Phonetic Characteristics of the Verbal Vocabulary in the Dystopian Novel «Fahrenheit 451» by R. Bradbury

Abstract

The interaction of multi-aspect and multi-level features as well as their relationshas been the subject of a number of studies in the field of quantitative linguistics. However, these studies were conducted mainly on language material. It is interesting to apply a similar analysis aimed at establishing the ratio of the
 parameters characterizing one of the linguistic levels to the speech. For example, this article discusses the phonetic features of the verbs used in the novel «Fahrenheit 451» by Ray Bradbury. Each of the verbs is assigned a number of phonetic characteristics (syllabic, accent, phonological ones). The relations of
 the declared parameters at the phonetic level are revealed due to the application of statistical methods, viz. Cole’scorrelation coefficient and Jaccard’ssimilarity coefficient. The obtained data are compared with the corresponding
 parameters of high-frequency verbal vocabulary. As a result, it is
 noted that the verbs appearing in the novel, have their own characteristics in the space of phonetic features and it also shows their level of similarity with highfrequency lexical units in connection with the ratio of phonetic characteristics.