Intonation

Rhythm

Word stress

a) The differences in stress are also lexically determined, and, therefore, are hard to generalize: RP a'ddress, 'adult, prin'cess, 'detail, /naga'zine,.week-end; GA 'address, a'dult, 'princess, de'tail, 'magazine, 'weekend.

b) One group of words ending in suffixes -ary, -ory, -ery, -ony, -berry is pronounced with one primary stress in RP whereas in American English there is an additional secondary stress which some linguists call "tertiary" (because it follows the primary stress, and is assumed to be weaker than the one preceding the primary stress).

RP dictionary ['dikjanari], ceremony ['senmani], strawberry ['stro:bariJ; GAdictionaty ['dikji.nari], ceremony ['saramouni], strawberry ['stnrbari].

c) French borrowings are assimilated in RP and have one primary stress on the initial syllable. In GA they are still stressed as in French, on the final syllable, or have two stresses, one primary on the last syllable and one secondary on the first:

RP ballet ['baelei], cafe ['kaefei], garage ['gaered3], matinee ['maetmei]; GA ballet [bae'lei], cafe [kae'fei], garage [дэ'гсг.3], matinee [.maeti'nei].

American rhythm is due to a great amount of secondary (or/and tertiary) stresses, compared with RP, which, together with a narrowed pitch range, produce the effect of smoothly flowing, monotonous, slurred speech: the proportion of accented vs. unaccented syllables is 1:1, while in British English it is estimated at 1:2. RP speech is described as clipped, pointed, contrastive in the length of accented and unaccented syllables. Thus, for instance, in our research data the average accented syllable in British women's talk is longer than the unaccented one by 1.7, in American women's speech the contrast drops to 1.5 (in Russian duration contrast is still lower — 1.3). The length contrast is supported by pitch contrast in which again the British RP group scored highest.

The monotony of American speech is created by regular recurrence of similar pitch patterns: mid-level wavy head plus high fall or level-rise. Thus compared to RP the intonation group in GA starts at a lower level (like in Russian) but the pitch configuration is specifically English: sliding on each accent group within a narrow range until it comes to the terminal (final) fall with an initial rise, similar to an RP intensified fall or a rise-fall. Compared with the Russian language the final element is very prominent acoustically, and that is where the most important information point is normally located (in 80% of cases). Compare: RP 'What are you 'going to *do about it? GA 'What're you 'gonna "do about it?

In specialist literature one can often find commentary on specific use of level-rising tones in special questions and statements in American English and also in Northern British English: What'syour flame?.Bradford.

The linguists explain the use of sustained, tentative (not categoric) kind of tone in the response as a back-channel device by means of which the speaker is checking if he understood the question correctly, and whether he is being attended to, also to encourage further conversation. In other words, the rising tone is directed at the listener, as was universally established for most languages of the world.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11