Problem of classification of phonetic styles

One of them is belonging to Гайдучик (Минск). He distinguishes 5 phonetic styles:

• solemn
• scientific-business
• official-business
• everyday
• familiar

These styles are differentiated on the basis of spheres of discourse.

One more classification (Дубовский):

• informal-ordinary
• formal-neutral
• formal official
• informal-familiar
• declamatory

This division is based on different degrees of formality between the speaker and the listener. The approach of “Moscow phonetic school” is a bit different. Thus, Moscow phoneticians assume that there are 5 intonational styles single out according to the purpose of communication:

• informational – it is used in a very formal discourse. The main purpose of the speaker is to communicate information without giving it any emotional evaluation. It’s considered to be a stylistically more or less neutral style. It is used by radio and TV announces, when reading news programmes, weather forecast or in various official situations.
• academic (scientific) – the speaker’s purpose is not only to present certain scientific information, but also to direct the listener’s attention to the message. It used by lectures, school teachers, scientists.
• publicistic – aim is to exert influence n the listener, to convince the listener that the speaker’s interpretation is the only correct one and to cause him to accept his point of view expressed in the speech, to make the listener react in a particular manner. This task is accomplished not only through logical argumentation, but more often through persuasion and emotional appeal. It is used by political speech makers during congresses, conferences
• declamatory (artistic) – the speaker’s aim is to appeal simultaneously to the mind, the will and feelings of the listener by image-baring devices. Declamatory style is acquired by specific/ special training. It is used in stage-speech, classroom recitations (публичные чтения) or reading aloud fiction.
• conversational (familiar) – непринуждённый – the language of everyday communication. It occurs both within a family group and in any informal relationships.

Any style is rarely realized in its pure form. Each generated text often includes phonetic features of different styles. We can speak about overlapping (fusion) of styles. Practically no style occurs for a lengthy period of time without incursions of some other style. So phonetic styles are related to social-setting and circumstances. We speak differently in different situation (chatting, talking to a friend or to the teacher). In real life we can use a collection of styles because the choice of a speech style is always situationally determined.

Problems of phonostylistics:

1) classification of phonetic styles

2) to work out the typology of speech utterances regarding the following factors:

a. forms of speech (oral and written)

b. forms of communication (monologue or dialogue)

c. the relation of the utterance to a written text (prepared or unprepared)

d. the number of listeners (public or not)

e. the status of interlocutors – the relations between the participants (whether they are on official or unofficial terms)

3) to find a stylistically neutral form to start teaching with

4) to find variants of pronunciation that are stylistically marked

Phonostylistic studies the way the phonetic means of the language function in various oral texts. It’s a new way of looking at phonetic phenomena which includes extralinguistic situations and factors. Any learner of English should develop the awareness of different phonetic styles of the language.

“There are 50 ways of saying “yes” and even more ways of saying “no” and there is only one way to write it.” Bernard Show

Phonostylictics is concerned with how a person talks about some things rather than what he talks about. Teaching a spoken foreign language means teaching the ability to communicate. The interest in phonostylistics is constantly increasing.

The outline:

1) the subject matter of phonostylistics

2) functional and phonetic styles

3) the speech situation and extralinguistic factors that constitute it

4) the problem of classification of phonetic styles

Verbal “fillers”

1. Repetition
2. Introductory fillers

in response to

to facilitate

error

false

to maintain

“Fillers” – words, phrases, noises (-er-), which do not contribute much to the new information of the utterance, but perform several valuable functions.

Normally while the speaker is speaking he’s simultaneously planning what he’s going to say next and monitoring, sometimes people do make phonetic errors which they correct promptly.

The production of speech is a very complex business. No wonder, few speakers are entirely fluent when they speak spontaneously. Normally spontaneous speech is full of false starts and hesitations. Typically the speaker in a conversation begins by uttering some sort of hesitation noise (-mm-, -um-, -er-, -erm- …) and then utters a word or a phrase and only then he begins to express his thought.

So the hesitation noises, helpful words and phrases, repetition, must be interpreted as performing the same function → to fill the silence and maintain the speaker’s right to speak while he organizes what he wants to say. Thus, these phenomena are called “fillers”.

Repetition of “no” or “yes” doesn’t add anything to the meaning of the utterance, it just give the speaker time to work out what he’s going to say next. It’s rare for a speaker to utter simple “yes”/ “no” in response to a general question.

1) – May I use this phone, sir?

– Yes, yes, of course, you may certainly use it.

2) – Mr. Robins wants to help you…

– Yes, yes, he does.

Sometimes the speaker repeats one or more words that the previous speaker’s just used, and agrees or disagrees.

– Is it going to be impossible?

– No, I’d not say impossible, no.

The repetition of what somebody else says is a common feature of all sorts of dialogues – formal/ informal.

Sometimes as speaker repeats what the previous speaker has said and what’s more in a very similar way we find the speakers repeat what they’ve said themselves.

Yes, there’s much crime in this area… yes… much crime

The function of informal conversation is to maintain social relationships. The function is not to facilitate the exchange of information but to allow the formation of social relationship. The role of a participant in an informal conversation is to agree (dis-) with what has been said and from time to time to shift the topic slightly either by introducing a new topic or by modifying what a previous speaker has said.