lecture 11 phoneitcs.ppt

Chapter Eleven ic Rhetoric
All languages have sound. Orators in the ancient times knew how to use the sounds of their language for maximum rhetorical effect, and classical rhetoric had a number of sound devices based on the “echoing: or the rhyming of sounds. Speech has rhythm and since prose is really speech in written form, it has rhythm too. Students of EFL, who generally are not taught much about the rhythm of English, spoken or written, generally neglect this point. As a result many of them cannot even read fluently, with rhythm, much less write with rhythm.

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城市学院外语系聂龙
A knowledge of some English ic devices, and of English prose rhythm is therefore helpful not only to students of EFL as writers, but also as readers of English prose, for only when they can read fluently with the proper rhythm prose of what ever kind can they write fluently and effectively, with an intuitive sense of rhythm of the written word.

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ic devices
To what extent can a writer exploit the sounds of English for rhetorical effect? How far can he or she make” the sound echo the sense”? Lets’ first review some basic features of English sounds.

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Vowels and consonants
The vowels have certain qualities:
They are all voiced.
They may be long or short,
They may be spread or rounds.[ou][u] [e]
They may be closed or open.[I][a:]
They may be lax or tense [I][u]
They glide: [ai][ou]
The consonants have a different set of features, caused by some form of obstruction or friction in the production of the sounds.

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or voiceless.
2. Nasal or non-nasal
sounds

[tr ][dr]
or glides [l][r] [j][w]

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Sensory:
For example, the short, lax, spread vowel [I] is supposed to convey bright, light fleet, happy impressions.

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(1)    Spring, sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a