Module II. STYLISTIC USE OF INTONATION

The problem of intonational styles classification can hardly be regarded as settled as yet. Several different styles of pronunciation may be distinguished, although no generally accepted classification of styles has been worked out and the peculiarities of different styles have not yet been sufficiently investigated. Most scholars do not argue about the number of styles being five, but disagree about their terminology. Besides, it should be noted that the phonetic style-forming means are the degree of assimilation, reduction and elision, all of which depend on the degree of carefulness of pronunciation. Each phonetic style is characterized by a specific combination of certain segmental and prosodic features.

The British phonetician D. Jones distinguishes such styles of pronunciation as the rapid familiar style, the slower colloquial style, the natural style used in addressing a fair-sized audience, the acquired style of the stage, and the acquired style used in singing.

T. Kenyon described four principal styles of good spoken English: familiar colloquial, formal colloquial, public-speaking style and public-reading style.

L.V. Shcherba wrote of the need to distinguish a great variety of styles of speech, in accordance with the great variety of different social occasions and situations, but for the sake of simplicity he suggested that only two styles of pronunciation should be distinguished: (1) colloquial style characteristic of people’s quiet talk, and (2) full style, which we use when we want to make our speech especially distinct and, for this purpose, clearly articulate all the syllables of each word.

The other way of classifying phonetic styles is suggested by J.A. Dubovsky who discriminates the following styles: informal ordinary, formal neutral, formal official, informal familiar, declamatory. This division is based on different degrees of formality or rather familiarity between the speaker and the listener.

M. A. Sokolova and other’s approach is slightly different. And it is this very classification of phonostyles that is considered useful for teaching and learning purposes. According to M.A. Sokolova there are five intonational styles singled out mainly according to the purpose of communication. They are as follows:

Ø Informational (Formal) style;

Ø Academic (Scientific) style;

Ø Publicistic style;

Ø Declamatory (Artistic) style;

Ø Conversational (Familiar) style.

As we may see the above-mentioned phonetic styles on the whole correlate with functional styles of the language. They are differentiated on the basis of spheres of discourse. For instance, according to professor I.R. Galperinthere are suchverbal functional styles of the written language as:

(1) belles-lettres style, embracing genres of creative writing;

(2) publicistic style, covering such genres as essays, feature article, public speeches;

(3) newspaper style, observed in the majority of materials printed in newspapers;

(4) scientific prose style, found in articles, brochures, monographs and other scientific, academic publications;

(5) the style of official documents.

These styles are the product of the development of the written variety of language. In the case of oral representation of written texts each verbal style is given a phonetic identity. Thus the situational context and the speaker’s purpose determine the choice of an intonational style. The primary situational determinant is the kind of relationship existing between the participants in a communicative transaction.

Intonational styles distinction is based on the assumption that there are types of information present in communication: intellectual information, emotional and attitudinal (modal) information, volitional and desiderative information. Consequently, there are three types of intonation patterns used in oral communication: a) intonation patterns used for intellectual purposes, b) intonation patterns used for emotional and attitudinal purposes and c) intonation patterns used for volitional and desiderative purposes. All intonational styles include intellectual intonation patterns, because the aim of any kind of intercourse is to communicate or express some intellectual information. The frequency of occurrence and the overall intonational distribution of emotional and volitional patterns shape the distinctive features of each style.