1. Phonetics as a branch of linguistics. The main branches of phonetics.
2. The main methods and devices used in phonetic investigation.
3. Phonetics and other sciences (linguistic and non-linguistic).
4. Practical and theoretical significance of phonetics.
5. The conception of the phoneme put forward in this country.
6. The conception of the phoneme put forward abroad.
7. A phoneme as a dialectic unity of three aspects: material, abstractional, functional.
8. Methods of phonological investigation. The distributional method. The semantic method.
9. Two types of phonetic transcription.
10. Principle types of pronunciation in Great Britain. RP as a teaching norm.
11. Regional non-RP accents of English (English English. Welsh English).
12. Regional non-RP accents of English (Scottish English. Northern Ireland English).
13. The system of English vowels. Changes of vowel quality.
14. The system of English consonants. Changes of consonant quality.
15. American-based pronunciation standards of English (American English. General American).
16. Intonation. Its components (rhythm, tamber).
17. Intonation. Its components (stress, tempo, melody).
18. Nature of word stress. Different conceptions of word stress.
19. Types of sentence stress (normal, rhythmic, logical, emphatic).
20. Placement of word stress. Functions of word stress (constitutive, distinctive, recognitive).
21. Intonation, its definition and the main functions. Intonation pattern.
22. Different ways of marking intonation in the text and on the staves. (Different notation systems)
23. Stylistic use of intonation. (Informational style. Publicistic style. Declamatory style. Conversational style).
24. Intonation and language teaching.
25. Problems of phonostylistics.
26. Extra-linguistic situation, main style differentiating factors.
27. The main difference between reading and speaking.
28. Syntactic, emphatic and hesitation pauses. Verbal “fillers” in speech.
29. The role of paralinguistic means in the process of communication (a smile, eye-contact, gestures, facial expression).
30. Pragmatic means used in public speaking.