Scientific (Academic) Style

In scientific (academic) style intellectual and volitional (or desiderative) intonation patterns are concurrently employed. The speaker's purpose here is not only to prove a hypothesis, to create new concepts, to disclose relations between different phenomena etc., but also to direct the listener's attention to the message carried in the semantic component. Although this style tends to be objective and precise, it is not entirely unemotional and devoid of any individuality. Scientific intonational style is frequently used, for example, by university lecturers, school­teachers, or by scientists in formal and informal discussions.

The lecturer's purpose is threefold: (a) he must get the ‘mes­sage’ of the lecture across to his audience; (b) he must attract the attention of the audience and direct it to the ‘message’; (c) he must establish contact with his audience and maintain it throughout the lecture. To achieve these goals he makes re­course to a specific set of intonational means. The most common pre-nuclear pattern (i. e. that part of the tune preceding the nu­cleus) is (Low Pre-Head +) Stepping Head.

The Stepping Head makes the whole intonation group sound weighty and it has a greater persuasive appeal than the Falling Head. Occasionally the High Head may occur as a less emphatic variant of the Stepping Head. This enables the lecturer to sound categoric, judicial, considered and persuasive.

As far as the terminal tone is concerned, both simple and compound tunes occur here. The High Fall and the Fall-Rise are the most conspicuous tunes. They are widely used as means of both logical emphasis and emphasis for contrast. A succession of several high falling tones also makes an utterance expressive enough, they help the lecturer to impress on his audience that he is dealing with something he is quite sure of, something that requires neither argument nor discussion.

Variations and contrasts in the speed of utterance are indica­tive of the degree of importance attached to different parts of speech flow. Less important parts are pronounced at greater speed than usual, while more important parts are characterised by slower speed. Besides, the speaker makes use of alternating rhythmic patterns, differing in length.

Diminished or increased loudness that contrasts with the nor­mal loudness helps the listeners to perceive a word as being brought out.

Internal boundaries placement is not always semantically predictable. Some pauses, made by the speaker, may be explica­ble in terms of hesitation phenomena denoting forgetfulness or uncertainty (word-searching). The most widely used hesita­tion phenomena here are repetitions of words and filled pauses, which may be vocalic [ə / з:], consonantal [m] and mixed [əm / з:m]. Intentional use of these effects enables the lecturer to obtain a balance between formality and informality and thus to establish a closer contact with his listeners who are made to feel that they are somehow involved in making up the lecture. Moreover, a silent pause at an unexpected point calls the listeners’ attention and may serve the speaker's aim to bring out some words in an utterance.

Task 3. The following oral text may be assumed to serve as a model for an academic kind of lecturing. Learn it by heart and present to the audience taking into consideration the purposes of nonverbal communication and phonoslylistic features of scientific style.

Well >NOW ʃ I'd like to ↘turn 'now to AS`SESSMENT, | and I →hope you won’t <sub>̗</sub>MIND ʃ if I →use this OPPORˎTUNI ̗TY ʃ to ↘try to give 'some INDI ̗CATION ʃof ʃ əm || a →more `MODERN, | more ˎRECENT ʃAPˎPROACH ʃ ˎTO the asˌsessment ˎPROBLEM ʃ than per↘haps 'I my'self was 'brought ʃ'brought `UP on. | And I ˎWANT ʃ →very ˎARBI- TRARILY if I <sub>̗</sub>MAY ʃ to DIˎVIDE this ʃ into <sub>ˎ</sub>THREE ̗HEADINGS | and to >ask |з:| 'three ʃ 'three ˎQUESTIONS: ʃ as<sup>→</sup>sessment <sup>V</sup>WHY, | as→sessment <sup>V</sup>WHAT, | and as→sessment ˎHOW. ʃ So →this really ̗MEANS ʃ I ↘want to 'talk a'bout ↑first of all the `PURPOSES of AS ̗SESSMENT ʃ`WHY we are asˌsessing ʃat <sup>V</sup>ALL, |з:m| ˎSECONDLY ʃ the →kind of ˎFUNCTIONS ʃ and →processes that are `BEING AS ̗SESSED, | and ↘thirdly I want to 'talk about TECHˎNIQUES. | And I shall ʃ I shall I ↘have to 'go 'through THIS ʃ `FAIRLY ̗RAPIDLY, ʃ and I ˎHOPE ʃthat →if it's `TOO ˎRAPID ʃyou’ll ↘pick me up in 'question time `AFTERWARDS.||

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 2364