1. The principles of classification of English vowels . In the E. vowel system there are 12 vowel monophthongs and 8 or 9 diphthongs.

The quality of a vowel depends, first of all, on its stability, on the tongue position, lip position character of the vowel end, length, tenseness. 1. According to this principle E. vowels are subdivided into monophthongs, b) diphthongs, c) diphthongoids.[ I ], [ u ]. According to the position of the tongue vowels are classed from vertical and horizontal planes. From the horizontal plane vowels are divided into : 1. front; 2. frontretracted ; 3.central ; 4. back ; 5. back-advanced. From the vertical plane E. vowels are divided into: 1. close; 2. mid; 3. open. Each class has wide and narrow variations. According to the lip rounding vowels have 3 positions: spread, neutral, rounded. The next point is checkness. All E. short vowels are checked when stressed. The degree of checkness depends on the following consonant. All long vowels are free. According to the length E. vowels are traditionally divided into short and long vowels, it is a historical phenomenon. Besides, there exists the positional length of vowels, depending on the position of a vowel in a word. From the point of view of tenseness all historically long vowels are tense, while short vowels are lax.

2. The principles of classification of English consonants Consonants In the English consonant system there are 24 consonants. The quality of the consonants depends on several aspects: 1. the work of the vocal cords; 2. what cavity is used as a resonator; 3. the force of the articulation and some other factors. There are some principles of consonant classification: 1. the type of obstruction and the manner of production of noise. We distinguish 2 classes of consonants: a) occlusive c., in the production of which a complete obstruction is formed; b) constrictive c., in the production of which an incomplete obstruction is formed. Each of the two classes is subdivided into noise consonants and sonorants. Noise consonants are divided into plosives (or stops) and affricates and constrictive sounds. Sonorants are divided into occlusive and constrictive sounds. Constrictive sonorants may be medial and lateral. Another principle is the place of articulation. Consonants are classed into 1) labial, 2) lingual, 3) glottal. The first class is subdivided into a) bilabial; b) labio- dental; the second class is subdivided into: a) fore lingual, b) mediolingual, c)back lingual. The next principle is the presence or absence of voice which depends on the work of the vocal cords. All voiced consonants are weak (lenis) and all voiceless c. are strong (fortis). The next principle is the position of the soft palate. According to this, E. consonants can be oral and nasal.(m,n,n). According to the stability consonants are monophthongs, diphthongs and diphthongoids.

3. Word stress in English Word stress (WS) can be defined as the singling out of one or more syllables in a word, which is accompanied by the change of the force of utterance, pitch of the voice, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the sound which is usually a vowel. S-s is variable any syl-le of a polys-c word can carry the main stress. Signals: pitch of voice (level), sonority of sound (vowel quality: strong, weak; stressed syl-s have strong v-s pot, Tom, office, odd, man, uns-ed weak: potato, official, addition, woman), duration in time (length syl-s are extra long when they are prominant) together they make syl-s sound louder. Degrees of s-s: primary, secondary (partial), weak. S-s is the comb-n of factors. S-s may be semantically contrasted (verb noun: contrast, present). Modify of s-s: photograghphotographer-photographic). Rules:1) front weight in nouns & adj-s (have s-s on the 1-st syl-le); 2) 2 & 3-syl-le words have a prefix (not stressed), majority are verbs; 3) w-s with suf-s (unstred); 4) certain suf-s cause the syl-le to be st-ed: -ive, -ient, -iant, -ial, -ion, -ic, -ous, -ish, -ify, -ible; 5) able doesnt change the stress; 6) in polys-c w-ds certain suf-s cause the s-s to be placed on the 4-th syl-le fr. the end - -ary, ator, alimony, literacy, inventory; 7) in compound w-ds singlestressed reading-room, music-hall; but adj-es & verbs 2-stressed well-bred, give in. Types of English word stress according to its degree. primary the strongest secondary the second strongest, partial, weak all the other degrees. The syllables bearing either primary or secondary stress are termed stressed, while syllables with weak stress are called, somewhat inaccurately, unstressed.

