XI Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2019

The concept of “intensity” is not a new term in modern linguistic studies. This and a number of other terms are often found in the studies on the expressive stylistics, emotionality of the text, the category of evaluation and evaluative characteristics of the subject of the question.

The problem of expressivity and therefore the category of intensity can relate to any language level and aspect. As is known, the category of intensity is one of the characteristic features of a pronounced speech; it concerns morphemes, the functioning of the various parts of speech (adjectives, verbs, adverbs, particles, nouns) as intensifiers, features the use of expressive syntax, lexical meanings of the words layered on the main one.

The ability of publicist discourse to excite, influence, experience the depths of the content, give pleasure was always recognized as their inherent quality. But intensity as the implementation of emotions in the language even today remains one of the most uncertain qualities of the text.

The topicality of our work is the relevance of the study of the intensity and its close relationship with the expressiveness and emotionality in publicistic discourse. General issues were covered in the category of intensity works V.S. Shakhovsky [6], I.V. Arnold [1], E.M. Galkina-Fedoruk [12]. On the material of the English language, many aspects of the category of intensity were considered by I.I. Turansky [14], I. Ubin [15] and others linguists. However, the problem of the study of intensity in a spoken language is still insufficiently studied and needs separate examination.

The aim of this work is the analysis of phonetic ways of representation of the given category in modern English publicist discourse. To achieve this goal it is necessary to complete several tasks:

1. To study the theory about different approaches of the notion “discourse” in Linguistics and its different classifications to identify the type of the studied material.

2. To determine the relationship between the category of intensity and expressiveness.

3. To single out units of prosodic aspects on different levels of the English spoken language which serve to express additional shades of meanings in the context of public speech.

4. To find examples of phonetic means of expressing intensity by the examples of publicist speeches from the British Internet resource TED.com.

5. To define Functions of Public Discourse and single out Phonetic means used to express them (on the studied material).

The object of the work is the prosodic category of intensity which is expressed on different levels in the English language in publicist discourse.

The subject is phonetic means of representation of the given category in the publicist speeches.

The aim and tasks have identified the following methods:auditory analysis and comparative analysis of spoken discourse. It should be noted that when fixing the speech not only words are significant, but also many other circumstances – pauses, prosody, laughter, imposing replicas, unfinished replicas, etc. Without these components meaningful analysis of spoken discourse is simply impossible.

The material for our work is TED Talks videos. TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world by means of the global network.

The novelty of our work is that it addresses the unique Internet resource which is impossible to ignore while studying the oral discourse nowadays, when language is changing so fast. Internet has become a successful tool to produce influence on people’s minds. As a result, the development of new technologies developed into new style, new type of discourse.

The practicalimportance of the given research work is that it can serve as a practical guide for the development of seminars and workshops on linguistics, discourse analysis.

The aims and objectives of the work define its structure. The work consists of an introduction, two chapters, conclusion and a reference list. The first chapter describes the basic theoretical questions, different approaches to the notion “discourse” in Linguistics, the category of intensity and expressiveness. It gives a brief summary of ways of expressing of the given category. Moreover, we made an attempt to classify different means of expressing this category on phonetic level. The second chapter was devoted to the practical part of our work. It contains an analysis of phonetic means, expressing the Category of Intensity on the examples of the “Ted Talks” videos. In conclusion there is a summary of the total theoretical and practical results of the study and the prospect of further work is assigned.

Nowadays, linguists are much more concerned with the way language is ‘used’ than what its components are. In this case, we deal with what is known as discourse analysis. Discourse analysis is a cover term for various analyses of discourse. Motivated by linguistic terminology and theory (formal logic, structuralism, transformational grammar) it is used synonymously with text analysis, with a particular interest in coherence and cohesion, and deductive rules (e.g. rules for speech acts). While in this strand of research, texts are mainly taken to be static products (discourse grammar, text linguistics), there is another strand influenced by functional grammar, psycholinguistics, and approaches to cognitive science that emphasizes the dynamic character of discourse as construction and interpretation processes by the speaker/writer and the listener/reader [3]. According to Van Dijk (1985), discourse analysis has become a new cross-disciplinary field of analysis since the early 1970s [11]. It is of interest to disciplines such as anthropology and sociolinguistics (ethnography of speaking), artificial intelligence, cognitive science, philosophy of language (speech act theory), psycholinguistics, sociology of language (conversation analysis), rhetoric (style), and text linguistics.

Michael Stubbs says, “Any study which is not dealing with (a) single sentences, (b) contrived by the linguist, (c) out of context, may be called discourse analysis.” [7:131]. In other words, there is a shift of focus from sentences in isolation to utterances in context: to study language in use is to study it as discourse. This is a fact that ‘knowledge of a language is more than knowledge of individual sentences.’ [5:76]

Public discourse is one of the most interactive and dynamic types of spoken discourse. Along with the main, communicative, or informative function of the language linguists place such functions as its expressiveness, emotiveness and evocativeness.

