Билет 1

Билет 1

DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THE PROBLEM OF PHONEME. THE DEFINITION OF PHONEME

Each language has a limited number of sound-types (звукотипы) that are shared by all speakers of the language and are linguistically important… [spil] - [stil] [bæd] - [læd]

Aims of communication and phonetic means in formal and informal communication.

For the English language RP is most appropriate for public speaking, formal occasions. The standard is stylistically differentiated, as there are… The speaker's judgment of formality willdepend on a num­ber of factors,such as… In what the speaker sees as a very formal situation he will tend to artic­ulate more slowly and carefully. In a very…

Semantic and enclitic approaches to rhythmic units of speech. Analyze the two approaches in the following phrase. “Mr. ‘Wilson is in the ‘hospital till ‘six o’clock”.

Eng.SR- a regular reoccurrence of stressed syl-s.Many linguists feel that these should be a basic R unit for all types of SA-ties. The basic R unit for stressed –timed lang-s is a Rhythmic group- a speech segment which contains a stress syllable+ unstressed ones attached to it. There are 2 points of view of the character of unstressed syllables attachment:

The semantic p.of v.: acc to it the unstressed syllables tend to be drawn to the stressed one of the same word or to the lex unit acc to their semantic or gram connection.

The enclitic p.of v.: the unstressed syllables b/stressed ones tend to join the proceeding stressed syl-l.In this case the str. Syl will always be the first in the group and the R group will include all the follow.units.

E.g 1. ‘Walk /‘down /the ‘path/ to the ‘end /of the ca’nal.

2. ‘Walk /‘down the/ ‘path to the /‘end of the ca/’nal.

 

According to the enclitic approach the phrase Mr. ‘Wilson is in the ‘hospital till ‘six o’clock shall be divided into rhythmic groups in the following way: Mr. ‘Wilson is in the - ‘hospital till - ‘six o’clock. Except the first rhythmic group, that includes proclitics, the stressed syllable goes first in the rhythmic group, not depending on its position in the word.

According to the semantic approach the unstressed syllables in the word adjoin to the stressed syllable of the same word; the unstressed syllables representing auxiliary and other not accented words adjoin to such lexical unit, to which they are adjoined semantically. In this case the following phrase is going to look like: Mr. ‘Wilson is- in the ‘hospital - till ‘six o’clock.

It was proved experimentally that S.tempo and style influence the division into R.groups. The Sem.tendency is more typical of accurate rather slow speech when a phrase falls into separate words. The Enclit.tendency prevails in informal speech which is characterized by a quick tempo.

R groups tend to be pronounced at regular intervals of time irrespective of the number of unstressed syllables.If there few or no unstressed syl-l it should be pronounced lower; if many they should be pronounced quickly and rapidly.

Thus,E. is lang-ge with stressed-timed character of R where stressed syl-s are pronounced at equal period of time and the basic R unit is a R group.

 

Билет 3

Tendencies in the incidence of stress in English.

1.Fixed stress – all the words have a stressed syllable in one and the same position in relation to the beginning or the end of the word. French-… 2.Leng.with Free stress (E,R) – stress may occur on any syllable of the… - constant accent- remains on the same morpheme in different grammatical forms of a word or in different derivatives…

The units of rhythm in prose and verse.

Prof.Antipova studied R. on the basis of larger text units. She worked out a dif.approach to the treatment of SP. She defines R- periodicity of…   Sem.units in poetry(verse):foot, line ,stanza.R. was first described in poetics. The laws of versification included…

Components of intonation, Prosodic features

 

 

Acoustic fundamental intensity duration spectrum absence of

level frequency speech signals

 

Perceptive

Level II pitch force length tamber interval in

Phonation

 

Sentence accentuation

 

Perceptive melodyloudnesstempovoicepause

Level III

Functional or

Speech melody, or the pitch component of intonation, is the variations in the… Tamber (voice quality) is a special colouring of the voice in pronouncing sentences which is superimposed on speech…

Vowels

a)There are 20 vowels in the system of RP and 15-16 vowels in GA; because r was not vocalized, GA lacks centring diphthongs (ending in /e/; the retroflexed vowels /ә:r/ and /ә/, stressed and unstressed , are among those features that noticeably distinguish GA from RP. All vowels occurring before r within a syllable are likely to become “r-coloured” to some extent.

RP here [hiә], hair [heә], pure [pjuә]

GA here [hir], hair [her], pure [pjυr]

 

b) American English in most of its variants lacks the short rounded vowel /o/, it is replaced by a vowel /a:/ which is similar to RP vowel in father:

RP lock [lok], dog [dog], stop [stop]

GA lock [la:k], dog [da:g], stop [sta:p]

The RP vowel /o/ can also be replaced by a long vowel /o:/:

RP long [lon], forest [forist], orange [orindg], sorry [sori]

GA long [lo:n ], forest [fo:rist], orange [o:rindg], sorry [so:ri]

GA is not as strictly codified as RP. There is considerable variability in GA vowels in the open back area.

