Idiolectal variation

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 804.

What is liaison?

The manner of linking neighbouring words is known as liaison (a channel for communication between groups). Liaision is a phonetic phenomenon which modifies the sound structure of an utterance.Though liaision has not yet been fully investigated, there are 2 features which are clearly distinguished: the “linking”/r/ and the “intrusive”/r/.The linking /r/ is inserted after words that in their old pronunciation (the 16^th century and earlier) had a final /r/, which still remains in the spelling of those words. E.g. here /r/ and there, for /r/ a minute, later /r/ on, for /r/ instance.The linking /r/ does not normally occur before words pronounced with emphasis. E.g., we were “absolutely” sure.The linking /r/ is usually inserted at the juncture of 2 words belonging to one and the same Intonation group. E.g. the door opened and I peeped in. But: He locked the door and put the key into his pocket.The intrusive /r/, which has been brought about by analogy with the linking /r/, is believed to have appeared in the 17^th century. But until lately it was looked upon as a vulgarism. In the latest papers and articles on English pronunciation it is generally noted that the intrusive /r/ is being used more widely, even by RP speakers.

Every phoneme displays a vast range of variation in connected speech. Among the different types of variation we distinguish idiolectal /'idiəlektl/-(of or индивидуальный, diaphonic and allophonic variation.

Idiolectal variation embraces the individual peculiarities of articulating sounds, which are caused by the shape and form of the speaker's speech organs and by his articulatory habits. For instance, a speaker may mumble, or lisp (шепелявить) / say “thish ish” for “this is”/, or stammer (say “a f-f-f-fine d-d-d-day”). Idiolectal variation may cause a lot of difficulties in communication. At the same time it enables people to identify the speech of certain individuals.