фонетика da-de-da

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Ernst insists on realism. «Tell it like it is», is his motto. One day Ernst decided to paint a picture of his backyard and garden. There were eight rather large trees in the yard, but the artist decided that if he included all eight of them, it would clutter his painting, so he painted only seven. His wife came out to look at the completed work of art. «But Phil, darling!» she said. «Where’s that missing tree? There are eight trees, but you painted only seven.» And what did Phil do? Paint in the missing tree? No! He took an axe and cut down the extra tree!

L.V. Mayer. Fundamentals of Voice and Articulation: Eleventh Edition. Brown and Benchmark Publishers, 1996. P. 231—233.

PHRASING AND PAUSES

Almost every actor from Lassie to Rambo wants to play Hamlet, one reason being that it’s the longest part — 1,422 lines — in any one of Shakespeare’s plays. The popular Hamlets of Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier, Richard Chamberlain, and Kevin Kline have been greeted with standing ovations, and other Hamlets with hisses and boos….

Hamlet’s most universal moment is his famous meditation on death, the «To be or not to be... » soliloquy. Recordings of Burton, Olivier, and others are available. If you have a chance to listen to any of them, you’ll notice curious differences in the length and location of pauses.

...Burton delivered a different performance each night! On three consecutive evenings he gave completely dissimilar readings of the

Which is the most effective? Probably none is better than the others. Taste alone, not rules, can decide. As long as clarity is preserved and the desired emphasis is achieved, a group of words can be phrased with the accompanying pauses in several ways.

Nevertheless, something tells us that we might be annoyed at

(With no pauses at all) Tobeornottobethatisthequestion.

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A pause is a rest stop — a period of silence. A phrase is a group of related words expressing a thought or «sense» unit or an idea. Phrases are set off from each other with pauses. …

Read the following sentences. Pause wherever you see double vertical lines.

a)If you think nobody cares if you’re alive // try missing a couple of car payments.

b)Know what it is to be a child // it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, mice into horses, and nothing into everything.

c)You get your cat and you call him Thomas or George // Then one morning you wake up // and find six kittens in a hat-box // and you have to reopen the whole matter.

d)The atomic bomb in the hands of a Francis of Assisi would be less harmful than a pistol in the hand of a thug // what makes the bomb dangerous is not the energy it contains // but the person who uses it.

e)That old bromide about truck drivers leading you to the good eats was cooked up in the same kettle as the wild tales about toads causing warts, and goats eating tin cans // Don’t believe it // Follow the truckers and you’ll wind up at truck stops.

Read these twice. The first time, ignore the pause marks. The second time, pause where indicated.

a)When Ann had eaten / / the dog ran away.

b)Hank, her date / / said Bob / / was quite boring.

c)Kevin / / said the president / / is ignorant.

d)That that is / / is.

Without the pauses, they’re confusing. (Ann ate the dog? Who’s boring, who’s ignorant? That that what?)

Again read these twice, without pauses and with pauses. There’s a vast difference.

a)We shall fight on the beaches / / we shall fight on the landing grounds / / we shall fight in the fields and in the streets / / we shall fight in the hills / / we shall never surrender. [Winston Churchill]

b)To become great, what does an actor need most of all / / Physical beauty? Not essential / / Great physique? Unim-

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portant / / Expressive eyes, eloquent hands? No. / / What, then? / / Voice, voice, voice and again, voice.

Believe it or not, you can make sense out of the nonsense below

— if you pause in the right places. You’ll need to gulp some air while you’re reading, but don’t gasp for breath in the middle of a phrase.

Esau Wood sawed wood. Esau Wood would saw wood. All the wood Esau Wood saw Esau Wood would saw. In other words, all the wood Esau saw Esau sought to saw. Oh, the wood Wood would saw! And oh, the wood-saw with which Wood would saw wood. But one day Wood’s wood-saw would saw no wood, and thus the wood Wood sawed was not the wood Wood would saw if Wood’s wood-saw would saw wood. Now, Wood would saw if Wood’s wood-saw would saw wood, so Esau sought a saw that would saw wood. One day Esau saw a saw saw wood as no other wood-saw Wood saw would saw wood. In fact, of all the wood-saws Wood ever saw saw wood Wood never saw a wood-saw that would saw wood as the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood would saw wood, and I never saw a wood-saw that would saw as the wood-saw Wood saw would saw wood until I saw Esau saw wood with the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood. Now Wood saws wood with the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood.

