Accentual arrangement of BBC news programs in the light of affective syllabics

Abstract

This article examines the peculiarity of the position and means of creating the effect of accentuation in the modern English language. The research material leans on the speech of the leading BBC news programs, which is being processed in accordance with the principles of cognitive syllabics. The author also applies the methods of auditory analysis of the original sounding text and its pragmaphonetic modeling, determining the instances of accentuation that goes beyond the scope of neutral English phonation and is implemented via affective syllabics. The relevance of the research is defined by the need to pinpoint the attention upon the shift in communicative priorities that is taking place in the English language and broaden the prosodic and rhetorical arsenal used by those who learn English for creating the accentuation effect. The scientific novelty lies in the application of categorical approach towards the phenomenon of accentuation in the genres of intellective communication that are important for philological education. The article introduces the category of markedness/ unmarkedness of accentuation, which is supplemented by the so-called borderline or intermediate instances of accentuation, which are revealed only after thorough cognitive processing of the material, and determined primarily by the ethical aspect of modern English speech. The acquired results allow describing the phenomenon of syllabic and verbal accentuation in the dynamics and evolution, as well as the use of the means of affective syllabics for imparting timbral coloring to speech that meets expectations and preferences of the modern English-speaking community.