 

c)Most of the American linguists do not use transcription system which allows us to distinguish long and short vowels in GA. Vowel length in AmEng is generally considered to be conditioned by phonological environment , so the long/short distinction described for RP is not usually present. GA is commonly described as having lax (historically short) vowels, tense (historically long) vowels and wide diphthongs. Lax vowels are lower and made with less oral tension: they do not usually end syllables.

 

d) The Am vowel /ә/ vowel is somewhat closer than the RP /ә/ and seems to be evolving into an even closer vowel in many speakers, so that the phrase Merry Mary married sounds as if all the accented vowels are identical. Notable is the fact that /ә/ is used not only in the same words as RP /ә/ but also in many words in which RP has /a:/ when there is no letter r in spelling.

RP dance [da:ns], ask [a:sk], pass [pa:s]

GA dance [dæns], ask [æsk], pass [pæs]

 

e)The diphthong [eυ] is more rounded in GA:

RP go [geυ], home [heυm];

GA go [gou], home [houm].

Consonants

a) In GA [r] is retroflex (pronounced with the tip of the tongue curled back). At least 3 degrees of retroflexion which affect the preceding… RP hurry [hÙri], worry [wÙri] GA hurry [hәri], worry [wәri]

Практическая часть

 

[f] – [g]: leaf – league

multiple opposition: 1) voiceless vs. voiced

2) fricative vs. plosive

3) labio-dental vs. velar

 

[m] – [b]: rim – rib

single opposition: nasal vs. oral (plosive)

 

[z] – [t]: zest – test

double opposition 1) voiced vs. voiceless

2) fricative vs. plosive

 

[s] – [θ]: sick – thick

single opposition 1) alveolar – dental

 

Билет 7

TERRITORIAL AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCES IN THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES (1)

 

A number of geographical-historical and socio-cultural factors caused English to become a global language spoken by approximately 1, 500 million speakers.

In geographical variation we have to distinguish two basic concepts:

§ dialect– is distinguished for its vocabulary, grammar and pronounciation. In this sense the two major varieties of English , the British English and American English may be treated as “dialects”.

§ Accent– is a type of pronunciation or a feature of one which can be found in speech of any individual or the whole speech community. Thus, phonetics is mainly concerned with accents of English, as spoken on different territories, in diverse social groups, by particular individuals.

Accents of English worldwide are grouped into:

· Accents in the countries where English is the mother tongue of the majority of the population (“the inner circle”): the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the white population of the Republic of South Africa;

· Accents in the new developing states, former British colonies, where English is one of the official languages (“the outer circle”): India and Singapore.

· Accents in the countries where English is the most widely used foreign language taught at schools (“the expanding circle”), like Russia and China.

 

Historical-geographical division of native English accents may be based on the division into:

Ø British-oriented (the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa);

Ø North-America-oriented (the USA, Canada).

Most of the countries possess their national pronunciation standards, regional standards and local accents.

 

National standards

§ GA (General American), or American Network English, in the USA; § GenCan (General Canadian) in Canada; § GenAus (General Australian) in Australia.

Functions of syllable. The notions of open and close juncture. Phonetic means of open juncture

In language with distinctive differences in syllable division these differences are regarded as forming a separate phonological unit, - one of its…  

Attitudinal meaning of the constituents of the melodic contour.

The attitude to the structure of tone is also differ.now. these days tone is seen as a combination of relatively independ.tonal features. Each tone… What brings about local meanings? In present we can only summarize the factors… All the meanings that was described can be defined as attitudinal. There is a differ.discription which has a…

PHONETIC BASIS. ARTICULATORY BASIS: STATIC AND DYNAMIC APPROACHES

Phonetic basis suggests a number of the most typical pronunciation tendencies of the language. These tendencies are perceived by listeners as a… Since phonetics deals with sounds and intonation, we distinguish between: § articulatory (or organic) basis;

PRINCIPAL AND SUBSIDIARY VARIANTS OF ENGLISH PHONEMES

 

There are 2 types of allophones:

Principle;

Subsidiary.

F.e. English phoneme [d] when not affected by the articulation of the preceding or following sounds is a plosive, fore-lingual apical, alveolar,… Principle allophones don’t undergo any distinguishable changes in speech. They… Principle A. = stressed vowels + consonants before them.

The main approaches to the description of melody( British and American schools).

Major approaches to the form of melodic units. 1. Contour A.worked out by British phonetic school( Johns, Dalmer, Armstrong,… Structure and functions. The melodic contour of a sense gr.includes: a scale, a nuclear tone, a head, a prehead, a…

Functions

Structural function

In a dialogue or polilogue the speaker – listener interaction is reflected in the unity of one topic for discussion shared by all the participants,… Information structuring is more evident in radio newsreading, sports… It is subdivided into:

Social function

Aesthetic

It means general impression from the person’s speech (harmony (благозвучие) or not).

Stylistic

    Degrees of stress in English & Russian. Differences in the articulatory bases in English & Russian in terms of…

Typology of accentual structures

(из лекций): Degrees of stress 1) primary (strong) 2) secondary (alw preceeds the primary stress: e*xami*nation);

The specific character of English prosodic basis as compared with Russian.

