Main prosodic peculiarities of the academic (scientific) phonostyle

This international style is often described by phonostylists as both intellectual and volitional. It is determined by the purpose of the com­munication as the speaker's aim is to attract the listener's attention, to establish close contacts with the audience and to direct the public at­tention to the message carried in the contents of the text. It is fre­quently manifested in academic and educational lectures, scientific dis­cussions, at the conferences, seminars and in classes. As the users of the style are interested in the involvement of the audience into the talk, this intonational style tends to be concerned and rather emotional.

The above-mentioned spheres of discourse have many features in common which result from certain common influences even though they may have differences according to the speaker, the occupation of the language user, the exact nature of the occasion, etc.

It can be suggested here that the most pure manifestation of the academic intonational style is realized in a lecture, though a "lecture" is a very broad label which covers a variety of types. Lectures may sometimes sound as oratorical performances designed to entertain rather than inform, so there may be a great deal of overlap in these cases between different registers.

We would like to mention here that the "ideal model" of the sci­entific style talk would be an academic informational lecture read aloud or relied heavily upon the set of notes with the attempts on the part of lecturers to get their meaning across clearly. The balance between formality and informality is obtained in favour of the former.

The types of this style realization are not so varied as of the in­formational intonational style though the spheres of discourse are rather numerous.Having outlined the contours of the style we shall focus our atten­tion on academic lectures or pieces of scientific prose.It is almost certainly true that no public lecture is ever sponta­neous, since all of them, even those in which no notes are used, will have been to some extent prepared in advance and therefore represent

the written variety of the language read aloud. So they have very much in common with the reading of scientific prose.

As was already pointed out above, lecturers either read the whole of what they wish to say from a script or speak with the aid of the notes; and as reliance upon a written version increases the impression of spontaneity will decrease.

We would like to specify here that a certain amount of variation isa must when we perform within the register of scientific discourse, buta lecturer should keep himself (or hersell) from going to extremes,otherwise he will use patterns of a different style (publicistic ordeclamatory, for instance) and we will witness the fusion of manystyles.

Now our next procedure will be the phonological opposition of thereading of an academic lecture and a descriptive text prosodic charac­teristics.

As a result of the comparison we would like to describe here spe­cific characteristics of the academic style which display features notshared by others.

1. A scientific (academic) text read aloud in public in front of afairly-sized audience conveys both intellectual and volitional informationso the aititudinal and emphatic functions of intonation are of primaryimportance here.

2. A lecturer always sounds self-assured, authoritative, instructiveand edifying, because any scientific style talk should be well preparedand is often even rehearsed by a trained lecturer.

3. A scientific style talk presenter sounds much louder than an in­formational style reader as any public oration is produced face to facewith a fairly-sized audience. Instances of diminished loudness are ob­served only in bringing out phrases expressing forgetfulness, uncertainty,word-searching.

4. The prosodic features of the academic style reading are rathervaried as intonation correlates the lecturer's attempts to get his meaning across clearly and to obtain the balance between formality and informality. Thisvarietyiscreatedby:

a) The alternation of pauses, types of heads, pitch levels and terminal tones.

b) The ample use of variations and contrasts of the tempo to help the listener to differentiate between the more and less important parts of the overall flow of speech. The speaker normally slows down when he introduces rules, terms, scientific laws, etc. This makes them stand out.

5. The rhythmical organization of a scientific text is properly bal­anced by the alternation of all prosodic features which gives the acous­tic impression of "rhythmicality".

6. High falling and falling-rising terminal tones are widely used as a means of both logical and contrastive emphasis.

Now in conclusion we would like to say that when we perform within the academic (scientific) intonational style a certain amount of variation of all phonostylistic characteristics is a must to achieve the g02l of communication, but care should be taken not to overdo this. If a segment is overloaded with contrasts of tempo, loudness and pitch and the speaker uses all sorts of "oratorial tricks", then it means that the lecturer performs in a different style with appropriate prosody and we have the transposition from one style to another.

We have described in this chapter only one register of the aca­demic style. Unfortunately other spheres of discourse and intercourse in this style have not been fully investigated yet; so this field for experi­ments is still open and awaits its.investigators.

