Oxford and Cambridge Universities

A: I think some → people might be ˋquite interested >to ⌇ _oknow | what >the ⌇principal ˋdifferences are ⌇between the ^↘sort of edu'cation you >get ⌇at → Oxford and ˎCambridge | and ^↘any 'other 'type of UniˋversityEduˎcation. ||

B: > Um... ||

A: > What? ⌇ ^↘What's the 'sort of >thing ⌇ that you would ˋhiqhliqht? ||

B: ˎNaturaˌlly ⌇ >differences ⌇ in eduˋcation... ||

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A: ˋYes. ||

В : I supˌpose... ||

A: >Well, | what the university ˋoffers one. | >Why, ⌇ for example one would >choose... ||

B: ˎAh, | I ˎsee. ||

A: ˎYes... to ^↘go to 'one of those universities ⌇ or appˋly to one of those universities ⌇ ^↘ bother to 'take the ˋextra exam. || B: ˎYes. || >Er, | ˎcertainly, | >er, | I think just >this ⌇ I ssˋsocial life in inverted ˋcommas >is ⌇ >er ⌇ a >very ⌇ >er at ˋ tractive thing about the university ⌇ >which in a way's ⌇ ^↘certainly a | part of edu'cation you reˌceive ⌇ when you go to ˋOxford or ˋCambridge... ||

A: The tu^→ torial ˎsystem ⌇ I >think ⌇ is a parˋticularly good system ⌇>which's been ⌇ par^↘ticularly ^↘finely 'turned up in Oxford and ˎCambridge... ||

B: ˎYa. ||

A: ...though it ˎdoes exist in ˎother universities. || You have a ^↘ great 'deal more ˎfreedom | about what you are going >to ⌇ ^↘what 'course of >study you are pre^→cisely going to >follow. || B: ˌYa. ||

A: There's ^↘very much 'left >to ⌇ one's own ˎchoice. You >have... || In `mycourse I remember | I could look up→ pages and ˋpages of things that I could potentially ˎdo. || B: ˌYes. ||

A: It was _→ really just a ˌquestion of ˌone ˌsitting ˋout | what I ^↘really wanted to do.

The participants are post-graduates, students of the Russian language of Oxford and Cambridge Universities who know each other quite well. They are in the same age group (mid-twenties) and share the same university educational background as ma­ture students.

They discuss quite spontaneously a serious topic, in which

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they are competent or rather knowledgeable, interested, but not emotionally involved and concerned.

The subject area specifies somewhat careful elaborated code of the style. As the suggested theme is rather weighty the speak­ers sound rather formal, businesslike, but occasionally interested and even involved.

We think that there are certain grounds for choosing this va­riety of a dialogue as the most suitable for phonostylistic analy­sis. The talk is taking place in a hostel room; the speakers are surrounded by the same set of physical objects and aware of each other's facial and body gestures.

The factuous contact is shown by all sorts of words like: yes, right, sure, of course, expressing the immediate reaction on the part of the listeners as well as all kinds of non-verbal sounds and noises like hm, mm, uhu, aha, etc.

The speakers are relaxed and not worried about the impres­sion they are creating unlike a lecturer or a public speaker. Slips and errors of grammar occur and do not bother them. Similarly, slight carelessness of pronunciation is common, thus we may speak about occasional deviations from the elaborated code.

As any dialogue is a simultaneous act on the part of the sender and addressee, they are both mutually dependent and adapt to the strategies of one another and to the need of the in­formation required. Intonation serves to establish contact be­tween the participants thus realizing the phatic function of speech.

On the prosodic level the dialogue falls into coordinated blocks, split into dialogical units (stimulus — response). Then into phrases, then into intonation groups, each unit character­ized by semantic and phonetic integrity, by certain prosodic in­terrelated features. Correspondingly, the length of pauses be­tween the partners' parts serves as a marker of their contact. The ends of utterance pauses are frequently absent due to the rapid taking up cues:

В .: I suppose

A.: Well, what the university offers one. Why, for example one would choose...

В .: Oh, I see.

Occasional silence for purposes of emphatic pause and fre­quent use of hesitation pauses (both filled and silent) are also characteristic of this talk:

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В .: ˎYes. | > Er | ˎcertainly, | >еr, | I think just >this ⌇ssˋsocial life in inverted ˋcommas ⌇ > ⌇ is >er ⌇ a >very ⌇ at`tractive thing about the university...

Among style-marking prosodic features we should mention the following:

Loudness is normal or reduced (piano expression), varied at the block boundaries. Important variation in loudness suggests the degree of seriousness of the thematic information. Sometimes the speakers lower their voices to an inaudible mumble or sim­ply trail off into silence, which is undoubtedly connected with changes in levels and ranges that are lowered and narrowed for many monosyllabic responses.

The rate is flexible as the speakers wish it to be. A speaks very slowly, В — a bit faster, but for both of them the speed is characteristically uneven within and between utterances, varied to outline semantic centres.

The rhythm is non-systematic, greatly varied, interpausal stretches have a marked tendency towards the subjective rhyth­mic isochrony; the rhythmicality within the block is achieved by the variation of all prosodic parameters.