4. Assimilation. In the process of speech, that is in the process of transition from the articulatory work of one sound to the articulatory work of the neighbouring one, sounds are modified. These modifications can be conditioned: a) by the complementary distribution of phonemes, e. g. the fully back /u:/ becomes back-advanced under the influence of the preceding mediolingual sonorant /j/ in the words tune, nude. In the word keen /k/ is not so back as its principal variant, it is advanced under (be influence of the fully front /i;/ which follows it: b) by the contextual variations in which phonemes may occur at the junction of words, e. g. the alveolar phoneme /n/ in the combination in the is assimilated to the dental variant under the influence of // which follows it; c) by the style of speech: official or rapid colloquial. E. g. hot muffins may turn into Assimilation is a modification of a consonant under the influence of a neighbouring consonant. When a consonant is modified under the influence of an adjacent vowel or vice versa this phenomenon is called adaptation or accommodation, e. g. tune, keen, lea, cool. When one of the neighbouring sounds is not realized in rapid or careless speech this process is called elision, e. g. a box of matches may be pronounced without [v]. Assimilation which occurs in everyday speech in the present-day pronunciation is called living. Assimilation which took place at an earlier stage in the history of the language is called historical. Assimilation can be: 1progressive, when the first of the two sounds affected by assimilation makes the second sound similar to itself, e. g. in desks the sounds /k/ make the plural inflection s similar to the voiceless /k/. 2regressive, when the second of the two sounds affected by assimilation makes the first sound similar to itself, e. g. in the combination at the the alveolar /t/ becomes dental, assimilated to the interdental / / which follows it; 3double, when the two adjacent sounds influence each other, e.g. twice /t/ is rounded under the influence of /w/ and /w/ is partly devoiced under (he influence of the voiceless /t/.

When the two neighbouring sounds arc affected by assimilation, it may influence: 1) the work of the vocal cords; 2) the active organ of speech; 3) the manner of noise production; 4) both: the place of articulation and the manner of noise production. l)Assimilation affecting the work of the vocal cords is observed when one of the two adjacent consonants; becomes voiced under the influence of the neighbouring voiced consonant, or voiceless under the influence of the neighbouring voiceless consonant. In the process of speech the sonorants /m, n, 1, r; j, w/ are partly devoiced before a vowel, preceded by the voiceless consonant phonemes /s, p, t, k/, e. g. plate, slowly, twice, ay. This assimilation is not observed in the most careful styles of speech. 2) The manner of noise production is affected by assimilation in cases of a) lateral plosion and b) loss of plosion or incomplete plosion. The lateral plosion takes place, when a plosive is followed by /1/. In this case the closure for the plosive is not released till the off-glide for the second [l]. Incomplete plosion takes place in the clusters a) of two similar plosives like /pp,pb, tt, td, kk, kg/, or b) of two plosives with different points of articulation like:/kt/,/dg/, /db/, /tb/. So there is only one explosion for the two plosives. 3) Assimilation affects the place of articulation and the manner of noise production when the plosive, alveolar /tl is followed by the post-alveolar /r/. For example, in the word trip alveolar 1t1 becomes post-alveolar and has a fricative release.

