/in conversational style- one one intonation phrase per S.b)Tones: another aspect of intonation bec basic tones are generally associated with certain syntactical types of S.:falling tone – statements, special questions,commands, exclamations;rising tone-general questions, requests,warnings. Nowadays it’s attributed to thepragmatic fun-n.2)accentual function – depends on the position of primary and secondary stresses in the intonational group. Intonation helps to distinguish new & old topic, theme and rheme.2 major positions – the initial one and the final one.Ideally the 1^st one is the theme and the final one is the rheme(though in actual speech they may be reversed.3)attitudinal function – the function of intonation consists in expressing the attitude of the speaker towards what is being spoken about(expressive/emotional) The ability of intonation to express attitudes is associated with tones and pitch range features accompanied by voice quality and tempo changes.(e.g. low fall the most neutral; full fall – emotionally involved; mid-fall- routine comment).4) Semantic function – the assumption is based on the diff in the meaning of the whole S/just one word brought about by a change in the pitch pattern: I ‘scream;”I ‘love it”/ ‘Ice cream,I ‘love it.5)Discourse f-n – the study of the discourse function tries to look at S intonation patterns within larger contexts in which they occur. It gives us a chance to find that there are prosodic cues which serve as references to shared knowledge,signals to focus the listener’s attention on what is important, means to regulate the conversational behaviour of the participants. Practically all the separate func-ns attributed to intonation could be seen as different aspects of discourse f-n.

9. Structural and functional units of the melodic contour. The main approaches to the description of melody (British and American schools).The meaning of tones and scales. Attitudinal meanings of the constituents of the melodic contour.

Melody is the most significant component.

Major approaches to the form of melodic units:

1. Contours approach.

The most traditional and widespread is the approach worked out by the famous representatives of the British phonetic school. (Sweet, Jones, Kingdon, Jimson, O’Connor).

The approach is based on the assumption that the melodic form of an utterance is a multilingual unity of functional independent components. Melodic configuration is studied without a sense group which is a smallest unit of sense in a speech. In terms of its structure and functions the melodic counter of a sense group includes:

- a nuclear tone

• a scale

• a head

• a pre-head

A nuclear tone is a tone which is used within a nuclear of the utterance. This is the high-lighted part carrying maximum information.

A scale is part of the unit starting with a 1^st stressed syllable (head) and going before the tone (as far as the last stressed syllable).

A pre-head includes the initial unstressed.

Apart from the melodic configurations melody comprises:

1. Range (with an overload wide of pitch change or the interval between the highest and lowest pitches in the sentence). We usually distinguish between the narrow and wide range.

2. Register (with its height and pitch). We can speak of low, mid, and high registers.

According to the British scientific tradition, the melodic form of a sense group is a contour having both horizontal and writhed components each of which performs its specific function.

2. Pitch level approach.

In accordance with the American phonetic tradition, the melodic structure of a sense group is analyzed in terms of pitch levels. These levels are relative. They aren’t related to any particular fundamental frequency back.

Pitch levels are distinctively relevant and called pitch phonemes. Meaning is ascribed to a sequence of pitches. Such sentences are called intonational contours.

Distinguish 4 pitch levels:

• Mid pitch (marked by the figure 2). Corresponds to a quite unemotional pitch of human voice.

• Low (marked by figure 1)

• High (marked by f.3)

• Extra-high (marked by f.4) – used to express strong emotion.

Any utterance must contain the 1^st three pitches. Inside each pitch bound there can be slide melodic ups and downs but they are considered semantically irrelevant.

Meaning of melodic contours.

The ability of similar contours to express opposite mgs puts the question of independent tone mg to doubt. A question arises: “Do tones have an independent mg?” or “Is this mg totally dependent on the context?”

The independent character of tonal mg is born out by the so-called intonational misfits in which a free variation of tones is impossible.

e.g. He `did it, `definitely!”

We can conclude that tones do have independent mgs, but this mg is nebulous (туманный). We may refer to it as an abstract mg. In the context the combination of grammar, lexes and situation brings out the local mg of the tone.

There are 2 major approaches towards the character of melodic mg:

• attitudinal

• discoursonal (informational)

We are used to treating a tone as a unit with a certain mg. But these days every tone is viewed as a combination of relatively independent features each of which contributes in its own way to the total mg of a tone.

We can say that each tone has 2 cardinal points:

• the end point

• the onset point

The end point is responsible for: definiteness, indefiniteness, completeness, and incompleteness. The onset pitch (the beginning) signals the degree of the speaker’s involvement in the situation.

The higher the onset point, the higher the emotional involvement.

What is said about the initial pitch of tone is three of the scales. No definite mg can be assigned to scales. But it seems that high-scales are more involved and low scales are associated with a lack of interest and presupposed negative valuation.

The change in the movement of the unstressed syllables (slightly and scandent scales makes the scale more expressive. In terms of the attitudinal approach to mg definiteness/indefiniteness, involvement/noninvolvement can be treated as abstract mg.

The process of toning abstract mgs into local ones is a very ill-understood area of intonation steadies. All we can do is summarize the factors which seem to be relevant. There are certain types of contexts. These contexts can be presiding and co-occurring.

