Теоретическая фонетика английского языка (803492), страница 34
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There are speakers who usualJy vary the registers to achieve greater effectiveness.The speakers are usually very enthusiastic about what they say, so theymay go to extremes by enormously increasing the loudness and alternate itwhisper or by pronouncing very long breath groups and suddenly interrupt the phonation by using the rhetorical silence. These and other prosodic contrasts produce great effects and captivate the attention and interestofthe listener.A characteristic feature of publicistic style presentations is a largeamount of parallelisms on any level, prosodic features including.144Chapter V. PhonostyiisticsAll the above-mentioned general characteristics serve to produce a complex vocal effect called "oration", designed to make the speech effective.We have tried to describe here only one register of the style.
There arecertainly other spheres of discourse - spontaneous speeches at the meetings, debates, after dinner speeches, speeches at anniversaries, prize-givingSpeeches and so on. They will certainly differ greatly on the prosodic level,but the volitional function of intonation, expressed by the contrast of allprosodic parameters, will always be in the foreground and mark the publicistic style.5.3.5. Declamatory style. Artistic readingThis phonetic style is also called artistic or stage. It is a highlyemotional and expressive style, which needs special training. This phonetic style isused on the stage, in films or in prose and poetry recitations.
Thus we seethat it is always a written form of the language read aloud or recited.It is a very difficult task to give a detailed description ofthein this book as it is the stylization ofall speech styles, especially conversational. Conversations on the stage are generally meant to reflect natural speechinteraction, but, addressed to the spectators, they produce an exaggeratedeffect: due to such prosodic parameters as loudness, rate and range that areimmediately identified by listeners as "stage speech" characteristics.The prosodic organization of such texts will vary greatly, depending onthe type of the theatrical performance - whether it is a tragedy, drama orcomedy, the style of the author, and, of course, on the social factors thesocial and cultural background of the play characters, their relationships,extralinguistic context, and so on.Acting is a two-way conversation, players respond to the "feedback" theyfrom the audience; the "feedback" in their case being almost cernon-verbal language.
Methods of achieving, 1<1111l<.tlllllJ.g this "conversation" with their audience are an actors' training. Distancing, posture, gesture, facialexpression and timing - all these facets of their art are as important as thedelivery ofwords themselves.Since declamatory style is a vast area for investigation and descriptionwe would like here to restrict our analysis to the register needed in class fortraining would-be teachers of English: prose reading and poetry recitation.It should be noted that the recitation of prose and poetry has alwaysbeen regarded as an art. According to D. Brazil there are marked distinc5.3. Stylistic Use ofIntonation145tions between the ways of reading: "The reader has two entirely differentoptions: he can either enter into the text, interpret it and "perform" it as ifhe himself were speaking to the listener, saying as it were "this is what thetext means"; or he can stand outside the text and simply act as the medium,saying that is what the text says" (D.
Brazil 1980: 83). Artistic reading isdefmitelya skilled activity that can be judged by aesthetic criteria.Intonation properties ofthe text read out loud depend on the typewritten text.It is common knowledge that prose, which describes an action or a series ofactions to tell a story, is called narrative:Though it was nearly midnight when Andrew reached Bryngower, he foundJoe Morgan waitingfor him, walking up and down with short steps between theclosed surgery and the entrance to the house.(A. J.
Cronin. The Citadel)The prose is descriptive when scenes, objects, people, or even a person'sfeelings are described in such a way that we can imagine them vividly. Ingood descriptive writing an author builds up a picture in words in much thesame way as an artist paints a landscape or a portrait:We got out at Sonning and went for a walk round the village.
It is a mostfairy-like little nook on the whole river. It is most like a stage village that onebuilds of bricks and mortar. Every house is smothered in roses and now, inearly June, they were burstingforth in clouds ofdainty splendour. ..(Jerome K Jerome. Three Men in a Boat)In order to appreciate a prose passage it is not enough to understand itsmeaning: it is necessary to grasp the author's intentions and the artisticmeans he uses.It is necessary, ofcourse, before reading aloud to appreciate the written text.For this one should firstly read the passage carefully. Then, while reading it asecond time, pay close attention to the sequence of events described or to thestages, which 1ead to the main event.