5. The phoneme theory and its main trends

The founder of the Phoneme Theory was the Russian scientist Boudoin-de-Courtenay who was the head of the Kazan Linguistic School. He defined the phoneme as a physical image of a sound. He also regarded phonemes as fictitious units and considered them to be only perceptions. This approach is called mentalistic/ physical. Ferdinand de Saussure viewed phonemes as the sum of acoustic impressions and articulatory movements. He also viewed phonemes as disembodied units of the language formed by the differences separating the acoustic image of one sound from the rest of the units. Language in his opinion contains nothing but differences. This approach is called abstractional/ abstract. Trubetskoy (the head of the Prague Linguistic School) defined the phoneme as a unity of phonologically relevant features. Relevant feature is the feature without which we cant distinguish one phoneme from another. This approach is called functional. Phonemes can be neutralized. In this case we receive an archi-phoneme. That is a unity of relevant features common to both phonemes (e.g. wetting wedding in AmE). In case of archiphoneme we cannot distinguish one phoneme from another. Thus the distinctive function of the phoneme is lost.] Another kind of approach to the nature of the phoneme was expressed by a British scholar, the head of the London School of Phonology, Daniel Jones. He defined the phoneme as a family of sounds. The American Linguistic School (Blumfield, Sapir, etc) defined the phoneme as a minimum unit of distinctive sound features and as abstractional unit. The materialistic approach was expressed by Leo Tsherba. Academician Tsherba defined the phoneme as a real independent distinctive unit which manifests itself in the form of its allophones. This approach comprises the abstract, the functional.

6. Intonation and its linguistic function

Intonation is a complex unity of non-segmental, or prosodic features of speech: 1. melody, pitch of the voice; 2. sentence stress; 3. temporal characteristics; 4. rhythm; 5. tamber (voice quality). Intonation organizes a sentence, determines communicative types of sentences and clauses, divides sentences into intonation groups, gives prominence to words and phrases, expresses contrasts and attitudes. Functions of intonation. Emotional function's most obvious role is to express attitudinal meaning -sarcasm, surprise, shock, anger, interest, and thousands of other semantic nuances. Grammatical f-n helps to identify grammatical structure in speech, performing a role similar to punctuation. Informational f-n helps draw attention to what meaning is given and what is new in an utterance. The word carrying the most prominent tone in a contour signals the part of an utterance that the speaker is treating as new information. Textual f-n helps larger units of meaning than the sentence to contrast and cohere. In radio news-reading, paragraphs of information can be shaped through the use of pitch. In sports commentary, changes in prosody reflect the progress of the action. Psychological f-n helps us to organize speech into units that are easier to perceive and memorize. Most people would find a sequence of numbers, for example, difficult to recall. The task is made easier by using intonation to chunk the sequence into two units. Indexical f-n, along with other prosodic features, is an important marker of personal or social identity. Lawyers, preachers, newscasters, sports commentators, army sergeants, and several other occupations are readily identified through their distinctive prosody.

to distinguish communicative types of sentences (the communicatively distinctive function) the actual meaning of a sentence (the semanticallydistinctive function) the speakers attitude to the contents of the sentence, to the listener and to the topic of conversation (the attitudinally-distinctive function) the style of speech (the stylistically distinctive function) the syntactically distinctive function (one and the same syntactic unit may be divided into a different number of intonation groups. This division may be important for the meaning). the function of differentiating between the theme and the rheme of an utterance. The rheme is the communicative center of an utterance. The theme is the rest of an utterance. Each component of intonation has its distinctive function.

Stylistics and grammar: Grammar describes regularities of building words, word-combinations, sentences and texts. Stylistics restricts itself to those gram-mar regularities, which make language units expressive. This connection gave birth to such interdisciplinary sciences as stylistic semasiology (the science of stylistic devises or tropes), stylistic lexicology (the science of expressive layers of vocabulary, such as vulgarisms, jargon-isms, archaisms, neologisms etc.), stylistic phonetics (the science of ex-pressive sound organization patterns), grammatical stylistics (the science of expressive morphological and syntactic language units). 8. Phonetic expressive means. Phonetic expressive means do not exist separately in speech. The sound of most words taken separately will have little or no aesthetic value. It is in combination with other words that a word may acquire a desired phonetic effect. The way a separate word sounds may produce a certain euphonic effect, but this is a matter of individual perception and feeling and therefore subjective. Intonation is one of the most effective means of emotionally influencing the reader. It colours the whole statement and is an important means of creating emphasis of words and phrases. The influence of intonation is so far-reaching that it may bring about a change of the main logical meaning of the word. Euphony may be explained as a combination of pleasant sounds that do not jar the ear. But in its wide meaning euphony is understood as a combination of sounds the expressive effect of which corresponds to the general mood or emotional tone of the extract. Sound Imitation, or Onomatopoeia refers to the use of words or combinations of words that imitate some natural sounds. (in nature (wind, sea, thunder, etc.) by things (machines or tools, etc.) by people (singing, laughter) and animals. )Onomatopeia may be direct and indirect. 1) Direct onomatopoeia: in words that imitate natural sound (ding-dong, buzz, hiss, roar, ping-pong,

