The Invariant of Phonostylistic Characteristics of an Academic Style Reading

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 542.

Now in my ˎnext ˌlecture | I ↘hope to 'demonstrate in vde tail Ithat ↘this 'state of afvfairs | — this double vfocus ⌇ as we might ˌcall it | was of ↘crucial im'portance for the 'subsequent 'growth of 'London as a ˎcity. || This is a public lecture about the growth and development of London addressed or rather read aloud to a fairly-sized audience. The lecturer is evidently a specialist on the subject, therefore he sounds very self-assured and comfortable with the subject, rather knowledgeable about the topic. The purpose of the lecturer is to inform rather than entertain, his aim is to deliver a message across to the audience, to win the attention and interest on the part of the listener, to establish a contact in a specific and fully premeditated way. The result of the audience control may be seen in the tenden­cy to adopt "rhetorical" forms of speech in which the listeners are addressed or questioned directly so as to persuade them that they are in contact with the speaker and to get them more readi­ly round to his way of thinking: I'd like you to consider what happened as the two towns began to expand. What do you think the main consequences of the ex­pansion were? To guide understanding and control the audience the speaker outlines the points he is going to lecture about, uses all sorts of phrases to clarify his position and underline each new item in the text: You will all have seen from the handouts which you have in front of you that I propose to divide this course of lectures on the urban and architectural development of London into three main sections and perhaps I could just point out, right at the begin­ning that there will be a good deal of overlap between them. Indeed I would go as far as to say... Now by way of introduction I'd like to try and give some in­dication of... Now m my next lecture I hope to demonstrate in detail... The relationship between the lecturer and the public is on the whole rather formal, the degree of formality is not varied, though he sounds enthusiastic about what he says. The text is delimited in the way specific for any monological presentation. The analysis of the prosodic characteristics of the text and re­ports on the recent research carried out in this field in the present instance allow us to conclude that this type of the scien­tific intonational style (lectures, reports, explanations, inter­views, etc.) is generally characterized by the parameters de­scribed in Table 9. We would like to specify here that a certain amount of varia­tion is a must when we perform within the register of scientific discourse, but a lecturer should keep himself (or herself) from go­ing to extremes, otherwise he will use patterns of a different style (publicistic or declamatory, for instance) and we will wit­ness the fusion of many styles. Now our next procedure will be the phonological opposition of the reading of an academic lecture and a descriptive text pro­sodic characteristics. As a result of the comparison we would like to describe here specific characteristics of the academic style which display fea­tures not shared by others. 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. Table 9

Further to the vwest, | at a ↘point where the 'river was vfordabIe, | anˋabbey | — the → Ab­bey of ˎWestminster — was ofounded | and the ↘two 'towns 'grew 'up oside by ˎside | — ↗one centred on the vRoman camp, | and the → other on the ˎAbbey.

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.

Now in conclusion we would like to say that when we per­form within the academic (scientific) intonational style a certain amount of variation of all phonostylistic characteristics is a must to achieve the goal of communication, but care should be taken not to overdo this. If a segment is overloaded with contrasts of tempo, loudness and pitch and the speaker uses all sorts of "ora-torial tricks", then it means that the lecturer performs in a differ­ent style with appropriate prosody and we have the transposi­tion from one style to another.

We have described in this chapter only one register of the ac­ademic style. Unfortunately other spheres of discourse and inter­course in this style have not been fully investigated yet; so this field for experiments is still open and awaits its investigators.