In preceding – intonational is significant co-occurring – grammar is important. Lexis and immediate situation are important for both.

9. Speech rhythm: definition, units in prose and verse. Semantic and enclitic approaches to rhythmic units of speech.

Rhythm is regularity, or periodicity, of similar events. Speech rhythm is connected with biological rhythms of heartbeat and breathing. Rhythm was first described in poetics and included such means of rhythmic arrangement as meter(jamb or chorea), rhyme, including inner rhythm(within a line), line, lexical perception, syntactical parallelism, assonance(repetition of similar vowels), alliteration(repetition of similar consonants).

The basic rhythmic units of verse which provide its rhythmic identity (in free verse) are foot, line and stanza. Foot – a stressed syllable with the unstressed syllables (called clitics) that either precede it (proclitics) or follow it (enclitics).

Line – a graphic representation of one or two intonation groups, normally with an equal number of feet in them.

Stanza – part of the poem with fixed number of lines, in a classical verse with a patterned order of rhymes between the lines.

Rhythmic units form a hierarchy: each bigger unit consists of smaller units. In reading or speaking all prosodic features of pitch, intensity, tempo, pause and voice quality are involved: they indicate the boundaries and pitch patterns of the units. A few prosodic features verse are style-specific(leveled out tones, diminished loudness, husky voice quality)

Units of rhythm are style-specific: in speaking or prose reading the basic rhythm units are: rhythmic group, intonation group and supraphrasal unity. Thus practically identical units are named differently in verse and prose. The smallest rhythm unit is foot (or rhythmic group). In English it consists of one stressed syllable and may have one or more unstressed syllables to follow the stressed one: Sss (the enclitic tendency). Other languages, such as Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese), have a proclitic structure of foot: /ssS/ ssS/.

Units of rhythm are units of meaning: there is correlation between a foot and a word, an intonation group and a clause, a speech paragraph and a theme.

The functions of rhythm are primarily structuring: delimiting and cohesive. Of special importance is the aesthetic function of rhythm which appeals to the sense of harmony. Rhythm creates perceptual isochrony of its units with the length of units varying within certain ranges, limited for each particular unit. English and Russian rhythms are stressed-timed, while other languages have syllable-timed rhythms with a relatively equal time of syllable duration. Recent research has evidence that this phenomenon is based on the vowel and consonant composition of syllables: in English long or “heavy” syllables are made of long vowels and diphthongs (or a short vowel plus a consonant) and they attract stress which makes them more prominent perceptually. In British English the duration contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables is great.

9. Factors which determine the variety of phonetic speech styles.

10. Aims of communication and phonetic means in formal and informal communication.

Formal/informal communications(aims/phonetic means).

The speaker’s judgement of formality will depend on a number of factors, such as the relative status of the person he’s talking to which results in their different social roles, how well they know each other, the topic they are discussing, to what purpose and in what setting.

In a very formal situation the speaker tends to articulate more slowly&carefully, no sounds will be omitted.

In a very informal speech he will be likely to speak more quickly, less carefully, some sounds may be changed or omitted.(are – [a:] in careful speech,[ ∂] in casual speech – vowel reduction). Variation conditioned in this way is stylistic. It’s a matter of what’s appropriate for the situation. Speaker’s personality also determines the style of pronunciation. When talking formally to seniors one is expected to be polite. A foreigner may be insensitive to a situation in another culture. Labov was the 1^st to quantify and measure stylistic variation in 4 models of speech:

1)reading a word list2)reading a text3)interview4) casual speech. Standard forms tend to be used in formal styles of speech, non-standard – in the informal casual speech. One should always know why he communicates. Intonation is important. Certain of its patterns bring about the message.

The linguistic variables were:1) –ing endinds pronounced either as [ŋ] or [n]; 2)glottal stop replacing [t]-[?]; 3)h-drop: the sound [h] replaced by zero(at the beginning of the w-ds); 4) rhoticity: the presence of [r] after a vowel which was omitted in lower NY classes, NY being an r-less area of the USA.

18. A superphrasal unity as a unit of text. The notion of text and its intonation peculiarities.National differences in facial expression, gestures and space between the Russians, the English and the Americans.

National diff in mimics, gestures, proximics. Gestures- kinesics, convey verbal message.There are diff planes in which gestures- frontal/saggital. British/American – frontal, especially forbidding gestures. Different dimensions(metrical) in R – broadly- the centre is shoulders, he amplitude is very wide; in England – the active part is the arm from the elbow, radius is smaller. One and the same gesture in diff cultures means diff things(OK in America, money in Japan, sexual gesture in Latin Amer).proximics – distance in communications of people:personal space- 3 main distances in communication:1)intimate space – 50cm/17inches – friends&relatives.2)social – over 50 cm-1,5m-collegues.3)public distance- over 1,5 m t0 3,5 and even more)- president lecturer. Touching behavior- part of life in Latin America/arab countries,in Russia too.The interconnection bet ween gestures&intonation bec muscles work synchronically:rise- tense,fall-relaxed. 5 basic emotions when we communicate. Mimics – british people too reserved to use them actively, in Russia, Americas – they are used.