Explanation

The usage of familiar (conversational) style is typical of every day English. 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, that’s why the attitudinal function of intonation here comes to the fore. Nevertheless intellectual and volitional intonation patterns may also take place.

Familiar (conversational) style, unlike other styles, will allow the occurrence of the entire range of intonation patterns existing in English. This is due to the fact that there seem to be no serious restrictions on the range of emotions and attitudes which might be displayed in a conversational situation. However, it is to be noted that within any given stretch of utterance very little occurs.

Relatively unexcited conversational situations are characterized by low pre-heads, falling or stepping heads and simple Low falling or rising tones. Monosyllabic response utterances display narrowed pitch patterns. Degrees of increasing intensity of excitement correlate with increased pitch height. As a result widened pitch patterns are typical of more excited situation. In this connection one should note the high proportion of intonation patterns with the high falling nuclear tone. The flow of conversation much depends on these patterns, as the High Fall implies, among other things, the effect of personal participation or involvement in the situation. It is extremely important for the participants in conversation to show an active interest in what is going on. Besides, mention should be made of the high frequency of compound tunes and heterogeneous heads. There is also the occasional completely unexpected placement of nuclear tone.

In spontaneous informal conversation there is marked tendency for intonation to form a basic set of recurrent patterns. The precise nature of these patterns varies to a certain extent depending on such situational factors as the relationship of the speakers to each other, the chosen subject-matter, the fluency of an individual, his emotional state and so on. Intonation groups may be any length, but they tend to keep short.

Informal conversation is characterized by the frequency of silence for purposes of contrastive pause, as opposed to its being required simply for breath-taking. Pauses are brief and there are cases when intonation groups and sentences are not separated by any kind of pause. This style of speech is also characterized by the absence stable pattern of tempo and rhythm. Generally, the speed of utterance is quite fast. It depends on the fluency of a speaker, on his familiarity with the topic being talked about, on his experience. One of the most essential distinctive features of informal spontaneous conversation is the occurrence of the entire range of hesitation phenomena.

a) hesitation pauses;

b) hesitation drawls, lengthening of sounds, syllables and words;

c) repetitions of syllables and words;

d) false starts to words, followed by self-corrections;

e) restarting a construction or a sentence to conform more to what the speaker wants to say;

f) unfinished intonation groups often accompanied by reduced loudness of voice;

g) fillers-in such as well, and, you know, in fact, etc.;

h) random vocalizations and such phonetic oddities as clicks, trills, intakes of breath.

Hesitation phenomena accompanied with facial expressions and gestures are of primary importance in determining the acceptability of conversation. Moreover, phonetics of conversation also involves attention to such phenomena as sound symbolism (e.g. brrr, whoosh), artificial clearing of the throat or coughing for purposes of irony, various snorts and sniffs to communicate disgust and other attitudes.

As a specific type of linguistic activity spontaneous conversation is characterized by randomness of subject-matter and a general lack of conscious planning. This results in errors involving hesitation features of all kinds, frequent switches in modality, incompleteness of many utterances.

The most noticeable aspect of informal conversation is its vocabulary. Words tend to be very simple in structure specialized terms and phraseology are generally avoided. The lack of precision in the matter of word selection is not important, any lexical item may be replaced by words like what-do-you-call-it, you-know-what-I-mean, thingummy, which function as nouns.

This dialogue provides an example of informal conversation:

HOME AGAIN ♫

Rod: Hel‘lo, ‚Barbara! ˈWelcome “back! ¯You ˈlook “marvelous.

Barbara: “Rod! ˈWhat a sur“prise! ¯It’s ‘lovely to ˌsee you aˌgain.

Rod: ↘Sorry I didn’t ↘telephone you ¦ be↘fore you ‘left, but I ˈdidn’t have ‘time, in ‚fact…

Barbara: >Oh, ˈthat’s all _\ right. For‘get it!

Rod: _\ Well, ˈhow was ‘Italy?

Barbara: ‘Fun, but _\ tiring. Mi‘lan was ‚interesting. It’s ‘bigger than I exˌpected. ↘Noisier and ↘dirtier _\ too.

Rod: And ’Florence? ˈWhat did you ˈthink of ˆ Florence?

Barbara: _\ Well, I’ve never “been there be ˇ fore. ¯I ˈthought it was ‘beautiful. ↘More ˙beautiful than ‘Paris, in ‚fact. ˈHave you ever ˙been to ’Italy?

Rod: _\ No, _\ never. I’d ‘really ˌlike to ˈgo to _\ Rome. ˇ Well, the ↘car’s in the ‘car ˌpark. ¯Is ˈthis ˙all your ˆ luggage?

Barbara: ˇ Yes, but the ‘suitcase ¦ is ↘very ‘heavy.

Rod: ˆ Barbara! ˈWhat’s “in it? ˇ Stones?

Barbara: _\ No, ↘just ↘twenty ‘pairs of ‚shoes! >Oh,│ it ‘is ˌnice to ‚see you a˙gain, ˙Rod!

It is necessary to mention that dialogues occurring in a telephone conversation also refer to spontaneous informal speech. In a telephone conversation the participants are not visible to each other and they can’t rely on extralinguistic context to resolve ambiguities in speech. Moreover, they have to spell out words because of the distortion of certain sounds. There is also a tendency to avoid long unfilled pauses as they can be interpreted as a breakdown of communication with the resulting ‘Hello?’ or ‘Are you there?’. Besides, it’s typical of the telephone conversation that the listener is expected to confirm his continued interest and his continued auditory presence.

Here is a dialogue to illustrate an informal telephone conversation ♫:

Tina: Hi, Doug. I’m leaving the office now.

Doug: Tina, it’s six-thirty. The concert starts at eight thirty. Dinner’s almost ready.

Tina: I’ll be home in fifteen minutes.

Doug: I doubt it. Traffic is really bad now. It’s rush hour.

Tina: Hi, it’s me again. I finally got out of the office.

Doug: It’s seven thirty. You were supposed to be here an hour ago.

Tina: You said traffic was bad. It is. The cars aren’t moving.

Doug: Well, hurry. I’m going to start eating without you. I’m too hungry to wait.

Tina: Hi, Doug. Guess who?

Doug: So where are you now?

Tina: I’m walking to the concert. I’ll meet you there.