Теоретическая фонетика английского языка (803492), страница 26
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Thebundle of these factors forms the extralinguistic situation.106Chapter V. PhonostylisticsThe chapter that follows is based on the idea that the information aboutstylistic variations is significant for teaching phonetics. The branch ofphonetics which carries this information is phonostylistics. The purpose ofthischapter is to offer a brief introduction into the main topics covered by phostudies. It would not be accurate to say that phonostylistics is anew branch of phonetics. It is rather a new way of looking at phonetic phenomena, which came as a result of detailed analysis of spoken discourse.Nobody would want to deny the fact that oral speech is the primary medium oflanguage expression. So when linguists became involved in investigating language in use they realized that language is not an isolated phenomenon, it is part of society.
In real life people fmd themselves in varioussituations. In these situations language is used appropriately, i. e. peopleselect from their total linguistic repertoires those elements which match theneeds of particular situations.This fact changed the whole approach to the language. Rather thanviewing the language as an object with independent existence, a thing to bedescribed for its own sake, it became evident that it must be seen as a tool,a means ofcommunication, and it is only in the context of communicationsituation that the essential properties of a linguistic system can be describedand"It is obvious that much of what people say depends directly or indirectlyon the situation they are in.
Here we should point out two things. On theone hand, variations of language means in different life situations are numerous, on the other hand, these variations have much in common as theyare realization of one system. That means that there are regular patterns ofvariation in language, or, in other words, language means are characterizedby a certain pattern of selection and arrangement.The principles ofthis selection and arrangement, the ways ofcombiningthe elements form what is called "the style".
Style integrates languagemeans constructing the utterance and at the same time differentiates oneutterance from another.It must be noted that the category of style is not new in linguistics. Thebranch oflinguistics which is concerned with styles is called stylistics (functional stylistics), it studies the expressive potential ofthe language elements,for the most part the levels of grammar and lexis.
However, the phoneticlevel has its own characteristics and qualities and needs specific methods ofinvestigation.As it was already mentioned, certain nonlinguistic features can becorrelated with language use. The latter can be studied on the phonetic1075.1. The Problems of Phonostylisticslevel, which is the area ofphonostylistics.
Its aim is to analyse all possiblekinds of spoken utterances with the main purpose of identifying the phonetic features, both segmental and suprasegmental, to explain why suchfeatures are used and to classify them into categories with regard for theirfunction.5.1.2. Extralinguistic situation and its componentsBefore describing nonlinguistic factors and their phonetic correlates itis necessary to explain what is understood by the extralinguistic situation.The analysis shows that it can be described in term.'l of three component'l,i.
e. purpose, participants and setting. These components distinguish situations as the context in which speech interaction takes place. Thus, a speechsituation can be defmed by the co-occurrence of the following elements:two or more participants related to each other in a particular way,particular aim of communication, communicating about a particuI<llin a particular way.Figure 12Components of Extralinguistic SituationExtralinguistic situationpurposesettingLet us consider each of the components.Purpose can be described as the motor which sets the chassis ofparticiand setting going.
It directs the activities ofthe participants throughout the situation to complete a task. Such purposes can be viewed in termsofgeneral activity types and in terms ofthe activity type plus a specific subject matter. There appear to be a considerable number of general types ofactivities, such as working, teaching, learning, conducting a meeting, playing a game, etc. Such activity types are socially recognized as units ofinteraction that are identifiable.It should be noted that activity type does not identifY directly the purpose in a situation. It only specifies the range of possible purposes that participants will orient toward in the activity.
The notion of purpose requiresthe specification of contents as a more detailed level than that of activitytypes. This can be called "subject matter" or "topic".108Chapter V. PhonostylisticsBy participants we mean people involved in communication. Speech isa marker of various characteristics of people, both individual and social. Inother words, the way people speak retlects their background. "Certain aspects of social variation seem to be of particular linguistic consequence.Age, sex and social class have repeatedly shown to be ofimportance when itcomes to explaining the way sounds, constructions and vocabulary vary"(D. Crystal, 1995: 364).Age can be associated with the role structure in the family and in socialassignment ofauthority and status and with the attributionUlHvlvm levels of competence.
According to D. Crystal, "age is one ofthe most noticeable features in speech. We have little difficulty identifying ababy, a young child, a teen-ager, a middle-aged person, or a very elderlyperson from a tape recording" (D. Crystal, 2007: 283). The speech behaviour ofa person does not only convey information about his/her age but alsoabout the age ofthe listener, or the receiver ofthe verbal message. Thus, oldpeople speak and are spoken to in a different way from young people. Forinstance, an elderly person usually speaks in a high-pitched voice, thespeech rate is slower. People generally use higher pitch levels speaking toyounger children.Gender is another factor which is included into the "partlclpants component. Gender differences in pronunciation are quite numerbus and inmost cases there is a marked phonetic contrast between male and female.For instance, there is a tendency for women to produce more standard,careful pronunciation as opposed to more careless speech of men in whichcertain sounds may be omitted.
Women tend to use certain intonation patterns that are seldom used by men, etc.There is one more characteristic to be taken into account. That is theemotional state ofthe speaker at the moment ofspeech production which islikely to be retlected in his pronunciation.Another characteristic to be considered here is the social status of theparticipants, i. e. their belonging to a particular class, their education, occupation and so on. There are distinctive features of pronunciation whichare associated with "educated" and "uneducated" speech,or absence of articulatory precision. Admittedly, "the famous linguisticnal of social class in Britain is the pronunciation offinal ng in such words asrunning" (D. Crystal, 2007: 309).
In socio-cultural terms we must considerthe social status ofthe speaker, what social group orc1ass he belongs to. Obviously, the pronunciation of an Oxford don will be very different from thatof a London cab driver.U5.1. The Problems of Phonostylistics109Another important aspect is the character of participants' relationship which is retlected in the tenor of discourse, which can be formal orinformal, friendly or unfriendly.
It affects greatly the choice of intonation.Speech behaviour also retlects the social roles that people exercise:head ofthe family, son, teacher, friend and so on. So when we identify thesocial identity of a person and the way it is retlected in pronunciation weare to consider both his/her belonging to a particular social group and thesocial roles he/she performs.Setting, or scene can be defined by several features: The first of themis a physical orientation of participants, which is to some extent determined by the activity they are engaged in. It is quite obvious that a publicspeech and face-to-face interaction are bound to be different in phoneticterms in a number ofways.Scenes may be arranged along bipolar dimension offormal-informal.The kind of language appropriate to scenes on the formal, or "high" endof the scale is then differentiated from that appropriate to those on theor "low" end.
Comparing English and Russian we could assumesuch differentiation follows universal principles, so that "high" formsoflanguage share certain properties such as elaboration of syntax and lexicon, phonetic precision and rhythmicality, whereas "low" forms shareproperties including ellipsis, repetition, speed and slurring. So pronunciation features may be expected to be markers ofthe scene or at least of itsposition in the formal-informal dimension.5.1.3.
Style-forming factorsWe have attempted to give an outline of what is generally understoodby the extralinguistic situation and its constituents. It is easy to see, hownumerous the factors, determining variation in language usage, are. Admittedly, we are mainly interested in the variation of phonetic means.
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