Styles of speech: suprasegmental parameters of classification

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Styles of speech: suprasegmental parameters of classification

Inna Krasovska,

Introduction

Over the last years scientists have devoted much attention to the analysis of speaking styles as a vital object of research in the framework of phonetic studies. The point of departure into this problem is found in the work of Trubetskoy "Principles of phonology" (Trubetskoy, 1971) where he viewed the human speech as a process of content- bound interaction between a speaker and a listener. This approach has laid foundation to investigation into various linguistic peculiarities of speaking styles that is interconnected with the usage or application of language to attain different communicative goals. We often adopt different uses of language as we go through our day: we may use a different style speaking with our children in the family, reporting to our boss at work or practicing sports. We change our speaking or writing styles to make a particular effect: imitating somebody's accent when telling a story, giving a humorous account of events in our choice of content of our message and the appropriate range of language to deliver the message effectively.

The notion of using language, for instance, involves much more than using our knowledge of its linguistic structure (Sirotina, 1995). It also involves awareness of the numerous situations in which language can be used as a special medium of communication with its own set of distinctive and recognizable features that involve an array of segmental and suprasegmental units (Vekshin, 2006). Taking into consideration that the notion of speaking style remains controversial in phonetic research and there is no unanimously recognized definition of this concept, the article sets a goal to work out a comprehensive definition of speaking style that can be applicable in different phonetic experiments. We believe that this objective can be achieved through analyzing and synthesizing current approaches to the concept at hand, singling out essential suprasegmental parameters to classify speaking styles in the course of an auditory experiment.

Background of the research. The term speaking styles has received numerous interpretations under various phonetic surveys. However, working out our understanding of this concept, we will rely on numerous theoretical and experimental data obtained in general linguistics. Thus, adhering to the idea that there is a direct correspondence between the functions of an utterance and its "orientation to constitutive factors of any speech event" (Yakobson, 1987), we shall view "speaking styles" in relation to such factors as: the addresser, the addressee, the contact, the message, the code and the context.

Expanding this idea, it is worthwhile mentioning that a product of a certain concrete task/function set by the sender of the message is style. In this respect William Labov (Labov, 1994) puts forward an idea that style is variable in relation to the attention a speaker pays to a particular topic during a discourse that conditions his choice of linguistic units, segmental and suprasegmental ones in particular. Further on, he believed that the variable parameters of a style change are tempo, intensity, pitch modulations, presence or absence of laughter that show speaker's attitude and social stratification of the surrounding world (Vorobyova, 1993; Shockley, 2003). It is believed that much of our everyday experience is shaped and defined by actions and events thoughts and perceptions, and it is an important function of the system of language that it is able to account for these various "goings on" in the world (Simpson, 2014). This means encoding into the language a mechanism for capturing what we say, think or do. When language is used to represent patterns of experience in spoken or written texts, it fulfils the experiential function. The experiential function is an important marker of style, especially so of the style of narrative discourse, because it emphasizes the concept of style as choice. There are many ways of accounting in language for the various events that constitute our "mental picture of reality" (Kholod, 2020). Indeed, there are often several ways of using the resources of the language system to capture the same event either in a textual representation or in a speech act. What is of interest for phoneticians is why some segmental and supraseg- mental units should be preferred to another, or why, from possibly several ways of representing the same "happening" in a sound form one particular type of sound or intonation structure should be privileged over another (Bider, 2009). So, the way we use segmental and suprasegmental units under specific circumstances for a specific purpose refers to the notion of speaking style in the framework of phonetic research.

Scientists (Joos, 1968; Zmicky, 1972; Eskenazy, 1992) believe that choices in style are motivated, even if unconsciously, and these choices have a profound impact on the way utterances are generated by a speaker and comprehended by a listener. Thus, M. Joos (Joos, 1968) and M. Zmicky (Zmicky, 1972) postulated an idea that style may be defined along the axis of casualness, which they have subdivided into 4 degrees (intimate, casual, consultative, formal and frozen. It was the first attempt to structure the hierarchy of speaking styles applying certain parameters. It goes without saying that a speaker adopts a certain style depending partly on his own personality but largely on what he has to say and what his purposes are. It follows that style and subject matter should match each other appropriately. For example, a scientific report will obviously be much more formal and objective in style than a poem, which is trying to convey an intensely personal and moving experience.

