Abstract
In rhetorical discourse, tenors can be formed intentionally and used as rhetorical strategies to implement the speaker's goals. The article reports on a study of the contextual category 'tenor' and its prosodic realisation in rhetorical discourse. The paper examines rhetorical, auditory and acoustic features in the samples of English academic presentations (lectures). The author argues that tenors can reflect both the relationships of the participants of a particular speech event and the relationships associated with a broader sociocultural context. Analysing tenor as a sociocultural phenomenon the author demonstrates its correlations with some specific features of British speech culture. Special attetnion is given to the role of prosody in conveying and identifying tenors. The article contains an overview of the prosodic markers of tenor: tone of voice, pitch parameters, temporal characteristics. The study of tenor and its prosodic markers contributes to a fuller understanding of the influence of contextual factors on the prosodic realisation of discourse. The observations made in the paper may be useful to develop cross-cultural communication competence and rhetorical competence of EFL students.
Highlights
The shift to a discourse perspective in the research of prosody, on the one hand, and the incorporation of prosody into discourse analysis, on the other hand, have provided a deeper insight into the social and interactional meaning of speech communication
Prosodic means are studied with regard to their functions in speech communication as well as situational and contextual factors
Academic public speeches were selected as the material for the analysis, because this genre of rhetorical discourse is generally associated with a certain tenor
Summary
The shift to a discourse perspective in the research of prosody, on the one hand, and the incorporation of prosody into discourse analysis, on the other hand, have provided a deeper insight into the social and interactional meaning of speech communication. Prosodic means are studied with regard to their functions in speech communication as well as situational and contextual factors. This complex interaction of prosody and context is reflected in tenor, a communication phenomenon linking spoken discourse and extralinguistic context. The goal of this research is to describe tenor as a contextual category in rhetorical discourse with regard to its prosodic realisation. Academic public speeches (lectures) were selected as the material for the analysis, because this genre of rhetorical discourse is generally associated with a certain tenor. The observations presented here are meant to demonstrate that the tenor in academic presentations is neither fixed nor homogeneous
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
