The attitudinal function of intonation in the conversational style and the use of emphatic complex tones

Phonostylistics as a branch of phonetics; its linkage with other linguistic disciplines. Extralinguistic factors causing phonetic modifications of speech. Phonetic styles, the problem of their definition and classification.

Rhythm as a linguistic notion. English speech rhythm. Types of rhythmic units. Guidelines for teaching English speech rhythm.

Rhythm is the arrangement of spoken words alternating stressed and unstressed elements. Rhythm is a product of sentence stress and what happens to the words and sounds between the stresses. The rhythm of speech in English is dependent on the stress patterns of the words. It has often been claimed that English speech is rhythmical and that the rhythm is detectable in the regular occurrence of stressed syllables. The theory that English has stress-timed rhythm implies that stressed syllables will tend to occur at relatively regular intervals whether they are separated by unstressed syllables or not; this would not be the case in ‘mechanical speech’.

The stress-timed rhythm theory states that the times from each stressed syllable to the next will tend to be the same, irrespective of the number of intervening unstressed syllables. Some writers have developed theories of English rhythm in which a unit of rhythm, the foot, is used; the foot begins with a stressed syllable and includes all following unstressed syllables up to the following stressed syllable. Many foreign learners are made practice speaking English with a regular rhythm, often with the teacher beating time or clapping hands on stressed syllables. For foreign learners who don’t have so much weak syllables in their mothertongues as in English this exercise is valuable if it is not overdone to the point when learners start speaking as if reciting verse.

The subject matter of phonostylistics is versatile and not clearly determined. It studies variation in use of sounds of a l-ge, its phonetic expressive inventory, as well as typical prosodic features of different types of discourses and registers. Phonostylistics deals with ‘style-sensitive’ or ‘style-dependent’ phonological processes. Phonostylistic processes are language specific. The same function is served by various means across l-ges, but also within a l-ge. Ph. Provides descriptive frameworks by which readers hypotheses concerning the meaning and effects produced in texts can be explored through a systematic and principled attention to l-ge and intonation patterns.

The factors that determine the choice of the intonational style are the following: the aim of communication – the style forming factor. The other factors are called style modifying factors:

-the speakers attitude

-the form of communication

-the degree of formality

-the degree of preparedness.

All thses factors are interdependent and interconnected. Stylistic variation can also be caused by such factors as topic, setting and relationship between interlocutor. There are 5 intonational styles singled out mainly acc to the purpose of communication (Moscow linguistic school):

-Informational

-Academic

-Publicistic

-Declamatory

-Conversational

Using the informational style the speaker ought to be careful not to distract the listener by what he is saying (TV announcers). Written representation of oral and prepared speech.

Scientific style is used in lectures or science subjects or when reading out loud a piece of scientific prose. The purpose is to attract the listener’s attention to what is the most important in the lecture.

Publicistic style is used by politicians, the purpose is to except the influence of the listener to convince him of sth and make him accept the speaker’s point of view.

Declamatory style is used in reading poetry, prose aloud, in stage speech to appeal the feelings of the listener.

Conversational formulae familiar of every day communication are used in speech of friends within similar groups. It can have a wide range of intonation patterns.

23. Main prosodic peculiarities of the conversational style. Intonation of dialogues and monologues.

Conversational style is used in every day communication and thus is not formal. These are some common feature of informal communication:

-casual vocabulary and colloquial idioms, including slang.

-conversational openers to sentences (you know, say, you take)

-people speaking at the same time (overlapping)

-interruption

-hesitation

-repetition or rephrasing

-incomplete sentences. Loose sentence patterns common to conversation.

Some more important characteristics is an entire range of vocalic clusters, sounds, non-verbal signals are common in conversations.

On the prosodic level there are some generalizations about the conversational style.

1. Conversations fall into coordinated blocks, consisting of suprasegmental and supraphrasal units tied up by variations within the lenghth of pause speed, rhythm, pitch ranges, pitch levels and loudness.

2. Since there are no restrictions on the range and depth of emotions which might be displayed in conversational speech situations, they will allow entire range of prosodic effects.

3. Intonation groups are rather short, their potentially lengthy tone units tend to be broken. These short interpausal units are characterized by decentralized stress and sudden jumps down on communicative centres.

4. The heads are usually level, or rarely falling. Falling heads occur only in groups consisting of several stressed syllables.

5. As for the nuclei, simple falling and rising tones are common. Emphatic tones occur in highly emotional contexts. High pre-nuclear syllables are very frequent.

6. The tempo of colloquial speech is very varied. The natural speed might be very fast but the impression of slowness may arise because of a great number of hesitation pauses both filled and non-filled with the block. However, the speakers may have no pauses between their parts, very often they speak simultaneously, interrupt each other.

7. Also a familiar point about informal conversation is the frequency of silence for purposes of contrastive pause as opposed to its being required simply for breath-taking.

8. Pauses may occur randomly, not just at places of grammatical junctions.

9. So, tempo is very flexible in this style. It is uneven with and between utterances.

10. Interpausal stretches have a marked tendency towards subjective rhythmic isochrony.

11. Alongside common features, there is evidence for variation of prosodic characteristics in women’s conversational style. Women’s voice range is, as a rule, wider than men’s one and changes basically within high and low pitch levels.

In monologues the speech reminds the informational monologue, only differs in the degree of formality.