…...the dramatic pause — is an understated way of bringing out meanings or emotional content. A handful of televangelists are geniuses with the art of pausing. On a less ecclesiastical level, many stand-up comics and a couple of late-night talk show hosts are equally skilled. Polished conversationalists and public speakers understand the importance of the dramatic pause. So do actors. The most provocative thing about the dramatic pause, however, is not its frequency but its length. Solemn, profound, and complex subjects generally need linger pauses than lighthearted, unpretentious, or familiar material.

The longer the pause, the greater the impact of what you have just said or are about to say.

A long pause after an important idea or phrase underscores what has just been said.

A long pause before an important idea or climactic key word heightens suspense.

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In this material, one diagonal line suggests relatively short pauses. Three diagonals suggest relatively medium pauses. Six diagonals — relatively long pauses. Be flexible. Experiment.

a) What is the most important thing in the world? / / / / / /

Love.

b)I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me / / / is another matter. [Winston Churchill]

c)Money doesn’t go to jail / Money doesn’t talk / / / / / / It

swears.

d)Sunday School / A place where they tell children about god for fifty-one weeks and then introduce them to / / / Santa Claus.

e)Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. Therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls / /

// / / It tolls / for thee.

Look over these selections for location and length of pauses. Be venturesome. If you’ve found a spot that you’re convinced needs a long pause, try it that way. Then do it again with a medium or short pause to determine if it makes any difference. Finally, mark according to your best judgment and then read.

a)I don’t worry about crime in the streets. It’s the sidewalks I stay off of.

b)Why do celebrities always gripe about their lack of privacy? That’s like a fighter coming out of the ring and saying, «There’s somebody in there trying to hit me.»

c)No matter how far we run or how much we deprive ourselves of ice cream, in the long run we’re all dead.

d)The biblical punishment for adultery was to be stoned in the marketplace. Nowadays, about half the population thinks that sounds like fun.

e)The great box was in the same place. The lid was laid on it, not fastened down. I knew I must reach the body for the key, so I raised the lid, and then I saw something which filled my soul with horror. There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair was changed to iron-gray. The mouth was redder than ever.On the lips were gouts of blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes were set in bloated flesh. It seemed as if the whole awful creature was simply gorged with blood. I felt all over the

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body, but no sign could I find of the key. Then I stopped and looked at the Count. There was a mocking smile on that ghastly face. A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of this monster. I seized a shovel. I lifted it high. I struck downward at the hateful face. But as I did so the head turned. The eyes fell full upon me, with all their blazing horror. The sight seemed to paralyze me. The shovel fell from my hand. The last glimpse I had was of that hideous face, blood-stained and fixed with an evil grin which would have held its own in the bottom level of hell. [Stoker «Dracula»]

Milgrig and the Tree Wilfs

(Something like Hans Christian Andersen)

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Milgrig, believe it or not. She lived in the middle of a deep, dark forest with her three ugly sisters and their husbands, who were charcoal burners. Every night the three ugly sisters used to take little Milgrig and pull out a strand of her golden hair, so that by the time she was thirteen years old, she looked something awful. And after the three sisters had pulled out her hair, their three husbands (I forgot to tell you that the three husbands were even uglier than the three sisters and much nastier) would stick pins into little Milgrig until she looked like a war map.

One night, when little Milgrig was so full of pins that she couldn’t see straight, a fairy prince came riding up to the door of the charcoal burners’ hut and asked if he had lost the way. «How should I know?» replied the oldest sister, who was uglier than all the rest. «What was your way?» — «My way was to the king’s castle,» replied the prince, «and I must get there before midnight, for my father is torturing my mother with red-hot irons.» — «Your father sounds like a good egg,» replied the oldest husband, who was uglier than all the rest. «We must ask him down some night.»

The prince, however, did not think that this was very funny and asked if little Milgrig might not be allowed to show him the way to the castle.

The ugly husbands and sisters, thinking that Milgrig would not know the way and would get the prince lost in the forest, agreed heartily to this suggestion, and the pins were pulled out of Milgrig to make it possible for her to walk. «Good luck and a happy landing!» they all called out after the two young people as they set forth on their perilous journey.

