- •3. Words in company
- •3.1. Stressed and Unstressed Words
- •3.2. Weak Forms of Words
- •3.3. Rhythm Units
- •3.4. Assimilation
- •3.5. The Reduction of Consonants Clusters (Elision)
- •3.6. Exercises Weak Forms
- •3. Assimilation
- •4. Intonation
- •4.1. Graphical Representation of Intonation and Basic Notions
- •Elision
- •4.2. How to Use the Tunes
- •Table 4
- •4.3. Exercises
- •5. Phonostylistics
- •5.1. Its subject matter and basic notions
- •5.2. Intonational Peculiarities of Conversational Style
- •5.3. Social English Saying the right thing
- •5.4. Hesitation Phenomena
- •5.5.Fillers
- •5.6. Exercises
- •5.7. Informational Style How to hold an audience
- •Intonational Peculiarities of Informational Texts
- •Scientific Style Lectures and Speeches
- •Lectures
- •The Intonational Peculiarities of Scientific Style
5. Phonostylistics
5.1. Its subject matter and basic notions
Phonostylistics is concerned with the study of phonetic phenomena and processes from the stylistic point of view. Intonation (prosody) plays a central role in stylistic differentiation of oral texts and one of the objectives of phonostylistics is the study of intonational styles. An intonational style can be defined as a system of interrelated intonational means which are used in a certain social sphere and serves a definite aim of communication.
It might be generally assumed that there are five intonational styles singled out mainly according to the purpose of communication and to which we could refer all the main varieties of the texts generated in everyday communication of a modern man.
They are as follows:
1. Informational style.
2. Academic style (scientific).
3. Publicistic style (oratorial).
4. Declamatory style (artistic).
5. Conversational style (familiar).
5.2. Intonational Peculiarities of Conversational Style
It is the most useful and least artificial kind of English to teach foreign students as a means of everyday communication. This style allows the occurence of the entire range of intonation patterns existing in English. This is due to the fact that there seem to be no social restrictions on the range of emotions and attitudes.
Sentence length is relatively short and the structure is predominantly simple.
Conversational style is characterized by:
1) a great proportion of parenthetic compound types of sentences introduced by “you see”, “you know”, “I mean”, “I say” etc.;
2) frequent use of interrogative sentences;
3) common use of vocatives;
4) a great number of question tags;
5) all sorts of repetition;
6) one-member sentences of nominal type (exclamations);
7) overlappings;
8) elliptical sentences;
9) contracted verbal forms (I’ll, I’ve).
Phonostylistic characteristics |
Conversation |
timbre |
interested and involved |
loudness |
varied |
levels and ranges |
varied. The pitch-range tends to be mid. It’s widened in excited situations |
tempo |
very varied. Generally is quite fast, but it depends on the fluency of the speaker, on his familiarity with the topic |
pauses |
hesitation pauses both filled and non-filled (hesitant drawls); breath-taking pauses varied; non-predictable |
rhythm |
uneven and varied. Perfect fluency tends to produce wrong effect |
terminal tones |
falling and rising tones; High Fall produces the effect of personal participation. |
pre-nuclear patterns |
level or falling heads |
5.3. Social English Saying the right thing
Discussion |
Have you ever been to an English-speaking country? Were there any situations in which you found yourself unable to think of an appropriate response quickly? Were there any situations in which you committed a faux pas (said the wrong thing)? |
|
If your were to teach a foreigner five key phrases in your language that are unlikely to be in a standard phrase book, what would these be? |
Vocabulary |
You will be given some cards, some of which have statements or questions addressed to someone on them (marked A) and others which have short responses to these (marked B). Find two or three responses for each statement or question. |
Listening and Speaking |
You are going to hear ten situations in which you might find yourself. After each one you will be given a short time in which to respond. Say what it seems natural to say. Use any of the phrases you have just seen that seem appropriate. |
Speaking |
You will be given a card on which there is a description of an everyday situation. Work in pairs to act out the situation. Don’t write it down. When you have finished pass your card on to the next pair. |