In many works expressivity and intensity are treated as similar concepts. For example, E.M. Galkina-Fedoruk in her work makes a conclusion: “Expression is s strengthening of expressiveness, depiction, increasing the force of the utterance” [12:107]. I.V.Arnold gives a definition to expressiveness: “…property of the text or of the part of the text that conveys its meaning with the help of increased intensity” [1:206]. Others say that expressiveness is the qualitative aspect of speech and intensity is the quantitative one. [14:20]

Denis Jamet, French University Professor in English Linguistics, defines the term ‘Intensity” as “a quantitative criterion of quality, in that it enhances, it strengthens or it scales upward a quality of the element that is intensified”.

The next step of the research consisted in giving definition of Prosody and in a description of typical prosodic features.

They are defined by David Crystal as “non-segmental characteristics of speech referable to variations in pitch, loudness, duration and silence, other vocal effects being irrelevant to their identification”. Crystal lists the following prosodic systems:

- pitch direction;

- pitch range;

- pause;

- loudness;

- tempo;

- rhythmicity;

- tension. (2010: 5, 140, 195)

The function of influence is the basic function of spoken discourse. During our research work we tried to determine some other its important functions, based on the studied material. They are:

To attract attention

To Persuade

To stimulate mental activity

During our Research work we could define 4 main groups of Phonetic means of intensification:

1. Pitch movement and Nuclear tones	- stepping/sliding head (as a method of intensification) - Succession Of nuclear tones - unfinished intonation groups (often accompanied by reduced loudness of the voice) - varied pitch - empathic Nuclear tone (?)
2. Temporal aspect	- increased tempo/decreased tempo - varied tempo - hesitation pauses (emphatic and rhetorical), lengthening of pauses - rhythm
3. Tension and stress	- varied loudness (volume change) - increased / decreased volume - intense syllabic division - Stretching of words - stress
Paralinguistic features of oral Speech	- whispered speech - Varied timbre - Breathy voice - “Phonetic oddities” as clicks, trills, intakes of breath etc.

The practical part of our Research workconsisted in providing video examples of the phonetic means used in Public speaking as the way of intensification. For the research work, we have analyzed 50 Talks (of different people, diff. Topics). Their frequency can be presented graphically.

The analysis of the video material made it possible to classify the phonetic means, according to the functions they express.

To attract attention	varied pitch (21/29) rhythm (23/26) varied tempo (13/17) stretching of words (5/8) whispered speech (4/4) varied timbre (18/23)
To persuade	succession Of nuclear tones (8/9) empathic Nuclear tone (16/20) intense syllabic division (4/6) varied loudness (13/16)
To stimulate mental activity	unfinished intonation groups (11/14) hesitation pauses (29/38)

Conclusion

The speech would not seem very important if it is read without extra emphasis, without unusual pitches and intonation patterns, without the pauses and other devices that are characteristic of the spoken discourse.

We came to the conclusion that publicist discourse is characterized by different ways and forms of expression on all language levels, the realization of the category of intensity is carried out by phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactical intensifiers.

The less frequent the means of intensification, the brighter the effect of the speech is. That is why nowadays, when the world is changing so fast, modern English tends to pick and invent new forms of the language. In order to achieve public success it is important for the speaker, as a developed linguistic personality, to hold the audience by using various intensifiers, and the image of a developed linguistic personality depends on the ability to keep up with the modern linguistic tendencies.

REFERENCE LIST

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2. Bolinger, D. Degree Words. – The Hague – Paris, 1972.

3. Brown, G. and Yule, G. Discourse analysis. – Cambridge University Press, 1983.

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5. Leech, G, M., Deuchar & R. Hoogenraad. English grammar for today: a new Introduction, London: Macmillan, 1993. – 224p.

6. Shakhovsky V. I. English Stilistics. – Учебное пособие. — Москва: Либроком, 2008, 2013. — 232 с.

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8. Van Dijk, T. Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. – London: Sage, 1998.

9. Van Dijk, T. Discourse & Society. – London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, 2006.

10. Van Dijk, T. Discourse and manipulation. Discourse & Society, 17(2), 2006. – 359-383.

11. Van Dijk, T. (ed.) 1985. Handbook of discourse analysis, 4 vols. London.

12. Галкина-Федорук Е.М. Об экспрессивности и эмоциональности в языке. - Статья. Опубликована в сборнике: Сборник статей по языкознанию. — М.: Наука, 1958. – c. 103-124.

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