  Prosody is “a term used in suprasegmental phonetics and phonology to refer…  

Features which distinguish the vowel sounds in the minimal pairs

The basic classifying features of English vowels are quality, length, position of the lips, among which quality is the only phonemic one as a change in quality creates contrast and serves to distinguish words and their forms

Vowel quality which depends on the height and the front-back position of the tongue.

a) close (high): - narrow [i:], [u:] - broad [i], [u], [iə], [uə]

Практическая часть

 

[e] – [ei]: let – late

single opposition 1) monophthong vs. diphthong

unrounded, short, lax, mid, front, checked, oral (обе гласные)

 

[i] – [a:]: lid – lard

multiple opposition 1) short vs. long

2) lax vs. tense

3) checked vs. unchecked

4) close vs. open

5) front vs. back

 

[i:] – [u:]: mean – moon

double opposition 1) front vs. back

2) unrounded vs. rounded

 

Билет 14

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RP and GA IN THE PRONUNCTIATION (WORD-STRESS, PROSODY (5)

 

Word stress

RP a¢ddress, ¢adult, prin¢cess, ¢detail; GA ¢address, a¢dult, ¢princess, de¢tail  

SOCIAL VARIATIONS IN ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION. SOCIAL FACTORS AND PHONETIC MARKERS

In all English-speaking countries there exists a close and obvious connection between language and social class: speech stratification correlates… There was a survey in 1972 carried out by National Opinion Polls and according… Thus accents are associated with the people who use them, with their way of life, and may have symbolic values. The…

FUNCTIONS OF INTONATION

The principal functions of I. are: 1) Communicative – the change in melody/tone leads to the change of the… 2) Expressive (attitudinal). This functions consists in expressing the attitude of the speaker towards what is being…

The notions of fixed and free stress. Account for the position of stress in the following words: examination, colonization, brother, above, absent-minded, ex-president, barometer.

 

 

1. Fixed stress – all the words have a stressed syllable in one and the same position in relation to the beginning or the end of the word. French- the main accent is tied to the last syllable of the word. Czech- the main accent falls on the initial syllable of each word and gram. form of a word(+Finnish, Estonian, Polish)
2. Leng.with Free stress (E,R) – stress may occur on any syllable of the word.

- constant accent- remains on the same morpheme in different grammatical forms of a word or in different derivatives from one root.

- Shifting accent- falls an different morphemes in different gram.forms of the word: сад-сады, вода-водовоз.

The word stress in English as well as in Russian is not only free but it may also be shifting, performing the semantic function of differentiating lexical units, parts of speech, grammatical forms. In English word stress is used as a means of word-building; in Russian it marks both word-building and word formation, e.g. 'contrast — con'trast; 'habit — habitual 'music — mu'sician; дома — дома; чудная — чудная, воды — воды.

Eֽxaminátion- Rhythmical tendency (The rhythm of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables gave birth to the rhythmical tendency in the present-day English which caused the appearance of the secondary stress in the multisyllabic French borrowings)

ֽColonizátion- Rhythmical tendency (same).

Bróther- Recessive, Unrestricted

Above- Recessive, restricted

ábsent-mínded- Retentive- (a derivative retains the stress of the original words )

ex-président- Retentive (semantic factor- compound numerals and adj and words with meaningful prefixes have one stress.)

barómeter- Rhythmical tendency (majority of 3-4 syllabic words with one accent are stressed on the third syllable from the end, and thus stress is called rhythmical)

 

Билет 17

THE ORPHOEPIC NORM OF ENGLISH (RP) AND ITS TYPES

The conditions for a variety of English pronunciation to be accepted as the orthoepic norm are 1.recognition of the fact that RP has the “prestige accent”; the presence of… 2.Registering/recording the well-established variants of pronunciation by the pronouncing dictionariesWide currency,…

Southern English Pronunciation, or RP;

Northern English Pronunciation;

Standard Scottish Pronunciation.

ü The Southern British type of Engl.pronunciation is known as RP. The term Southern English is indicative only of its birth-place and doesn’t… Features: RP is non-rhotic: written r is pronounced only if it is…  

INTONATION AND PROSODY. THE CORRELATION BETWEEN THESE NOTIONS

These terms are used interchangeably, as synonyms. Some linguists although strongly object to such a confusion (Artemov, Zlatousova, Svetozarova). … Broadly speaking, intonation is a complex unity of closely related prosodic… By prosody the majority of linguists mean constant physical or acoustic characteristics of speech (spectrum) and…

Factor which determine the variety of phonetic styles.

Phonostylistics deals with phonetic styles, which are- different ways of pronunciation determined by extralinguist.factors and characterized by… Any spoken utterance is conditioned not only by linguistic (internal) factors… Among the factors resulting in phonostylistic varieties we can also mention the form of…

The meaning of tones and scales.

Tones: 1)Level tones(unchanging pitch) 2)Moving tones(changing pitch)

Functions of syllable. The notions of open and close juncture. Phonetic means of open juncture

In language with distinctive differences in syllable division these differences are regarded as forming a separate phonological unit, - one of its…