Phonostylistics is a new branch of phonetics.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 2835.

Phonostylistics studies the way phonetic means are used in this or that particular situation, which exercises (проявляться) in the conditioning influence of a set of factors which are referred to as extralinguistic. The investigation of phonetic styles have originated a new branch of phonetics – phonostylistics, which is concerned with identification of the style – forming means, i.e. the phonetic features that enable the native speaker to distinguish different styles of pronunciation with intuition.

Until now it was considered that the phonetic styles are the degrees of assimilation, reduction and elision, all of which depend on the degree of carefulness of pronunciation. These phonetic phenomena are caused by an unconscious economy of effort, known as “the law of least effort”, which is universal for all languages.

The position and the nature of the adjoining sounds determine the character of the modifications that sound undergoes.

1) Besides, the speaker is governed by his audience in his choice of vocabulary units, grammatical structures, tempo of speech, distinctness of articulation etc. He has to make sure, that he is understood. That's why he speaks more carefully when addressing a large audience, while he speaks with less distinctiveness to those whom he knows well enough. Eg: Let me see ['lemi ̖si:], don't know [‘dnnou].

2) Elision, reduction and assimilation may, therefore, signal stylistic differences. Take the sentence: “We can trust him to do it well” may be said in 2 ways: 1) [wi kn ‘trʌst im tə ‘du it ̖wel]; 2) [wi: ‘kæn ‘trʌst him tə ‘du: it ̖wel]. O'Connor states they belong to different styles. The first being appropriate to colloquial conversation, the second to a political speech delivered to a large audience. On account of all that, the degree of assimilation, reduction and elision may serve to distinguish phonetic styles.

3) Each speaker has a norm of loudness which may depart from it under different circumstances (his speech is generally characterized by a more or less regular usage of certain tones. Sometimes the speaker introduces in his speech tonal variations, variants of pitch levels (either to awaken enthusiasm and interest in his audience or to acquire an authoritative tone or vice-versa, to sound informal)).

4) Each speaker has a norm of speech tempo as well.

5) Pauses also help to distinguish different varieties of speech. The character of pauses shows striking differences between written English read aloud and informal conversation. In the former the pauses are closely related to the grammatical structures, but in conversation they may and do appear in between words in close grammatical connection. Some of the pauses are often replaced by the so-called “silent-fillers” such as: I mean, thought of, kind of, well, so etc. Some speakers, when they are greatly involved in what they say and are very emphatic, introduce no pauses until they run out of breath. Their speech sounds abnormal and careless.

6) Experimental investigations show the duration of pauses and tempo of speech depend largely on the extent of creative activity that takes place during speech production. When a native speaker has a great deal of automatised and well-learned sequences. common-place utterances, professional jargon and cliché, the tempo of his speech is higher than when he has to take serious decisions concerning the contents of his speech and its form (the vocabulary, the grammatical structures, the consciousness of expression).

The tempo also depends on if the audience is large or not. The speaker usually slows down his tempo of speech when addressing a large audience.

Thus each style of pronunciation is characterized by a relatively high proportion of definite segmental and prosodic features which are not typical for other styles.

Crystal and Davy have noted that informal conversational English is opposed to written English read aloud and is characterized by: a) a high proportion of hesitation features of all kinds (hmm, er, a); b) a great amount of non-obligatory assimilation; c) a very high frequency of simple falling tones, of compound tones (fall-rise), of low-rising tones on statements; d) a strong tendency to use short intonation groups and to break up intonation groups wherever possible; e) a frequent use of pauses which occur in places where they are not regular in formal conversation.

Davy found that the rising tones are used much oftener in reading. Informality of conversational English is also created by unexpected introduction of dialect forms, elements of very formal language, slips of the tongue, hesitation devices, uneven tempo, significant variants in loudness, paralinguistic features (giggle, laugh etc.).

It's necessary to explain what extralinguistic situation is. It can be defined by 3 components: 1) purpose; 2) participants; 3) setting. A speech situation is the occurrence of 2 or more circumstances related to each other in a particular way, having a particular aim of communicating, communicating about particular topic in a particular setting (окружение).

Firstly, a situation is connected with the purpose of the topic of communication. The purpose directs the activity types and in terms of the activity type plus specific subject matter. There appear to be a considerable number of quite general types of activities: teaching, working, chatting etc. The notion of purpose requires the specification of contents at a more detailed level. This we shall call subject matter or topic.

Secondly, another component of situation is participants. Let's turn our attention to social relationships. When doctors meet Dr. Smith talks like a doctor and not like a father or someone's friend. It is likely to be when he is in a surgery or a hospital and is inquiring about the health of a patient or discussing new drugs with a colleague.

Usually age of participants is also important category for social interaction. The old people speak and are spoken to in a different way from young people. A high-pitched voice is used in speech of an elderly person.

The sex of the speaker is another participant's component of a speech situation. Girls and women pronounce -ing like [iŋ] more frequently than boys and men [in]. Female speakers use a more polite pattern of intonation, while male speakers use a more deliberate pattern.

Setting may be arranged as: public – private, impersonal – personal, polite – casual, high-cultured – low-cultured.