Дипломная работа: Territorial varieties of English pronunciation

4. The «wh» spelling is represented in GA by [M] sound (or some-times transcribed as [hw]. So most American speakers make a clear distinction between «wh» and «w» words: where – ware, which – witch.

5. The sonorant [j] is usually weakened or omitted altogether in GA between a consonant (especially a forelingual one) and [a-] as in the words: news [nu:z], Tuesday [tuzdi], student [studant], suit [sat], tube [tab], stupid [stu:pid], during (du:ri).

A. 1. Many differences involve the pronunciation of individual words or groups of words.

2. Words apparatus, data, status can be pronounced with either [ei] in GA, but only with [ei] in RP.

3. Words like hostile, missile, reptile have final [ail] in RP. In GA they may have [əl].

1. In words of French origin GA tends to have stress on the final syllable, while RP has it on the initial one:

GA	RP
ballet	[bas'lei]	[baelei]
beret	[ba'rei]	[ben]

3. Some compound words have stress on the first element in GA and in RP they retain it on the second element: weekend, ice-cream, hotdog, New Year.

4. Polysyllabic words ending in – ory, – ary, – many have secondary stress in GA, often called «tertiary»: laboratory flaebrs.ton], dictionary fdikfa.nen], secretary [sekrə.teri], testimony [testimouni].

GA intonation on the whole is similar to that of RP. But there are, of course, some differences that should be mentioned here.

1. In sentences where the most common pre-nuclear contour in RP is a gradually descending sequence, the counterpart GA contour is a medium Level Head:

I don't want to go to the theatre.

4. The Fall-Rise nuclear tone is different in RP and GA: Really?

These comparisons show that the main differences in intonation concern the direction of the voice pitch and the realization of the terminal tones. In GA the voice doesn't fall to the bottom mostly. This explains the fact that the English speech for Americans sounds «affected» and «pretentious» or «sophisticated». And for the English, Americans sound «dull», «monotonous», «indifferent».

It should also be mentioned that the distribution of terminal tones in sentence types is also different in both variants of English.

1. GA «Yes, No» questions commonly have a falling terminal tone; the counterpart RP tone would be a rising one:

Shall we stay here?

2. Requests in RP are usually pronounced with a Rise, whereas in GA they may take a Fall-Rise: Open the door.

Its emphatic variant in Mid-wavy-level Head:

2. The usual Medium or Low Fall in RP has its rising-falling counterpart in GA: Come and see me tomorrow.

3. Leave-takings are often pronounced with a high-pitched Fall-Rise in GA: Good night.

3. The rising terminal tone in RP in GA has a mid-rising contour: Do you like it?

Or it may have a level tone in GA:

In conclusion we would like to say that American phoneticians use a pitch contour system to mark intonation in the text: It's a Wery 'cold, day.

««Will you, come? Will you come?

It is certain that we have not covered here all the cases of different intonation structures used in RP and GA. Recently there have appeared in this country several papers and books on the subject, so for further information see those books.

Bibliography

1. Аванесов Р.И. Фонетика современного русского литературного языка. – М., 1979.

2. Антипова А.М. Ритмическая система английской речи. – М., 1984.

3. Ахманова О.С. Фонология, морфонология, морфология. – М., 1966.