- •1. Phonetics as a linguistic science. Branches of phonetics. Phonetics and phonology
- •2. Articulatory classification of speech sounds
- •3. The phoneme as a linguistic unit. Its definition and functions
- •4. Manifestation of phonemes in speech. Phoneme and allophone
- •5. Methods of the identification of phonemes in a language
- •6. The distinctive and non-distinctive features of English vowels
- •7. The distinctive and non-distinctive features of English consonants
- •8. Problems of the phonemic inventory of English vowels
- •9. Problems of the phonemic inventory of English consonants
- •10. Types of phonetic transcription
- •11. The syllable as a phonetic, phonological unit. The functions of the syllable. Structural peculiarities of the English syllable
- •12. Theories of syllable formation and syllable division
- •13. The emergence of a pronunciation standard. Received Pronunciation (rp). Present-day situation
- •14. National and regional variants of English pronunciation
- •15. American English pronunciation. Peculiarities of General American pronunciation compared to British English
- •16. The syllable as a prosodic unit. Word stress, its nature and functions. Linguistically relevant types of word stress
- •17. The accentual tendencies in English. Basic word stress patterns in English
- •18. Speech prosody. Its perceptible qualities and acoustic properties
- •19. Prosody and intonation. Utterance prosody and its linguistic functions
- •20. The components (subsystems) of utterance prosody and units of its analysis
- •21. The tonal (pitch) subsystem of utterance prosody. Units of its analysis. Tones and tonal contours
- •22. The structure of a prosodic contour (intonation group) in English. The functions of its elements
- •23. Basic types of prosodic contours in English
- •24. Utterance stress in English, its phonetic nature and function. The relationship between utterance stress and word stress in English
- •25. Types of utterance stress. Factors conditioning the location of utterance stress
- •27. The basic unit of the rhythmic organization of speech and the problem of its phonetic delimitation in an utterance
- •28. The phonetic nature and types of speech rhythm in different languages.
- •29. Speech tempo and pausation
- •30. The notion of speech style. Phonetic style-forming means in English
30. The notion of speech style. Phonetic style-forming means in English
PHONETIC STYLES are different ways of pronunciation caused by extralinguistic factors and characterized by definite features. EXTRALINGUISTIC FACTORS: 1) the aim of speech; 2) the extent of creative activity of speech; 3) the form of speech; 4) social and psychological factors. STYLES: belles-letters, publicistic, newspaper, the style of official documents, oratorical, conversational, etc.
Each phonetic style is characterized by a specific combination of certain segmental and prosodic features. THE DEGREE OF ASSIMILATION, REDUCTION AND ELISION may serve to distinguish phonetic styles. Besides these segmental features, there are prosodic features which enable people to distinguish between different styles.
- Each speaker has a norm of LOUDNESS which he may depart from in different circumstances.
- His speech is generally characterized by a more or less regular usage of certain TONES. But there are circumstances when he introduces into his speech tonal variations, variations of pitch levels and ranges (either to awaken enthusiasm and interest in his audience, or to acquire an authoritative tone or, vice versa, to sound informal).
- Each speaker has a norm of speech TEMPO as well. He may also depart from it in different circumstances. For example, when reading aloud the tempo is more or less even, when chatting freely the variations in the tempo appear to be considerable.
- PAUSES also help to distinguish phonetic styles. In the written English read aloud the pauses are closely related to the grammatical structures, but in conversations they appear in between words in close grammatical connection.