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But the prince was no fool, and knew his way through the forest as well as you or I do (better, I’ll wager), and he took little Milgrig to the palace just as fast as his palfrey would carry him. She wasn’t particularly crazy about going, but a prince is a prince, and she knew enough to keep her mouth shut.

When they reached the palace and the prince found that his father had already killed his mother, he turned to little Milgrig and said: «Now you are the ruler.»

At this, little Milgrig was very pleased and immediately dispatched messangers to the charcoal burners’ hut, where the three ugly sisters and three still-uglier brothers-in-law were burned alive in a slow fire. Little Milgrig and the prince, happy in this termination to their little affair, lived happily ever after. [«Milgrig and the Tree Wilfs» from the Benchley Roundup by Robert Benchley.]

The following selections are unpunctuated. Study them silently to determine story line and emotional content. Then, using an appropriate rate, phrases, emphasis, and intonation, try them aloud.

a)I put the glass to my lips and drank in one gulp then I reeled clutched at the table and held on staring with bursting eyes gasping with open mouth oh God I screamed and oh God again and again the most racking agonies ground into my bones deadly nausea and a horror of the spirit that can’t be exceeded at the hour of birth or death I looked down my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs the hand that lay on my knee corded and hairy I was once more Edward Hyde a moment before I had been Dr. Jekyll respected wealthy beloved and now I was hunted homeless a known murderer a refugee from the gallows I’m a creature a monster eaten up and emptied by fevers ugly in body and mind the doom that closing in is crushing me will I die upon the scaffold God knows this is my true hour of death. [Stevenson «Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde»]

b)Marry you no I can’t do that we don’t agree and we never will so we’ll just be good friends all our lives you’ll get over this after awhile and find some lovely accomplished girl who’ll adore you and make a wonderful wife for your beautiful home yes you will you will I’d be a terrible wife I’m homely and awkward and odd and old yes I am and don’t interrupt me and you’d be ashamed of me and we’d quarrel just as we’re doing right now you see I’ll never marry you I’m happy as I am and love my liberty too well to give it up for any

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mortal man oh I’ll always be fond of you very fond indeed as a friend but I’ll never marry you absolutely never and the sooner you believe it the better for both of us so there. [Alcott «Little Women»]

c) The men in their bloody-minded rage were terrible as they poured down into the streets but the women were a sight to chill the boldest beating their breasts tearing their hair and screaming from their children from their aged and sick crouching on the bare ground famished and naked they ran with streaming hair urging one another to madness Old Foulon has been captured seized alive Foulon who told starving people that they could eat grass Foulon who told my old starving father that he could eat grass Foulon who told my baby that it might suck grass when these breasts were dry hear me my dead baby and my withered father I swear on my knees to avenge you on Foulon husbands brothers and young men give us the blood of Foulon give us the heart of Foulon give us the body and soul of Foulon tear Foulon to pieces drag him torn bruised bleeding screeching to the lamppost stuff grass in his mouth and hang him then hack off his head and put it on a pike. [Dickens «A Tale of Two Cities»]

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

«Take care of the sense,» Lewis Carroll wrote, «and the sounds will take care of themselves.»

As you work with the material, blend and weave together the various elements that have to do with vocal expressiveness. Don’t get hung up on devices! What is the general effect you’re trying to achieve? Search for meaning and intelligibility. Search for various feelings and moods. Above all, search for freshness and spontaneity.

L.V. Mayer Fundamentals of Voice and

Articulation: Eleventh Edition. Brown and

Benchmark Publishers, 1996. P. 235—240

P A R T II ___________________

Можно ли преодолеть русской акцент при изучении английского языка? Можно ли это сделать, не выезжая за пределы своей страны? Что является помехой в приобретении британского или американского акцента при изучении английского языка в условиях так называемого искусственного билингвизма? Во второй части нашего практикума постараемся разобраться в причи- нах возникновения фонетического акцента и ответить на поставленные вопросы.

DOES ACCENT MATTER?

«The trouble with the British is that they accept and enjoy the nice distinctions of social class. They love hierarchy and see nothing wrong in the deferential attitude that it breeds.» So says a leading educationalist and nowhere is this clearer than in the question of speech. For the way the English is spoken gives away not only regional identity but class status too.

