Phonostylistics

From the point of view of the purpose of communication we may distinguish the following main international styles: informational, academic, publicistic, declamatory, conversational. In oral speech we realize different types of information (intellectual, emotional, volitional) which may be rendered by different prosodic means. In every stylistic register there must exist a certain invariant - an ideal norm of speech behaviour in a certain situation.
Informational Style

The most neutral among styles is informational style (formal, neutral) which we employ in educational descriptive narratives, press reporting and broadcasting.

In these texts loudness Is stable or normal, diminishing towards the end of the passage. The rate of speech does not vary greatly, the tempo is marked as moderate, pauses are not prolongued, rhythm is organized properly. We pay special attention (accent) on the most important semantic centers of the passages (singling out the main ideas). Here we resort to such terminal tones as falling, mid-level and low rising. There are no great contrasts between accented and unaccented segments of phrases.

In informational dialogues when we have a speaker and a listener we must support the attention of the speakers towards each other. The utterances are not complete, great is the role of pauses and paralinguistic factors - gestures, body movements, noises and so an. Interjections and pause-fillers are frequent. Speech arc not emotional (neutral) because the speaker tries to be objective.

The academic style: This style characterizes lectures, scientific discussion, conferences, classes to entertain. It is used to deliver this message to the audience, to establish a contact with the listeners. The speaker must sound self-assured, authoritative, instructive. Terminal tones are compound, there is a great number of high categoric falls, the contrast between accented and nonaccented segments is not great. Loudness may be increased, sometimes strongly, pauses may be prolongued, rhythm is organized properly, especially while giving the rules, reading them, drawing conclusions (scansion). The acoustic impression of rhythmicality is present. Publicistic style: The aim of the speaker is to persuade and influence the audience, the substantiate his arguments. Here we can meet all tricks which are based on numerous contrasts in ail prosodic features. Oratorical skills need special training. There are famous schools of public speech makers where intonation plays an important role. Speech of this kind is always prepared. There are different opinions as to whether to make use of different notes (they may distract the speaker is to produce an impression on his listeners, to inspire them, to arouse their enthusiasm). The speaker is concerned about the effect he produces on his listeners. There are great contrasts of pitch, loudness, tempo and tambre accompanied by Kinetics. The clarity of articulation (enunciation) is very strong here every sound must be distinct, together with dignified slow tempo, sonority and resonance, strict rhythm. As one of the aims of the speaker is to entertain his listeners he must combine publicistic style with declamatory, informational and conversational. The declamatory style

It mostly concerns theatrical activities, screen productions, TV.

Loudness varies according to the type of emotion rendered and the listeners, the rate of speech is deliberately slow, pauses are rather long, emphatic, the rhythm is properly organized the contrast between accented and unaccented segments is not great, the terminal tones contain a lot of categoric low and high falls in final an initial intonation groups.

Conversational style:
This style is very frequent because a lot of English speaking people use it in their everyday speech. It is often called informal, as we use it in family circles, among friends and acquaintances. The speakers are comparatively free, they do not control their linguistic behaviour, they sound natural, use non-standard forms of speech. Much depends on their social background, their social status. This kind of speech greatly depends on the situation and the complex study of conversational style is important from the didactic point of view.

Naturally, the emotional part of conversational style is equally important. The utterances in colloquial speech are incomplete, conversations are not planned. The intonation groups are rather short, tone groups are often broken, the tempo varies greatly. Though the natural speed is very high, pauses make our speech slow. We observe vague rhythmicality, reduction of vowels.

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