The specific character of Welsh male and female speech behavior conditioned by bilingual situation

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of speech behavior of Welsh male and female representatives. The speech situation in Wales in characterized by the presence of two languages – English and Welsh. Such situation is connected with the history of Celtic territories. There isn’t any general point of view as to the status of English in Wales. The term “Welsh English” is of mostly common use. The aim of the present paper is to study the prosodic characteristics of English in the speech of Welsh English representatives. Melody being one of the prominent intonation means, participating in making up speech portraits of Welsh representatives was investigated to find out differences in intonational scales functioning. One of the main distinguishing feature of Welsh English is high pre-head (the unstressed syllables at the beginning of intonation pattern) in combination with low terminal tone and gradually rising level of the tail. Gradually Descending Stepping, Scandant and Level Scales prevail among other Heads in the speech of analysed informants. Stepping Head (30%) characterize female speech and Level Head (29%) is more common in male speech. General percentage of Rising, Scandant and Broken Scales comprises 33% in male and 29% in female speech. Emphatic Scales prevail in female speech making it more emotionally coloured. Male speech is more characterized by Scandant and High Head. Thus, we may state that Welsh English can be characterized as having emphatic melody consisting of Rising, Scandant and High Head, which we consider to be the common feature.