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Litera
Reference:

Accentual arrangement of BBC news programs in the light of affective syllabics

Kopaneva Anastasiya Valeryevna

ORCID: 0000-0003-2016-286X

Postgraduate student, the department of English Linguistics, M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University

119991, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Leninskie Gory, 1, str. 51

anastasiya25n@mail.ru

DOI:

10.25136/2409-8698.2022.2.37430

Received:

29-01-2022

Published:

10-02-2022

Abstract: This article examines the peculiarity of the position and means of creating the effect of accentuation in the modern English language. The research material leans on the speech of the leading BBC news programs, which is being processed in accordance with the principles of cognitive syllabics. The author also applies the methods of auditory analysis of the original sounding text and its pragmaphonetic modeling, determining the instances of accentuation that goes beyond the scope of neutral English phonation and is implemented via affective syllabics. The relevance of the research is defined by the need to pinpoint the attention upon the shift in communicative priorities that is taking place in the English language and broaden the prosodic and rhetorical arsenal used by those who learn English for creating the accentuation effect. The scientific novelty lies in the application of categorical approach towards the phenomenon of accentuation in the genres of intellective communication that are important for philological education. The article introduces the category of markedness/ unmarkedness of accentuation, which is supplemented by the so-called borderline or intermediate instances of accentuation, which are revealed only after thorough cognitive processing of the material, and determined primarily by the ethical aspect of modern English speech. The acquired results allow describing the phenomenon of syllabic and verbal accentuation in the dynamics and evolution, as well as the use of the means of affective syllabics for imparting timbral coloring to speech that meets expectations and preferences of the modern English-speaking community.

Keywords:

syllabics, accentuation, additional prominence, cognitive processing, pragmaphonetic modelling, intellective communication, modern rhetoric, English phonetics, prosodic arrangement, news programmes
This article is automatically translated.

As an example, let's turn to an excerpt from the news review prepared by the presenter of the BBC News channel, which highlights the main events in the world of science that took place in 2015. It is important to emphasize here that in it the announcer, on the one hand, comments on the broadcast video material and is present in the program as a voice-over, and on the other hand, repeatedly appears on the scene personally, creating the impression of direct involvement in what is happening. This contributes to the TV presenter's greater involvement in the latest news and gives a more personal character to the interpretation of what is happening, which is reflected in the special rhetorical organization of his speech. It is shown in the text using graphical markup, traditionally used at the Department of English Linguistics of the Faculty of Philology named after M. V. Lomonosov to indicate various modifications of prosodic parameters [2, 5]:

References
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2. Davydov, M. V. & Malyuga, Ye. N. (2002). Интонация коммуникативных типов предложений в английском языке [The Intonation of Communicative Sentence Types in the English Language]. Moscow: Дело и Сервис.
3. Decheva, S. V. (1998). Когнитивная силлабика [Cognitive syllabics]. Moscow: Диалог-МГУ.
4. Decheva, S. V. & Ilyina, K. A. (2018). Фонетическая интерференция в дикторской речи ВВС:монография [Phonetic Interference in the Speech of BBC Announcers: a Study]. Мoscow: ИД Международные отношения.
5. Decheva, S. V., Maguidova, I. M., Trenina, N. G. (Eds.). (2013). А Practical Course of Cultured English and Rhetoric. Moscow: АСТ-ПРЕСС.
6. Lipgart, A. A. (2016). Основы лингвопоэтики [The Bases of Linguopoetics]. Moscow: Либроком.
7. Maguidova, I. M. (2018). The Past, the Present and the Future of Speech Modelling as Part of Functional Stylistics (pp. 19-25.). Английский язык и литература в прагмалингвистическом освещении: сборник научных статей памяти заслуженного профессора МГУ, доктора филологических наук И. М. Магидовой. Moscow: URSS.
8. Nikolayeva, T. M. (1982). Семантика акцентного выделения [Semantics of Accentuation]. Moscow.
9. Ter-Minasova, S. G. (2007) Война и мир языков и культур [The War and Peace of Languages and Cultures]. Moscow: АСТ-ПРЕСС.
10. Shikhantsov, A. S. & Maguidova I. M. (2012). Особенности словесного ударения в английской публичной речи. Исследование на материале британского варианта современного английского языка [The Peculiarities of Accent in English Public Speaking. Study Based on the British Variant of the Modern English Language]. Мoscow: URSS.
11. Yurysheva, N. G. (1982). Просодический минимум научного регистра речи (на материале современного английского языка): дисс... канд. филол. наук [The Prosodic Minimum of the Academic Register of Speech (Based on Modern English Language): dis. doc. philol. sciences]. Мoscow.
12. Bolinger, D. (1961). Contrastive Accent and Contrastive Stress (pp. 83-97). Language Journal of the Linguistic Society of America. 37/1.
13. Bolinger, D. (1986). Intonation and Its Parts: Melody in Spoken English. London.
14. Cruttenden, A. (2008). Gimson's Pronunciation of English (7th edition). Hodder Education.
15. Crystal, D. (1996). The past, present and future of English rhythm (pp. 8-13). M. Vaughan-Rees, Changes in pronunciation (special issue of Speak Out!), IATEFL.
16. Cutler, A. (2015). Lexical stress in English pronunciation (pp. 106-124). Handbook of English Pronunciation. Wiley & Sons.
17. Fraser, B. (2010) Pragmatic Competence: The Case of Hedging (pp. 15-34). New Approaches to Hedging. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
18. Lado, R. (1964). Language Teaching. A Scientific Approach. London.
19. Lindsey, G. (2019). English After RP: Standard British Pronunciation Today. Palgrave Macmillan.
20. Wells, J. C. (2006). English Intonation: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

The reviewed article seems to be a very relevant study, since the work examines in more detail than before the linguistic, cultural and ethical components of English accentuation, which are determined by the nationality of British anglophones and are associated with their speech stereotypes, as well as the ethics of speech communication, which is associated in their minds with a normative, neutral and unmarked manner of utterance. The content of the work is relevant to the goals and readership of the Litera magazine and will be interesting to a wide range of readers. In the peer-reviewed study, the author suggests using the category of labeling/unmarking of various linguistic phenomena in a new way. In the work, the author uses the method of auditory analysis of sounding texts, and also conducts a pragmaphonetical modeling of the accentuation organization of modern English speech. The author also emphasizes that the method of cognitive processing of the material is of paramount importance in the work, since without it, the auditory analysis, which is traditionally taken as the basis in the phonetic course of teaching English, may be ineffective. The method of pragmaphonetic modeling of the material, on the basis of which new trends in the accentuation of English speech are revealed, turns out to be very useful for this study. The BBC news programs served as the material for the study. As an example, the author refers to an excerpt from the news review prepared by the presenter of the BBC News channel, which highlights the main events in the world of science that took place in 2015. To indicate various modifications of prosodic parameters, the author uses graphical markup, traditionally used at the Department of English Linguistics of the Lomonosov Philological Faculty. The use of the method of auditory analysis of the sounding speech of a news anchor and its cognitive processing allow the author to identify cases of unmarked accentuation, which are due to the pronunciation norm inherent in the functional style of intelligent communication and the peculiarities of its neutral design. Pragmaphonetical modeling of the passage in question showed that when prosodically formatting the text of a news review, Russian-speaking English philologists focus primarily on the rules of syntactic prosody and generally avoid stylistically and dialectically marked inclusions observed in BBC news broadcasts and the updated and modified pronunciation standard (modernized RP). In conclusion, the author emphasizes that in the context of global English-speaking communication, the issues of optimizing the English language with the help of various prosodic and rhetorical means come to the fore and become decisive in the implementation of a particular communicative act. The conclusions obtained personally by the author constitute the scientific novelty of the study, are well-reasoned and do not cause doubts. The quality of presentation of the research results is at a high level. Nevertheless, we recommend that the author change the spelling of "BBC" to the generally accepted "BBC". This remark is easily eliminated. The bibliographic list is very solid, it consists of 20 titles that are relevant to the topic of the article and are correctly designed. In general, the work meets all the basic requirements and can be recommended for publication in the journal "Litera".
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