The accentuation of semantic centres is achieved by the use of emphatic and compound tones (High Falls, Fall-Rises, Fall + Rises), increase of loudness, widening of the range of nuclei, changes in the rate of utterances and by the great contrast be­tween accented and unaccented segments of phrases.

Pre-nuclear fragments are usually very short — heads with one accented pre-nuclear syllable are most common. High pre-heads occur very often.

The auditory analysis of the above examples and of a great number of similar talks and the recent experiments of phoneti­cians (41, 13, 29) allow us to attempt to draw the invariant of phonostylistic characteristics of informational spontaneous dia­logues. The results are shown in Table 6.

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Table 6

The Invariant of Phonostylistic Characteristics of Informational Spontaneous Dialogues

 

Timbre		businesslike, detached, occasionally interested
Delimitation		coordinated block — dialogical units (stimulus — response) — phrases — intonational groups, fre­quent absence of end-of-utterance pauses due to the rapid taking up of cues; frequent use of hesita­tion pauses (filled and silent), occasional silence for purposes of emphatic pause
Style-marking prosodic features	Loudness	normal or reduced (piano expression); variation of it at block boundaries and also for the accentua­tion of semantic centres; occasional inaudible lowered mumbles and trailing off into silence occurring by the end of the segments
	Levels and ranges	greatly varied, especially for the contrastive accen­tuation of semantic centres; narrowed pitch ranges for many monosyllabic responses
	Rate	slow or normal, varied on the accented semantic centres and interpolations, characteristically uneven, as flexible as one wishes it to be
	Pauses	may be of any length; their length being the marker of contact between the speakers; simulta­neous speaking is quite common; silence of any stretch occurs for the sake of emphasis and as a temporizer to gain some time before expressing the view
	Rhythm	non-systematic, greatly varied, interpausal stretch­es have a marked tendency towards the subjective rhythmic isochrony; the rhythmicality within the block is achieved by the variation of all prosodic parameters
Accen­tuation of se­mantic centres	Terminal tones	regular use of falling (high and medium) final and categoric tones, the increase of the range of the nuclei on the semantic centres; occasional usage of level and low rising tones in non-final groups, of emphatic tones (High Fall, Fall-Rise, Rise-Fall) on emphatic semantic centres; high proportion of nar­rowed tones throughout the responses
	Pre-nuclear patterns	common use of level heads, usually with one ac­cented pre-nuclear syllable and high pre-heads, longer pre-nuclear patterns are not frequent, if they do occur, then sudden wide pitch jumps with­in the segments characterize them
	The contrast between ac-ented and unaccented segments	great, achieved by the variations in all prosodic parameters

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Now by way of opposition of informational monologue — di­alogue phonostylistic characteristics we will draw the following conclusions:

1. The structural hierarchy of a monologue is: phonopassages — phrases — intonation groups; whereas the one of a dialogue is: blocks — dialogical units — phrases — intonation groups.

2. There is some distinction between the opposed varieties on the part of segmental features notably in vowel length, voicing and devoicing of consonants, assimilations and elisions, but the phonological differences lie mainly in the use of non-segmental features of basic prosodic configurations.

3. In a dialogue there is a wider range of contrasts in prosodic and paralinguistic effects, thus the danger of misunderstanding is avoided through the introduction of a large number of prosodic contrasts.

4. The attitudes of the talkers are more variable in a dialogue, but, since both analysed forms belong to the informational style, impartiality prevails. Changes in the attitude condition changes in prosodic features. They also condition variations in utterance length. In a dialogue there is a strong tendency to keep them short, to break up potentially lengthy intonation groups wherever possible. The average length of units in the majority of cases falls within the range of 1—5 words. Relatively high proportion of in­complete phrasal segments is noticeable. Phrases are commonly short at the beginning, longer as topics are introduced, longer still as argument develops and short again as the end approaches.

5. In a dialogue the rhythmicality is even more non-systemat­ic, there is no stable pattern of rhythm.

6. The tempo (rate + pauses) in a monologue is normally less varied but in both cases it is conditioned by the importance of information, the fluency of speakers, their familiarity with the topic (theme) and experience in speaking. In general in a mono­logue less fluent speech is being the expected kind.

Now by way of conclusion we must admit that this is in no sense an absolute description. More and more research is carried out by scholars nowadays, which will bring, we hope, a clearer insight into the essential characteristics of this type of the infor­mational style.

Having determined the "ideal" norm of the style for teachers of English we must say that it is not a factitious one. It is real

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and rather common. These carefully pronounced texts are natu­rally attractive to teachers as their wish is to teach distinct good" English to their students. As their main interest is in teaching correct accent they surely want to find a clear, slow model for the students to imitate. With reference to the degree of carefulness, with which the sounds are articulated, this type of the informational style may be defined as elaborate.

It is an easy repeatable and an eminently teachable model. It is also valuable in that it ensures that the student copying it will speak slowly and carefully.

We would like to make it quite clear that we are suggesting that this is the most suitable model for teaching the production of spoken English in certain spheres of communication.

 

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