Since the days of Shakespeare, the English of south-east England has been considered the «standard», for no better reason than that the south-east is the region of economic and political power. The upper and upper-middle-class mode of speech, «received pronunciation» (RP), derived from the public school system attended by the boys of wealthier families. RP remains the accent of the elite.

Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of RP. One is «unmarked» RP, which suggests no more than that the speaker is well-educated. This is the dialect of the BBC, and thus it has a kind of authority. Through radio and television unmarked RP is becoming a more widely spoken accent. Then there is «marked» RP, which indicates high social class and is spoken, for example, by many army officers who come from upper-class families. Although spoken by less than 5 per cent of the population, RP has immense influence and social authority.

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Regional accents exist, in class status terms, below RP. Scottish, Welsh and Irish are generally the more popular regional accents. Then come northern, Yorkshire and west country accents, and at the bottom of the list come the least popular urban accents of London, Liverpool and Glasgow. Significantly the television news is often read by someone with a regional accent. Is there an implicit difference in the importance and status of news and weather?

Do dialect and accent enrich or impoverish? Some argue that regional accents enhance the sense of local community, and that to abandon them is to give way to the accents of the ruling class. Others argue that they are socially divisive. Dialect is unlikely to disappear and the debate is likely to continue.

Adapted from «Britain in Close-Up» (by David McDowall, Longman, 1993)

// Moscow News. 1998. November 12—18,¹ 44

В современном языкознании проблема взаимодействия языков при искусственном двуязычии постепенно выходит на центральное место в лингвистике в связи с перенесением акцента на исследование когнитивных процессов в языке и на изучение роли когнитивных структур формируемых в границах национального менталитета и проявляемых в процессе межнационального общения. Взаимодействие культур в процессе коммуникации все чаще становится предметом обсуждения на страницах научных изданий. Пристальное внимание лингвистов к данной проблеме имеет под собой серьезное основание. Процесс межнациональной коммуникации осуществляется в рамках часто не совпадающих национальных ментальных стереотипов, что является результатом непонимания в области коммуникативного поведения общающихся, которое находится в прямой зависимости от нарушений и искажений в просодической организации речевого поведения билингва.

Влияние национальной специфики менталитета на просодическую организацию речи является одной из причин возникновения интерферируемых процессов при контактировании языков. Причины возникновения просодической интерференции при изучении английского языка нельзя относить только за счет ар- тикуляторно-физиологических различий носителей контактируемых языков и особенностей в просодических системах сопостав-

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ляемых языков (русского и английского). Роль когнитивных факторов родного языка билингвов, несомненно, важна при исследовании появления и проявления фонетического акцента. Но прежде, чем мы рассмотрим причины возникновения данного явления, остановимся на определении терминов, используемых во второй части нашего пособия.

Билингвизм, èëè двуязычие, т. е. попеременно свободное пользование двумя языками, а отсюда билингв — человек, свободно использующий два языка в своей речи. В настоящее время в обиход вошло название искусственный билингвизм, или искусственный билингв, — человек, изучающий иностранный язык в школьной, студенческой или другой аудитории.

Интерференция — это взаимодействие языковых систем в условиях естественного или искусственного двуязычия, возникающее при языковых контактах и выражающееся в отклонениях от языковой нормы и системы второго языка под влиянием когниций родного языка.

Акцент (фонетический) — если интерференция — это процесс взаимодействия языков, то акцент — это результат данного процесса.

Когниции — термин когнитивной лингвистики, когниции определяются как совокупность ментальных, психических процессов, влияющих на мировосприятие.

Менталитет — образ мышления, определяющий восприятие мира в соответствии с этносоциогенезом человека и фиксируемый посредством языка, отражающего духовные качества народа, говорящего на данном языке. Национальный характер определенного этноса является неотъемлемым компонентом данной когнитивной категории.

Гештальт — целостное восприятие явления, объекта, не распадающееся на сумму его составляющих (фраза, сверхфразовое единство, музыкальное произведение, картина и т.д.).

Просодия — система сверхсегментных средств: высоты тона, интенсивности, длительности.

Интерференция (или фонетический акцент) представляет собой языковое явление, свидетельствующее о тесном взаимодействии двух факторов: интерферирующих элементов, проявляемых в форме когниций, и, в частности, просодической системы родного языка билингвов, и являющихся причиной появления