- •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
13. The emergence of a pronunciation standard. Received Pronunciation (rp). Present-day situation
There is a wide range of pronunciation varieties of the English language. These varieties reflect the social class the speaker belongs to, the geographical region he comes from, and they also convey stylistic connotations of speech.
Every national variant of the English language has an orthoepic norm of its own: RP or Southern English for BrE, General American for AmE, the Australian Standard Pronunciation for AustrE. It is generally considered that the orthoepic norm of BrE is RP. Received Pronunciation was accepted as a phonetic norm of English about a century ago. It is mainly based on the Southern English regional type of pronunciation, but has developed its own features which have given it a non-regional character, i.e. there is no region in Britain to which it is native. RP is spoken all over Britain by a comparatively small number of Englishmen who have had the most privileged education in the country - public school education. RP is actually a social standard pronunciation of English. It is often referred to as the prestige accent.
14. National and regional variants of English pronunciation
There exist numerous varieties of pronunciation in any language, in English as well. The pronunciation of almost every locality in the British Isles has peculiar features that distinguish it from the pronunciation of other localities. The varieties that are spoken by a socially limited number of of people and used only in certain localities are called DIALECTS.
1. NORTHERN DIALECT (northern part of England)
- [u] instead of [/\] (cup, love, much)
- [o:] instead of [ou] (go, home)
- [e] or [з:] instead of [ei] (may, say, take)
2. SCOTTISH DIALECT
- [ir], [er], [/\r] instead of [з:] (bird, heard)
- [u] instead of [ou] (down)
- no distinguishing between [æ] and [a:] (bad, path, dance, half)
3. COCKNEY (less educated classes of people, part of London)
- [ai] instead of [ei] (today, late)
- [з:] instead of [æ] (bag)
- [h] doesn't occur, only in stressed position (think of (h)im, but History)
- [f, v, d] instead of dental consonants (thin [f], this [d])
- glottal stop instead of [p, t, k] and between vowels (back door [bæ? do:]
Other well-known dialects in Britain:
1) Geordie (Newcastle-on-Tyne)
2) Scouse (Liverpool)
3) Cornish (Cornwall)
etc.
15. American English pronunciation. Peculiarities of General American pronunciation compared to British English
AmE, which is the variant of English, has developed its own peculiarities in vocabulary, grammatical structure and pronunciation. It embraces a wide range of pronunciation varieties. The most widely used regional types of American pronunciation are the Eastern, the Southern and the General American types.
The GA pronunciation is usually referred to as the standard pronunciation of AmE, though it is often debated whether there is a standard pronunciation in the USA. Nevertheless, it is the GA that has the greatest "acceptability", if not prestige, in the United States.
Peculiarities:
- [l] is always dark (film - look)
- [ш] is voiced in words like "excursion, version, Asia"
- [h] is often dropped in weak syllables (I saw (h)im)
- [j] is omitted before [u] (student, duty)
- glottal stop is used instead of [t] before sonorants and semi-vowels (cert[?]ainly, that[?] one)
- no differentiation in length of vowels (all vowels are long)
- [æ] is used instead of [a:] in words which do not contain [r] in spelling (path, glass, dance)