Methodology. Taking into consideration that the nomenclature of speaking styles is still disputable as the parameters to classify them are rather variable, we have attempted to define a number of distinctive styleforming features. In this view an auditory experiment has been conducted involving the material that, for the purpose of this survey, was divided into two groups:

1) speech produced in rather unprepared situations embracing professional/scientific interviews and scientific debates; 2) speech produced on the basis of a previously prepared text: lectures, public statement. Following the logics applied to select the experimental material, we shall further on label the first group of material "unprepared" and the second - "prepared" speech. The main goal of our auditory experiment was to single out the essential suprasegmental units that are interpreted by the listeners as certain "percep- tible clues" of a particular speaking style. The experiment has undergone three stages: perceptual analysis of the selected fragments by a group of native speakers; auditory analysis of the material by professional phoneticians; auditory analysis by native speakers and students of foreign language department.

Results and Discussions. At the first stage of auditory experiment the group of native speakers (15 listeners) were instructed to analyze the suggested stretches (150 fragments) taking into consideration such parameters as:

1) social roles of the speaker and the listener (students/lecturers, presenter/audience; public speaker/ audience);

2) the influence of the personal factor (emotional/ unemotional);

3) social situation (professional formal/professional informal; official/casual; public formal/public informal);

4) pragmatic aims (teach, appeal, interrogate, debate, share information, give opinion);

5) manner of speech (scripted/unscripted; cliched/conversational; directed/spontaneous).

The analysis of the experimental material has proven that speakers tend to change their speaking styles depending on the role played in a particular situation and chasing certain pragmatic aims. Thus, speaking in public with the view to exert a constant and deep influence on public opinion, by means of persuasion to cause the reader or listener to accept the expressed point of view, the speaker arranges the utterances with precision, logics and expressive power. The speech under such conditions is characterized by brevity, careful logically predetermined subdivision into intonation groups and intentionally accentuated key information. Generally, speaking in public the personal factor of the speaker is revealed through the speech being perceived as emotional or unemotional. Notwithstanding the fact that each speaker has a particular idiolect, viewed as a common number of speaking peculiarities that mirror social status, education and background, it can be modified provided the purpose of communication requires such modifications. Thus, a lecturer speaks in a more reserved and unemotional manner with a higher-status audience, while addressing to students or children the manner may be more emotional and intimate.

Table 1

Results of Experimental Material Identification

According to the data obtained at the first stage of auditory analysis (Table 1), listeners clearly perceive the speech being prepared in advance, read aloud (for example news coverages or quotations in lectures) and directed by a number of questions set in the course of a professional interview. Listeners also distinctly identify spontaneous speech typical for professional debates or street interviews. It is rather common for all speakers to converse in a relaxed, unconstrained manner provided they speak on a familiar topic and, on the contrary, speak slowly and sluggishly, stumbling through answers, if they are asked improper or ticklish questions.

This has enabled us to group the corpus of audio material into groups that embody the most conspicuously perceivable features of certain speech styles which we have labeled as scripted, directed, read aloud, unprepared. Each of the selected style of speech finds its realization in communication in the form of different texts. The hierarchy of speech styles under current survey has been presented in Table 2 that follows below.

Table 2

Style of Speech Classification

The aim of the second stage of the auditory analysis was to select style-forming suprasegmental units clearly detected by listeners. For this sake we have three groups of interviewees: professional phoneticians, native speakers and Upper-Intermediate English language learners. The first group of interviewees

has to give a professional evaluation of the prominent suprasegmental units being perceived as salient for each sample presented and tick them off in the protocol given below. This has enabled us to pick up the features which were supposed to function as perceptive style-changing clues. The second and third group of interviewees were challenged to identify intonation parameters that they perceive as markers of certain speech style. The intonation parameters are listed in the protocol given below (Table 3).

The results of auditory analysis show that scripted style of speech is realized in the shape of highly structured intonation groups being mostly marked by a falling terminal tone that is interpreted by the listeners as a perceptive marker of precision, completeness and logics. Moreover, normal rate and volume of speech contribute to uniformity and unemotionality of this style of speech. One more perceptive feature of scripted style of speech is its strongly accented type of syllable accentuation that is interpreted as a device to make the most essential bundles of information prominent and comprehensive for the audience. For example, in the given extract from the lecture presented by Prof. Laver, the lecturer sums up his main idea in the form of two meaningfully complete intonation groups with the accents placed on the most important words (language,¹one, ''power). The boundaries of these intonation groups are clearly marked by falling terminal tones (world, ¦.reason, people, ..use), which alongside with normal speed and volume of speech indicate coherence and precision.

Table 3

Auditory Analysis Protocol

A ¹language 'becomes a _Nworld (language^ for dne .reason і only і and khat is the'' power of the people $ who .use it...

