Different approaches to the problem of phoneme. The definition of phoneme

Each language has a limited number of sound-types (звукотипы) that are shared by all speakers of the language and are linguistically important because they distinguish meaningful units

[spil] - [stil]

[bæd] - [læd]

Such elements of the language sounds are called phonemes. This term was supposedly introduced by Nikolay Grushevsky. The one we rely on – by Vasilyev.

The definitions of the phoneme vary greatly.

V.A.Vassilyev: The phoneme is a smallest unit capable of distinguishing one word from another word, one grammatical form of word from another.

B. Bloch: phoneme is a class of phonemically similar sounds contrasting and mutually exclusive with all similar classes in the language.

R. Jacobson: phoneme is a minimal sound by which meaning may be discriminated.

L.V. Shcherba: the phoneme may be viewed as a functional, material and abstract unit.

Schools of Phonology and theories of the phoneme

Mentalistic. Was supported by the Kazan school. It regards the phoneme as an ideal “menal image” or a target at which the speaker aims.

Physical view represented by the London school with O.Shones. Regards the phoneme as a “family” of related sounds satisfying certain conditions, notably:

1. the various members of the “family” must show phonetic similarity to one another, in other words, be related in character;

2. no member of the “family” may occur in the same phonetic context as any other

Abstract view. Was supported by the Geneve School (Ferdinand de Sossur). It regards phonemes as essentially independent of the acoustic and physiological properties associated with them, that is of speech sounds. Thus, phoneme – an abstract concept existing in the mind only independent of any physical properties. This abstraction has been unconsciously made by and unconsciously exist in the mind of each member of a language community. As a result of this, an Englishman thinks that in all these words he hears other people say and he pronounces himself on and the same “sound” [t], for ex. But in reality, he hears and pronounces one and the same phoneme /t/, a different variant of it in each word. This is an example of unconscious phonemic abstraction.

Functional view (Trubetskoy; Jakobson). It regards the phoneme as the minimal sound unit by which meanings may be differentiated without much regard to actually pronounced speech sounds. No association with real sounds.

Jakobson was the 1^st to make up a list of universal distinctive features for all languages. All the features – binary (voiced – voiceless), each feature is marked by + and –. Vowels are marked as [+ high] or [– high]. One of the features – coronal (for dental palatal and alveolar palatal).

This classification is more economical than classification 1. Its aim – to cover all the languages => 12 binary distinctive oppositions may be used to characterize any language.

The model is criticized by many phonologists.

Nowadays the phoneme is characterized from the point of view of its three aspects (functional, material, abstract): the phoneme is a minimal abstract linguistic unit realized in speech in the form of speech sounds, opposable to other phonemes of the same language to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and words.

Aims of communication and phonetic means in formal and informal communication.

For the English language RP is most appropriate for public speaking, formal occasions. The standard is stylistically differentiated, as there are situations when a more informal way of talking is quite appropriate.

The speaker's judgment of formality will depend on a num­ber of factors, such as the relative status of the person he/she is talking to, which results in their different social roles, how well they know each other, the theme (topic) they are discussing, to what purpose (aim of the talk) and in what setting. public meeting, lecture, consultation, conversa­tion, chat.

In what the speaker sees as a very formal situation he will tend to artic­ulate more slowly and carefully. In a very informal situation, on the other hand, he will be more likely to speak quickly, less carefully.

Variation conditioned in this way by a person's perception of the situ­ation in which he is speaking we refer to as stylistic.

It is not only situational factors which determine the style of pronun­ciation, but also the speaker's personality. Social psychologists define the speaker's strategy in varying social sit­uations as "politeness-solidarity" choice. When talking formally to seniors one is expected to be very polite, as a sign of deference; the same tone of voice in the company of peers could be understood as either a joke or an attempt to demonstrate social distance, or even hostility.

Although the English of education is real enough, it will tend to be limited to a single variety of the language, one chosen to serve as a model

As it has already been demonstrated, a foreigner may not always be sensitive enough to cultural constraints of the situation, as well as to the stylistic power of certain word and sound connotations. But it is his/her task to understand what he/she hears, and as far as listening comprehen­sion is concerned, the samples of English he/she is exposed to while learn­ing must really be varied.

William Labov was the first to quantify and measure stylistic variation in four modes of speech which he called "styles": (1) reading a word list, (2) reading a text, (3) interview, (4) casual speech.

Casual informal speech is most difficult to get. Formal speech is the style which an interviewer will normally elicit in a field interview.Reading atext aloud is still more formal.

The linguistic variables were: (a) -ing endings pronounced either as [rj] or [n], (b) glottal stop replacing [t] — [?], (c) h -drop: the sound [h] re­placed by zero, i.e. omitted at the beginning of words, (d) dese — dose words where the interdental fricatives were replaced by dental stops [d, t], (e) rhoticity: the presence of [r] after a vowel which was omitted in lower New York classes, New York being an r-less area of the U.S.A.

The basic findings were: there is a pattern of steady increase in the values of non-standard forms as the speaker moves from the most formal to the most casual style.

Another finding indicated that the direction of style shifting along the formality scale is the same in all social classes but the values are graded: the formal style in a relatively low class resembles that of the casual style of the speaker in a higher class.

It sometimes happens that the style shift of a lower middle class (LM) or the upper working class (UW) is so abrupt, especially with women, that it overtakes the style shift of a higher, middle middle (MM) class. This was found in the r-variable by W. Labov in New York. The phenomenon is called "hypercorrection".

To sum it up, standard forms tend to be used in formal styles of speech, while non-standard forms are more likely to occur in the informal casual speech. The style shift is common for all classes, but the values of particu­lar linguistic variables reveal that there is gradience in the values as you move from one class to the other. The society standards present a continu­um of changing sound forms.

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