PROSODIC PECULIARITIES OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENTARIANS’ SPEECH IN A GENDER ASPECT

Abstract

The aim of the article is to investigate the gender factor impact on the melodic characteristics of the British parliamentarians’ monologue speech. The carried out electroacoustic analysis allowed to define the generalized pitch contours of male and female parliamentary speech, as well as to find out the pitch maximum location in a syntagm and to study pitch range characteristics of the main terminal tones. According to the results received, the generalized pitch contour of the British parliamentary speech can be treated as the falling-rising one with the pitch component maximum accumulated either on the first stressed syllable aimed at attracting the listener’s attention (female speech) or on the nuclear tone aimed at accentuating the semantic centre of the utterance (male speech). Gender factor has also been proved to affect the terminal tones melodic patterns. Compared to the female speech, speech of the male gender group is characterized by higher pitch levels and wider pitch ranges on the falling, rising and level terminal tones. In its turn, the female gender group speech is marked by higher pitch components on the emotionally coloured falling-rising tone and especially on the emphatic rising-falling terminal tone.

Keywords

• гендерний фактор
• узагальнений тональний контур
• частота основного тону
• синтагма
• термінальний тон