Unit 7. Publisictic style

The term ‘publicistic style’ is a very broad label, which covers a variety of types, distinguishable on the basis of the speaker’s occupation, situation and purpose.

Publicistic style is characterized by predominance of volitional intonation patterns against the background of intellectual and emotional ones. The general aim of this intonational style is to exert influence on the listener, to convince him that the speaker’s interpretation is the only correct one and to cause him to accept the point of view expressed in the speech. The task is accomplished not merely through logical argumentation but through persuasion and emotional appeal. For this reason publicistic style has features in common with scientific style, on the one hand, and declamatory style, one the other. As distinct from the latter its persuasive and emotional appeal is achieved not by the use of imaginary but in a more direct manner.

The intonation adequate for political speeches is characterized by the following regularities. In the pre-nuclear part the main patterns are: (Low Pre-Head +) Stepping Head; (Low Pre-Head +) Falling Head. The heads are often broken due to extensive use of accidental rises to make an utterance more emphatic.

The speed of utterance is related to the degree of formality, the convention being that formal speech is usually slow, and less formal situations entail acceleration of speed. Variations in rhythm are few. Pauses and the ensuing internal boundaries are explicable in semantic and syntactic terms. Intonation groups tend to be short and as a result pauses are numerous, ranging from brief to very long. Hesitation pauses are avoided, still silent hesitation pauses occasionally do occur.

 

 

 

Unit 8. Familiar (Conversational) style

 

          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.

          Relatively unexcited conversational situations are characterized by low pre-heads, falling or stepping heads and simple Low falling or rising tones. 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.

          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.

 

          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.

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.

 

 

Unit 9. RP

According to British dialectologists (P. Trudgill, J. Hannah, A. Hughes and others) the following variants of English are referred to the English-based group: English, Welsh English, Australian English, New Zealand English; to the American-based group: United States English, Canadian English. Scottish English and Irish English fall somewhere between the two being somewhat by themselves.

RP is a social marker, a prestige accent of an Englishman.

A.C. Gimson suggests that it is convenient to distinguish three main types within it:

· «the conservative RP forms, used by the older generation, and, traditionally, by certain profession or social groups;

· the general RP forms, most commonly in use and typified by the pronunciation adopted by the BBC

· the advanced RP forms, mainly used by young people of exclusive social groups – mostly of the upper classes, but also for prestige value, in certain professional circles.

Changes in Vowel Quality

1) There is a tendency for some of the existing diphthongs to be smoothed out, to become shorter, so that they are more like pure vowels.

a) Diphthongs [ai], [au] are subject to a smoothing process where they are followed by the neutral sound [ə]: conservative RP: [tauə], [faiə]; general RP: [taə], [faə]; advanced RP: [tα:], [fα:]

3) Changes in [j + u:], [1 + u:]. Words like suit, student, super may be pronounced either [sju:t] or [su:t], [stju:dənt] or [stu:dənt], [sju:pə] or [su:pə].

The tendency is for middle-aged and younger speakers to omit the [j] after [s] before [u:].

There is also fluctuation after [1]: word-initially lute [lu:t] is normal, but it is possible to pronounce [ilju:¯n] in illusion, for example.

These recent developments in combinative RP changes bear remarkable resemblance to American Standard pronunciation.

4) Change of [ɔ:] to [α] before [f, s, ½]. Where orthographic «o» occurs before the voiceless fricatives [f, s, ½] older speakers pronounce the vowel [ɔ:] loss [lɔ:s]. This pronunciation is currently dying out in RP and being replaced by [α]: [lαs].

Words like salt and fault still may be pronounced with [‹:].

Changes in Consonant Quality

1. Voicing and Devoicing. The sound [t] in the intervocalic position is made voiced, e.g. better [betə] – [bedə], letter [letə] – [ledə].

2. Loss of [h]. In rapid speech initial [h] is lost in form words and tends to die out from the language. Even most highly educated people subconsciously drop it completely. So instead of: He wants her to come [hi w‹nts h3 tə km] one hears: [i w‹nts 3 tə km]. It is evident, of course, that the loss of [h] in stressed syllables sounds wrong.

3. Spread of «dark» [l]. This tendency is evidently influenced by the American pronunciation and some advanced RP speakers are often heard saying [l] instead of [l] as in believe, for example. There is no threat in spreading it widely yet but it is quite common for pop singers now.

4. Glottal stop. In RP the glottal stop [?] can appear only in the following two environments:

a) as a realization of syllable-final [t] before a following consonant as in batman [bætman – [bæ?mn] or not quite [n‹t 'kwait] – [n‹? 'kwait];

b) in certain consonant clusters as in box, simply [b‹? ks], [si? mpli], where it is known as «glottal reinforcements». The use of glottal stop by advanced RP speakers produces a «clipped» effect on a foreigner.

5. Linking and intrusive [r]. It has been estimated that all English accents are divided into «rhotic» and «non-rhotic». Rhotic accents are those which actually pronounce [r]. RP is a non-rhotic accent but most speakers of it do pronounce orthographic «r» word-finally before a vowel: It is a faraway country.

It is said that nowadays in colloquial fluent speech there is a strong tendency towards elision, reduction and assimilation. This tendency is reflected

· in the pronunciation of the young generation: tutor [t©u:tə], second year [sekənd¯iə], perhaps you [pə'hæp©u:], gives you [giv¯u:], as you know [ə¯ju: 'nəª];

· in the transcribed texts of British textbooks: him [im], he [i:], her [3], his [iz], can [kn], from [frm], have to [hæftə], usually [ju:¯wəli], last time [la:staim];

· even in the traditional spelling: C'm on, baby, Sorry 'bout that; Oh, le'mme see; Oh, I dunno; Must’ve put’em all together. Why d'you ask? What d’ja think?