See if the writer gives reasons why theevent or events described occurred. When you have read a prose passage carefully you should consider the following aspects: general meaning, detailedmeaning and the intentions ofthe writer and stylistic devices used in the text.What makes a story a pleasure to read is usually the writer's waying it. The way scenes and people are described, the way the charactersT~'I'"t:'4'146Chapter V. Phonostylisticsthink, talk or act are as important as the events themselves and contributelargely to our enjoyment. When appreciating a piece of prose it is necessaryto understand how these qualities or devices help a story to develop and howthey add colour to it.One should also bear in mind that any story is a unity, though dividedinto passages.
It is very important to understand how pieces of narrative areput together. A reader responds to a text, its linguistic clues (internal evidence), but also to situational clues (external evidence). In responding to atext the reader usually takes into account all he/she knows of the environment: what is going on, who is involved as well as what part the languageplays.Evidently the next step will be to break the text into phonopassages thatmay not coincide with the written passages. Then the passage should be splitinto phrases, the latter into intonation groups.
The most necessary procedure, of course, is to underline the communicative centres in each intonation group and choose the prosodic features which will be appropriate andwill effectively express the meaning.A writer helps his characters to come alive not only by describing theway they act but also by letting us hear them speak. Thus narrative or descriptive prose can be interrupted by dialogue. Effective dialogue enablesthe reader to feel that he is actually witnessing what is going on.Dialogues are author's reproduction ofactual conversation and in reading aloud a reader should bear in mind the characters of the speakers, theirsocial background and the atmosphere, the environment, in which the conversation takes place.The author sometimes provides us with clues as to how the speech ofthecharacters should be interpreted:He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed and Isaw he looked ill.
He was shivering, hisface was white, and he walked slowly asthough it ached to move."What's the matter, Schatz?""I've got a headache. ""You'd better go back to bed.""No, I'm all right. ""You go to bed. I'll see you when I'm dressed. "But when I came downstairs he was dressed, sitting by the fire, looking avery sick and miserable boy ofnine years.
When I put my hand on hisforeheadI knew he had a fever.,,I1475.3. Stylistic Use ofIntonation"You go up to bed," I said, "you're sick.""I'm all right, " he said.When the doctor came he took the boy's temperature.(E. Hemingway. A Day's Wait)The conversations are strikingly different in style and for their characteristics see corresponding sections of the chapter. We must mention here,however, that most literary texts comprise descriptions, narrations and dialogues.The experimental data of the research works on the artistic reading allow us to say that its prosodic organization depends on the type of the literary text - descriptive, narrative, dialogue; on the character of the describedevents, schemes and objects (humorous, tragic, romantic, dreamy, imaginative and so on) and of course on the skills of the reader.
But it is alwaysclearly marked by its expressiveness, personal involvement on the part oftheauthor, emphasis, by the entire range of prosodic and paralinguistic effectsand it is all felt through skilful reading (see Table 14).Table 14Model Intonation Characteristics of the Declamatory Prose ReadingVoice colouringconcerned, personally involved, emotionally richDelimitationphonopassages - phrases - intonaton groupsStyle-marking prosodicfeaturesLoudnessvaried according to the size ofthe audience and to theemotional settingLevels andrangesvariableRatedeliberately slow, necessitated by the purpose of thereading: the complete understanding of the author'smessage by the listener; changes in the speed of utterances are determined by the syntactic structures, importance of information and the degree of emphasisPauseslong, especially between the passages.
Disjunctive pauses tend to be longer than connecting ones. Internalboundary placement is always syntactically or semantically predictable. A declamatory reading is distinctlymarked by a great number of prolonged emphatic pauses the device used by the reader to underline the emphasisRhythmproperly organized, the isochronic recurrence ofstressed and unstressed syllables148Chapter V.
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