Listening to an informal conversation on tape is sometimes difficult because of some fea­tures. But if you are taking part in the conversation or watching it, these features do not cause so much difficulty because you can see the expression on people's faces and their gestures or other movements.

Students who have studied English for several years in their own countries may still find it difficult to understand people in Britain when they first arrive. There could be several reasons for this: people may speak much faster than students are used to, they may use a lot of colloquial and idiomatic language, or they may have a regional accent or dialect and use nonstandard forms in their speech. Students will get used to all of these things in time, although a very strong accent or special regional dialect may still give problems. One should not worry too much about this; some­times even British people from different parts of the country cannot understand each other very well.Theseare some common features of informal conversation:

1 casual vocabulary and colloquial idioms, including slang. For example, "it's got to", "you take when", "like when", "grab them up", "you know";

2 conversational openers to sentences, such as "You know", "You take", "Say";

3 people speaking at the same time (overlapping);

4 interruption;

5hesitation;

6 repetition or rephrasing (saying the same thing in a different 11 •ay). This may involve repe­tition of key words and phrases for emphasis, for example, the repetition of pronouns in several places: "And the music - it's any damn thing; it's whatever it is you need." And another example: "...grab them up, mix in with them, bring them out..." Emotional power is often gained from repeti­tion, and in conversation, repetition also acts as adhesive, holding ideas together as one thinks one's way out to a point.

7 incomplete sentences (dipped constructions: short, almost staccatolike clauses or sen­tences). For instance, "It's like the Mississippi. It's got its own story. There's something it wants to tell." Loose sentence patterns, common to conversation. For example, "Like when you're sad some­times. you want to remember something, maybe something you were happy about once" (Hickey 1993).Some more important characteristics is an entire range of vocaiic clusters, sounds, non­verbal signals are common in conversations, e.g. mm - sshh. ah. bir,etc.With regard to recognizing gender differences in conversations between close friends or in­timate partners, women and men respond differently to discussions of personal problems, according to their perception of what is most helpful or supportive. Women are claimed to discuss the prob­lems more than men do and, while men tend to use advice more than women do. women purported­ly express (and expect to receive) sympathy more than men do. That is, women prefer to respond to someone's troubles by giving comfort, describing similar personal situations and offerr matching troubles.

On the prosodic level the field researches provide us with data that he us to do some genera­lizations about the conversational style.

1.Conversations fall into coordinated blocks, consisting of suprasegmental and supraphrasal units tied up by variations within the length of paus speed, rhythm, pitch ranges, pitch levels and loudness.

2 Since there are no restrictions on the range and depth of emotions which might be displayed in conversational speech situations, they will allow entire range of prosodic effects.

3.Intonation groups are rather short; their potentially lengthy tone units tend to be broken. These short interpausal units are characterized by decentralized stress and sudden jumps down on communicative centres.

4The heads are usually level, or rarely, falling. Falling heads occur only in groups consist­ing of several stressed syllables.

5 As for the nuclei, simple falling and rising tones are common. Emphatic tones occur in highly emotional contexts. High pre-nuclear syllables are very frequent.

6 The tempo of colloquial speech is very varied. The natural speed might be very fast but the impression of "slowness" may arise because of a great number of hesitation pauses both filled and non-filled within the block. However, the speakers may have no pauses between their parts, very often they speak simultaneously, interrupt each other.

7 Also a familiar point about informal conversation is the frequency of silence for purposes of contrastive pause as opposed to its being required simply for breath-taking.

8 Pauses may occur randomly not just at places of grammatical junctions.

9 So tempo is very flexible in this style. It is uneven with and between utterances.

10 Interpausal stretches have a marked tendency towards subjective rhythm.

Alongside common features, there is evidence for variation of prosodic characteristics in women's conversational style. Women's voice ranye is, as a rule, wider than men's one and changes basically within high and low pitch levels. This fact is conditioned by the unequal use of their voic­es in order to correspond to the feminine and masculine stereotypes, which have been set in society.In England, in particular, some women consider the manner to use high voice pitch to be an indication of higher social status. The speech of English and American women is characterized by remarkable intonation expressiveness.

Intonation plays a central role in stylistic differentiation of oral texts. Stylistically explicable deviations from intonational norms reveal conventional patterns differing from language to language.

The uses of intonation show that the informa­tion so conveyed is, in many cases, impossible to separate from lexical and grammatical meanings expressed by words and con­structions in a language (verbal context) and from the co-occur­ring situational information (non-verbal context). The meaning of intonation cannot be judged in isolation. However, intonation does not usually correlate in any neat one-for-one way with the verbal context accompanying and the situational variables in an extra-linguistic context. Moreover, the perceived contrast with the intonation of the previous utterance seems to be relevant.

One of the objectives of phonostylistics is the study of intonational functional styles.

The usage of familiar (conversational) style is typical of the English of everyday life. It occurs both within a family group and in informal external relationships, namely, in the speech of intimate friends or well-acquainted people. In such cases it is the emotional reaction to a situational or verbal stimulus that mat­ters, thereby the attitude- and emotion-signalling function of in­tonation here comes to the fore. Nevertheless intellectual and volitional intonation patterns also have a part to play. In infor­mal fluent discourse there are examples of utterance where the effect of intellectual intonation is neutralized.

¤ Conversational style: used in everyday life, less attention on the effect produced.

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