27. Main prosodic peculiarities of the informationalphonostyle.

This intonational style is sometimes qualified as "formal", "neutral", since in an ideal setting, in its pure manifestation it is least of all in­fluenced or correlated by extralinguisticfactors.Where is it then purely manifested? First of all, in the written va­riety of an informational narrative read aloud. The majority of these texts are of a purely descriptive character and are simply called de­scriptive narratives. The written speech, the reading, should not be subjected to the contextual variables and the commonest and "ideal" situation for this register is the reading of such texts in class. They may be labelled as educational informational descriptive narratives.As is widely known, spoken speech is less impartial, the spoken va­riety of such texts expresses more personal concern and involvement. They may be presented in different forms: monologues, dialogues, V polylogues.Press reporting and broadcasting, especially the reading of the news coverage over the radio is very close in its manner to this type of the style as the reader lends to sound impartial when reporting routine news or weather forecasts, for example.It should be noted here that the reading of news coverage in a TV studio differs from the one over the radio as it suggests the at­tempts on the side of the announcer to address the viewers, so some emotional evaluation may appear in the information. The news bulletin and broadcast talk have both written and spokenexistences which are of equal importance for the simple reason thatthey were written specially to be read aloud. The informational styleincludes other spheres of communication: business and legal intercourse,the reading of administrative documents and so on.The degree of formality in the character of participants' relationshipin different types of the informational style presentation may smooththe border-line between them. Thus it would be wrong to identify thisstyle as formal, because the degree of formality may vary. As it wasstated earlier, the contours of the intonational styles presentation inspeech reality have not been very definitely outlined yet. So the mostinformal realization of any kind of information in the form of a dia­logue may lead to a conversational style, and, respectively, extra formalsounding of information may lead to an academic style talk and so on.We shall limit our description of the style to two common types:educational information and press reporting/broadcasting. We would liketo specify here that types of style, i.e. certain spheres of discoursewould be called registers, the term being widely used abroad in abroader sense, often meant as style in general. The table below showsthe correlation between the informational intonational style registers,and speech typology.Among the prosodic features we should mention the following:Loudness is relatively stable and normal, but within a phonopassagc boundaries there is a gradual decrease of it. Thus it is easy to spot tne boundaries by loudness contrasts between the final and initial intonation groups of two adjacent phonopassages. The same could be said about levels and ranges: there is a distinctly marked decrease of them within the phonopassage.The rate of utterances is normal or rather slow, not noticeably varied. Together with the medium length of pauses the general tempo may be marked as moderate.The rhythm may be characterized as systematic, properly organized, interpausal stretches have a marked tendency towards the rhythmic isochrony.One of the main style differentiating features on the prosodic level is the accentuation of the semantic centres. It is expressed commonly by terminal tones, pre-nuclear patterns, pitch range and pitch level de gree of loudness on the accented syllables, and also by the contrast between the accented and non-accented segments of the utterance. In view of this particular text we may say the following.Terminal tones are commonly expressed by a low falling tone: oc­casionally expressive high falls are used, this usage conveys the mean ing directly; in non-final segments mid-level tones and low rising ones are quite frequent.

28. Main prosodic peculiarities of the Declamatory (Artistic or Belles-letter) phonostyle: fiction, drama, poetry.

This intonational style is also called by some as "artistic, acquiredor stage". As we see from these labels, the scholars suggest that this is a highly emotional and expressive intonational style,that is why it needs special training. Attitudinal, volitional and intellectual functions ofintonation arc of primary importance here and serve to appeal to the mind, will and feelings of the listener. Most commonly it is performed through all sorts of image-bearing devices which require rehearsing and professional skills. This intonational style can be heard on the stage, on the screen, in a TV studio or in a classroom during verse speaking and prose readings and recitations. Thus we see that it is always a written form of the language read aloud or recited.

The prosodic organization of such texts will vary greatly, depending on the type of the theatrical performance - whether it is a tragedy,drama or comedy-and, of course, on the social factors - the social andcultural background of the play characters, their relationship, extralin-guistic context, and so on.

In declamatory style the emotional role of intonation increases, there by intonation patterns used for intellectual, volitional and emotional purposes have an equal share. The speaker's aim is to appeal simultaneously to the mind, the will and feelings of the listener by image-bearing devices. Declamatory style is gen­erally acquired by special training and it is used, for instance, in stage speech, classroom recitation, verse-speaking or in reading aloud fiction. ¤ Declamatory Style: used on stage, in TV studio performances, verse or prose reciting.

Description: highly emotional, still depends on the type of prose\poetry. Needs special training.

· Tones:

· Scales:

· Heads: all types

· Loudness:

· Tempo:

· Pauses:

Depending on the type of poetry\prose and the emotions author demonstrates

We have to be clear that to the declamatory style reading we refer only certain literary (fiction) texts appealing to the readers. The reading of informational and scientific prose has been already described in the previous sections of the chapter. Though there are many things in common, as any reading aloud suggests, the predominance of emotional function in the artistic reading separates this kind of reading from oth­ers in a fundamental way.

The declamatory reading displays a great variety of intonation prop­erty as regards to the types of written texts. There is almost endless variety in the way writers express themselves; but no matter how plea­surable the way of writing may be, meaning always comes first. In each case style, the way something has been written, must be adapted to suit the subject matter.

It is common knowledge that prose, which describes an action or a series of actions to tell a story, is called narrative, e .g. Though it was nearly midnight when Andrew reached Bryngower, he found Joe Morgan waiting for him, walking up and down with short steps between the closed surgery and the entrance to the house. {A.J. Cronin. The Citadel) On the prosodic level the markers of the declamatory style reading are: 1 Slow tempo, causcd by the lento rate of utterances and pro­longed pauses, especially at the passage boundaries.2 Stable rhythm icality.3The use of the falling terminal tones in initial intonation groups, the increase of their range with the emphasis.

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