Directed style of speech takes shape of an interview and has a clear-cut question-answer realization. The most conspicuous suprasegmental feature of this style is broken intonation contour of utterances which perceptual clues are variations of pitch level within an intonation group, combination of rising terminal tones at the boundaries of intonation groups and falling terminal tones to indicate finality of an utterance. The respondents have also pointed out the abundance of different types of pauses within intonation groups which transparently show the intention of the speaker to embody an idea as clearer as possible, uncertainty and hesitation. Besides, this type of speech is labelled as emotionally charged due to the prevalence of descending broken scale that usually contains accidental rises and emotional accents on the key words, perceived as such by the speaker. The example of directed style of speech given below illustrates that accidental rises within an intonation group (I'd rather 'leave the ]translation 'section .altogether), prevalence of rising terminal tones within an utterance, slowing down the speech at the boundaries of intonation groups, long pauses and variation of tempo are perceptive clues of the speech being unprepared, rather emotional and quite casual as the speaker dwells on a familiar topic.

It was _vimpossible, | but ''what was (possible for,me < was to pay, | " ''I'd rather 'leave the) translation `section .altogether | and 'go into the .interpretation section,!" 'which I ..didf 'There is `somefind of,| as `we say,! 'mental .reactions | that 'have to be .trained I - to ]hear and 'speak at the .same jime,\ but,evidently I I,think $ fou are .wiredfor it, \,meaningI that 'you are ..born with it | like 'music being 'able to .play the piano.II

Unprepared speech often takes shape in the form of a spontaneous street interviews when the speaker is taken by surprise. The intonation contour usually reflects the idiolectal peculiarities of each speaker. Anyhow, respondents unmistakably detected this style, pointing out that highly variable rate of speech, broken pauses and high contrast between unaccented and strongly accented syllables within intonation group make this style distinctive. Moreover, the speakers tend to use emotional stresses, accented functional words and rising terminal tones at the junctures of intonation groups that indicate not only their disturbance but also the desire to give their point.

(Yes, t you ¹¹do 'need to do your .homework, you Mo 'need to frief yourself Mot 'only about the ¹subject at (hand, < but any Mother 'subject that ¹might come into the .picture <'because that dlwavs `can be unexpected.

The style of speech, being labelled as read aloud in the framework of our research, has a number of styleforming suprasegmental features that distinguish it as a separate style. First and foremost, read aloud texts are carefully structured and are characterized by logically built and coherent intonation contour that is realized via nucleus stress on the semantically most important words within an intonation groups and clear-cut boundaries at between intonation groups marked by falling tonal junctures and short or long pauses.

¹Struggling to legain 'advertising /edge, $ ¹Coca- Cola will hinleash a barrage off 6 television Commercials І VSunday tin the USA $ for its fcigship \ brand. || The Mildly /diverse І cmdMidely'anticipated dds are dimed at '*different 'groups of .consumers: $ /teens, $ /thirtysomethings $ and \older people. \

The example given above perfectly illustrates the usage of rising terminal tones to mark incompleteness within an utterance, short pauses delimit intonation groups from one another and long pauses, in their turn, signal the end of an utterance and underline the completeness of an idea. The rate and volume of speech is carefully controlled and can be defined as normal with slight increase on enumerations or repeated segments of information. The intonation pattern of such texts is presented by a descending stepping scale that enables the listener to grasp and hold the data related. It is essential to point out that voice variations of the speaker are powerful tools to attract public attention, create tension, play a joke or add dynamism.

Conclusion

Summing up the results of the auditory analysis, it is noteworthy to point out that supra- segmental parameters play a leading role in a correct identification of the styles of speech under survey. We have defined that each style of speech is characterized by a number of invariant prosodic clues that enable its perception by the listener. Thus, style forming features of the scripted style of speech are falling terminals, even distribution of full accent within an intonation group, normal indicators of volume and rate. Directed style of speech is marked by abundance of rising terminal tones at the intonation group junctures, long pauses and slowing down of speed at those places of an utterance that convey the gist of the message. Subtle coherence of an intonation pattern is a salient feature of read aloud style of speech which is realized via a combination of falling terminal tones that mark completeness and rising ones showing incompleteness, nucleus stress on key words of the message, normal rate, yet variable loudness and carefully selected quality of voice. Unprepared speech is unmistakably perceived by the listeners due to variability of pauses within an intonation group and at its boundaries, highly changeable speed and loudness, uneven distribution of rising tones and accidental rises within an utterance. The results of the auditory analysis show a perspective direction of further research into a detailed nomenclature of speaking styles, conducting an acoustic verification of the obtained data.

Bibliography