LECTURE 1.
THEORETICAL PHONETICS AS A SCIENCE
PLAN:
1. The subject matter of phonetics
2. The importance of studying phonetics for the Foreign Language departments students
3. Connection of phonetics with other sciences
4. Branches of phonetics
5. Phonetics and Phonology
LITERATURE:
1. Study Guide to English Phonetics and Phonology : навч. посіб. / Валентина Іванівна
Остапенко.– Кам'янець-Подільський : ФОП Сисин О. В., : Абетка, 2012.– 171 с.
2. Теоретическая фонетика английского языка. Лекции, семинары, упражнения :
учеб. пособие / М.В. Евстифеева. — М. : ФЛИНТА : Наука, 2012. — 168 с.
3. Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб. Для студ. ин-тов и фак.
иностр. яз / М.А.Соколова, К.П.Гинтовт, И.С.Тихонова, Р.М.Тихонова. — М.:
Гуманит. изд. центр ВЛАДОС, 1996. — 286с.
4. Pronunciation pedagogy and theory. New Views, new Directions/ J.Morley. – Illinois:
Pentagraph Printing: Bloomington, 1994. – 120p.
1. The subject matter of phonetics
The present course of Theoretical Phonetics will include 26 hours: 8 lectures and 4
seminars and exam.
The word ‘phonetics’ comes from the Greek word phōne [fɔ:nə] = sound, voice and
phōnetikós connected with voice, and means ‘the science of the voice’. Nowadays it
means the study of the way humans make, transmit, and receive speech sounds.
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics which studies the sound system of the
language: phonemes, word stress, syllabic structure and intonation. Phonetics as a
branch of linguistics studies sounds in the broad sense, investigating vowels and
consonants. It studies the acoustic properties of sounds, the physiological basis of sound
production, it occupies itself with the study of the ways in which the sounds are organized
into a system of different units. In the 18th century it was considered as a part of grammar.
Now phonetics is an independent science with its own theories, methods of investigation.
Phonetics is a basic branch of linguistics, which deals with speech sounds and
studies the outer form of the language. Neither linguistic theory nor linguistic practice can
exist without phonetics, because language is a system and its components are inseparably
connected.
Phonetics is subdivided into practical and theoretical. Practical or normative
phonetics studies the substance, the material form of phonetic phenomena in relation to
meaning. Theoretical phonetics is mainly concerned with the functioning of phonetic
units in the language. Theoretical phonetics regards phonetic phenomena synchronically.
The phonetic system of a language is a set of units arranged in an orderly way to
replace each other in a given framework. Phonetics in general is divided in two subsystems: segmental phonetics which is concerned with minimal segments of speech and
suprasegmental phonetics which deals with larger speech units.
Segmental units of phonetics include phonemes and their allophones as the
representation of individual sounds. Suprasegmental units are syllables, word-stress, and
prosodic (intonational) phenomena (pith, stress, tempo, rhythm, pauses). Both segmental
and suprasegmental units are used to form words, phrases and utterances in connected
speech.
Thus it’s possible to define phonetics as a branch of linguistics that studies speech
sounds in the broad sense, comprising segmental sounds, suprasegmental units and
prosodic phenomena. The phonetic system of any language comprises 4 components:
phonemic, syllabic, accentual and intonational.
The first is the phonemic component. It is the basic component represented by the
system of segmental phonemes of a language existing in the material form of their
allophones. It may have manifestations in:
1) the system of phonemes as discrete isolated units;
2) the distribution of allophones of different phonemes;
3) the methods of joining speech sounds.
The second component is the syllabic structure of words. It has two manifestations
which are inseparable from each other: syllable formation and syllable division.
The third component is the accentual structure of words when pronounced in
isolation. Its main manifestations are:
1) the acoustic nature of word stress;
2) the stress position in disyllabic and polysyllabic words;
3) the degrees of word stress.
The fourth component is the intonational structure of utterances with the following
manifestations:
1) the prosodic components of intonation; 2) the structure of intonation patterns;
3) the representation of patterns in intonation groups.
All the components of the phonetic system of the language constitute its
pronunciation.
2. The importance of studying phonetics for the Foreign Language departments
students
Is it necessary for an English teacher or a translator to be a phonetician? I would
reply that yes. It isn’t possible to teach a foreign language to anyone without paying
attention to pronunciation. And any pronunciation is phonetics.
English is not "phonetic". Therefore, we do not always say a word the same way
that we spell it.
Theoretical Phonetics is primarily concerned with the expression level of speech
(how words are pronounced). It also considers the content level (what these sound
sequences mean because only meaningful sound sequences become speech).
Why is Theoretical Phonetics included into the curriculum of the Foreign
Languages departments of Universities? Because it studies the sound system of the
language (phonemes, word stress, syllabic structure and intonation). Neither linguistic
theory nor language practice can do without Phonetics.
The main objectives of the teaching Theoretical Phonetics are:
• To give the students the necessary information on theory and problems of
English phonetics;
• To show importance of theoretical studies in solving practical problems
connected with language teaching.
More practical aims of the course include:
• Teaching students to monitor their own pronunciation and to be able to perfect it;
• Helping students to become a good example/model of native-like English
pronunciation for their future students or pupils;
• Teaching students to spot their future pupils' pronunciation mistakes and to be
able to correct them;
• Teaching students to keep their organs of speech healthy and enable them to use
their voice in the best possible way.
3. Connection of phonetics with other sciences
Phonetics is closely connected with linguistic disciplines:
1.The connection of phonetics with grammar is exercised through orthography and
intonation. Thus for example, the system of reading rules helps to pronounce singular and
plural forms of nouns correctly (man —men, foot — feet). The use of the necessary
nuclear tone helps to distinguish between different types of sentences. It’s especially
important in colloquial speech where one and the same sentence may be understood as a
statement when pronounced with the falling tone (He came \ home.) or a question when
pronounced with the rising tone (He came / home?).
2.The connection of phonetics with lexicology is exercised through pronunciation
and word-stress. For instance, some corresponding forms of verbs and nouns are
homographs identical in spelling. They may be distinguished with the help of:
pronunciation (wind [wınd] — to wind [waınd]), word-stress ('object — to ob'ject), or
both word-stress and pronunciation (increase ['ınkrıs] — to increase [in'kri:z]).
3.The connection of phonetics with stylistics is exercised through intonational
components or graphical expressive means. Such stylistic means as repetition of phrases,
words and sounds help the writers to create precise physical images to impress the
reader: e.g. alliteration – (tit for tat – зуб за зуб ); onomatopoeia - a combination of
sounds which imitates sounds produced in nature (cuckoo, meow, bang, crash etc.)
Phonetics is also connected with non-linguistic sciences which have educational or
social value, like methods of language teaching, logics, history, psychology, sociology.
The study of the structure of sound system is indispensable from sciences studying
different aspects of speech production, like acoustics, physiology. Also phonetics is
related to physics and mathematics, anatomy, anthropology, archaeology, communication
theory and statistics.
Phonetics is also a part of some interdisciplinary subjects like sociolinguistics,
psycholinguistics, mathematical linguistics, etc. Each of these sciences can have
theoretical or practical application in the sphere of phonetic investigation.
4. Branches of phonetics
I. According to the object of the study there are three branches of phonetics.
They are interconnected, because the sound matter of a language is a unity of four
aspects: articulatory, acoustic and auditory.
ARTICULATORY PHONETICS comprises all the movements and positions of
the speech organs necessary to pronounce a speech sound. It studies how speech sounds
are produced. Speech organs have different functions and thus can be divided into four
groups:
1) The power (respiratory) mechanism supplies the energy in the form of air
pressure and regulates the force of air stream. It includes the following speech organs: the
diaphragm, the lungs, the bronchi, the windpipe (trachea), the glottis and the supra-glottal
cavities, the larynx, the mouth cavity, the nasal cavity.
2) The vibration mechanism functions as a vibrator when producing voice. It
consists of the vocal cords (voice box), situated in the larynx.
3) The resonator mechanism consists of the speech organs which function as
principal resonators. These are the pharynx, the larynx, the mouth and nasal cavities.
4) The obstruction mechanism consists of the tongue (the blade, the tip, the front,
the back/dorsum), the lips, the teeth, the soft palate with the uvula, the hard palate, the
alveolar ridge. These speech organs form different types of obstructions.
ACOUSTIC PHONETICS studies sound waves, physical properties of speech. It
is the way in which the air vibrates between the speaker’s mouth and the listener’s ear.
There may be different types of vibrations which affect the tone of the voice. The basic
vibrations of the vocal cords over their whole length produce the fundamental tone of
voice. The simultaneous vibrations of parts of the vocal cords produce partial tones
(overtones).
The number of vibrations per second is called frequency. Frequency of basic
vibrations of the vocal cords is called the fundamental frequency which is very important
in phonetic investigation. It determines the pitch of the voice and forms the acoustic basis
of speech melody.
AUDITORY PHONETICS is a physiological and psychological mechanism. It
studies the way in which humans perceive speech sounds. It combines the process of
hearing with the process of discriminating sounds. People can perceive the range from 16
to 20,000 Hz with a difference in 3 Hz. The human ear transforms vibrations of the air into
nervous commands and transmits them to the brain.
This enables the listener discriminate the quality, pitch, loudness, and length of
sounds and identify the sounds.
Besides, according to the sphere of application phonetics can be divided into
general phonetics and special phonetics.
GENERAL PHONETICS - is part of general linguistics which is concerned with
the study of production human speech and functioning of speech mechanism. It
• establishes phonetic regularities common for human languages in general;
• includes a number of theories, which are true for a group of languages,
e.g. the phoneme theory, the theory of syllable formation, of stress, of intonation
• establishes the types of speech sounds in various languages, the way they are
produced and the role they play in speech;
• uses data provided by special phonetics of different languages and disciplines
like speech pathology, psychology, etc.
SPECIAL PHONETICS deals with the study of one language. It falls into:
a) descriptive phonetics which studies the sounds of the given language at a
particular period of time (that is synchronically);
b) historic phonetics which studies the sounds of the given language in their
historical development (that is diachronically).
According to the field of application and methods of investigation phonetics is
also divided into theoretical and practical.
All the branches of phonetics are closely connected with one another and study the
language in a set of certain phonetic units arranged in an orderly way.
5. Phonetics and Phonology
What is the main distinction between phonetics and phonology?
Phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are made, transmitted, and received,
i.e. phonetics is the study of all possible speech sounds. The human vocal apparatus can
produce a wide range of sounds; but only a small number of them are used in a language
to construct all of its words and utterances.
Phonology is the study of those segmental (speech sound types) and prosodic
(intonation) features which have a differential value in the language. It studies the way in
which speakers systematically use a selection of units – phonemes or intonemes – in
order to express meaning. It investigates the phonetic phenomena from the point of view
of their use.
Phonology also solves:
1. the problem of the identification of the phonemes of a language;
2. the problem of the identification of the phoneme in a particular word, utterance.
It establishes the system of phonemes and determines the frequency of occurrence in
syllables, words, utterances.
Phonology was originated in the 30s of the 20th century by a group of linguists
belonging to the Prague school of linguistics – Vilem Matesius, Nickolai Trubetskoy,
Roman Jakobson. The theoretical background of phonology is the phoneme theory
whose foundations were first laid down by I.O. Baudouin de Courtenay (1845-1929) in
the last quarter of the 19th century (between the years of 1868-1881). The most
important work in phonology is THE GROUNDWORK OF PHONOLOGY [1939] by
Nickolai Trubetskoy. He claimed that phonology should be separated from phonetics as
it studies the functional aspect of phonic components of language. Phonetics is a
biological science which investigates the sound-production aspect. Contemporary
phoneticians hold the view that form and function
When we listen to someone's speech we constantly carry out 2 types of
analysis:
1. phonetic - in which we distinguish articulatory and acoustic characteristics
of particular sounds and their combinations;
2. phonological - in which we determine the role of these sounds in
communication.
Thus, both phonemes and speech sounds are 2 sides of one and the same
phenomenon - the sound system of language.
In special literature you can find a lot of definitions of phonetics and
phonology. I will give you only one which I hope will help you to understand the
difference between them.
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies:
a) sounds in the broad sense, comprising segmental sounds (vowels and
consonants) and prosodic phenomena (pitch, stress, tempo, rhythm, pauses);
b) the ways in which sounds are organized into a system of units and the
variation of units in all types and styles of spoken language;
c) the acoustic properties of sounds, the physiological basis of sound
production and peculiarities of each individual speaker.
Phonology is a purely linguistic branch of Phonetics which
a) deals with the functional aspect of sound phenomena;
b) discovers those segmental and prosodic features that differ one language
from another;
c) establishes the system of phonemes and prosodemes for each language;
1.
2.
3.
4.
d) determines the frequency of occurrence of these units in syllables, words,
rhythmic groups and other sequences that form an utterance.
So, it is evident that Phonetics deals with a more concrete and practical level
of real speech sounds while Phonology studies a more abstract and general level of
abstract units that make the sound inventory of a language. Phonology of segmental
units (vowels and consonants) is called phonemics, phonology of intonation is called
prosody (prosodemics, intonology).
LECTURE 2.
FUNCTIONAL ASPECT OF SPEECH SOUNDS
PLAN:
1. Speech sounds and phoneme
2. Main trends in phoneme theory
3. Methods of phonological analysis
4. Variants of phonemes or allophones
5. Aspects and functions of the phoneme
LITERATURE:
Study Guide to English Phonetics and Phonology : навч. посіб. / Валентина Іванівна
Остапенко.– Кам'янець-Подільський : ФОП Сисин О. В., : Абетка, 2012.– 171 с.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка. Лекции, семинары, упражнения :
учеб. пособие / М.В. Евстифеева. — М. : ФЛИНТА : Наука, 2012. — 168 с.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб. Для студ. ин-тов и фак.
иностр. яз / М.А.Соколова, К.П.Гинтовт, И.С.Тихонова, Р.М.Тихонова. — М.:
Гуманит. изд. центр ВЛАДОС, 1996. — 286с.
Pronunciation pedagogy and theory. New Views, new Directions/ J.Morley. – Illinois:
Pentagraph Printing: Bloomington, 1994. – 120p.
1. Speech sounds and phoneme
Sounds can be produced by different things - cars, birds, thunderstorms, raindrops,
falling leaves and, of course, human beings. Man is one of the numerous animals created
by nature, and as all of them he has his own language. Sounds created by the speaker
shows his/her personality, which includes: age, nationality, education, physiological and
emotional state, social status, sex, etc., e.g. Eliza Doolitle and Professor Higgins in
B.Shaw's "Pygmalion".
A speech sound is the unit of practical phonetics, which is studied from articulatory,
acoustic and auditory aspects. A phoneme is the unit of functional phonetics, which
serves communicative purposes. A phoneme is a single “unit” of sound that has meaning
in any language. There are 44 phonemes in English, each one representing a different
sound a person can make. The 44 phonemes are in line with the International Phonetic
Alphabet. Since sounds cannot be written, we use letters to represent or stand for the
sounds. A grapheme is the written representation (a letter or cluster of letters) of one
sound.
The phoneme is a basic linguistic unit and this fact is acknowledged by all linguists.
But not all of them describe it in the same way.
The term” phoneme” appeared in the linguistic literature of the 19th century in the
works of the French linguist F. de Saussure. According to him a phoneme is defined as a
total sum of acoustic impressions and articulatory movements. The linguistic aspect is
lacking in this definition. He ignores the sense differentiating function of the phoneme /
his phisiologysm / and draws a line between language and speech, considering it as a
system of signs, expressing ideas /his psychologism /. His conceptions greatly influenced
a great number of linguists and schools.
The phoneme is a minimal abstract linguistic unit realized in speech in the form of
speech sounds opposable to other phonemes of the same language in order to distinguish
the meaning of morphemes and words.
This materialistic conception of the phoneme is regarded as the most suitable for the
purpose of language teaching in modern linguistics.
2. Main trends in phoneme theory
Views of the phoneme seem to fall into four main classes. The "psychological"
view regards the phoneme as an ideal "mental image" or a target at which the speaker
aims. He deviates from this ideal sound partly because an identical repetition of a sound
is next to impossible and partly because of the influence exerted by neighbouring sounds.
According to this conception allophones of the phoneme are varying materializations of
it. This view was originated by the founder of the phoneme theory, the Russian linguist
I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay and something like it appears to have been adopted by E.D.
Sapir, Alf. Sommerfelt , M. Tatham.
The so-called "functional" view regards the phoneme as the minimal sound unit by
which meanings may be differentiated without much regard to actually pronounced
speech sounds. Meaning differentiation is taken to be a defining characteristic of
phonemes.
This view is shared by many foreign linguists: see in particular the works of N.
Trubetskoy, L. Bloomfield, R. Jakobson, M. Halle.
The functional view of the phoneme gave rise to a branch of linguistics called
"phonology" or "phonemics" which is concerned with relationships between
contrasting sounds in a language.
Its special interest lies in establishing the system of distinctive features of the
language concerned. Phonetics is limited in this case with the precise description of
acoustic and physiological aspects of physical sounds without any concern to their
linguistic function.
A stronger form of the "functional" approach is advocated in the so-called
"abstract" view of the phoneme, which regards phonemes as essentially independent of
the acoustic and physiological properties associated with them, that is of speech sounds.
This view of the phoneme was pioneered by L. Hjelmslev and his associates in the
Copenhagen Linguistic Circle, H.J. Uldall and K. Togby.
The views of the phoneme discussed above can be qualified as idealistic since all of
them regard the phoneme as an abstract conception existing in the mind but not in the
reality, that is in human speech, speech sounds being only phonetic manifestations of
these conceptions.
The "physical" view regards the phoneme as a "family" of related sounds
satisfying certain conditions, notably:
1. The various members of the "family" must show phonetic similarity to one
another, in other words be related in character.
2. No member of the "family" may occur in the same phonetic context as any other.
The extreme form of the "physical" conception, as propounded by D. Jones and
shared by B. Bloch and G. Trager, excludes all reference to non-articulatory criteria in
the grouping of sounds into phonemes
3. Methods of phonological analysis
The aim of phonological (phonemic) analysis is to determine phonemic
(functional) and non-phonemic (articulatory) differences of speech sounds and to identify
the inventory of language phonemes.
The phonological analysis of both unknown languages and languages already
described can be fulfilled within two steps.
The first step which is especially important when investigating an unknown
language is to identify the minimal segments of speech continuum and record them
graphically by means of allophonic transcription.
The second step is to arrange the sounds into functionally similar groups in order
to find contrastive phoneme sounds and allophones of the same sounds.
There are two main methods of phonological investigation: the distributional
method and the semantic method, but they get different interpretation in modern
phonology.
