The Invariant of Phonostylistic Characteristics of the Reacting of a News Bulletin (Press Reporting and Broadcasting)

 

 

Timbre		dispassionate, impartial, but resolute and assured; the effect of "chilly distant sounding" (usually achieved by special training of the announcers)
Delimitation		phonopassages — phrases — intonational groups
Style-marking prosodic features	Loudness	normal or increased, contrasted at the phonopas­sage boundaries
	Levels and ranges	normal; decrease towards the end of the passage; noticeable increase at the start of any new news item
	Rate	not remarkably varied; slow, rarely allegro; de­liberately slow (lento) on communicatively impor­tant centres
	Pauses	rather long, especially at the end of each news item
	Rhythm	stable, properly organized
Accen­tuation of se­mantic centres	Terminal tones	frequent use of final, categoric falling tones on the semantic centres and falling-rising or rising ones in the initial intonation groups
	Pre-nuclear patterns	common use of descending heads (very often bro­ken); alternation of descending and ascending heads
	The contrast between the accented and unaccented segments	not great

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Now our next step will be the description of the results of the phonological opposition of phonostylistic characteristics of the reading of an informational descriptive text and a news bulletin.

1. Broadcast texts and newspaper articles read aloud convey mainly the intellectual information as it is the language of factual statements; thus attitudinal and emphatic function of intonation is of secondary importance here.

2. The prosodic parameters are not greatly varied in both registers of the style but for several occasions in news bulletins when pitch levels, types of heads and pauses are alternated to break the monotony of speech and draw the listeners' or view­ers' attention to something very important in a message. This of­ten happens when events are enumerated. It is a very notable feature here — the ability of good newsreaders to mark the be­ginning and the end of each new paragraph or topic.

3. The voice timbre is a very important marker of a news coverage reading. It is something peculiar, very easily identified, often labelled as "distant", "indifferent", "impartial", "neutral". It is true, of course, for events of a routine character. When tragic events are broadcast, for instance, all the prosodic features are switched to convey the meaning.

4. In the "news bulletin reading" type of the informational style the use of broken descending heads and fall-rises on initial intonation groups is more common.

5. Pauses tend to be longer, the general tempo is faster than that in the descriptive reading.

6. The "broadcast" reading is more properly rhythmically or­ganized. Highly skilled newsreaders are capable of making the sense clear by the careful control of rhythm.

Now for the conclusion we would like to say that we have described here only one type of the "language of broadcasting" register, which is close to the "ideal" informational descriptive text.

All other suggested spheres of discourse — talking on events over the TV, talking to a listener, discussing the political events, commenting on them, round-table talks of commentators, and others — do not differ greatly from those, described above in the models of the first (descriptive) register. Or they may drift very far from it, become very chatty or high-flown and indulge in sudden changes of the style. For this reason it is much harder to say with certainty what the main style characteristics of such

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texts are. They will vary according to the type of the informa­tion involved: intellectual, attitudinal or volitional.

And the placement of these texts in the system of intonation-al styles should be approached with caution in mind.

As there is much stylistic freedom in broadcast talks it is diffi­cult to make general statements, give their generalized phonos­tylistic characteristics with any confidence. There are many broadcast talks with an effort to communicate in a reasonably lively and personal manner. As a consequence they may be rather racy and have more varied prosodic characteristics and stylistic qualities than a news bulletin while resembling it in many respects. This is undoubtedly a very interesting and prom­ising field of investigation and much is expected from the re­searchers in the nearest future.

 

Academic Style

This intonational style is often described by phonostylists as both intellectual and volitional. It is determined by the purpose of the communication as the speaker's aim is to attract the lis­tener's attention, to establish close contacts with the audience and to direct the public attention to the message carried in the contents of the text. It is frequently manifested in academic and educational lectures, scientific discussions, at the conferences, seminars and in classes. As the users of the style are interested in the involvement of the audience into the talk, this intonational style tends to be concerned and rather emotional.

The above-mentioned spheres of discourse have many fea­tures in common which result from certain common influences even though they may have differences according to the speak­er, the occupation of the language user, the exact nature of the occasion, etc.

It can be suggested here that the most pure manifestation of the academic intonational style is realized in a lecture, though a "lecture" is a very broad label which covers a variety of types. Lectures may sometimes sound as oratorical performances de­signed to entertain rather than inform, so there may be a great deal of overlap in these cases between different registers.

We would like to mention here that the "ideal model" of the scientific style talk would be an academic informational lecture

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read aloud or relied heavily upon the set of notes with the at­tempts on the part of lecturers to get their meaning across clear­ly. The balance between formality and informality is obtained in favour of the former.

The types of this style realization are not so varied as of the informational intonational style though the spheres of discourse are rather numerous (see Table 8).

Having outlined the contours of the style we shall focus our attention on academic lectures or pieces of scientific prose.

It is almost certainly true that no public lecture is ever spon­taneous, since all of them, even those in which no notes are used, will have been to some extent prepared in advance and therefore represent the written variety of the language read aloud. So they have very much in common with the reading of scientific prose.

As was already pointed out above, lecturers either read the whole of what they wish to say from a script or speak with the aid of the notes; and as reliance upon a written version increases the impression of spontaneity will decrease.

Here is the example of a carefully prepared lecture read aloud in public addressed to a fairly-sized audience.

You will ^↘all have ˋseen from the `handouts ⌇ which you have in <sup>v</sup>front of you | that °I pro<sup>↘</sup>pose to di'vide this 'course of <sup>v</sup>lectures ⌇ on the `urban and archi'tectural development of ˌLondon | into ^↘three 'main ˎsections || and per>haps ⌇ I could ^↘just 'point 'out, 'right at the beˌginning, | that there will be a ^↘good 'deal of `overlapbeˎtween them. || They are in_→tended to >stand | as ˌseparate, | ^→ self-contained ˎunits.

Inˋdeed , ⌇ I would ˋgo as far as to >say | that ˋanyone ⌇ who ↘ tried to 'deal entirely `separately with the ˌpast, | the ˌpresent | and the ↗course of de'velopment in the vfuture , | would be ˋmisrepre'senting the 'way in which 'urban 'growth takes ˎplace. || Now by → way of introdˎuction, | I'd ↘like to 'try and 'give some indi>cation | of ↘how 'London it'self oˎriginated; || of ↗what de'velopmental ˋtrends were built ˌinto ˌit, as it ˌwere, ⌇ from the → very ˎoutset. | and of how → these >trends ⌇ have af→ fected its ˎgrowth. || 216 Table 8

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