Seminar 1
- Phonetics: the study of the sound system of language.
- Branches of Phonetics.
- Phonology: the functional aspect of the sound system of language.
- Phonetics at the intersection of linguistic studies. Research in communicative phonetics and language teaching methodology.
- Experimental phonetics and computational linguistics. New speech transmission technologies; machines with a voice control operations; automatic machine translation.
Seminar 2
- Speech sounds as phonological units. The hierarchy of discrete and non-discrete phonological units.
- Phoneme as the main concept of phonology and its functions. Classification of vowels and consonants. Major types of phonemes in English.
- Basic methods of phonological analysis. Phoneme theories. Schools of phonology.
- Feature theory. The system of phonological oppositions. Phonologically relevant features of phonemes. Modifications of phonemes in speech continuum.
- Articulation basis of English. Basic phonological rules. Modifications of English vowels and consonants in connected speech.
Seminar 3
- Syllable as a phonetic and phonological unit. Types of syllables.
- Syllable formation theories.
- Phonotactics as a branch of phonology. Phonotactic possibilities of English vowels and consonants.
Seminar 4
- Lexical word stress as a non-discrete phonological unit. Acoustic and perceptual clues to word stress.
- Functions of lexical word stress in languages with fixed and free word accent.
- Degrees of word stress. Functions of word stress.
- Word accentuation tendencies and accentual types of English words. The variability of word accentual structure in connected speech.
Seminar 5
- Segmental and suprasegmental phonology. Different approaches to the definition of intonation; its components on the acoustic and perceptual levels.
- Functions of intonation. Intonation/prosody as a complex semantic unity of suprasegmental features (prosodic subsystems).
- Speech melody, sentence stress, rhythm, loudness, tempo and pausation, voice timbre. Their interplay in discourse.
- Intonation group as a meaningful unit. Constituent parts of an intonation group and their functional loading.
- Systems of graphical notation of intonation by different phonological schools.
Seminar 6
- Phonostylistics as a branch of phonetics; its interaction with other linguistic disciplines. Extralinguistic factors causing phonetic modifications in speech.
- Phonostyle and its definition. Classification of phonostyles. The phonetic style-forming means.
- Informational style and its registers.
- Scientific or Academic style.
- Publicistic or Oratorial style.
- Declamatory (Artistic or Belles-letter) style: fiction, drama, poetry.
- Conversational (Informal or Familiar) style.
Seminar 7
- Dialectology and dialect studies. The linguistic atlas of England and the United States. National pronunciation standards of English in the English-speaking countries. Orthoepic norms and the choice of the teaching norm. Major accents in the UK (Southern or RP, Northern, Scottish; Estuary English, Cockney). Chief differences between RP and regional accents of British English.
- General American (GAm) as the American English pronunciation norm; types of American English pronunciation (Eastern, Southern and General American). Majour differences between Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GAm) pronunciation.
- Phonological and Phonetic distinctions of Australian, Canadian and New Zealand English pronunciation.
- Peculiarities of Ukrainian accent of English.
- Social factors causing phonetic modifications in the pronunciation of English. Basic research in sociophonetics.