I. According to the distributional method phonemes of any language are
discovered by rigid classification of all the sounds pronounced by native speakers
according to the following laws of phonemic and allophonic distribution:
— allophones of different phonemes occur in the same phonetic context and their
distribution is contrastive;
— allophones of the same phoneme(s) never occur in the same phonetic context,
their distribution is complementary and the choice depends on phonetic environment.
Numerous examples seem to qualify this approach.
Thus in the opposition let — pet — bet all initial sounds are different phonemes,
because they occur in the same initial position before a vowel.
At the same time [th] and [to] in take and let present allophonic variants of the same
phoneme: [th] never occurs in the final word position and never follows [s], while [to]
never occurs initially before stressed vowels.
II. The semantic method is based on the functional rule that phonemes can
distinguish words and morphemes when opposed to one another. It consists in the
systemic substitution of one sound for another in the same phonetic context in order to
find cases in which such a replacement leads to the change of meaning. This procedure is
called the commutation test and it helps to establish minimal oppositional pairs of words
and word-forms presenting different meaning.
For example, pin can be successively substituted for bin, sin, din, tin,win, and each
minimal opposition will present different meanings. But the substitution of [p h] for [p] in
pin doesn’t bring about any change in meaning, though it’s wrong from the point of view
of English pronunciation norm. So it’s possible to conclude that [p], [b], [s], [d], [t], [w]
are different phonemes whereas [ph] and [p] are allophones of the same phoneme.
Any phoneme of a language is opposed to another phoneme at least in one minimal
oppositional pair thus performing the distinctive function.
The phonemic structure of a language is established according to the system of
oppositions, which include minimal pairs of word-initial, word-medial and word-final
positions.
N.S. Trubetzkoy has worked out the classification of phonological oppositions
which is based on the number of distinctive features. It concerns only relevant
(distinctive) features of phonemes. The non-distinctive features are not taken into
consideration.
1. A single phonological opposition is established on the basis of a single
difference in the articulation of two speech sounds. For example, the opposed phonemes
in the minimal pair ‘pen — ben’ possess some common features (occlusive, labial) and
one differentiating feature (fortis vs. lenis).
2. A double phonological opposition marks two differences in the articulation and
presents a sum of two single oppositions. For istance, the minimal pair ‘pen — den’
presents one common feature (occlusive) and two differentiating feature (labial vs.
lingual, voiceless-fortis vs. voiced-lenis).
3. A triple phonological opposition has three articulatory differences, presenting a
sum of three single oppositions. For example, there are three differentiating features in
the minimal pair ‘pen — then’ (occlusive vs. constrictive, labial vs. dental, voicelessfortis vs. voiced-lenis).
4. Variants of phonemes or allophones
The sounds of language should be described and classified from the point of view of
their functional significance. The same sounds can have different interpretations in
different phonetic contexts.
For example, the sound [t] may be opposed to [d] in words like ten—den, seat—
seed. But in the expressions let us — let them [t] remains the realization of one and the
same sound though having certain pronunciation peculiarities.
In order to tell the difference linguists use two separate terms: phoneme and
allophone. The term ‘phoneme’ means sounds of speech used in their contrastive sense
whereas the term ‘allophone’ is used for non-contrastive sounds representing variants of
a definite phoneme.
It’s been stated before that the phoneme is a minimal abstract linguistic unit
opposed to other phonemes in order to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and words.
As a unit of language any phoneme possesses a bundle of distinctive features that
makes it functionally different from all other phonemes and forms the invariant of the
phoneme. The articulatory features characteristic of the invariant are called distinctive
(relevant). They can be extracted when opposing to each other in the same phonetic
context phonemes with a difference in one articulatory feature which brings changes in
meaning.
For example, all the allophones of the phoneme [d] are occlusive, forelingual and
lenis, but when occlusive articulation is changed for con-strictive one, [d] is replaced by
[z] (breed — breeze, deal — zeal). In words port — court, both phonemes [p] and [k]
have the same features of occlusive, fortis consonants, but labial [p] is opposed to lingual
[k].
The articulatory features which do not serve to distinguish meaning are called nondistinctive (irrelevant). They are observed within the allophones of a certain phoneme.
For example, the opposition of an aspirated [kh] to a non-aspirated one in the same
phonetic context does not distinguish meaning (back).
There are two types of non-distinctive features:
— incidental (redundant) features (aspiration of voiceless plosives, presence of
voice in voiced consonants, length of vowels, etc.);
— indispensable (concomitant) features (tenseness of long monophthongs, checked
character of stressed short vowels, lip rounding of back vowels, etc.).
Allophones are the possible variants of the same phoneme, which never occur in
similar phonetic contexts. They are not used to differentite meaning and largely depend
on the phonetic context, in which neighbouring phonemes predict the use of this or that
allophone.
There are two types of allophones: principal and subsidiary. If an allophone
retains the typical articulatory characteristics of the phoneme, it is called a principal
allophone. But when certain changes happen in the articulation of an allophone under the
influence of the phonetic environment, an allophone is called subsidiary. The subsidiary
allophones are subdivided into 2 groups: combinatory and positional. Combinatory
allophones are those which appear as a result of the influence of the neighbouring speech
sounds. Positional allophones occur in certain positions only.
For example, an English phoneme [d] presents a principal variant when it is taken in
isolation or in words like door, darn, down, and retains its typical characteristics of an
occlusive, forelingual, apical, alveolar, lenis consonant. But the same phoneme [d] may
undergo changes under the influence of other phonemes, and thus present subsidiary
variants. It may be:
— slightly palatalized before front vowels and sonorant [j] (deal,day, dew);
— pronounced without any plosion before another stop (bedtime,good dog);
— pronounced with nasal plosion before [n], [m] (sudden, admit) or lateral plosion
before [l] (idle);
— post-alveolar followed by [r] (dry, dream);
— dental followed by [θ], [d] (good thing, lead the way);
— labialized followed by [w] (dweller).
Still all the allophones retain the invariant of phoneme [d] and possess its three
basic articulatory features: they are forelingual lenis stops.
The actual realization of allophones in the speech chain is exercised through
phones. These units are not predicted by phonetic context but modified by
phonostylistic, dialectal and individual variations. That’s why no speech sounds are
absolutely alike.
Phonemes and allophones are closely connected but at the same time they belong to
two different levels:
• phoneme – to an abstract level, • allophones – to a concrete level.
The phoneme is an abstraction. It is realized in a bunch of allophones that occur
in different positions in the word (i.e. different environments).
Listen to the pronunciation of one and the same sound [k] in several words:
cool - [k] is aspirated;
school - [k] loses aspiration after [s];
black - [k] has less aspiration than at the beginning of the word;
black cat - first [k] loses plosion and aspiration before the second one
Though all these 4 sounds [k] are slightly different they are recognizable as the
sound [k] all the same. They are variants of one and the same phoneme [k] and are called
allophones. So, articulatory and acoustic features of allophones depend on their
position and phonetic environment. The articulatory features which form the invariant
of the phoneme (stay the same in all its allophones) are called distinctive or relevant.
(e.g. backlingual and labial articulations of [k] and [p] are the same in all their
allophones)
The articulatory features which change in allophones of the same phoneme are
called non- distinctive or irrelevant. Here’s an example.
The phoneme [p] is defined as occlusive, plosive, labial, bilabial, noise, fortis,
voiced consonant. All these features are common for all its allophones. But each
allophone besides these common features will have its own peculiarities,
park - [p] is aspirated;
stop - [p] is less aspirated;
prove- [p] is labialized;
stop Kate - [p] has no plosion and practically no aspiration.
5. Aspects and functions of the phoneme
The phoneme is viewed as a functional, material and abstract unit, which performs
three functions: distinctive, constitutive and recognitive.
1. The phoneme as a functional unit performs the distinctive function. It
distinguishes different sounds in a contrastive sense and serves as the smallest language
unit that discriminates between larger language units. Thus, the opposition of phonemes
in the same phonetic environment differentiates the meaning of morphemes, words and
even sentences.
E.g., sleeper — sleepy;
bath — path, light — like;
He was heard badly — He was hurt badly.
2. The phoneme is a material, real and objective unit that performs the constitutive
function. The phoneme is realized in speech in the form of its variants or allophones,
which do not make meaningful distinctions and serve to constitute the material form of
morphemes.
E.g., cap [khæph] / [khæp] — the loss of plosion in the final phoneme [p] doesn’t
bring any change of meaning.
3. The phoneme is also an abstract and generalized unit, which performs the
recognitive function. The phoneme serves to distinguish and understand the meaning,
because the use of the right allophone in the certain phonetic context helps the listener to
understand the message and thus facilitates normal recognition.
E.g., take it — tape it — the difference in two phrases is understood by two
different phonemes.
LECTURE 3 THE SYSTEM OF ENGLISH PHONEMES.
PLAN:
1.
Vowels and consonants phonemes
2.
Problems of classification of English consonants
3.
Problems of classification of English vowels
4.
English phonemes in writing
5.
Modification of English phoneme in connected speech
5.1 Modification of English consonants in connected speech
5.2 Modification of English vowels in connected speech
LITERATURE:
1.
Study Guide to English Phonetics and Phonology : навч. посіб. / Валентина Іванівна
Остапенко.– Кам'янець-Подільський : ФОП Сисин О. В., : Абетка, 2012.– 171 с.
2.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка. Лекции, семинары, упражнения :
учеб. пособие / М.В. Евстифеева. — М. : ФЛИНТА : Наука, 2012. — 168 с.
3.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб. Для студ. ин-тов и фак.
иностр. яз / М.А.Соколова, К.П.Гинтовт, И.С.Тихонова, Р.М.Тихонова. — М.:
Гуманит. изд. центр ВЛАДОС, 1996. — 286с.
4.
Pronunciation pedagogy and theory. New Views, new Directions/ J.Morley. – Illinois:
Pentagraph Printing: Bloomington, 1994. – 120p.
a.
Vowels and consonants phonemes
There are two main classes of sounds traditionally distinguished in any language —
consonants and vowels. The opposition ‘vowels vs. consonants’ is a linguistic universal and
it is clearly seen on all levels of sound production.
This distinction on the acoustic level is clear due to the effect produced by these
sounds: consonants have voice and noise combined, while vowels consist of voice only.
On the articulatory level the difference is exercised through the work of speech
organs: vowels are produced without any obstruction, consonants are produced with the help
of various obstructions, such as complete, partial or intermittent blockages of the air passage.
On the perception level the difference is understood through the integral
characteristics of tone in vowels and the indispensable characteristics of noise in consonants.
On the functional level both vowel and consonant classes of sounds are represented as
a set of phonemes established with the help of phonological analysis. Each of the classes
taken separately may undergo further classifications on the acoustic, articulatory, auditory
and functional levels.
The first three levels should be studied simultaneously as there is no sharp division
between them.
Thus the articulatory classification defines the peculiarities of speech sounds as the
combination of articulatory, acoustic and auditory characteristics.
The phonological classification studies the peculiarities of sounds from the functional
point of view.
b.
Problems of classification of English consonants
Consonants are speech sounds made with the air stream that meets a complete, partial
or intermittent obstruction in the mouth or nasal cavities. The closure blocks the air stream
and the sound production is accompanied with certain audible noise characteristics.
The phonological analysis establishes 24 phonemes of the English consonant system
[p, b, t, d, k, g, f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ∫, j, h, t∫, d͡ʒ, m, n, ŋ, w, r, l, j].
Articulatory classification organizes English consonants into certain groups according
to distinctive changes in the degree of noise, the manner of articulation, the place of
articulation, the presence of voice and the position of the soft palate.
I. The degree of noise is determined by the presence of voice and noise
characteristics. According to it English consonants are divided into noise consonants and
sonorants.
Noise consonants [p, b, t, d, k, g, f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ∫, j, h, t∫, d͡ʒ] are characterized by noise
component characteristic.
Sonorants [m, n, ŋ, w, r, l, j] are produced with tone prevailing over noise.
II. The manner of articulation is determined by the type of obstruction. According to
it English consonants are grouped into occlusive, constrictive and occlusive-constrictive.
Occlusive consonants are produced with a complete obstruction in the mouth [p, t, k,
b, d, g] or nasal cavities [m, n, ŋ]. The sounds [p, t, k, b, d, g] are also called plosives or
stops, because in their production the air is released with plosion.
Constrictive consonants are produced with an incomplete obstruction in the resonator,
forming a narrow [f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ∫, j, h] or a wider passage [w, r, l, j]. The sounds [f, v, θ, ð,
s, z, ∫, j, h] are also called fricatives, because in their production the air is released with
friction.
Occlusive-constrictive consonants or affricates [t∫, d͡ʒ] are produced with a complete
obstruction, which is slowly released with friction.
III. The place of articulation is determined by the position of the active organ of
speech. According to it English consonants are divided into labial, lingual and glottal. The
class of labial consonants is further subdivided into bilabial and labio-dental; the class of
lingual — into forelingual, mediolingual and backlingual.
1. Labial consonants are articulated by the lips. This class includes:
— bilabial consonants [p, b, m, w], produced with both lips;
— labio-dental consonants [f, v], articulated with the lower lip against the upper teeth.
2. Lingual consonants are articulated by the tongue. This class is divided into:
— forelingual consonants [t, d, s, z, ∫, j, θ, ð, t∫, d͡ʒ, n, l, r], produced with the tip of the
tongue;
— mediolingual consonant [j], produced with the front part of the tongue;
— backlingual (velar) consonants [k, g, ŋ], produced with the back part of the tongue.
The subclass of forelingual consonants may be grouped into:
— interdental consonants [θ, ð];
— alveolar consonants [t, d, s, z, n, l];
— post-alveolar consonant [r];
— palato-alveolar consonants [t∫, d͡ʒ, ∫, j].
3. Glottal consonant [h] is articulated in the glottis.
It’s necessary to mention, that the number of places of articulation may be different.
Thus English consonants are divided into:
— unicentral [p, b, t, d, k, g, f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ∫, j, h, m, n, ŋ, r, l, j], which have one point
of articulation;
— bicentral [t∫, d͡ʒ, w], which have two points of articulation.
IV. The voice characteristic depends on the work of the vocal cords.
According to it English consonants are divided into:
— voiced [b, d, g, v, d, z, d͡ʒ, m, n, ŋ, w, r, l, j];
— voiceless [p, t, k, f, θ, s, ∫, h, t∫].
V. According to the position of the soft palate all consonants are classified into:
— oral consonants [p, b, t, d, k, g, f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ∫, j, h, t∫, d͡ʒ, w, r, l, j], produced when
the soft palate is raised;
— nasal consonants [m, n, ŋ], produced when the soft palate is lowered.
c.
Problems of classification of English vowels
Vowels are speech sounds made with the air stream that meets no obstruction in the
mouth, pharyngeal or nasal cavities. There is no noise component characteristic in the
production of vowel sounds.
Articulatory classification of English vowels describes distinctive changes in the
stability of articulation, the tongue position, the lip position, the vowel length, the vowel
tenseness and the character of the vowel end.
I. According to the stability of articulation English vowels are divided into
monophthongs, diphthongs and diphthongoids.
Monophthongs are pure vowel sounds with stable unchanging articulation: [ı, e, æ, a:,
ɔ, o:, u, ʌ, ə:, ə].
Diphthongs are complex vowel sounds with unstable articulation including an
articulatory glide from one position to another: [eı, aı, ɔı, au, əu, iə, ɛə, uə ]. They consist of
two elements: the nucleus with a strong and distinct articulation which forms the starting
point of a vowel, and the glide which reveals the direction of the sound change.
Diphthongoids are vowel sounds with a slight change in articulation when the
difference between the starting point and the end of the sound is not so clear: [i:, u:].
II. The variations in the tongue position also have an effect on the quality of vowel
sounds. They include horizontal and vertical movements of the tongue.
1. According to horizontal movements of the tongue, vowels are divided into front,
front-retracted, central, back, and back-advanced.
Front vowels are produced when the tongue is in the front part of the mouth and its
front is raised to the hard palate: [i:, e, æ], [eı] and the nucleus of [ɛə].
Front-retracted vowels are pronounced when the tongue is in the front part of the
mouth but slightly retracted: [ı] and the nucleus of [ıə, aı, au].
Central vowels are produced when the tongue is in the central part of the mouth and
its front is raised to the back part of the hard palate: [ʌ, ə:, ə] and the nucleus of [əu].
Back vowels are pronounced when the tongue is in the back part of the mouth and its
back is raised to the soft palate [ɔ, o:, u:, a:] and the nucleus of [ɔı].
Back-advanced vowels are produced when the tongue is in the back part of the mouth
but slightly advanced and its centre is raised to the soft palate: [u] and the nucleus of [uə].
2. According to vertical movements of the tongue, vowels are divided into close, mid,
and open.
Close (high) vowels are produced when the front or back of the tongue is raised high
to the palate: [i:, ı, u, u:].
Open (low) vowels are pronounced when the front or back of the tongue is at the
lowest position: [æ, a:, ɔ, o:].
Mid (half-open) vowels are produced when the raised part of the tongue is between
the close and open positions [e, ʌ, ə:, ə].
Each of these vertical tongue positions has two variants: broad and narrow, which
include a higher or lower position of articulation within one of the levels. Thus a more
precise classification includes the following groups:
— close narrow vowels [i:, u:];
— close broad vowels [ı, u];
— mid narrow vowels [e, ə:];
— mid broad vowels [ʌ, ə];
— open narrow vowel [o:];
— open broad vowels [æ, a:, ɔ].
The nuclei of diphthongs are always pronounced within broad variants.
III. According to the position of the lips, vowels may be rounded or unrounded.
Rounded vowels are produced when the lips are drawn together with a round opening
between them: [ɔ, o:, u, u:].
Unrounded vowels are pronounced when the lips are neutral or spread:
[i:, ı, e, æ, a:, ʌ, ɔ:, ə].
IV. According to the length the classes of long and short vowels are distinguished:
long vowels are capable of being continued during a longer period of time [i:, a:, o:,
ə:, u:];
short vowels — during a shorter period of time [i, e, ə, u, ɔ, ʌ].
The vowel sound [æ] stands apart from this category because it’s relatively long.
V. The degree of tenseness which distributes vowels into tense and lax is closely
connected with vowel length.
Tense vowels are produced when the speech organs are tense, here belong all English
long vowels: [i:, a:, o:, ə:, u:].
Lax vowels are produced with less tenseness of the speech organs, here belong all
English short vowels: [i, e, ɔ, u, ə, ʌ, æ].
VI. English vowels are also classified according to the character of the end into
checked and free (unchecked). This criterion is connected with the quality of vowel sounds
under the influence of word stress.
Checked vowels are pronounced with maximum force of utterance and have a strong
end. They are abruptly interrupted by the following consonant and therefore occur only in
closed syllables. These are English stressed vowels followed by a strong voiceless consonant
(bet [bet], dock [dɔk], cart [ka:t], tape [teıp], teacher [‘ti:t∫ə]).
Free vowels are pronounced with lessening force of utterance and have a weak end.
