PROSODIC PECULIARITIES OF IRISH SPEECH IN THE BILINGUAL SITUATION

Abstract

The investigation is dedicated to the analysis of prosodic peculiarities of Irish speech. The bilingual situation in which influence of the British English as well as general tendencies of the development common for national and regional variants of the English language characterize the Irish variant of English. Bilinguism in Ireland can be divided into four periods : 1) the beginning of British invasion which is characterized by gradual ousting of the Irish language; 2) the second period is characterized by discrimination of the Irish language, which was totally ousted from all the spheres of functioning, only it existed in rural regions; 3) the third period of its history is marked by the struggle for independence and the return of the native Irish language; 4) the growing of the Irish language prestige, giving it the official status mark the fourth period. During the historical process there were developed strong political, cultural and economic ties, however Britain has always dominated and thus, influenced differences between the two languages – the English and the Irish. It has been noted by the investigators of the linguistic situation in Ireland, a long refusal of the Irish language usage led to English language prevalence, even when the Irish language got the official status. There exists an exact division of the spheres of the Irish and the English usage and their social marking. Men are more conservative in daily language usage. Women often mix both the languages in speech. If one language displays the other there exists bilingual situation, so that neither displacement nor full perception is present. This fact allows to hope on preserving the Irish language. The material of the investigation which consists of quazispontaneous monological utterances of native Irish speakers from two regions – the North and the South of Ireland, was investigated with the help of perceptive and acoustic analyses. Perceptive analysis has revealed that the usage of Low Falling terminal tone has been the most frequent, as well as the variable character of frequency range Rising Head has also been recurrent in the Irish speech informants of the southern part of the country.

Keywords

• інструментальний аналіз
• частотні особливості
• територіальний, просодичний маркер
• спадний термінальний тон