PRONUNCIATION AS A WAY OF MATERIALIZING OF ORAL FORM OF LANGUAGE

THEORETICAL ENGLISH PHONETICS

PHONIC SUBSTANCE OF LANGUAGE AND WAYS OF ITS ANALYSIS AND DESCRIPTION

LANGUAGE USE IN ORAL VERBAL COMMUNICATION

Language teachers are expected to know: 1) how oral speech is produced for successful verbal communication; 2) what language resources are used; 3) how they function to create a particular linguistic meaning.

Verbal communication is the process of transmitting a verbal message from a speaker to a listener through a channel.

For sending messages the communicators use a code: “any systems of signals used for sending messages. The senders are said to encode the message and the receivers to decode it” Encoding is a process of putting the speaker’s thoughts, feelings, emotions, attitudes into a form recognizable by the listeners. The encoded message is then transmitted via a particular channel to a listener.

Typically in verbal communication the communicators use a verbal code- language and a system of nonverbal codes (body language, touch and spatial behaviour, appearance, etc.). Language as a code consists of the following resources: a lexicon, a grammar and a phonology. It exists in its two material forms: oral and written. Oral language form has its sound/phonic material substance, and written language form - graphic.

When language is used for verbal communication the communicators 1) apply language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) 2) put their knowledge of language resources (phonology, grammar and vocabulary) into action 3) produce a discourse(дискурс).

A discourse is a continuous stretch of language - oral or written - which has been produced as the result of an act of communication; “… it is perceived by the interlocutors as meaningful, unified and purposive”.

PRONUNCIATION AS A WAY OF MATERIALIZING OF ORAL FORM OF LANGUAGE

Phonic shaping of oral form of language is called pronunciation. The concept pronunciation has several meanings in present-day phonetics.

In its narrow meaning it is restricted to the features manifested in the articulation of the sounds of a language.

Its wide interpretation implies the entity of discourse features relating to:

1) the SOUND SYSTEM of a language (the so-called segmental phonemes in the form of their actual speech manifestations - allophones or variants);

2) the SYLLABIC STRUCTURE of a language (syllable formation and syllable division);

3) WORD-STRESS/LEXICAL STRESS;

4) INTONATION as a complex unity of pitch (тональний), force (силовий) and temporal (темпоральний) components.

Pronunciation is the primary medium through which we bring our use of languageto the attention of other people. It is a process of materializing of features relating to the system of sounds/phonemes, the syllabic structure, prosody (word stress and intonation) while speech/oral verbal message is constructed.