Here belong English vowels followed by a weak voiced consonant or no consonant at all
(pull [pul], card [ka:d], tame [teım], try [traı], illusion [ı’lu: ʒn]).
4. English phonemes in writing
English dictionaries usually indicate the pronunciation of each individual word,
because The English language is not phonetic (spelling is very difficult). This is because 1) it
represents two different languages, one of Romance and the other of Teutonic origin; 2) the
English spelling has remained essentially the same since the days of Caxton (the first English
printer – 1422-91) and the other early prenters. As a result of this 60 symbols are used to
represent vowels and diphthongs and 44 symbols are used to represent consonants in the
written language. These symbols are separate letters or combinations of letters, which
correspond to vowel and consonant phonemes. The are called graphemes.
A grapheme (from Greek: γράφω, gráphō, "write") is a fundamental unit in a written
language. Examples of graphemes include alphabetic letters, Chinese characters, numerical
digits, punctuation marks, and the individual symbols of any of the world's writing systems.
In a fully phonemic orthography, a grapheme corresponds to one phoneme. In English,
a grapheme can be composed of more than one letter, for instance digraphs (two letters for a
single grapheme) and trigraphs (three letters). For example, the word ship contains three
graphemes (sh, i, and p) and three phonemes, because sh is a grapheme that is composed of
two letters. Conversely, a single grapheme can represent multiple phonemes, or no phonemes
at all in the case of 'silent' letters: the English word "box" has three graphemes, but four
phonemes:[bɔks].
Furthermore, a particular grapheme can represent different phonemes on different
occasions, and vice versa. For instance in English the sound /f/ can be represented by 'f', 'ff',
'ph', 'gh' and in some place names of Welsh origin by 'Ff'; while the grapheme 'f' can also
represent the phoneme /v/ (as in the wordof).
5. Modification of English phoneme in connected speech
In the process of speech communication language sounds undergo different kinds of
variations because of articulatory transitions in the production of neighbouring sounds.
There are four types of sound junction in English:
(1) a combination of a consonant and a vowel (CV transition): me [mi:];
(2) a combination of a vowel and a consonant (VC transition): in [ın];
(3) a combination of two consonants (CC transition): blow [bləu];
(4) a combination of two vowels (VV transition): reality [rı'alıtı].
5.1 Modifications of English consonants in connected speech
Consonants are characterized by the following types of sound modifications:
assimilation, accommodation, elision, and inserting.
I. Assimilation is the adaptive modification of a consonant by a neighbouring
consonant within a speech chain. E.g.:
— progressive (dogs — voiced [z], cats — voiceless [s]);
— regressive (width — [d] becomes dental);
— reciprocal (tree — [t] becomes post-alveolar, [r] is partly devoiced).
II. Accommodation is the adaptive modification of a consonant under the influence of
a neighbouring vowel which includes the following changes:
— labialization of consonants under the influence of the following back vowels [ɔ, o:,
u, u:, a:], resulting in lip rounding (pool, rude, ball, car);
— labialization of consonants under the influence of the following or preceding front
vowels [ı, i:], resulting in lip spreading (tea — eat, feet — leaf , keep — leak, pill — tip);
— palatalization of consonants under the influence of front vowels [ı, i:] (cf: part —
pit, top — tip, far — feet, hard — hit, chance — cheese).
III. Elision is a complete loss of sound in the word structure in connected speech. The
following examples of consonant elision are observed in modern English:
— loss of [h] in personal and possessive pronouns he, his, her, hers
and the forms of the auxiliary verb have (What has he done?);
— loss of [l] when preceded by [o:] (always);
— loss of plosives [p, t, k, b, d, g] in clusters followed by another consonant (next day,
just one, last time, old man);
— loss of [θ, ð] in clusters with [s, z, f, v] (months, clothes, fifth, sixth);
— loss of [v] before other consonants in rapid speech (give me your pen).
IV. Insertion is a process of sound addition to the word structure. There are the
following cases of this consonant modification type in English:
— linking [r], which reveals its potential pronunciation (carzowner);
— intrusive [r] pronounced in word combinations with vowels in the word-final and
word-starting positions (chinazand glass);
— inserted [j] after word-final diphthongs gliding to [ı] (saying, trying);
— inserted [w] after word-final diphthongs gliding to [u] (going, allowing);
— inserted [t∫, d͡ʒ] instead of word-final [t, d] before [j] (could you).
5.2. Modifications of English vowels in connected speech
The main types of sound modifications characterizing vowels are reduction and
elision.
I. Reduction is the weakening of vowels in unstressed positions, determined by the
position of a vowel, the stress structure of a word or the tempo of speech. This type of vowel
modification may be qualitative, quantitative, or both.
1. Quantitative reduction is the decrease of vowel quantity when its length is shortened
under the influence of the following factors:
— word stress: vowels in unstressed positions are usually shorter (cf:
Is / he [hi:] or \ she to blame? vs. At 'last he [hi] has \ done it.);
— position of a vowel in a word: the positional length of English vowels is the longest
in the end, shorter before a lenis consonant, and the shortest before a fortis consonant (cf: he
[hi:] — heel [hi・l] — heat [hit]).
2. Qualitative reduction is the loss of vowel quality (colour) which generally results in
the following changes:
— reduction of the vowels of full value to the neutral sound [ə] in unstressed positions
(analyze ['ænəlaız] — analysis [ə'nælısıs]);
— slight nasalization of vowels preceded or followed by nasal consonants [n, m] (no,
my, can, come).
II. Vowel elision (zero reduction) is the complete omission of the unstressed vowel
which is realized in connected speech under the influence of tempo, rhythm and style of
speech. It usually occurs:
— in notional words within a sequence of unstressed syllables (history ['hıstərı] →
['hıstrı], territory ['terıtərı] → ['terıtrı]);
— in notional words within unstressed syllables preceding the stressed one (correct
[kə'rekt] → [k'rekt], suppose [sə'pəuz] → [s'pəuz]);
— in unstressed form words within a phrase (Has he done it? [hæz hi・ / dʌn ıt] →
[həz hı / dʌn ıt] → [əz ı / dʌn ıt] → [z ı / dʌn ıt]).
LECTURE 4.
THE SYLLABLE
PLAN:
6.
The syllable as an integral part of the word
7.
Functions of the syllable
8.
Types of syllables in English
9.
The syllable formation theories
10. Basic rules of syllabification in English
LITERATURE:
5.
Study Guide to English Phonetics and Phonology : навч. посіб. / Валентина Іванівна
Остапенко.– Кам'янець-Подільський : ФОП Сисин О. В., : Абетка, 2012.– 171 с.
6.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка. Лекции, семинары, упражнения :
учеб. пособие / М.В. Евстифеева. — М. : ФЛИНТА : Наука, 2012. — 168 с.
7.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб. Для студ. ин-тов и фак.
иностр. яз / М.А.Соколова, К.П.Гинтовт, И.С.Тихонова, Р.М.Тихонова. — М.: Гуманит.
изд. центр ВЛАДОС, 1996. — 286с.
8.
Pronunciation pedagogy and theory. New Views, new Directions/ J.Morley. – Illinois:
Pentagraph Printing: Bloomington, 1994. – 120p.
a. The syllable as an integral part of the word
Speech continuum can be broken into syllables — minimal pronounceable units
presenting a cluster or group of sounds. Syllables form language units of greater magnitude:
morphemes, words and phrases, each of them characterized by a certain syllabic structure.
Thus any meaningful language unit may be considered from the point of view of two
aspects: syllable formation and syllable division, which form a dialectal unity.
But in real connected speech sounds are not pronounced separately, by themselves. It is
practically impossible to draw articulator boundaries between them. If we slow down the
tempo of utterance and articulate all the sounds distinctly, we shall see that the smallest
units, into which the speech continuum is divided, are syllables. Boundaries between
syllables are marked by the alteration of increases and decreases in articulatory tension.
So, the smallest pronunciation unit is the syllable. Experiments prove that the syllable is
also the smallest perceptible unit. It means that the listener can recognize the preceding
sound only after he has analyzed the whole syllable.
The syllable can be considered as both phonetic and phonological unit. As a phonetic
unit it is defined in articulatory, auditory and acoustic terms with universal application for all
languages. As a phonological unit it can be defined and described only with reference to the
structure of one particular language. Its very name, the term “syllable” denotes particular
ways in which phonemes are combined into a language, because in Greek the word syllable
means “something taken together”.
b. Functions of the syllable
The syllable is a phonological unit that performs the following closely connected
functions: constitutive, distinctive and identificatory.
1. The constitutive function of the syllable lies in its ability to be a word or a part of it.
It this respect the syllable exercises the connection of smaller and greater language units.
On the one hand, it represents the correlation of the distinctive and acoustic features of
phonemes. On the other hand, it realizes the prosodic characteristics of speech within the
stress pattern of words, the rhythmic and intonation structures of utterances. Thus the
syllable sums up specific minimal features of both segmental and suprasegmental levels.
2. The distinctive function of the syllable lies in its ability to differentiate words and
word-forms taken separately or in combinations.
This statement can be illustrated with the following distinctive oppositions: nitrate [naı'treıt] vs. night-rate [naıt-'reıt]; lightening ['laı-tn-ıŋ] vs. lightning ['laıt-nıŋ]. In these minimal
pairs syllable division changes the allophonic contents of words and thus helps to distinguish
between them. The similar distinction is found within language units of greater magnitude:
an aim [ən 'eım] vs. a name [ə 'neım]; we loan [wı 'ləun] vs. we’ll own [wıl 'əun]. These
oppositional pairs present differentiation of syllables concerning word combinations.
Sometimes syllable division may even be the basic ground for sentence differentiation:
I saw her rise [aı 'so: hə 'raız] vs. I saw her eyes [aı 'so: hər 'aız]; I saw the meat [aı 'so: ðə
'mi:t] vs. I saw them eat [aı 'so: ðəm 'i:t].
3. The identificatory function of the syllable is conditioned by the pronunciation of
the speaker.
The listener’s ability to perceive and identify the exact meaning of a word or a
combination of words depends on the speaker’s ability to establish the correct syllabic
boundary: pea stalks ['pi: 'sto:ks] vs. peace talks ['pi:s 'to:ks]; my train [maı 'treın] vs. might
rain [maıt 'reın].
The realization of the distinctive and identificatory functions of the syllable is closely
connected with the notion of juncture, kept by the speaker and taken in by the listener.
Close juncture (conjuncture) occurs between the sounds of the same syllable. Open
juncture (disjuncture) occurs between the sounds of two different syllables.
Some linguists state that word juncture should be marked in a phonetic transcription
with [+]. In this case the differentiation between the oppositional pairs will look as follows:
ice cream [aıs + kri:m] vs. I scream [aı + skri:m].
Summarizing, it’s necessary to underline that the syllable reveals its functional value
only occasionally. This means that all the functions of the syllable can be realized only with
the help of other phonological units.
c. Types of syllables in English
In English the syllable is formed:
1. by any vowel alone or in combination with one or more consonants – not more than 3
preceding and not more than 4 following it, e.g. are [a:], we [wi:], it [it], sixths [siksθs].
2. by a word final sonorants [n], [1], [m] immediately preceded by a consonant: e.g.
rhythm ['rIðEm], garden ['ga:dEn].
The English sonorants [w], [j] are never syllabic as they are always syllable-initial.
Thus vowels and sonorants are syllable-forming elements and every word, phrase or
sentence has as many syllables as it has syllabic elements.
Every English syllable has a center or peak – a vowel or a sonorant. The peak may be
preceded by one or more non-syllabic elements which constitute the onset of the syllable,
and it maybe followed by one or more non-syllabic elements which constitute the coda, e.g.
cat [kæt], tree [tri:], ice [ais]
Every language has its own common patterns in which the phonemes are arranged to
form syllables.
According to the placement of vowels and consonants the following types of syllables
are distinguished:
Placement of VOWELS
Placement of CONSONANTS
open: the V is at the end, such a S is
articulated with the opening of the
mouth by the end: e.g. they, wri-ter
closed: which end in C, at the end of
such a S the mouth is closed: e.g. hundred, hat
covered at the beginning:
the C is at the beginning of the syllable:
e.g. tie
covered at the end:
the C is at the end of a S: e.g. on
The presentation of a syllable structure in terms of C and V (canonical forms) gives
rather numerous combinations which can be grouped into 4 structural types of syllables:
V ore, or
Fully open
CVC fat CCVC place CVCC fact
Fully closed
(V between C)
CCCVCC
street CVCCC facts CVCCCC sixths
[siksθs]
Covered at the beginning
(one C or a sequence of C precede a
vowel) CV too CCV spy CCCV traw
Covered at the end (one C or VC on YCC act VCCC cts
more
complete the syllable)
Structurally, the commonest types of the syllable in English are VC; CVC. CV is
considered to be the universal structure. CV syllabic types constitute more than half of all
structural types in Russian and Ukrainian.
The characteristic feature of English is monosyllabism: it contains between four and
five thousand monosyllabic words. Most of the words of old English origin is of one
syllable, he limit for the number of syllables in a word in English is 8, e.g.
incomprehensibility.
Syllables can be also designated
1. by the position in the word:
from the beginning – INITIAL (початковий), MEDIAL (серединний), FINAL
фінальний/ кінцевий) or from the end – ULTIMATE (останній), PENULTIMATE
(передостанній/ другий від кінця), ANTEPENULTIMATE (третій від кінця);
2. by the position in relation to stress:
PRETONIC
(переднаголошений),
TONIC
(наголошений),
POSTTONIC
післянаголошений) (Any syllable which is not tonic is ATONIC/ненаголошений).
tre men dous
initial
medial
final
antepenultimate
penultimate
ultimate
pretonic
tonic
posttonic
The linguistic importance of syllable division in different languages is in finding
typology of syllables and syllabic structure of meaningful units of a language, that is
morphemes and words. It is the syllable division that determines the syllabic structure of the
language, its syllabic typology.
Syllabic structure of a language like its phonemic structure is patterned, which means
that the sounds of language can be grouped into syllables according to certain rules. The part
of phonetics that deals with this aspect of a language is called phonotactics.
Phonotactic possibilities of a language determine the rules of syllable division.
Each syllable contains exactly one vowel. This vowel may be preceded or followed bу
one or more consonants. The vowel itself may be a short vowel, a long vowel or a diphthong;
or if it is the weak vowel [ə], it may be combined with a nasal [n], [m]or a liquid [l] to give a
syllabic consonant.
4.The syllable formation theories
The syllable is a rather complicated phenomenon and, like a phoneme, it can be studied
on four levels: articulatory, acoustic, auditory and functional. Its complex character gave rise
to many theories in foreign and home linguistics.
The articulatory study of the syllable was presented in the expiratory theory (chest
pulse theory, pressure theory) based by R.H. Stetson. According to it, speech is a pulsating
expiratory process and every syllable corresponds to a single expiration. So the number of
syllables in an utterance should be determined by the number of expirations made in its
production. But the validity of the theory is fairly doubtful. It was strongly criticized by
Russian and foreign linguists, because the number of syllables in a word and even the
number of words in a phrase can be pronounced with a single expiration.
The acoustic level of the syllable is investigated in the sonority theory put forward by
O. Jespersen. It is based on the assumption that each sound is characterized by a certain
degree of sonority which determines its perceptibility. Thus it’s possible to establish a
ranking of speech sounds from the least sonorous to the most sonorous ones:
open vowels
the most sonorous
close vowels
sonorants
voiced fricatives
voiced plosives
voiceless fricatives
voiceless plosives
the least sonorous
According to it any sound sequence presents a wave of sonority, which is formed with
the most sonorous sound as the center of the syllable and the least sonorous sounds as
marginal segments, like in the word plant [pla:nt].
The most serious drawback of this theory is that many English syllables contradict it.
For example, in this case a sound sequence like stops [stops] should have three syllables
instead of the actual one.
Further experimental work resulted in a lot of other theories, but the question of the
articulatory and acoustic mechanism of syllable formation is still open in phonetics. It might
be fair to suppose that this mechanism is similar in all languages and can be regarded as a
phonetic and physiological universal.
The theory of muscular tension by L.V. Shcherba has prevailed for a long time in
Russian linguistics. It states that the syllabic peak in most languages is formed with the help
of a vowel or sometimes a sonorant, and the phonemes preceding or following the peak are
marginal. The syllable is defined as an arc of muscular tension in which the tension of
articulation increases within the range of prevocalic consonants and then decreases within
the range of postvocalic consonants. This theory has been further modified by V.A.
Vassilyev, who suggested that the physical parameters of pitch, intensity and length also
vary within the range of the syllable. So on the speech production level the syllable can be
treated as an arc of articulatory effort which combines the changes in the muscular tension of
articulation and the acoustic data.
Still all the theories mentioned above analyze the syllable either on production or
perception levels. An outstanding Russian linguist and psychologist N.I. Zhinkin has made
an attempt to combine these levels of analysis in the so-called loudness theory. His
experiments showed that the loudness of sounds depends on the variations of the pharyngeal
passage modified by the narrowing of its walls. Thus the increase of muscular tension results
in the increase of actual loudness of a sound. So on the perception level the syllable is the arc
of loudness which correlates with the arc of articulatory effort on the production level, since
variations in loudness are due to the work of all speech mechanisms.
5. Basic rules of syllabification in English
The division of a word into syllables is called syllabification.
It is generally agreed that phonetic syllable divisions must be such as to avoid (as far as
possible) creating consonant clusters which are not found in words in isolation. Thus it may
be argued that candy should be ['kæn.dI] or ['kaend. I] but not ['kæ. ndI] since [nd] is not a
possible initial consonant cluster in English. This principle is called the phonotactic
constraint (фонотактичне обмеження) on syllabification.
Syllable divisions in Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (LPD) by J. C. Wells 2000]
are shown by spacing, e.g.playtime /'plei taim/.
In English Pronouncing Dictionary (EPD) by Daniel Jones-Alfred Ch. Gimson-Peter
Roach (15th edition 1997), syllable division is marked with a dot – [.] as recommended bу
the International Phonetic Association (the IPA), e.g. admirable ['æd.mər. ə.bl].
The following rules of phonetic (spoken) syllable division are adopted in LPD- 2000:
1. A syllable boundary is found wherever there is a word boundary, and also
coincides with the morphological boundary between elements in a compound:
displace [,dis 'pleis] become [bi 'к ʌm] countless ['kaunt ləs] hardware ['ha:d weə]
CVC-CSVC
CV-CVS
CVSC-SVC
CVC-SV
2. Consonants are syllabified with whichever of the two adjacent vowels is more
strongly stressed, e.g. farmer ['fa:m ə], agenda [ə 'ʤəndə].
It they are both unstressed, it goes with the leftward one: e.g. cinema ['sin əmə],
delicious [di 'lisəs], deliberate [di'lib ər ət].
