»
Verier, a French scientist, who is a specialist on English versification, suggests that we should try to pronounce the vowels [a:, i:, u:] in a strongly articulated manner and with closed eyes. If we do so, he says, we are sure to come to the conclusion that each of these sounds expresses a definite feeling or state of mind. Thus he maintains that the sound [u:] generally expresses sorrow or seriousness; [i:] produces the feeling of joy and so on.
L. Bloomfield, a well-known American linguist says:
В«... in human speech, different sounds have different meaning. To study the coordination of certain sounds with certain meanings is to study language. В» [7]
An interesting statement in this regard is made by a Hungarian linguist, Ivan Fonagy:
В«The great semantic entropy (a term from theory of communication denoting the measure of the unknown.) of poetic language stands in contrast to the predictability of its sounds. Of course, not even in the case of poetry can we determine the sound of a word on the basis of its meaning. Nevertheless in the larger units of line and stanza, a certain relationship can be found between sounds and content. В» [10]
The Russian poet B. Pasternak says that he has
В«... always thought that the music of words is not an acoustic phenomenon and does not consist of the euphony of vowels and consonants taken separately. It results from the correlation of the meaning of the utterance with its sound. В» [3]
The theory of sound symbolism is based on the assumption that separate sounds due to their articulatory and acoustic properties may awake certain ideas, perceptions, feelings, images, vague though they might be. Recent investigations have shown that В«it is rash to deny the existence of universal, or widespread, types of sound symbolism. В» In poetry we cannot help feeling that the arrangement of sounds carries a definite aesthetic function. Poetry is not entirely divorced from music. Such notions as harmony, euphony, rhythm and other sound phenomena undoubtedly are not indifferent to the general effect produced by a verbal chain. Poetry, unlike prose, is meant to be read out loud and any oral performance of a message inevitably involves definite musical (in the broad sense of the word) interpretation.
Stylistics also studies the expressive means of language, but from a special angle. It takes into account the modifications of meanings which various expressive means undergo when they are used in different functional styles. Expressive means have a kind of radiating effect. They noticeably colour the whole utterance, no matter whether they are logical or emotional. [11]
1.2 Phonetic expressive means
The most powerful expressive means of any language are phonetic. Ways of the voice using are much more effective than any other means in intensifying an utterance emotionally or logically and the human voice can indicate most subtle nuances of meaning. In the language course of phonetics the patterns of emphatic intonation have been worked out, but many devices have so far been little investigated.
So, phonetic expressive means are the following:
Intonation , which is a language universal. Phoneticians give different definitions of intonation, but the most accepted one is by SF Leontyeva. According to Leontyeva's point of view, intonation is considered to be a complex unity of pitch (melody), stress, tempo, temper and tamber and the way they are realized in speech. [13]
Intonation is very important. It serves to form sentences and determines their communicative types. It divides sentences into intonation groups, it expresses the speaker's thoughts and conveys the attitudinal meaning. One and the same sentence may express different meaning, when pronounced with different intonation:
e.g. When it's a general question - Isn't it ridiculous?
An exclamation - Isn't it ridiculous!
Intonation determines the communicative type of sentences. The communicative types are differentiated in speech according to the aim of the utterance from the point of view of communication. There 4 main types of sentences:
Statements - I like music.
Questions - Can you do it?
Imperative sentences or commands - Just do it!
Exclamations - Right you are
The pitch component of intonation or a melody is the changers in the pitch of the voice in connected speech.
Sentence stress or accent is the greater prominence of one or more words among others words in the same sentence.
Word stress is realized since all t...
