Electro-acoustic analysis of some prosodic markers

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a comprehensive study aimed at identifying the prosodic features of irony in oral speech, taking into account the specifics of the British linguistic culture. The complex and multicomponent nature of the phenomenon of irony has led to the complex nature of the analysis undertaken in this study, which involved the study of a wide range of problems associated with irony. Irony is an integral part of everyday social and intercultural interaction. The multifaceted nature of this phenomenon made it necessary to take into account contextual and pragmatic factors, as well as the linguocultural specifics of communication. The study confirmed that the use of irony is characteristic of the British linguistic culture representatives. Irony often acts as a discursive strategy, implementing which the communicants convey a certain attitude towards the object of the statement. Based on the analysis of the corpus of the study, it was found out that this kind of attitude can be positive and negative, that is why the author has identified such types of irony as irony with positive and negative connotations. A separate group was made up of fragments realized in an ironic tonality, i.e. a prosodic-pragmatic complex characterizing extended segments of a sounding text. The specificity of this study lies in the fact that the prosodic realization of irony in oral speech is considered in the dynamics of discourse, taking into account the verbal context, the immediate situation of communication, as well as the sociocultural context and national cultural specifics. The results of the study allow us to state that the prosodic means play a significant role in the expression of irony in oral speech discourse. Prosody is capable of conveying a large number of connotative meanings. Certain combinatorics of prosodic parameters give a statement an ironic connotation. It was detected that intonation is an independent means of realizing irony, a kind of a “signal” that contributes to an adequate understanding of the message. Among other things, some tendencies were identified in the prosodic design of ironically colored statements in dialogical discourse. The data obtained confirm the observations concerning the changes in prosodic parameters obtained while studying irony in other types of discourse: ironically colored fragments acquire exaggerated prosodic design. The data obtained in the course of the research, as well as the research materials, can be used in teaching dialogical communication in English. The conclusions drawn from the research can be useful for teaching English pronunciation.