3. The English diphthongs are unisyllabic, they make one vowel phoneme, while the
so-called triphthongs are disyllabic, because they consist of a diphthong + the neutral
vowel/schwa:
table
science
flower
CV-CS CV-VSC
CSV-V
4. The English affricates [ʧ], [ʤ] cannot be split: catching ['kæʧiŋ]
Sometimes a syllable consists phonetically only of a consonant or consonants. If so, a
consonant (or one of them) is nasal (usually [n]) or a liquid (usually [1] or [r] in AmE), for
instance, in the usual pronunciation of suddenly ['s ʌd n li]. Such a consonant is a syllabic
consonant. The IPA provides a special diacritic [.] to show syllabicity, thus syllabic
consonants may be shown [ṇ] [ḷ].
Instead of a syllabic consonant, it is possible to pronounce a vowel [ə] plus an ordinary
(non-syllabic) consonant. Thus it is possible though not usual to say ['sʌd ənlI].
Likely syllabic consonants are shown in LPD with the raised symbol [ ə], thus ['s ʌd ən
lI]: a raised symbol indicates a sound whose inclusion LPD does not recommend, hence this
notation implies that LPD prefers bare [n] in the second syllable.
Syllabic consonants are also sometimes used where LPD shows italic [ə] plus a nasal or
a liquid, e.g. distant ['dIst fnt/. Although there is a possible pronunciation ['dist nt], LPD
recommends ['dist ənt].
When followed by a weak vowel, a syllabic consonant may lose its syllabic quality,
becoming a plain non-syllabic consonant, e.g. threatening ['θret ən.ŋ] may be pronounced
with three syllables including syllabic [ṇ]: ['θret ṇ Iŋ] or compressed into two syllables with
plain [n]: ['θret niŋ].
EPD adds the following recommendations as for the syllabification of syllabic
consonants [EPD 1997: xv]:
1. In case of [1] corresponding to the "-le" spelling form, preceded by any plosive or
homorganic fricative as in bottle, wrestle, it is not felt to be acceptable in BBC/RP
pronunciation to pronounce this with a vowel in the second syllable, and therefore [1] is
marked as syllabic: bottle ['bɔt.ḷ], cycle ['saik.ḷ]. Where a word such as the above carries a
suffix with the initial vowel, as in bottling, cycling, two variants are possible ['bɔt.l .iŋ] and
['bɔt.liŋ].
2. Syllabic nasals are not usual where they would result in a nasal -plosive-syllabic
consonant sequence, e.g. London, abandon must contain a schwa vowel in the final syllable:
/'l ʌn.dən/.
Phonetic (spoken) syllables must not be confused with orthographic (written)
syllables. An orthgraphic syllable is a group of letters in spelling [Wells 2000: 758].
Syllables in writing are also called syllabographs.
When a word is split across two lines of writing, it should be broken at an orthographic
syllable boundary. Parts of phonetic and orthographic syllables do not always coincide:
worker ['wз:k.ə] CVC-V = two phonetic syllables and one syllabograph
A most GENERAL RULE claims that division of words into syllables in writing is
passed on the morphological principle which demands that the part of a word which is
separated should be either a prefix, or a suffix or a root (morphograph), e.g. pic- ture ['pik
ʧə].
Compound words can be divided according to their meaning: hot-dog; spot-light
It is not possible to divide a word within a phonetic syllable:
A suffix of TWO syllables such as -ABLE, -ABLY, -FULLY cannot be divided in
writing, e.g. reli-able, lov-ably, beauti-fully. If there are two or three consonants before -NG,
these consonants may be separated in writing: gras-ping, puz-zling.
With the exception of -LY, a word cannot be divided so that an ending of two letters
such > -ED, -ER, -1С begins the next line, e.g. worked, teacher, hectic, BUT: cold-ly, boldly.
A word of ONE phonetic syllable, a word of less than FIVE letters cannot be divided
into syllabographgs, e.g. piece [pi:s], time [taim].
LECTURE 5.
ENGLISH STRESS
PLAN:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The nature of stress
Types of word stress
Word stress tendencies
Word stress functions
Stress patterns of English words
Basic rules of accentuation
LITERATURE:
1.
Study Guide to English Phonetics and Phonology : навч. посіб. / Валентина
Іванівна Остапенко.– Кам'янець-Подільський : ФОП Сисин О. В., : Абетка,
2012.– 171 с.
2.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка. Лекции, семинары, упражнения :
учеб. пособие / М.В. Евстифеева. — М. : ФЛИНТА : Наука, 2012. — 168 с.
3.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб. Для студ. ин-тов и фак.
иностр. яз / М.А.Соколова, К.П.Гинтовт, И.С.Тихонова, Р.М.Тихонова. — М.:
Гуманит. изд. центр ВЛАДОС, 1996. — 286с.
4.
Pronunciation pedagogy and theory. New Views, new Directions/ J.Morley. –
Illinois: Pentagraph Printing: Bloomington, 1994. – 120p.
1.
The nature of stress
The syllabic structure of words is closely connected with their accentual structure. The
sequence of syllables in a word is not pronounced identically, some syllable(s) are uttered
with greater prominence. These are known as stressed or accented syllables.
Stress in isolated words is termed ‘word stress’; stress in connected speech is termed
‘sentence stress’. Word stress in English is indicated by placing a special stress mark before
a stressed syllable /'/. Sentence stress also needs special marking.
The term ‘word stress’ doesn’t get a single definition in linguistics. It is defined as:
— an increase of expiratory energy and articulatory activity (B.A. Bogoroditsky);
— the greater degree of force exhalation and loudness (D. Jones);
— the changes in the degree of force of breath (H. Sweet); etc.
It is clear that the effect of prominence of a stressed syllable is achieved due to
distinctions in its articulatory and auditory characteristics which vary in different languages.
Thus the most suitable and generally accepted approach lies in studying the nature of word
stress.
The nature of word stress in English is a disputable question. It is traditionally defined
as mostly dynamic stress with some tonic component. But modern phonology suggests
another approach. Some linguists (D. Crystal, A.G. Gimson, S.F. Leontyeva, and others)
state that the special prominence of English stressed syllables is manifested not only through
the increase of intensity and pitch variations, but also through the changes in the quantity of
vowels and quality of vowels and consonants.
Indeed, if we compare stressed and unstressed syllables in the words abstract
['æbstrækt] and to abstract [əb'strækt ], we may notice the following peculiarities of the
stressed syllables:
— their force of stressed syllables is greater, as the articulation is more energetic;
— the voice pitch is higher, because the vocal cords and the walls of the resonator are
more tense;
— the quantity of the vowel [æ] in [əb'strækt] is greater, as it is longer;
— the quality of the second vowel [æ] in ['æbstrækt] is also different, because it
changes the distinctive features from a broad variant of the open vowel closer to a narrow
one.
So the problem of components interrelation in the English word stress is still awaiting
its solution.
The realization of English word stress in actual speech may not coincide with that in
individual words. As it’s been stated before, the notion of word stress is closely connected
with the notion of sentence stress.
This connection is exercised with the help of their similar and different features.
On the one hand, word stress and sentence stress have a lot in common:
— the accentual structure of a word predetermines the arrangement of stresses in a
phrase, because sentence stress usually falls on the syllables marked by word stress;
— the stress pattern of a phrase is conditioned by the semantic and syntactical value of
words, as only notional words are generally stressed;
— the rhythmical tendency of words and phrases is observed in the alternation of
stressed and unstressed syllables at approximately equal intervals.
On the other hand, the demarcation of word stress and sentence stress is rather distinct:
— the sphere of application is different, as they characterize different language units:
word stress is applied to a word, but sentence stress is applied to a phrase;
— the syntactical value of words isn’t always kept, because there are cases when
notional words are not stressed in a phrase (I 'don’t like that 'man!);
— the rhythmic structure of a word and a phrase may not coincide, as the number of
stresses varies within isolated words and different phrases ('Fif 'teen. → 'Open 'page 'fifteen.
→ He 'mounted 'fifteen 'hills.);
— the stress characteristics of a word are changed under the influence of the tempo of
phrases, because quick speed of articulation usually causes the dropping of secondary stress
(The 'mass demons'tration was sup'pressed by 'local au'thorities.).
2.
Types of word stress
Word stress should be defined as a complex phenomenon marked by the changes of
force, pitch, quantitative and qualitative components. The correlation of these components
determines the nature of word stress in an individual language, so that:
1. force (dynamic) stress implies greater force and intensity of articulation in stressed
syllables;
2. tonic (musical) stress is connected with the variations of voice pitch in stressed
syllables;
3. quantitative stress concerns the increase of the length of nuclear vowels in stressed
syllables;
4. qualitative stress deals with the colour of nuclear vowels, which reveal all their
distinctive features in stressed syllables.
The traditional classification of languages according to the placement of word stress
includes languages with fixed and free stress.
If the stress is limited to a particular syllable of a polysyllabic word, it is called fixed.
For example, in French the stress always falls on the last syllable of the word, in Finnish and
Czech — on the first syllable, in Polish — on the last but one syllable.
If the place of the stress is not confined to a specific position in a word, it is called
free.
The English language represents a more complicated case, because it tends to combine
free and fixed tendencies of the placement of word stress. It holds true that word stress can
fall on different syllables in English words ('mother, 'cinema, ba'lloon, de'mocracy).
Moreover, there are cases of stress shifting which help to differentiate parts of speech or
derivative word-forms ('import — to im'port, 'library — li'brarian). Still the placement of
stress in English words is highly predictable, as its position in most cases is the product of
the historical language development.
In order to avoid accentual mistakes and difficulties in establishing the stress pattern
of English words, it is necessary for language learners to know the basic rules of
accentuation, which are presupposed by the origin of English words and their rhythmic or
morphemic structure.
According to the degree of prominence, word stress is divided into primary and
secondary stress. Both types serve to single out stressed syllables in a word, but the degree of
prominence achieved by the primary stress is greater than that indicated by the secondary
stress.
Notional words in every language have primary stress, which is also termed ‘main’ or
‘nuclear’. The existence of secondary stress in polysyllabic words is not characteristic of all
languages.
For example, English words with the number of syllables counted one to four usually
have one primary stress ('toy, 'owner, 'character, psy'chology), but most words of more than
four syllables have two stresses: primary and secondary (pro'nunci'ation).
The most common mistake made by Ukrainian students consists in omitting the
secondary stress in words like demonstration [ deməns'treı∫n] under the influence of the
primary stress pattern демонстрац ія. Therefore special attention should be paid to this
peculiarity of English word stress in the process of language teaching.
The foresaid distribution of the degrees of word stress is backed up by all linguists.
However, the opinions of phoneticians differ concerning the following question: how many
degrees of stress are linguistically relevant in a word?
British scholars usually distinguish three degrees of stress in a word:
— primary stress, which is the strongest;
— secondary stress, which is less prominent;
— weak stress, which is realized in unstressed syllables.
American scholars distinguish four degrees of word stress:
— primary stress;
— secondary stress;
— tertiary stress;
— weak stress.
The difference between the secondary and tertiary stresses is rather vague and seems
to be predetermined by the differences between British and American variants of English.
For example, some suffixes of nouns and verbs get additional tertiary stress in
American English ('terri 'tory, 'dictio'nary, 'adver ' tize). Yet the tendency to use tertiary
stress on a post-tonic syllable is also traced in modern British English.
Due to some peculiarities of the English language, some polysyllabic words have two
primary stresses ('seven'teen, 'good-’looking, to 'mis'lead).
The difference between them is marked by the predominance of some components
determining the nature of word stress.
The first main stress, which is called ‘pre-nuclear primary stress’, is accompanied with
the change of the pitch level height. The second main stress, which is called ‘nuclear primary
stress’, is affected by a change of pitch direction and forms the accentual nucleus of a word.
There are cases when the two primary stresses may be accompanied with a secondary one
('re'organi'zation).
It’s necessary to mention that all the words with two primary stresses in modern
English may have variants in accentuation generally observed in connected speech. They are
usually pronounced with two primary stresses in a careful normative copnversation and
retain the difference between the nuclear and pre-nuclear primary stress
('indi'vidu'ality,'ir'regular). But in a rapid colloquial conversation the degree of the first
primary stress may be changed into the secondary or even weak one ('indi'vidu'ality,
ir'regular).
There are several systems of notation for marking stress in a written word that can
make the concept visual for the language users: CAPitals, boldface, grave and igu áccents,
underlining. Most dictionaries mark primary stress with a vertical superscript stress mark – '
before the main stress syllable, and secondary stress with a subscript stress mark – , before
the syllable bearing secondary stress; tertiary stress is marked with o before the appropriate
syllable: interchangeability [,IntəotSeinʤə'bIlətI]. The stress marks in the Ukrainian and
Russian phonetic traditions are placed above the stressed vowels which are the nuclei of the
syllable: вимовляй правильно.
The stress in a word may be on the last syllable, the ult; on the next-to-last (the second
from the end), the penult; on the third syllable from the end, the antepenult; and a few words
are stressed on the fourth syllable from the end, the pre-antepenult
3.
Stress tendencies in modern English
The accentual structure of English words is rather unstable due to differences in the
origin of English vocabulary. Modern English wordstock presents a mixture of native and
borrowed words, and it is small wonder that lexical layers of different origin follow different
tendencies in accentuation.
Three main tendencies characterize word stress in the English language: recessive,
rhythmical, and retentive.
1. The recessive tendency is observed mostly in monosyllabic or disyllabic words of
Anglo-Saxon origin and some French borrowings. It is explained by the fact that in
Germanic languages the stress originally fell on the initial syllable or the second (root)
syllable in words with prefixes.
Unrestricted recessive tendency indicates native English words without prefixes
('mother, 'swallow) and assimilated French borrowings dated back to the 15th century
('reason, 'colour) with the stress on the first syllable.
Restricted recessive tendency characterizes English words with prefixes (fore'see,
be'gin) where the root syllable is stressed.
2. The rhythmical tendency in present-day English is caused by the rhythm of
alternating stressed and unstressed syllables in polysyllabic words. It explains the placement
of primary stress on the third syllable from the end in three- and four-syllable words
(ar'ticulate) and the use of secondary stress in multisyllabic French borrowings ('revo'lution).
3. The retentive tendency is traced in the instability of the accentual structure of
English words. According to it a derivative often retains the stress pattern of the original
parent word: 'similar — a'ssimilate,'recom'mend —'recommen'dation.
For a long time the recessive and rhythmical tendencies have been in constant
interrelation. This is clearly shown on the diachronic level in the process of historic
assimilation of French borrowings. The shift of the original French stress in trisyllabic words
onto the first syllable is the result of the strong recessive tendency and also the adaptation to
the weaker rhythmical tendency ('faculty, 'possible).
On the synchronic level the gradual strengthening of the rhythmical tendency becomes
obvious. It may be illustrated by a great number of variations in the accentual structure of
English multisyllabic words, which get a spoken pronunciation variant with the stress on the
second syllable ('hospitable
— ho'spitable, 'distribute — dis'tribute, 'aristocrat — a'ristocrat).
The tertiary stress marking on the third syllable in American English ('terri'tory,
'neces'sary) is also an example of the rhythmical tendency.
4.
Word stress functions
In phonology the notion ‘word stress’ is replaced by the term ‘accenteme’ introduced
by V.A. Vassilyev.
The accenteme is a suprasegmental phonological unit which varies in degrees,
placement and performs different functions.
The functions of word stress as a unit of phonology are as follows: constitutive,
recognitive, and distinctive.
1. The constitutive function consists in the ability of word stress to organize the
syllables into language units with a definite accentual structure. A word does not exist
without word stress, and any sound continuum becomes a phrase only when it is divided into
units organized by word stress into words.
2. The recognitive (identificatory) function of word stress enables a person to identify
a succession of syllables as the definite accentual pattern of a word. Correct accentuation
helps the listener to make the process of communication easier, whereas misplacement of
stress prevents normal understanding.
3. The distinctive function of word stress consists in its ability to differentiate the
meaning of words and word-forms.
Primary accentemes are represented by stressed word positions. Weak accentemes are
found in unstressed positions.
Accentuation oppositions usually consist in the shifting of word stress or changing its
degrees, which may or may not be accompanied with vowel reduction.
When primary word accentemes are opposed to weak ones, they help to differentiate
between words, word-forms or word combinations in the English language:
transport ['trænspƆ:rt] — to transport [trəns'pƆ:t];
mankind ['mænkaınd] — mankind [mæn'kaınd];
blackboard ['blækbƆ:d] — black board ['blæk 'bƆ:d].
5.Stress patterns of English words
The distribution of stressed syllables into stress patterns helps to systematize the
accentual structure of English words. The classification is made according to the degrees of
word stress and the number of stressed syllables. It is also closely connected with the
morphological type of words and the semantic value of their parts (roots and affixes).
1. [┴ ─ (─)].
The pattern with the primary stress on the first syllable marks:
— disyllabic words subjected to the recessive tendency ('father, 'sunny, 'palace,
'office);
— trisyllabic words with or without suffixes subjected to the rhythmical tendency
('family, 'scientist, 'populate, 'active);
— compound words with greater semantic significance of the first component ('gaspipe, 'bookcase).
2. [─ ┴ (─)].
The pattern with the primary stress on the second syllable is realized in:
— disyllabic words with historical prefixes subjected to the restricted recessive
tendency (be'cause, pro'claim, a'part, for'get);
— disyllabic verbs with the endings -ate, -ise/ize, -y (nar'rate, com'prise, de'fy);
— words of three or four syllables with suffixes subjected to the rhythmical tendency
(phi'lology, de'mocracy, ex'perience, o'riginate).
3. [┴ (─) ┴ (─)].
The pattern with two primary stresses is generally observed in:
— compound nouns or adjectives, consisting of two roots ('well-'bred, 'absent'minded, 'tea-'pot, 'ice-'cream);
— composite verbs with postpositions ('get 'up, 'come 'out, 'give 'in);
— compound words with separable prefixes ('un'fair, 'dis'appear, 'ex'minister, 're'play).
4. [┴ ┬ ─].
The pattern with primary stress followed by the secondary one is very common among
compound words as the accentuation variant of the third pattern ('hair-'dresser, 'dog-'killer,
'sub'structure). It is often realized in connected speech.
5. [(─) ┬ (─) (┴) ─].
The pattern with the secondary stress preceding the primary one marks a great number
of simple polysyllabic words with affixes ('intu'ition,'govern'mental, pe'culi'arity,'repre'sent).
It is as well found in compound words as the accentuation variant of the third pattern in
connected speech ('misin'terpret).
6. [┴ ┴ ┴ (┴)].
The pattern with three and more primary stresses is characteristic of initial compound
abbreviations ('B'B'C (British Broadcasting Corporation), 'N'Y'S'E (New York Stock
Exchange).
7. [┬ (─) ┬ (─) ┴ ─].
The pattern with two secondary stresses preceding the primary one is found in a very
small number of words with the stressed prefixes, roots and suffixes ('sub'organ'ization,
'indilviduali'zation).
