Table 6
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 442.
The Invariant of Phonostylistic Characteristics of Informational Spontaneous Dialogues
| Timbre | businesslike, detached, occasionally interested | |
| Delimitation | coordinated block — dialogical units (stimulus — response) — phrases — intonational groups, frequent absence of end-of-utterance pauses due to the rapid taking up of cues; frequent use of hesitation pauses (filled and silent), occasional silence for purposes of emphatic pause | |
| Style-marking prosodic features | Loudness | normal or reduced (piano expression); variation of it at block boundaries and also for the accentuation of semantic centres; occasional inaudible lowered mumbles and trailing off into silence occurring by the end of the segments |
| Levels and ranges | greatly varied, especially for the contrastive accentuation of semantic centres; narrowed pitch ranges for many monosyllabic responses | |
| Rate | slow or normal, varied on the accented semantic centres and interpolations, characteristically uneven, as flexible as one wishes it to be | |
| Pauses | may be of any length; their length being the marker of contact between the speakers; simultaneous speaking is quite common; silence of any stretch occurs for the sake of emphasis and as a temporizer to gain some time before expressing the view | |
| Rhythm | non-systematic, greatly varied, interpausal stretches have a marked tendency towards the subjective rhythmic isochrony; the rhythmicality within the block is achieved by the variation of all prosodic parameters | |
| Accentuation of semantic centres | Terminal tones | regular use of falling (high and medium) final and categoric tones, the increase of the range of the nuclei on the semantic centres; occasional usage of level and low rising tones in non-final groups, of emphatic tones (High Fall, Fall-Rise, Rise-Fall) on emphatic semantic centres; high proportion of narrowed tones throughout the responses |
| Pre-nuclear patterns | common use of level heads, usually with one accented pre-nuclear syllable and high pre-heads, longer pre-nuclear patterns are not frequent, if they do occur, then sudden wide pitch jumps within the segments characterize them | |
| The contrast between ac-ented and unaccented segments | great, achieved by the variations in all prosodic parameters |
Now by way of opposition of 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 analysed 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.
Now by way of conclusion we must admit that this is in no sense an absolute description. More and more research is carried out by scholars nowadays, which will bring, we hope, a clearer insight into the essential characteristics of this type of the informational style.
Having determined the "ideal" norm of the style for teachers of English we must say that it is not a factitious one. It is real
and rather common. These carefully pronounced texts are naturally attractive to teachers as their wish is to teach distinct good" English to their students. As their main interest is in teaching correct accent they surely want to find a clear, slow model for the students to imitate. With reference to the degree of carefulness, with which the sounds are articulated, this type of the informational style may be defined as elaborate.
It is an easy repeatable and an eminently teachable model. It is also valuable in that it ensures that the student copying it will speak slowly and carefully.
We would like to make it quite clear that we are suggesting that this is the most suitable model for teaching the production of spoken English in certain spheres of communication.
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