MELODIC AND PITCH PECULIARITIES OF LANCHASHIRE DIALECT SPEECH

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of melodic and pitch peculiarities of the speech of the residents of Lancashire. The Lancashire dialect is an inhomogeneous dialect of English, since it includes a significant number of different subdialects. The Lancashire dialect has a long history and is distinguished by the features of vocalism and consonantism which are manifested in the monophthongization of diphthongs, the lengthening of monophthongs, the glottalization of consonants, elision and fricativeness. Gender and age factors are taken into account. The informants are divided into 2 gender and 2 age groups, namely: 25 – 40 years old and over 40 years old. Using the method of perceptual analysis, such melodic features of speech, as the movement in the preterminal and nuclear parts of a syntagma, as well as the nomenclature and frequency of the usage of scales and terminal tones, are investigated. Instrumental analysis includes the study of the maximum (Fmax) and minimum (Fmin) values of the frequency, as well as the frequency range (FΔ) of scales and nuclear tones. It is stated that the prosodic markers of the Lancashire dialect are descending, level and sliding scales, as well as descending and level terminal tones. The gender features of speech include the widening of the frequency range in scales and terminal tones, a greater number of complex and compound terminal tones in the female speech.