8. [┴ ┴ (─) ┬ ─].
The pattern with two primary stresses preceding the secondary one is rarely found in
compound words with separable prefixes ('un'trustlworthy).
The patters described above suggest the idea of great variability in the accentuation of
English words. The most widely used are patterns № 1, 2, 4 and 5, which cover the main part
of common English vocabulary. Still there are a lot of words which have variants in
accentuation. They may differ in:
— number of stresses: UNSC [┴ ┴ ┴ ┴] or [┴ ─ ─ ┴];
— place of stress: laryngoscope [┴ ─ ─ ─] or [─ ┴ ─ ─];
— degree of stress: disability [┴ ─ ┴ ─ ─] or [┬ ─ ┴ ─ ─]; etc.
This fact underlines the instability of English accentual structure multiplied in
connected speech.
6. Basic rules of accentuation
Stress tendencies and the system of stress patterns helps to establish basic rules of
accentuation, which are very useful for language learners.
The accentual structure of simple and derivative words is rather complicated.
Language learners should stick to the following rules:
— most disyllabic words have stress on the first syllable ('water, 'finish);
— disyllabic words with prefixes of no referential meaning of their own have stress on
the second syllable (mis'take; be'hind);
— most three- and four-syllable words have stress on the third syllable from the end
('criticism, re'markable);
— four-syllable words with suffixes -ary, -ory have stress on the first syllable
('stationary, 'territory);
— polysyllabic words with the primary stress on the third syllable have secondary
stress on the first syllable ('proba'bility);
— polysyllabic words with the primary stress on the fourth and fifth syllable have
secondary stress on the second syllable (arlticu'lation);
— polysyllabic words with separable prefixes with a distinct meaning have two
primary stresses ('un'known, 'dis'charge, 're'pay, 'mispro'nounce, 'pre-'war, 'ex-'wife,
'inter'view, 'antiag'gressive).
Special attention should be paid to the accentual structure of compound words.
Variability in the accentuation of English words is multiplied many times because of the
variability in compound structures of the English language.
In order not to make mistakes, the following rules should be observed:
— compound numerals have two primary stresses ('twenty-'four);
— compound adjectives are generally double-stressed ('well-'known);
— compound adjectives with semantically weak second component are single-stressed
('childlike), but they are not numerous;
— compound verbs with post-positions get two main stresses ('put 'off);
— compound nouns are usually single-stressed ('strong-box), and thus differ from
word combination with two stressed words ('strong 'box);
— compound nouns with the equal significance of both elements are double-stressed
('ice-'cream), but they are quite rare.
The accentual structure of the English language is closely connected with the
distribution of vowel and consonant phonemes.
All English vowels may occur in stressed syllables with the exception of [ə], which is
never stressed. The intensity of English vowels in identical stressed positions is different. It
is the highest in [a:] and then gradually reduces to [ı] as follows: [a:, o:, ə:, i:, u:, æ, ɔ, e, u, ı].
English long vowels, diphthongs and diphthongoids retain their quality in stressed
positions (army ['a:mı], eager ['i:gə], waiter ['weıtə]).
Unstressed diphthongs may partially lose their glide quality (subway ['sʌbweı]).
Vowels [ı, u, ə] tend to occur in unstressed syllables. Syllables with the syllabic sonorants [l,
m, n] are never stressed.
English consonants tend to keep their distinctive features in stressed syllables: stops
have a complete closure, fricatives have full friction, fortis-lenis features distinction is
clearly defined.
LECTURE 6.
ENGLISH INTONATION
PLAN:
1.
Intonation. Different approaches.
2.
Structure of Intonation.
3.
Intonation functions.
4.
English rhythm.
5.
Prosody.
6.
Tempo.
LITERATURE:
1.
Study Guide to English Phonetics and Phonology : навч. посіб. / Валентина
Іванівна Остапенко.– Кам'янець-Подільський : ФОП Сисин О. В., : Абетка,
2012.– 171 с.
2.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка. Лекции, семинары, упражнения :
учеб. пособие / М.В. Евстифеева. — М. : ФЛИНТА : Наука, 2012. — 168 с.
3.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб. Для студ. ин-тов и фак.
иностр. яз / М.А.Соколова, К.П.Гинтовт, И.С.Тихонова, Р.М.Тихонова. — М.:
Гуманит. изд. центр ВЛАДОС, 1996. — 286с.
4.
Pronunciation pedagogy and theory. New Views, new Directions/ J.Morley. –
Illinois: Pentagraph Printing: Bloomington, 1994. – 120p.
1.
Intonation. Different approaches.
The information conveyed by a sentence is expressed not only by proper word and
grammatical structure, but also by intonation. No sentence can exist without intonation. As
Allan says “Sounds constitute the body of words. Words give only a rough guide to meaning,
while intonation is the soul of speech”. Intonation is a language universal. It is a powerful
means of communication process. Some linguists define intonation as variations of melody,
others as variations of stress and melody.
Intonation is a complex unity formed by significant variations of pitch, loudness and
tempo closely related.
Pitch variations include significant moves of the voice up and down. The degree of
loudness determines the force of utterance and the prominence of words. The tempo is
determined by the rate of speech and the length of pauses.
There are different approaches to the problem of intonation in British and American
linguistics.
I. The first is contour analysis, which is widely used in Great Britain. Its
representatives are H. Sweet, D. Jones, G. Palmer, and others. Intonation is defined as a layer
that is superimposed on the lexicogrammatical structure and serves to express the speaker’s
attitude to the situation with the help of tone-blocks — the smallest meaningful units,
consisting of pre-head, head and nucleus taken altogether. Ten tone-block types are
distinguished and then combined with sentence types (statement, question, exclamation,
command).
II. The second is the grammatical study of intonation worked out by the British
linguist M. Halliday. According to it the main unit of intonation is a clause which presents a
complex of three systemic variables: tonality, tonicity and tone. Tonality marks the
beginning and the end of a tone-group. Tonicity marks the focal point of each tone-group.
Tones mark the nucleus and convey the attitude of the speaker. These parts of clauses are
connected with the help of grammatical categories and carry out the syntactical function.
Thus the statement “I’d like to” may have several attitudinal meanings determined by the
pre-nuclear and nuclear choices: neutral (Low Fall), non-committal (Low Rise),
contradictory (High Rise), reserved (Fall Rise), committal (Rise-Fall).
III. The American school of intonation founded by K. Pike considers pitch phonemes
and contours to be the main units of intonation, which have their own meanings, but stand
apart from the communicative function of intonation. This approach is treated by most
linguists as ‘mechanical’.
IV. D. Crystal represents the extralinguistic study of intonation. He states that it is
impossible to explain intonational meaning only with the help of grammatical or attitudinal
means. He ignores the significance of pre-head and head choices and deals only with
terminal nuclear tones, which should have both linguistic and extralinguistic marking.
Thus the linguistic study of intonation in foreign linguistics is restricted by pitch
movements (melody) which determine its outer physical expression. The priority of the pitch
parameter is quite evident, but real communication involves the change of other intonation
parameters as well.
2.
Structure of Intonation
Three prosodic components of intonation: pitch, loudness and tempo serve to actualize
syntagms and sentences, are interdependent and form the structure of an intonation pattern.
I. The pitch component or speech melody includes distinct variations of intonation in
the direction of pitch, pitch level and pitch range.
1. Variations in the direction of pitch give greater prominence to one of the syllables
and form the nucleus of an intonation pattern.
There are eight nuclear tones in modern English: Low Fall (\ No), High Fall (\ No),
Low Rise (/ No), High Rise (/ No), Fall-Rise (\/ No), Rise-Fall (/\ No), Rise-Fall-Rise (/\/
No) and Mid-Level (> No).
The first five of these are the most important nuclear tones characteristic of English.
They have different meanings. Low Fall and High Fall usually express certainty,
completeness, and independence.
Low Rise and High Rise vise versa express uncertainty, incompleteness or
dependence. Fall-Rise combines the meaning of certainty with that of incompleteness, thus
suggesting that there is something else to be said. It may occur within one syllable or spread
over two or more syllables (\Fortunately I /do.).
The last three tones are not considered to be essential ones. Rise-Fall and Rise-FallRise add some refinement to speech and can be easily replaced by basic nuclear tones
without making considerable changes in the meaning of the utterance: Rise-Fall by High Fall
and Rise-Fall-Rise by Fall-Rise. Mid-Level tone is characteristic of spontaneous speech
when replacing the rising tone (After 'everything you’ve >said | I 'don’t want to \go there!).
2. The pitch level parameter includes variations of the normal range of speaking voice
within a given interval between its lower and upper limits. There are three pitch levels: high,
medium, and low.
3. The pitch range is the interval between two pitch levels from the highest-pitched to
the lowest-pitched syllables. The pitch range may be normal, wide, and narrow.
II. The loudness component of intonation or force of the utterance includes changes in
the level of loudness. They may cause various semantic differences. For example, an over-all
loudness level conveys extreme emotions, such as anger, menace, or excitement. Loudness
changes are inseparably connected with pitch variations, because both of them create the
effect of accentuation.
III. The tempo component of intonation implies variations in the rate of the utterance
and pausation.
a) The rate of speech is divided into normal, fast and slow. It differs according to the
importance of the parts of the utterance, since the important ones are spoken slower, but
unimportant ones are pronounced at a greater speed.
b) Pauses are complete stops of phonation dividing a stretch of speech into smaller
units.
According to their length, the following kinds of pauses are distinguished:
— short pauses, which separate intonation groups within a phrase;
— longer pauses, which manifest the end of the phrase;
— very long pauses, which are used to separate phonetic wholes.
From the functional point of view there exist:
— syntactic pauses, which separate phonopassages, phrases, intonation groups;
— emphatic pauses, which mark parts of the utterance especially important for the
speaker (She is the most | talented actress I’ve ever met ||);
— hesitation pauses, which are used in spontaneous speech to think over what to say
next; they may be silent (It’s rather a ... difficult question ||) or filled (I’ll have to ... eeh ...
think it over ||).
The changes of pitch, loudness and tempo are not accidental. They are formalized in
the abstracted set of intonation structures called intonation patterns, which form the prosodic
system of the English language.
Definite intonation patterns are actualized in real communicative situations with the
help of intonation groups.
An intonation group is a word or a group of words characterized by a certain
intonation pattern complete from the point of view of meaning.
For example, the sentence ‘I suppose he’ll be here in a moment’ may be divided in
two intonation groups: ‘I suppose’ and ‘he’ll be here in a moment’.
The structure of an intonation pattern potentially includes the pre-head, the head, the
nucleus and the tail:
— the pre-head contains unstressed and half-stressed syllables preceding the head;
— the head includes syllables from the first stressed up to the last stressed one;
— the nucleus is the last stressed syllable presenting the change in the pitch direction;
— the tail consists of unstressed and half-stressed syllables following the nucleus.
The boundaries of an intonation pattern are marked by complete stops of phonation or
temporal pauses.
The abovementioned structure of an intonation pattern may be further grouped into
two larger units:
1) The pre-nuclear part of the intonation pattern is formed with the pre-head and the
head.
It can present different variations of pitch patterns, which do not usually affect the
grammatical meaning of the utterance, but often convey meanings associated with the
speaker’s attitude. There are three common types of pr!-nuclear part:
— a descending type with the pitch level gradually descending to the nucleus;
— an ascending type with the ascending sequence of syllables;
— a level type with the syllable set of approximately the same pitch level.
2) The terminal part of the intonation pattern consists of the nucleus and the tail.
It is the most significant part of the intonation pattern which determines the nuclear
tone and the pitch level of the rest of the utterance. The set of English nuclear tones includes
five widely used common tones (Low Fall, High Fall, Low Rise, High Rise, Fall-Rise), and
three optional tones (Rise-Fall, Rise-Fall-Rise, Mid-Level).
It’s important to mention, that every part of the intonation pattern besides the nucleus
is considered to be optional.
For example: Who’s done it? — Well, that’s Jack actually.
It is obvious that in the second sentence of the dialogue the nucleus ‘Jack’ is the only
part of the intonation group which is really informative. All other parts (the pre-head ‘well’,
the head ‘that’s’, the tail ‘actually’) can be omitted in real speech, because they are not
necessary for understanding the meaning.
3.
Intonation functions
Intonation is an important means of human communication. On the functional level
intonation is studied as the list of its linguistic functions and the ways of their differentiation.
One of the most developed classifications in foreign linguistics is presented by
D.Crystal, who distinguishes the following functions of intonation:
— the emotional function, which serves to express attitudinal meaning (interest,
impatience, delight, irony, shock, anger, etc.);
— the grammatical function, which helps to identify certain grammatical structures in
oral speech (statement, question, exclamation, command);
— the informational function, which draws the listener’s attention to the new
information in an utterance with the help of the most prominent tone;
— the textual function, which helps to contrast and organize meaningful units larger
than the sentence;
— the psychological function, which splits stretches of speech into units that are easier
to perceive and memorize;
— the indexical function, which serves an important marker of personal or social
identity with the help of distinctive prosodic features.
Russian linguists consider the functional aspect of intonation in a different way.
Intonation is treated as a complex phenomenon with a general function of communication.
This communicative function of intonation is realized in the process of speech
communication and serves:
— to structure the information content of a text and identify new information;
— to determine the speech function of a phrase and indicate sentence types;
— to convey attitudinal meaning (surprise, annoyance, etc.);
— to structure a text and organize smaller units (phrases, intonation groups);
— to differentiate between the meaning of the units with the same grammatical
structure and lexical composition;
— to characterize a particular style of oral speech.
For the purposes of language teaching Russian phoneticians (M.A. Sokolova, K.P.
Gintovt, and others) define the following two main functions of intonation as a powerful
means of communication: the constitutive and the distinctive ones.
1. The constitutive function characterizes intonation as an organizing mechanism.
On the one hand, it delimitates texts into intonation groups with a certain structure; on
the other hand, it integrates intonation groups when forming a complete text. A broad
classification of intonation patterns, different and specific in their nature, is singled out in
every language. Their material realization helps the speaker to construct the utterance and
enables the listener to perceive it.
2. The distinctive function of intonation helps to distinguish communicative types of
sentences, the actual meaning of a sentence, the speaker’s attitude to its contents and the
style of the utterance.
The distinctive function of intonation is realized in the opposition of the same word
sequences which differ in certain parameters of the intonation pattern.
For example, the meaning of the phrases: ‘If Tom calls let me know at once’ and ‘If
Tom calls let me know at once’ is easily distinguished thanks to the opposition of different
intonation patterns of the first intonation groups. The first sentence means that a few people
are expected to call but it is Tom who interests the speaker; the meaning of the second one is
that no one else but Tom is expected to call.
The opposition in the pitch parameters of the sentences ‘I en\joyed it’ and ‘I en/joyed
it’ shows the reserved attitude of the speaker in the first case, and the attitude implying a
continuation like ‘but it could have been a lot better’ in the second one.
4. English rhythm
It’s impossible to describe English intonation without reference to speech rhythm.
Rhythm makes up the framework of the spoken message.
A general term of ‘rhythm’ implies a regular recurrence of some phenomenon in time.
Speech production is naturally connected with the process of breathing, it is conditioned by
physiological factors and is characterized by rhythm. Rhythm as a linguistic notion is
realized in lexical, syntactical and prosodic means, mostly in their combinations.
Speech rhythm is traditionally defined as a recurrence of stressed syllables at more or
less equal periods of time in a speech continuum.
The type of rhythm depends on the language. There are two types of languages:
— syllable-timed languages (French, Spanish), based on the syllabic structure;
— stress-timed languages (English, German, Russian), based on the so-called ‘beats’
or ‘stress pulses’.
In syllable-timed languages the speaker gives approximately equal period to each
syllable no matter whether it is stressed or not. This produces the effect of even rhythm.
In stress-timed languages the effect of rhythm is based on units larger than syllable.
The so-called ‘stress pulses’ follow each other in connected speech at roughly equal periods
of time no matter how many stressed syllables are between them. Thus the distribution of
syllables within rhythmic groups is unequal and the regularity is provided by strong ‘beats’.
The more unstressed syllables there are after a stressed one, the quicker they must be
pronounced.
The peculiarities of English rhythm implying the regular stress-timed pulses of speech,
create the abrupt effect of English rhythm. It has the immediate connection with such
phonetic phenomena as vowel reduction and elision, placement of word-stress and sentencestress.
The effect of English rhythm is also presupposed by the analytical structure of the
language. It explains greater prominence of notional words and a considerable number of
unstressed monosyllabic form words. It is undoubtful that the most striking rhythmicality is
observed in poetry.
5.Prosody.
It’s necessary to mention that the term ‘intonation’ isn’t considered to be a happy one
in theoretical phonetics, as it is too many-sided. M. Sokolova substitutes it with the term
‘prosody’, which embraces the three main prosodic components: pitch, loudness and tempo.
This term is widely used in modern linguistic literature, because it is more adequate and
causes no misunderstanding.
The prosodic components of intonation and their speech realizations are
interconnected. Every speech syllable has a special pitch colouring and bears a definite
amount of loudness. Together with the speech tempo they form an intonation pattern which
is the basic unit of intonation.
An intonation pattern contains a nucleus which may or may not be preceded or
followed by other stressed or unstressed syllables. The boundaries of an intonation pattern
are marked by temporal pauses. Intonation patterns are actualized in intonation groups.
An intonation group (a speech syntagm) presents a semantically and syntactically
complete group of words which may have different length: from one word to a group of
words or a sentence.
For example: \Yes. I \do. I \like it. I like that \too.
PROSODIC UNITS
One of the basic problems in the study of intonation or prosody is to determine its
units. They are:
1. The syllable – is the smallest prosodic unit, which has no meaning of its own but is
very important for building up more complex units of intonation. It has its prosodic functions
– tone, stress and duration.
2. The rhythmic group – is either one stressed syllable or one stressed syllable and a
number of unstressed syllables grouped around it. The stressed syllable is the nucleus of the
rhythmic group. There are as many rhythmic groups in the utterance as there stressed
syllables in it. Rhythmic groups are always meaningful.
3. The intonation group – is the second meaningful prosodic unit. Structurally it has
some obligatory formal characteristics: the nuclear stress, and the terminal tone. The
boundaries between intonation groups are marked by pauses. The
structure of an intonation group varies depending on the number of syllables and
rhythmic units in it.
Minimally an intonation group can consist of one stressed syllable – the nucleus, e.g.
No. Who?
Maximally, the intonation group can contain:
− the pre-head – all unstressed syllables before the first stressed one; different types of
pre-head differentiate emotional meaning;
− the head – all the stressed and unstressed syllables before the nucleus; different types
of head convey attitudinal meaning;
− the nucleus (or the nuclear tone) – the most important element in the intonation
group because it expresses communicative and attitudinal meaning and indicates the end if
the intonation group;
− the tail – all the unstressed syllables that follow the nucleus and whose pitch
variation is determined by the nuclear tone.
e.g. Her little sister never gets up early. Her – pre-head; little sister never gets up –
head; ear – nuclear tone; ly –tail.
