Semesters: 5

ECTS: 2

Form of assessment: pass-fail exam

AIMS

• shaping scientific ideas about factors and laws of phonetic means functioning;
• selecting phonetic means for achieving communicative objectives.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

On successful completion of this course of study students should be able to:
• demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of different categories of phonetics necessary for shaping normative literary pronunciation skills;
• differentiate between native and foreign language systems;
• analyse phonetic phenomena in the flow of speech;
• use scientific literature in theoretical phonetics and other linguistic disciplines;
• apply theoretical knowledge in teaching pronunciation at school.

CONTENT

Phonetics as a branch of linguistics.

Subject and objectives of theoretical phonetics. Phonetics and phonology as the main parts of the discipline. Diachrony and synchrony in phonetics. Spoken and written forms. Distinctive features. The concept of transcription. Methods of studying phonetics: descriptive, somatic, acoustic, auditory, distributional.

Phonetic units.

Phoneme and its distinctive features. Allophones. Articulatory and acoustic characteristics of sounds. Classification of consonants. Modification of sounds in the flow of speech. Assimilation and dissimilation. Reduction. Elision.

Syllables. Types of syllables. Functions of syllables in the phonetic structure of the word.

Types and functions of stress. Stress and musical accent. Rhythmic function of stress.

Structure and functions of intonation. Intonation and prosody. Types of recording intonation. Speech tempo and rhythm.

Phonostylistics.

The concept of extralinguistic situation. Aim, conditions and participants of communication – the main extralinguistic factors influencing phonetics of speech. Pronunciation norm. Orthoepy and its types. Pronunciation styles.

Intonation patterns of different functional styles. Information style. Academic style. Journalistic style. Informal style. Territorial and social pronunciation patterns.