The functions of intonation: constitutive (it presupposes the integrative function on the one hand when intonation arranges intonation groups into bigger syntactic units: sentences, syntactic wholes and texts) delimitative (it manifests itself when intonation divides texts, syntactic wholes and sentences units that is intonation groups). distinctive It is realized when intonation serves:

7. Stylistics as a branch of general linguistics. Stylistics is a branch of linguistics which deals with expressive resources and functional styles of a language. Types of stylistics. Linguo-stylistics is a science of functional styles and expressive potential of a language. Communicative (decoding) stylistics describes expressive peculiarities of certain messages (texts). Coding (literary) stylistics deals with individual styles of authors. Contrastive stylistics investigates stylistic systems of two or more languages in comparison. Connection of stylistics with other branches of linguistics. Stylistics and phonetics: Phonetics studies sounds, articulation, rhythmics and intona-tion. Stylistics concentrates on expressive sound combinations, intonational and rhythmic patterns. Stylistics and lexicology: Lexicology describes words, their origin, development, semantic and structural features. Stylistics also deals with words, but only those which are expressive in language or in speech.

mew, cock-a-doodle-doo)2) Indirect: a combination of sounds, the aim of which is to make the sound of the utterance an echo of its sense (And the silken sat uncertain, rusting of each purple curtain). Alliteration is a deliberate use of similar sounds in close succession achieving a definite stylistic effect. It adds emotional colouring to the utterance suggesting the attitude of the writer to what he is describing. It is a peculiar musical accompaniment of the main idea of the utterance. Rhythm Rhythm exists in all spheres of human activity and assumes multifarious forms. It is a mighty weapon in stirring up emotions whatever its nature or origin, whether it is musical, mechanical or symmetrical as in architecture. The most general definition of rhythm may be expressed as follows: "rhythm is a flow, movement, procedure, etc. characterized by basically regular recurrence of elements or features, as beat, or accent, in alternation with opposite or different elements of features. Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combination of words Identity and similarity of sound combinations may be relative. We distinguish between full rhymes and incomplete rhymes. The full rhyme presupposes identity of the vowel sound and the following consonant sounds in a stressed syllable, including the initial consonant of the second syllable. Incomplete rhymes present a greater variety They can be divided into two main groups: vowel rhymes and consonant rhymes. In vowel-rhymes the vowels of the syllables in corresponding words are identical, but the consonants may be different as in flesh - fresh -press.

9. Metonymy a trope through proximity or correspondence, for example referring to actions of the U.S. President as "actions of the White House". Metaphor an explanation of an object or idea through juxtaposition of disparate things with a similar characteristic, such as describing a courageous person as having a "heart of a lion". Allegory A sustained metaphor continued through whole sentences or even through a whole discourse. For example: "The ship of state has sailed through rougher storms than the tempest of these lobbyists." Synecdoche related to metonymy and metaphor, creates a play on words by referring to something with a related concept: for example, referring to the whole with the name of a part, such as "hired hands" for workers; a part with the name of the whole, such as "the law" for police officers; the general with the specific, such as "bread" for food; the specific with the general, such as "cat" for a lion; or an object with the material it is made from, such as "bricks and mortar" for a building. Irony creating a trope through implying the opposite of the standard meaning, such as describing a bad situation as "good times". Antanaclasis is the stylistic trope of repeating a single word, but with a different meaning each time. Antanaclasis is a common type of pun, and like other kinds of pun, it is often found in slogans.

10. Elision is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphonic effect.