4. The highest meaningful prosodic unit is the utterance. It is the main communicative
unit because it is characterized by its semantic entity, which is expressed by all language
means – lexical, grammatical and prosodic. The utterance may contain one or several
intonation groups.
5. Utterances can be united into hyperutterances, which are the ultimate units of
prosodic analysis.
PROSODIC SUBSYSTEMS
Speech melody or the pitch component of the intonation is acoustically the variations
of the fundamental frequency generated by the vibrations of the vocal cords.
The melody of the utterance is characterized by the following features:
• The pitch level – which shows the degree of semantic importance that the speaker
attaches to the utterance or intonation group in comparison with any other utterance or
intonation group. It is determined by the pitch of its highest-pitched syllable. The number of
levels in unemphatic speech is three – low, mid and high. Besides some phoneticians
distinguish two more levels – the emphatic and the emotional pitch levels.
• The pitch range – which is the interval between its highest–pitched syllable and its
lowest-pitched syllable. The speaker changes his/her voice range according to circumstances.
It may be widened or narrowed to express the speaker’s attitudes and emotions.
e.g. Yes. (High Narrow Range– not enthusiastic)
Yes (Low Narrow Range – sincere but not emotional)
Yes. (High Wide Range – sincere and enthusiastic)
• The terminal tone – the most important element of the pitch from the functional point
of view. It has the meaning of its own which practically predetermines the meaning of the
whole utterance. The most important nuclear tones are:
• Low Fall;
• Low Rise;
• High Fall;
• High Rise;
• Fall-Rise;
• Rise-Fall.
6.Tempo.
The tempo of speech as the third component of intonation implies the rate of the
utterance and pausation.
The rate of speech can be normal, slow and fast. The parts of the utterance which are
particularly important sound slower. Unimportant parts are commonly pronounced at a
greater speed than normal.
Any stretch of speech can be split into smaller portions, i.e. phonetic wholes', phrases,
intonation groups by means of pauses.
By pause here we mean a complete stop of phonation. It is sufficient to distinguish the
following three kinds of pauses:
1. Short pauses which may be used to separate intonation groups within a phrase.
2. Longer pauses which normally manifest the end of the phrase.
3. Very long pauses, which are approximately twice as long as the first type, are used
to separate phonetic wholes.
Functionally, there may be distinguished syntactic, emphatic and hesitation pauses.
Syntactic pauses separate phonopassages, phrases, intonation groups.
Emphatic pauses serve to make especially prominent certain parts of the utterance, e.g.
She is the most ⌇charming girl I've ever seen.
Hesitation pauses are mainly used in spontaneous speech to gain some time to think
over what to say next. They may be silent or filled,
e.g. She is rather a ... good student.
– Where does she live? – Um, not very far from here.
Our ear can also perceive a pause when there is no stop of phonation at all. It may
happen because a stop of phonation is not the only factor indicating an intonation unit
boundary. The first and the main factor is a perceivable pitch change, either stepping down
or stepping up, depending on the direction of nuclear tone movement. The other criterion is
the presence of junctural features at the end of each intonation group. This usually takes the
form of a pause but there are frequently accompanying segmental phonetic modifications
(variations in tempo, aspiration etc.) which reinforce this.
The changes of pitch, loudness and tempo tend to become formalized or standardized,
so that all speakers of the language use them in similar ways under similar circumstances.
Some intonation patterns may be completely colourless in meaning: they give to the
listener no implication of the speaker's attitude or feeling. They serve a mechanical function
— they provide a mould into which all sentences may be poured so that they achieve
utterance.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
1.
2.
LECTURE 7.
PHONOSTYLISTICS
PLAN:
Phonostylistics as a branch of linguistics.
Phonetic functional styles.
Informational style.
Academic Style.
Declamatory style.
Publicistic style.
Conversational style.
Style-forming and style-differentiating factors
LITERATURE:
Study Guide to English Phonetics and Phonology : навч. посіб. / Валентина
Іванівна Остапенко.– Кам'янець-Подільський : ФОП Сисин О. В., : Абетка,
2012.– 171 с.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка. Лекции, семинары, упражнения :
учеб. пособие / М.В. Евстифеева. — М. : ФЛИНТА : Наука, 2012. — 168 с.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб. Для студ. ин-тов и фак.
иностр. яз / М.А.Соколова, К.П.Гинтовт, И.С.Тихонова, Р.М.Тихонова. — М.:
Гуманит. изд. центр ВЛАДОС, 1996. — 286с.
4.
Pronunciation pedagogy and theory. New Views, new Directions/ J.Morley. –
Illinois: Pentagraph Printing: Bloomington, 1994. – 120p.
1. Phonostylistics as a branch of linguistics.
The same word or a sequence of words may be pronounced quite differently by
different speakers under different circumstances. Thus in rapid colloquial speech the
conjuction and is frequently pronounced like [n], but the same word might be pronounced
like [ənd] in slow everyday speech or even like [and] in a careful serious conversation. In
other words, the pronunciation of speech sounds is greatly determined by the style of
pronunciation. Stylistic variations of pronunciation are quite numerous. They are studied
within phonostylistics — a comparatively new branch of linguistics which has links both
with phonetics and stylistics.
Phonostylistics is a rapidly developing field of study. It’s not a new branch, but rather
a new way of looking at phonetic phenomena.
During the first half of the 20th century linguistics showed interests mainly in written
form of the language. The emphasis was laid an analyzing written speech. But later when
new technical aids appeared the situation changed → linguists got a good opportunity of
studying oral speech which had been ignored.
In real life we find ourselves in various and numerous situations and in these situations
language is used appropriately. It stands to reason that much of what people say depends on
the situations they’re in. So variations of language in different situations are various. But on
the other hand, they have much in common that means that there’re patterns of variation.
Language means which constitute any utterance are characterized by a certain pattern of
selection and arrangement. The principles of it as well as the ways of combining elements
form “the style”.
Style integrated language means and at the same time differs one utterance from
another. The branch of linguistics – functional stylistics.
How phonostylistics overlaps with functional stylistics. There’s no simple
correspondence between phonon and functional styles. Functional styles we defined as a
subsystem of language which function in certain fields of communication and are aimed at to
a definite affect: to inform, to persuade, to establish contact, to entertain, to impress, etc.
Many attempts were made to work out a classification. Still an open question – there
is no universal classification.
Problems of phonostylistics:
1)
classification of phonetic styles
2)
to work out the typology of speech utterances regarding the following factors:
a.
forms of speech (oral and written)
b.
forms of communication (monologue or dialogue)
c.
the relation of the utterance to a written text (prepared or unprepared)
d.
the number of listeners (public or not)
e.
the status of interlocutors – the relations between the participants (whether they
are on official or unofficial terms)
3)
to find a stylistically neutral form to start teaching with
4)
to find variants of pronunciation that are stylistically marked
3.
Phonostylistic studies the way the phonetic means of the language function in various
oral texts. It’s a new way of looking at phonetic phenomena which includes extralinguistic
situations and factors. Any learner of English should develop the awareness of different
phonetic styles of the language.
“There are 50 ways of saying “yes” and even more ways of saying “no” and there is
only one way to write it.” Bernard Show
Phonostylictics is concerned with how a person talks about some things rather than
what he talks about.
2. Phonetic functional styles.
A person does not always pronounce the same words in the same way. The
pronunciation of one and the same person may be different on different occasions, when
delivering a lecture, speaking over the radio or giving a dictation, when talking to official
persons or chatting with friends. These different ways of pronouncing words are called
“styles of pronunciation”, they have peculiarities which may differ in different languages.
Prof. D. Jones has classified pronunciation styles in the following manner:» Several different
styles may be distinguished, such as the rapid familiar styles, the slower colloquial style, the
natural style used in addressing a fair- sized audience, the acquired style of the stage or
singing”. Some authors confuse styles of pronunciation with literary styles. They are
represented in the following way: literary style – colloquial style – low colloquial style. The
distinctive feature, according to Prof. Scerba is the degree of carefulness, with which words
are pronounced. He differenciated the full style from the colloquial style. The full style is
characterized by a moderately slow tempo and a careful pronunciation. The words are
pronounced in their full form, without vowel reduction or loss of consonants, without nonobligatory assimilations. The colloquial style differs from the full style both in tempo and
clearness. Prof. Scerba considers that it is useful to distinguish two main types of the
colloquial style: 1) the careful colloquial style; 2) the careless colloquial style, which differs
from the first in free use of non- obligatory assimilation and in tempo. (Ex.: I should like to
meet her). The choice of an intonation style is determined by the purpose of communication
and by a number of other extralinguistic and social factors. These are: 1.Informational Style;
2.Academic Style; 3. Publicistic Style; 4. Declamatory Style; 5. Conversational Style.
3. Informational Style.
Informational 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 extralinguistic
factors. It is manifested 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 labeled as educational informational descriptive
narratives.
As is widely known, spoken speech is less imperial, the spoken variety of such texts
expresses more personal concern and involvement. They may be presented in different
forms: monologues, dialogues, 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 tends to sound impartial
when reporting routine news or weather forecasts, for example.
Informational style includes other spheres of communication: business and legal
intercourse, the reading of administrative documents and so on.
By opposing informational monologue – dialogue phonostylistic characteristics we
will draw the following conclusions:
1. The structural hierarchy of a monologue is: phonopassages – phrases – intonation
groups; whereas the one of a dialogue is: blocks – dialogical units – phrases – intonation
groups.
2. There is some distinction between the opposed varieties on the part of segmental
features notably in vowel length, voicing and devoicing of consonants, assimilations and
elisions, but the phonological differences lie mainly in the use of non-segmental features of
basic prosodic configurations.
3. In a dialogue there is a wider range of contrasts in prosodic and paralinguistic
effects, thus the danger of misunderstanding is avoided through the introduction of a large
number of prosodic contrasts.
4. The attitudes of the talkers are more variable in a dialogue, but, since both analyzed
forms belong to the informational style, impartiality prevails. Changes in the attitude
condition changes in prosodic features. They also condition variations in utterance length. In
a dialogue there is a strong tendency to keep them short, to break up potentially lengthy
intonation groups wherever possible. The average length of units in the majority of cases
falls within the range of 1—5 words. Relatively high proportion of incomplete phrasal
segments is noticeable. Phrases are commonly short at the beginning, longer as topics are
introduced, longer still as argument develops and short again as the end approaches.
5. In a dialogue the rhythmicality is even more non-systematic, there is no stable
pattern of rhythm.
6. The tempo (rate + pauses) in a monologue is normally less varied but in both cases
it is conditioned by the importance of information, the fluency of speakers, their familiarity
with the topic (theme) and experience in speaking. In general in a monologue less fluent
speech is being the expected kind.
4. Academic Style.
It is described as both intellectual and volitional. The purpose of the speakers is to
attract the listener’s attention, to establish close contacts, to direct the public attention to the
message. It is used in reading lectures, in scientific discussions, at the conferences, seminars,
in class. A lecturer sounds self-assured, instructive, authoritative. It sounds very loud and
rhythmical.
Specific characteristics of the academic style which display features not shared by
others include:
1. A scientific (academic) text read aloud in public in front of a fairly-sized audience
conveys both intellectual and volitional information, so the attitudinal and emphatic
functions of intonation are of primary importance here.
2. A lecturer always sounds self-assured, authoritative, instructive and edifying,
because any scientific style talk should be well prepared and 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 face with 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 rather varied as intonation
correlates the lecturer's attempts to get his meaning across clearly and to obtain the balance
between formality and informality. This variety is created by:
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
5. Publicistic Style.
So publicistic style is commonly called by phonostylists oratorial, volitional and
desiderative. Its manifestation can be heard in political, judicial, oratorial speeches, in
sermons, parliamentary debates, at congresses, meetings, press conferences and so on. It
needs special training. On the other hand, the proper response of the audience inspires the
speaker and stimulates him on a successful talk.
Public oratorial speeches are so removed from everyday informational narratives and
so vividly marked on the grammatical, lexical and prosodic levels that are immediately
recognized by listeners and labelled as oratorial skills and exercises.
As there is a very strong concern on the part of the speaker about the effects achieved
by his speech on the listener, the former uses all kinds of oratorial performances which on
the prosodic level are characterized by the incomparable variations and contrasts within the
systems of pitch loudness, tempo and timbre accompanied by kinesic components.
These prosodic contrasts, very expressive facial mimics and gestures identify certain
oral texts as belonging to publicistic in-tonational style.
As any publicistic speech is fully prepared and even rehearsed, it usually goes
smoothly and with ease, without hesitation devices. It is marked by its dignified slowness,
careful articulation and impressive resonance on the most important communicative centres
and properly rhythmically organized. A certain amount of style variations is a must when we
perform within publicistic discourse.
Publicistic speakers are usually very enthusiastic about what they say and how they
say, so they may go to extremes by enormously increasing the loudness and alternate it with
whisper or by pronouncing very long breath groups and suddenly interrupt the phonation by
using the rhetorical silence. These and other prosodic contrasts produce great effects and
captivate the attention and interest of the listener.
The greatest single stylistic characteristic of publicistic speeches is the large amount of
parallelisms on any level, prosodic features including.
All the above-mentioned general characteristics serve to produce a complex vocal
effect called "oration", designed to make the listeners respond to the publicistic speechmaker.
6. Declamatory Style.
This intonational style is also called by some as "artistic, acquired or stage”.
Attitudinal, volitional and intellectual functions of intonation are 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. It is
always a written form of the language read aloud or recited.
Acting is a two-way conversation, players respond very directly and promptly to the
"feedback" they get from the audience; the "feedback" in their case being almost certainly
communal, collective, non-verbal language. Methods of achieving, stimulating and
maintaining this "conversation" with their audience must inevitably be the mainspring of the
actors' "training".
To feel, to know, even to express the contents of their drama is a wasted and futile
activity if it is not conveyed to other participants — the audience. Distancing, posture,
gesture, facial expression and timing – all these facets of actor’s art are as important as the
delivery of words themselves.
It is common knowledge that prose, which describes an action or a series of actions to
tell a story, is called narrative.
The prose is descriptive when scenes, objects, people, or even a person's feelings are
described in such a way that we can imagine them vividly. In good descriptive writing an
author builds up a picture in words in much the same way as an artist paints a landscape or a
portrait.
The prosodic organization of the declamatory reading depends on the type of the
literary text – descriptive, narrative, dialogue; on the character of the described events,
schemes and objects (humorous, tragic, romantic, dreamy, imaginative and so on) and of
course on the skills of the reader. But it is always clearly marked and distinguished by its
expressiveness, personal involvement on the part of the author, by the emphasis, by the
entire range of prosodic and paralinguistic effects and it is all felt through the skilful reading.
The phonological opposition of the informational and declamatory reading shows that
both readings differ totally in any aspect, but primarily in the voice timbre – in the
declamatory reading the emotional colouring of the voice is very rich, varied according to
the degree of emphasis.
On the prosodic level the markers of the declamatory style reading are:
1. Slow tempo, caused by the lento rate of utterances and prolonged pauses, especially
at the passage boundaries.
2. Stable rhythmicality.
3. The use of the falling terminal tones in initial intonation groups, the increase of their
range with the emphasis
7. Conversational Style.
Its aim is to analyze variations that occur in spontaneous, everyday speech. It is the
most commonly used type of intonation style. It is called familiar and is used in everyday
communication, in natural conversation of relatives, friends, well-acquainted people. A wide
range of intonation patterns is used here. The conversation lacks in planning, semantic
blocks, the words are commonly repeated, the speech is characterized by “non-fluency”,
“errors”, slips of the tongue or extra fluency with elision in many words. One can hear
whistles, laughs, giggles, see gesticulations and grimaces of talking people. A nose-to nose
distance is the most comfortable for such talks, which are regarded as intimate.
In informal situations, where speakers are more relaxed, less attention is given by
them to the effect they produce on the listeners, because in everyday life a more natural and
spontaneous style will be used. It is the style at the extreme informal end of the stylistic
linear continuum that is known as "vernacular" [Brown 1977]. Thus all speakers have a
vernacular style but its variations in the use of non-standard norms depend on the social
background. In this style variation will be at its most consistent level. It is the most
situationally influenced kind of English.
In conversational style the emotional reaction to the stimulating speech signals is very
important so the attitudinal function of intonation here comes to the fore. Therefore one is
liable to find here a wider range of contrasts at any level than could be expected elsewhere.
In a conversation we do not just listen to words, we derive the meaning consciously or
unconsciously from a number of other communicative systems and it could be that a lift of
an eyebrow, a twitch at the side of the mouth, or a silence tell us more than a dozen
sentences.
But undoubtedly the verbal part of the communication plays a very important role and
has its own systems too but only linked with other effective ways contributed by the
speakers. The full effect is achieved and meanings are exchanged even with strangers and
about unfamiliar topics.
Spontaneous, colloquial, informal conversations display certain common linguistic
characteristics.
1. Firstly, talks of this kind are characterized by the inexplicitness of the language as
the speakers rely very much upon the extralinguistic factors — context, kinesics, etc. This
manifests itself in "incompleteness" of many utterances as the context makes it clear what
was meant by the speaker, thus making redundant its vocal expression (see example 1):
Example 1
Jane: Well... maybe, but... take responsibility; the... the... you don't need as great a
sense of responsibility for you... your kind of work as you do in teaching — all those
children, all those parents...
Brenda: No, but you do have your... your... your colleagues at work — you have a
certain amount of responsibility to them.
Occasionally, the listeners request recapitulation by all sorts of repeated and echoing
questions (see example 2):
Example 2
Richard: Well, I'm going tonight in fact.
Jane: Tonight? Oh, are you?
Richard: Yes, most nights really.
2. Secondly, conversations are characterized by the lack of planning and the
randomness of subject matter. They are very often unpredictable, not guided to an overall
theme as, for example, in our first conversation.
This is the most changeable variety of the language. It is, however, true that in many
everyday communications certain semantic blocks are commonly repeated. For instance, the
stereotyped exchange of greetings, partings, pleasantries, making acquaintance, starting the
conversation, arresting attention, making contacts and so on.
One can easily spot phrases of speech etiquette functioning in colloquial talks such as
questions to keep the conversation going, asking for information, expressions leading up to
questions, polite formulas for attracting attention, requesting, agreeing and refusing,
expressing gratitude and others. These devices and opening gambits are very helpful for
speakers to build up a conversational unity and are used by native speakers mechanically.
3. The third general feature of the conversational style talks is "non-fluency". Informal
spontaneous conversation is characterized by a high proportion of "errors" involving
hesitation phenomena, slips of the tongue and all sorts of overlapping and simultaneous
speech.
Entire range of vocalic clusters, sounds, non-verbal signals are common in
conversations, e.g. mmmm, sshh, ah, bn, etc.
