Seminar 5• The attitudinal(Emotional ) function.

The most obvious role of

intonation is to express our attitudes and emotions – to show shock or surprise,
pleasure or anger, interest or boredom, and many others. We do this by tone.
• Grammatical function helps to identify grammatical structure in speech,
performing a role similar to punctuation. Units such as clause and sentence often
depend on intonation for their spoken identity, and several specific contrasts, such
as question/statement, make systematic use of it.
• The focusing (or informational) function. Intonation helps to show what
information in an utterance is new and what is already known. The word carrying
the most prominent tone in a contour signals the part of an utterance that the
speaker is treating as new information.
• Textual function (or discourse )helps larger units of meaning than the sentence to
contrast and cohere. In radio news-reading, paragraphs of information can be
shaped through the use of the pitch.
• Psychological function helps us to organize speech into units that are easier to
perceive and memorize. Most people would find a sequence of numbers, for
example, difficult to recall. The task is made easier by using intonation to chunk
the sequence into two units.
• Indexical function, along with other prosodic features, is an important marker of
personal or social identity. Lawyers, newscasters, sports commentators, and
several other occupations are readily identified through their distinctive prosody

(6) Informational (formal) style. This phonetic style is sometimes qualified as

"neutral", since it is the least marked kind of situationally influenced English. It is
perceived as neutral because the speaker's main purpose is to convey information
without expressing personal involvement. It is characterized by the predominant
use of intellectual intonation patterns. The characteristic feature of the
informational style is Law Pre-Head + Falling Head + Law Fall. It occurs in
formal discourse where the message's task is to communicate information without
giving it any emotional evaluation. This intonation style is used, for instance, by
radio and television announcers when reading news, etc. or in various official
situations. It is considered to be stylistically neutral.
In informational style, intonation never contrasts with lexical and grammatical
meanings conveyed by words and constructions. Pausation is semantically
predictable; that is, an intonation group here always consists of words joined
together by sense. Besides, it is important to note that intonation groups tend to be
short
 (7)Ukrainian accent of English.
The notion accent is used in present-day linguistics in several ways:
1. It refers to the prominence given to a syllable
2. It denotes a particular way of pronouncing, e.g. there are a number of
English speakers who all share the same grammar and vocabulary but pronounce
what they say with different accents, such as Scots, Cockney.
3. It means a dynamic system of violations of the accepted pronunciation
norms of a foreign language in the speech of nonnative speakers.
Thus, by Ukrainian accent of English, we understand a set of specific
pronunciation features peculiar to the English pronunciation of Ukrainian speakers
and distinguish them from other English-speaking people.
When a Ukrainian learner imposes the new phonemes of English on the
articulatory (voice quality) Ukrainian setting, a foreign accent appears.
In the sphere of vowels, such deviations from the pronunciation norm of
English are observed:
1. More front articulation of the English front vowels /i:/, /e/, /ɪ/.
2. Insufficient differentiation of broad and narrow variants of vowel phonemes.
3. Incorrect articulation of English diphthongs.
4. Excessive lip rounding and protrusion in the articulation of English rounded
vowels caused by the greater prominence pf lip participation in Ukrainian.
In the sphere of consonants Ukrainian accent of English includes the
following features:
1. Inappropriate articulation of the consonants which are absent in Ukrainian: /w/
(confusion with /w/, /θ/, /ð/
2. Palatalization of English consonants and consonant clusters.
3. Devoicing of voiced consonants in the word final position. This feature is the
case of secondary interference, i.e. the influence of Russian, but not Ukrainian
articulatory habits on English.
Knowing the features mentioned above of the Ukrainian English accent is
important for intercultural communication and English foreign language teaching
practice. It helps clarify the interaction of English and Ukrainian pronunciation
bases.