Also, one can hear whistles, laughs, giggles, clearings of the throat, snorts and sniffs.
On the grammatical level informal conversation provides delimitation of utterances and
sentences. Other points to be noted on the grammatical level include:
1. High proportion of parenthetic compound types of sentence introduced by you
see,you know, I mean, I say and others.
2. Frequent use of interrogative sentence types and very few imperatives.
3. Common use of vocatives, especially in initial position.
4. Rare use of nominal groups as subjects; the personal pronouns are more in evidence,
the informal you is quite common in its impersonal function.
5. A great number of question tags.
6. The use of all sorts of repetitions and repetition structures. Even adverbial
intensifiers such as very may be repeated several times.
7. The occurrence of contrasted verbal forms (he's, I’ll, I’ve).
8. The frequency of colloquial ellipses.
The most noticeable aspect of everyday conversations is their vocabulary. It is
characterized by colloquial idioms, the use of words simple in structure, the avoidance of
phraseology; also the informality of the text is achieved by the use of words and phrases
specific for such conversations, e.g.
Yeah. Right. OK. I see. Oh, yes. Yes, yes. Oh, lovely. Oh dear. Alright. Sure. Good
heavens! Thanks! Jolly good! Really? Come off it! Oh, no! Hey! and others [Crystal 1979].
1. Conversations fall into coordinated blocks, consisting of suprasegmental and
supraphrasal units tied up by variations within the length of pauses, speed, rhythm, pitch
ranges, pitch levels and loudness.
2. Since there are no restrictions on the range and depth of emotions which might be
displayed in conversational speech situations they will allow entire range of prosodic effects.
3. Intonation groups are rather short, their potentially lengthy tone units tend to be
broken. These short interpausal units are characterized by decentralized stress and sudden
jumps down on communicative centres.
4. The heads are usually level, or rarely, falling. Falling heads occur only in groups
consisting of several stressed syllables.
5. As for the nuclei, simple falling and rising tones are common.
Emphatic tones occur in highly emotional contexts. High pre-nuclear syllables are
very frequent.
6. The tempo of colloquial speech is very varied. The natural speed might be very fast
but the impression of "slowness" may arise because of a great number of hesitation pauses
both filled and non-filled (hesitant drawls) within the block.
However, the speakers may have no pauses between their parts, very often they speak
simultaneously, interrupt each other.
Also a familiar point about informal conversation is the frequency of silence for
purposes of contrastive pause as opposed to its being required simply for breath-taking.
Pauses may occur randomly, not just at places of grammatical junctions.
So, tempo is very flexible in this style. It is uneven with and between utterances.
7. Interpausal stretches have a marked tendency towards subjective rhythmic
isochrony.
8. Style-forming and style-differentiating factors
Phonostylistics explains the use of definite phonetic features in certain kinds of
extralinguistic contexts, and helps to identify the segmental and suprasegmental phenomena
in order to classify them.
Special extralinguistic analysis shows that speech communication is connected with
the following three factors: the purpose, the participants and the setting of communication.
So the style of communication is determined by these factors as well.
Any act of communication presupposes the presence of the speaker and the listener,
whose conversation arises from a certain topic and happens at a certain place. According to it
they use different linguistic means which result in stylistic variations. Thus the combination
of different linguistic and extralinguistic means depends on a number of factors on any level
of linguistic analysis including the phonetic one.
The style of speech can be analyzed from the point of view of style-forming and styledifferentiating factors. The difference between them is that the first ones concern the
production level, while the second ones relate to the perception level.
I. The style-forming factors determine phonostylistic patterns used on the part of the
speaker. According to the degree of their significance they may be divided into: proper styleforming, style-modifying, and incidental factors. They are interdependent and show different
phonetic phenomena as a part of the whole system.
1. The aim (purpose) of the utterance is the only style-forming factor which sets the
style of conversation.
It is presupposed by the type of activity (working, teaching, public speaking, chatting,
etc.) and its subject matter. These affect pronunciation and make the speaker select
functional phonetic means of a certain phonostylistic pattern in order to realize the purpose
more effectively.
2. The style-modifying factors are considered to be less important, as they cause
modifications within the style set by the style-forming factor. They include:
— the speaker’s attitude to the situation realized in numerous intonation varieties and
reveals emotions of an individual;
— the form of communication: a monologue or a dialogue, which need different
phonetic organization and imply distinctions in the possibility of interruption, continuity,
ability to participate, etc.;
— the degree of formality, that reflects the influence of social roles and relationship
on the distinction and precision of articulation;
— the degree of preparedness or spontaneity, which leads to differences in the rate of
speech and the number of hesitation pauses;
— the kind of speech activity: speaking or reading, presupposed by the absence or
presence of reference to a written text, which has a decisive influence on the phonetic
organization of the utterance.
3. The incidental (concomitant) factors are characteristic of a language user and cannot
much influence on the choice of style.
These are the speaker’s individual characteristics, the temporal limits of the utterance,
the social status, the sex and age of the speaker.
They are not deliberately chosen in the act of communication and are generally
considered to be informative.
II. The style-differentiating factors are revealed on the part of the listener when
interpreting the style of a given utterance. The variations of the following characteristics are
the first to attract attention: the speech timber, delimitation and accentuation of semantic
centers.
1. Speech timber is a special voice colouring, which shows the speaker’s attitude to the
situation of communication. Its interpretation is usually combined with non-verbal
communication markers, like movements of face or body parts.
2. Delimitation refers to the number, length and character of pauses. They divide an
oral text into larger units, like phonopassages in monologues or semantic blocks in
dialogues. These are furtheron divided into smaller units, like phrases and intonation groups.
Thus the emotional state of the speaker and his preparedness to the conversation are
revealed.
3. Accentuation of semantic centers denotes a special prominence given to the parts of
the utterance which the speaker supposes to have a considerable functional value. They are
contrasted with the help of intonation and the degree of contrast serves the marker of the
style.
All in all, phonetic factors realized in different styles include suprasegmental
variations of pitch direction, pitch range, pitch level, loudness, tempo (by means of pauses
and speech rate), rhythm and positional modifications of segmental phonemes. But it’s
necessary to remember that realization of these phonetic variations is exercised only together
with lexical and grammatical ones in the process of oral transmission of ideas by verbal
means.
LECTURE 8.
TERRITORIAL ACCENTS OF ENGLISH
PLAN:
1.
The English-based and the American-based accents of the English language.
2.
RP and GA as national standard norms of pronunciation.
3.
Differences between RP and GA system of consonants phonemes.
4.
Differences between RP and GA system of vowels phonemes.
5.
The major differences of word stress in RP and GA.
6.
The major differences of intonation patterns in RP and GA.
LITERATURE:
1.
Study Guide to English Phonetics and Phonology : навч. посіб. / Валентина
Іванівна Остапенко.– Кам'янець-Подільський : ФОП Сисин О. В., : Абетка,
2012.– 171 с.
2.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка. Лекции, семинары, упражнения :
учеб. пособие / М.В. Евстифеева. — М. : ФЛИНТА : Наука, 2012. — 168 с.
3.
Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб. Для студ. ин-тов и фак.
иностр. яз / М.А.Соколова, К.П.Гинтовт, И.С.Тихонова, Р.М.Тихонова. — М.:
Гуманит. изд. центр ВЛАДОС, 1996. — 286с.
4.
Pronunciation pedagogy and theory. New Views, new Directions/ J.Morley. –
Illinois: Pentagraph Printing: Bloomington, 1994. – 120p.
1. The English-based and the American-based accents of the English language.
It is common knowledge that between 375 million people now speak English as their
first language / mother tongue. It is the national language of Great Britain, the USA,
Australia, New Zealand and Canada (part of it).
English was originally spoken in England and south-eastern Scotland. Then it was
introduced into the greater part of Scotland and southern Ireland. In the 17th and 18th
centuries it was brought to North America (mainly from the West of England). Later in the
18th and 19th centuries English was exported to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa
owing to the colonial expansion. A flow of emigrants who went to invade, explore and
inhabit those lands came mostly from the south-eastern parts of England.
English became wide-spread in Wales at about the same time. Welsh English is very
similar to southern English, although the influence of Welsh has played a role in its
formation. Then in the 20th century American English began to spread in Canada, Latin
America, on the Bermudas, and in other parts of the world. Thus nowadays two main types
of English are spoken in the English-speaking world: English English and American English.
Scottish English and Irish English fall somewhere between the two being somewhat by
themselves.
British English and American English prove to be the two main national variants of
the English language. They serve the bases for all other national variants in the Englishspeaking world. On the ground of political, geographical and cultural unity the following two
groups of national variants may be distinguished:
1) the British-based group, including English English, Welsh English, Scottish
English, Irish English, Australian English, New Zealand English;
2) the American-based group, including United States English and Canadian English.
Some foreign linguists (P. Trudgill, J. Hannah, A. Hughes, and others) consider that
Scottish English and Irish English stand apart from these two groups. Russian phoneticians
(M.A. Sokolova, K.P. Ghintovt, T.F. Leontyeva, and others) suppose that English English,
Welsh English, Scottish English and Northern Irish English should be better combined into
the British English subgroup on the ground of political, geographical, cultural unity which
brought more similarities than differences for these pronunciation variants.
Every national variant of the language falls into smaller regional dialects,
distinguished from each other by differences in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.
The reference to pronunciation differences only presupposes the use of the term
‘accent’. The two types of accents are usually distinguished:
— local accents, which reveal peculiarities in pronunciation used by smaller language
communities in a particular district;
— area accents, which unite common pronunciation features of several local accents.
For certain extralinguistic reasons one of the dialects gradually becomes the standard
language of the nation and its accent is acknowledged as the standard pronunciation model.
Still this standard is not homogeneous throughout the country and may have certain
variations.
American English and British English have separated more than a century ago.
Nowadays these are the two most widely used national variants of English, each of them
possessing its own standards in all language systems.
It’s important to note that pronunciation standards are not permanently fixed and
undergo constant changes under the influence of various internal and external factors.
Teaching practice should follow the rules of the most widely accepted pronunciation model.
2. RP and GA as national standard norms of pronunciation.
RP/BBC English implicitly enjoys the status of the national standard of pronunciation
in the United Kingdom.
In American English, three main types of literary/cultivated pronunciation are
distinguished:
1. General American (GenAm, GA)/Network English which is also known as Western
American and comprises that majority of American accents from Ohio through the Middle
West and on to the Pacific coast. These accents do not show marked eastern or southern
characteristics [Wells 1982: 471; Шахбагова 1982: 15].
2. Eastern American including (i) Boston and eastern New England, and (ii) New
York City.
3. Southern American includes accents of lowland south: Virginia, North and South
Carolinas, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas,
etc.
The opinions as to the US national standard of pronunciation vary. Some scholars hold
the view that GenAm/Network English impicitly enjoys the status of the national standard of
pronunciation in the USA, others claim that there is no nationwide pronunciation standard.
But it is an actual fact that GenAm is widely used by the US media and enjoys intelligibility
throughout the country.
In New Zealand, RP is used as pronunciation model for educated speakers.
In Australia, there is no or little geographical variation in pronunciation [The
Cambridge Encyclopedia 1995: 350], but a great deal of variation can be classified according
to social criteria. Three groups of accents are distinguished with no sharp boundary between
them:
1. Cultivated Australian used by about 10 percent of the population on which RP
continues to exert a considerable pressure; its opposite extreme, Broad Australian which is
used by about 30 percent of the speakers and which appears to be most localized, most
clearly identified with the notion of "an Australian twang", most vividly displaying Cockney
influence;
2. General Australian, which is spoken by the mainstream of educated Australian
speakers and which may be implicitly treated as Australian pronunciation standard.
The type of educated English pronunciation used in Canada has many similar features
with GenAm alongside with specific Canadian traits.
New varieties of English or New Englishes have emerged as the result of the colonial
experience: Indian English, Hong Kong English, Singaporean English, West African
English, etc. [Pride 1982]. These accents exhibit differences.
The following two accents of English have been under extensive investigation due to
their importance, prestige and social advantage in certain geographical areas:
1. Southern English or RP/BBC English,
2. General American/GenAm or Network English.
Three main types of RP are distinguished by A.C. Gimson and A. Cruttenden: 1)
General RP 2) Refined RP and 3) Regional RP.
General RP reflects the pronunciation of middle class educated speakers. Refined RP
is defined as an accent reflecting a class distinction associated with upper-class families, and
the number of its speakers is declining. Its particular characteristics are the realization of [əu]
as [εu] and a very open word-final [ə] (and where [ə] forms part of [iə], [eə], [uə]) and [i].
The vowel [з:] is pronounced very open in all positions, and [æ] is often diphthongized as
[εæ].
Regional RP is basically RP except for the presence of a few regional characteristics
which go unnoticed even by other speakers of RP, e.g. vocalization of dark [.] to [U] in
words like held [heud] and ball [bƆu], a characteristic feature of Cockney (and some other
regional accents) now passes virtually unnoticed in a full у RP accent [Gimson's
Pronunciation of English 1994: 81].
Nowadays British phoneticians refer to an educated accent in London and the
southeast which is termed Estuary English (EE) (англійська вимова в дельті Темзи). EE is
said to "be adopted by those wishing to avoid the stigma of RP as "posh" and by upwardly
mobile speakers of local dialect. It is often characterized among younger speakers as having
"street credibility" or streetcred, i.e. as being fashionable".
It is early to predict the future development of RP for sure, but its recent extensively
permissive attitude to pronunciation variants, the existence of varieties within it correlating
with different criteria should be taken into account by EFL learners today. In fact, the term
RP has become imprecise, but it still has wide currency in books on contemporary English
pronunciation. In Professor Wells's opinion, "EFL teachers working within a British-oriented
environment should continue to use RP ... as their pronunciation model.
But this model must be revised and updated from time to time" [Wells 1997].
A speaker's experiences of languages may typically embrace a first language, a second
language, and a foreign language.
A first language (LI) is the speaker's native language (NL) / mother tongue (MT),
whose learning normally begins in the speaker's earliest experience of language acquisition
as a very small child.
Speakers in the world understand at least one language other than their own. A second
language (L2) is any other language that the speaker learns to control, at any time, to a level
of near native-like proficiency. Typically immigrants acquire it in LI's natural environment.
A foreign language (FL) is any language spoken by the speaker to less than L2 level.
In case of English teaching and learning different terms applicable to different groups
of non-native speakers are in use:
ELT – English Language Teaching,- i.e. teaching English to learners of all types.
TEFL – Teaching English as a Foreign Language,-where learners are neither native
speakers, nor immigrants.
TESL – Teaching English as a Second Language,- where learners addressed are often
immigrants to an English-speaking culture.
TESOL – Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages,-which is slightly more
neutral term encompassing both TESL and TEFL, but avoiding the labels such as 'second' or
'foreign' (mainly used in American English).
A lingua franca is a language used as a means of communication by speakers who do
not have a native language in common [Trudgill, Hannah 1994: 140]. Originally it was a
special case when a foreign language was used as the medium of linguistic communication in
some area, e.g. for trade purposes (literally 'language of the Franks', the Arabic term of the
day for all Europeans). The largest world lingua francas in use today include English and
Mandarin Chinese.
A pidgin language is the language used for the purpose of communication between
speakers of mutually unintelligible languages (usually in the Third World) which has been
developed out of the mixture of the languages of the communities concerned (e.g. Papua
New Guinea Pidgin English, Chinese Pidgin = Tok Pisin). As such, it would have no native
speakers. The origin of the term Pidgin is thought to be " a Chinese corruption of English
business" [The Oxford English Dictionary 1989]. The citations from OED suggest that the
spelling pigeon was commoner than pidgin in the 19th century, when European traders were
active on the South China Coast, and appears to be the origin of the expression That's not my
pigeon (= That's not my business /concern). TomMcArthur [1998: 163] states that... "for
over a century, pidgin has been used... as a label for any hybrid language used in ports and
on ships, and in garrisons, markets, mines, and the like". It is only in the later twentieth
century that it has acquired the neutral, technical sense of' a contact language which draws
on elements from two or more languages ' [The Oxford Companion to the English Language
1992: 778].
Such languages are linguistically simplified, i.e. they typically have a limited
vocabulary, a reduced grammatical structure and a narrow range of functions compared to
the languages from which they derive. For example, speakers of ordinary languages have
approximately 25-30,000 words. Speakers of Neomelanesian use approximately 1,500 items.
Here are a few examples from various linguistic sources illustrating grammatical and lexical
contrasts of Standard English and Pidgin English.
A Creole is a second stage in the process of the pidgin development, i.e. it is a pidgin
language which has become the mother tongue of a community when within a multiligual
community, increasing number of people begin to use a pidgin as their principal means of
communication [The Cambridge Encyclopedia 1995: 346]. This causes a major expansion of
the grammar and vocabulary, and the range of the situations where the language is used.
When the children of the speakers of a pidgin become to use it as their mother tongue, that
language becomes known as a creole. In other words, a Creole is the first language of the
children of Pidgin speakers.
There are considered to be between six and twelve million people still using pidgin
languages, and between ten and seventeen million using Creoles [Yule 1996: 234]. Englishbased Creoles are used in Jamaica and Sierra Leone.
The spread of English throughout the world has been visualized as three concentric
circles, representing different ways in which the language has been acquired and is currently
used [Kachru 1985]:
1. the inner circle refers to the traditional bases of English, where it is the primary
language: it includes the USA(approximately 238,9 million), UK (56,4 million), Ireland,
Canada (25,4 million), Australia, and New Zealand (3,3 million) (Totally: 375 million). The
USA contains nearly four times as many English mothertongue speakers as the next most
important English-speaking nation – the UK, these two countries totally comprising 70 per
cent of all English mother-tongue speakers in the world;
2. the outer or extended circle involves the earlier phases of the spread of English in
non-native settings, where the language has become part of a country's chief institutions, and
plays an important "second language" role in a multilingual setting: it includes Singapore,
India, Malawi, and over other 60 territories (150-300 million);
3. the expanding circle involves those nations which recognize the importance of
English as an international language, though they do not have a history of colonization by
members of inner circle. It includes Ukraine alongside with China, Japan, Israel, Greece,
Poland, Russia etc. As the name of the circle suggests, there is a steadily increasing number
of other states. In these areas, English is taught as a foreign language (EFL) (100-1000
million).
Prospective EFL teachers and users should be aware of the existing variety of social
shapes of English.
The phonemic system of a language is always in a process of evolution. It is the most
fleeting [Gimson 1981] as compared with vocabulary and grammar. The route and the rate of
the phonetic changes in different languages are not the same, for instance, in English or
Ukrainian.
EFL learners should know some general facts about the English phonetic system.
There are a number of factors (both intra-linguistic and social) which have accelerated
the process of phonetic changes throughout the history of English. They can be summarized
as follows:
(i) the rich vocalic system of English, e.g. 20 English vowels vs. 6 Ukrainian ones.
(ii) the sweeping systemic changes at the earlier periods of English which shook its
sound system to the core (e.g. the Great Vowel Shift, r-vocalization, etc.);
(iii) the lasting period of a foreign domination in the Middle Ages when the
phonological system of English was under a strong influence of an alien phonological system
(French);
(iv) the role of English as an international language (e.g. its contacts with other
languages, etc.).
Word in
spelling
RP/BBC English pronunciation forms
GenAm
pronunciation forms
always
'ɔ:lweiz -wiz, -wəz 'ɔ:l- ' a:l
again ə'gen ə'gein
the same as in rp
drastic
'dræstik 'dra:stik inamen always
'dræstik
during
'djuərin, 'ʤuərin, djɔ:r-, ʤɔ:r- 'dзr:in,'dur-,'djur
graduate, adj, n 'græʤuət,'grædju-,'grædjuit
the same as in rp
issue 'isu:, 'isju:, isju: – BrE poll panel
preference: 'isu: 49 %, 'isju: 30 %, isju: 21 %
in ame always 'isu:.
suit su:t, sju:t – BrE poll panel preference: su:t 72
%, sju:t- 28 %
ame always su:t
adult, n, adj 'æd٨lt, ə'd٨lt
ə'd٨lt, 'æed٨lt
frustrate
fr٨'streit, 'fr٨streit 'fr٨streit
dispute, n di'spju:t, də-, 'dispju:t – BrE poll panel
preference: di'spju:t – 62 %, 'dispju:t – 38 %
the same as in rp
All the pronunciation variants of a word are considered to be literary "correct" from
the point of view of educated usage, but the ordering of such variants means that the variant
coming first is widely used and very common – it is the main pronunciation variant; the rest,
although widely used, are less common than the first form [Gimson 1984], they are
alternative variants. In the course of time, the ordering of variants may be changed due to
particular tendencies and new developments within the accent.
EFL learners are recommended to memorize the first, more widely used, main variant
for the active use, and at the same time they ought to be wary of the other permissible
alternative variants of a given word, if there are any.
As variability is one of the existential qualities of literary pronunciation, authentic
approach of foreign learners of English to the concept of the English pronunciation norm
should be based on the awareness that it has a changing term of validity: what is acceptable
at a given time might be treated as less common or even obsolescent in some 70-80 years
[Gimson 1981]. Learners of English should also be wary that pronunciation norm can
provide not only one but some ways of expressing the same semantic entity, i.e. it permits
pronunciation variants of words.
3. Differences between RP and GA system of consonants phonemes.
The most salient differences of realization among the GenAm CONSONANTS lie in
the allophones of [r], [t]:
1. the retroflex pronunciation of [r] is perhaps one of the most characteristic features
of GenAm.
Its main features are:
(i) having the tongue in the central position, as for [ə];
(ii) the tongue tip is curled high toward the back of the mouth, but not touching
anywhere;
(iii) having the back of the tongue low and the sides of the tongue slide along the back
part of the tooth ridge as along two rails;
(iv) the movement of the tongue always begins by a motion toward the back of the
mouth.
More than any other factor, it is this retroflex (toward the back) motion that gives the
GenAm [r] its typical sounding. RP [r] is produced farther forward in the mouth than
GenAm [r] [Celce-Murcia et al 1996: 364].
In words containing a vowel letter or a digraph followed by the letter "r" the retrofit
sound is either pronounced more or less distinctly or the vowel sound has a retrofit coloring,
e.g. bird [bərd], further ['fərðər], fear [fir].
2. the pronunciation of [t]is highly variable in GenAm and there are also some major
allophonic variations in the pronunciation of it.
(i) GenAm speakers tend to pronounce intervocalically before a weakly stressed vowel
or after a vowel+/r/ and before a weakly stressed vowel a voiced alveolar tap/flap, in the
dictionaries it is shown by the symbol [t]. It sounds like a quick English [d], and also like the
[r] of some languages [Wells 1995: 703; Pennington 1996: 59], e.g. city, better, latest, forty,
party. For many Americans, it is actually identical with their d in the same environment, so
that GenAm shutter ['ʃ ٨ṯəɔr] may sound identical with shudder ['ʃ٨dəɔr].
This means that pairs such as the following, which are distinct in RP, tend to share the
same pronunciation in GenAm: latter / ladder, writer / rider.
Intervocalically, RP speakers tend to produce a voiceless alveolar stop: less aspirated
than initial [t] except before syllabic [ṇ] where they tend to produce a glottal stop [?] in place
of [t], as in button ['b٨?ṇ] [Celce-Murcia et al 1996: 365].
(ii) after [n] GenAm [ṯ] can optionally be elided/omitted (in the dictionaries it is shown
in italics, as [ṯ]. Accordingly, GenAm winter ['winṯəɔr] can sound identical to winner
['winəɔr] [Wells 1995:703].
Besides the above-mentioned allophones of [r], [t], the pronunciation of [l], [j], [S] and
nasal sonants m, n, ŋ have salient features of their production in GenAm.
3. the pronunciation of [l]: regarding the pronunciation of [1], GenAm speakers, like
Scottish English, Northern English and Australian English speakers, tend to produce a
darker, more velarized allophone [.] in all positions, whereas RP speakers produce a very
distinct clear or light allophone in prevocalic position, and [.] in postvocalic position –
especially after back vowels [Celce-Murcia 1996: 365].
4. the pronunciation of /j/:
• Yod Dropping: [j] is not pronounced in the combination of [j] + [U:] after t, s, d, e.g.
tube, suit, student, news.
• Yod Coalescence (coalescent assimilation): [t] + [j], [d] + [j] before a weak vowel, as
[u] or [ə] are assimilated into [ʧ], [ʤ], e.g. educate ['eʤukeit], factual ['fækʧuəl]. This
process is called yod coalescence (coalescent assimilation).
5. [S] vocalization: in GenAm [S] is vocalized in final weak syllables ending with ion, -ia, e.g. Asia ['еiƷə], version ['vзƷn].
6. nasal twang: nasality is limited to vowels adjacent to m, n, ŋ where the velum
asal twang is treated by some American phoneticians as 'a defect of American
speech' [Shakhbagova 1982: 20].
4. Differences between RP and GA system of vowels phonemes.
1. There is no strict division of vowels into long and short in GA, though some
American phoneticians suggest that certain GA vowels are tense and likely to be
accompanied by relative length: [i:] in seat, [U:] in pool.
They also admit that a slight rise in tongue position during the pronunciation of tense
vowels leads to a diphthongal quality of tense vowels which contrasts to a monophthongal
quality of lax vowels.
2. Classification of vowels according to the stability of articulation is the most
controversial subject in GA. Some diphthongs are treated in GA as biphonemic
combinations.
The inventory of GA diphthongs varies from three to twelve phonemes. Following
D.A. Shakhbagova [1982] we distinguish here five diphthongs in GA: [ei], [ai], [ɔi], [au],
[ɔu].
3. Another very important feature that causes different interpretations of diphthongs
and vowel length in GA is the pronunciation of [r] sound between a vowel and a consonant
or between a vowel and a silence: rurn [tз:rn], bird [bз:rd], star [sta:r].
It has been estimated that 2/3 of American population pronounce [r] and 1/3 omit it.
Thus GA is rhotic in words like far, core, etc. (when [r] follows the vowels and ends the
word), this sound is consonantal and non-syllabic according to Ch. Thomas. It involves the
characteristic hindering of the free flow of breath which we associate with consonants.
The sound [r] in far closes the syllable more definitely than in British Received
Pronunciation of the word [fa:]. On the other hand, there is a vocalic, or vowel-like and
syllabic [r], that occurs in words like bird, murmur (after a vowel and before a consonant).
Ch. Thomas writes that in such cases we should better transcribe the words bird and murmur
like [brd] and [mrmr]. In such cases [r] is responsible for the characteristic vowel-like quality
within the syllable; it is responsible for syllabic quality as well. That's why Ch. Thomas says
that [r] syllabic in bird and [r] non-syllabic in far should be transcribed differently.
According to V.A. Vassilyev it is still the vowel of the word .that forms a syllable ([з:] in
bird, [Ɔ:] in corn, etc.), not the syllabic [r] sound. He mentioned although that all the vowel
sounds in pre-[r] position sound more like [ə], [r] gives the preceding vowel a retroflex
colouring. It means that the tip of the tongue glides to the retroflex position without,
however, staying there long enough to produce a full-fledged retroflex [r] sound, [r] also
prolongs the vowel a little.
V.A. Vassilyev uses the term "[r]-compensating" vowels (suggested by A.L.
Trakhterov) for the vowels in such words in British Received Pronunciation.
4. One more peculiar feature of pronunciation of vowels in American English is their
nasalization, when they are preceded or followed by a nasal consonant (e.g. in such words as
take, small, name, etc.). Nasalization is often called an American twang. It is incidental and
need not be marked in phonemic transcription.
5. GA front vowels are somewhat different from RP. Vowels [i:], [i] are distributed
differently in GA and RP.
In words like very, pity GA has [i:] rather than [i]. In word final position it is often
even diphthongized.
Vowel [e] is more open in GA. It also may be diphthongized before [p], [t], [k]: let
[lεət].
6. There are four mixed or central vowels in GA: [з], [ə], [٨], [a]. They differ
markedly from RP vowels in articulation and distribution.
7. The three RP vowels [ɔ], [æ], [:] correspond to only two vowels in GA – [a] and
[æ].
This combined with the articulatory differences between RP [ɔ] and GA [a] and a
difference in vowel distribution in many sets of words makes it very complicated. The
following chart vividly shows it:
Besides, word distribution of [ɔ:], [ɔ] in RP and GA is completely different. GA [ɔ] is
intermediate in quality between the RP [ɔ:] and [ɔ]. In its production the lips are considerably
less rounded.
8. Now to the qualities of GA diphthongs.
1. the diphthong [ei] is closer in GA as opposed to RP;
2. very front realization of [зu] such as in RP is not found in GA. In GA its nucleus is
a more back vowel, such as [o], that is why it is transcribed as [ou] [Gimson’s Pronunciation
of English 1994: 84-85, 86]. In unstressed syllables, such as in radio, and before voiceless
consonants, as in boat, coat, the glide of the dipthong is weakened and sometimes reduced to
a monophthongal [o] [Shakhbagova];
3. the nucleus of [aU] tends to be more advanced in GA;
4. since GA is a rhotic accent with non-prevocalic [r], it has the consequence that the
following RP vowels (derived historically from vowel + [r]) do not occur in GA: [iə] in dear
– GA [dir], [εə] in dare – GA [deir], [uə] in tour – GA [tur].
5. some words and names spelled er are pronounced [a:] in RP, but /зг/ in GenAm, e.g.
clerk, derby, Kerr.
6. words ending in -ille tend to be pronounced [ail] in RP but [зl] or [l] in GenAm, e.g.
hostile, missile, tactile, fertile, docile, sterile, agile, fragile, futile.
7. an example of differing lexical distribution of consonants in RP and GenAm is the
[h] phoneme: GenAm has preserved the older (seventeenth-century) pronunciation [зb] or
[hзb] of the word herb without an [h], whereas RP invariably uses the newer form [hз:b].
8. Many GenAm words with a syllable initial alveolar consonant [t, d, n] and now less
frequently [1, s, z], before a sound spelled u, ew, or eu exhibit the preference for [tu, du, nu,
su, zu] in tune, duke, new, lewd, suit, Zeus (the so-called yod dropping), whereas RP has [j]
after the alveolar sound [Celce-Murcia et al 1996:366].
9. In GenAm [Ʒ] is used in final unstressed syllables ending with -ion, or -ia, as in
Asia ['еiƷə], excursion [iks'зrƷn], version ['vзrƷn], in contrast to RP [ʃ]: [eiʃ ə], [Iks'kз:ʃn],
['vз:ʃn] [Шахбагова 1982: 20].
There are very many individual words in common use in both accents with the same
spelling but different phoneme incidence:
Words
Gen Am
RP
ate [eit] [et]
either, neither
['i: ðər], ['ni:ðər] ['аiðə], ['nаiðə]
figure ['figər]
['figə]
leisure
['li:Ʒər]
['leƷə]
lever ['levər]
['li:və]
process
['pra:ses] ['prəuses]
schedule
['skeʤu:l] ['sedju:l]
shone [soun]
[sɔn]
tomato
[tə'meitou] [tə'ma:təu]
vase [veis] [va:z]
The vowels [٨] and [ə] can be generally regarded as allophones of the same phoneme
in GenAm, e.g. some speakers pronounce cup [кəр], above [ə'bəv] [Wells 1995: xiv].
When RP has [٨r] + a vowel most Americans use r-colored, mid-central [зr]: courage
['kз:riʤ], hurry ['hз:ri] [Wellsl995: xv].
The GenAm phoneme [æ] is somewhat closer than its RP counterpart, and seems to be
evolving into an even closer vowel in many speakers. Before [r] plus a vowel, as in carry,
marry, parrot [ε] is used instead of [æ]. Thus the words marry and merry are homophones in
GenAm, as they are both pronounced with [ε]. The GenAm [æ] is tense, long and nasalized
The pronunciation of weak vowels: for most Americans з and і are not distinct as
weak vowels, so that rabbit rhymes with abbot [Wells 1995: xv]. The actual quality used by
Americans for з varies considerably, being typically more [i]-like when followed by a
consonant, but more [٨]-like when at the end of the word. Longman Pronunciation
Dictionary [Wells 1995] follows the rule of showing [i] for GenAm before palato-alveolar
and velar consonants [ʃ, ʧ, Ʒ ʤ, k, g, ŋ], and in prefixes, such as re-, e-, de-, but [ə]
elsewhere.
5. The major differences of word stress in RP and GA.
In words of French origin GA tends to have stress on the final syllable, while RP has it
on the initial one:
frontier ['fr٨ntiə] [fr٨n'tiɔr]
composite ['kɔmpəzit] [kəm'pa:zət]
primarily ['praimərfli] [prai'merfli]
2. Some words have first-syllable stress in GA whereas in RP the stress may be
elsewhere.
3. Some compound words have stress on the first element in GA and in RP they retain
it on the second element: weekend, ice-cream, hotdog, New Year.
4. Polysyllabic words ending in -ory, -ary, -ery, -mony have secondary stress in GA,
often called "tertiary" on the vowel in the penultimate syllable, and RP has no stress in the
same position: laboratory ['læbrə,tɔri], dictionary ['diksə,neri], secretary ['sekrə,teri],
testimony ['testi,mouni].
There are many five-syllable words ending in -ily for which GenAm gives primary
stress to the third syllable whereas RP gives primary stress to the first. In these words RP
speakers also tend to reduce or drop the third syllable (syllable compression), thus
pronouncing them with four rather than five syllables,
e.g. customarily GenAm: [,k٨stə'merəli], RP: ['k٨stəmərəli] and in the words as
momemtarily, necessarily, ordinarily, voluntarily, etc.
In some cases, words in GenAm and RP have the same number of syllables but simply
take different stress patterns, with concomitant differences in pronunciation: advertisement:
GenAm [,ædvər'taizmənt], RP [əd'vз:tismənt]; adult: GenAm [ə'd٨lt] (main
pronunciation), RP ['æd٨lt] (main pronunciation), laboratory, address, etc.
NB! Speaking about different stress patterns in GenAm and RP, the following general
trend can be established: there is greater use of secondary / light stress in GenAm along with
a tendency to retain syllables, and there is more syllable reduction in multisyllabic words in
RP.
6. The major differences of intonation patterns in RP and GA.
GA intonation on the whole is similar to that of RP. But there are, of course, some
differences that should be mentioned here.
North American English speakers tend to perceive British speakers as pretentious and
tnannered, and British speakers tend to perceive Americans as monotonous and negative.
This can be explained by the fact that British English has a greater pitch range (i.e. foe
distance from the highest to the lowest level in a sentence is generally greater) with a Marked
rise, then a gradual fall with a final glide down on the last syllable, i.e. a more steplike
movement from high to low. GenAm intonation begins with a much smaller rise-fall,
maintaining a mid-level pitch with a marked rise-and-fall glide on the final syllable.
Other differences concern mainly the use of similar tones. GenAm clearly makes more
use of high rise rather than of low rise in yes-or-no questions, and the use of high rise seems
to be increasing, on declaratives, as a marker of casualness, particularly in narrative
monologues [Cruttenden 1986: 142]. Cruttenden also explains that the British low rise
sounds patronizing or ingratiating to North Americans whereas the North American English
high rise appears casual and almost flippant to British speakers.
1. In sentences where the most common pre-nuclear contour in RP is a gradually
descending sequence, the counterpart GA contour is a medium Level Head: I don't want to
go to the theatre.
Its emphatic variant in Mid-wavy-level Head:
2. The usual Medium or Low Fall in RP has its rising-falling counterpart in GA: Come
and see me tomorrow.
3. The rising terminal tone in RP in GA has a mid-rising contour: Do you like it?
Or it may have a level tone in GA:
4. The Fall-Rise nuclear tone is different in RP and GA: Really?
These comparisons show that the main differences in intonation concern the direction
of the voice pitch and the realization of the terminal tones. In GA the voice doesn't fall to the
bottom mostly. This explains the fact that the English speech for Americans sounds
"affected" and "pretentious" or "sophisticated". And for the English, Americans sound "dull",
"monotonous", "indifferent".
It should also be mentioned that the distribution of terminal tones in sentence types is
also different in both variants of English.
1. GA "Yes, No" questions commonly have a falling terminal tone; the counterpart RP
tone would be a rising one: Shall we stay here?
2. Requests in RP are usually pronounced with a Rise, whereas in GA they may take a
Fall-Rise: Open the door.
1. Leave-takings are often pronounced with a high-pitched Fall-Rise in GA: In
conclusion we would like to say that American phoneticians use a pitch contour system to
mark intonation in the text:
In the United States, a broad model of voice quality setting might include the
following features [Esling, Wong 1983: 290-291]:
a) spread lips b) open jaw c) palatalized tongue body position d) retroflex articulation
e) nasal voice f) lowered larynx g) creaky voice.
Not all accent groups will share the same features, and some accent groups may even
demonstrate opposite features, but settings that combine some if not all of these features are
very common, and represent articulatory habits that students can easily observe and learn to
recognize.
Openness is common in American English. The stereotype that Americans speak as
though chewing gum has its origins in this setting feature. Retroflexion of the tongue tip, as
in much Irish English, characterizes many varieties of North American English which have
postvocalic /r/. Nasalization as a voice quality setting is common in many accents of North
American as well as British English.
Lowering of the larynx, giving the voice a deeper or hollower sound, often
characterizes national political figures or news and public address announcers in the United
States and Canada, where the degree of prestige of the setting can be assumed to be high.
Creaky phonation, or a low pitch range, is often present in North American contexts.