Peculiarities of the prosodic portrait of a preacher in English-language film discourse

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru/

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru/

Peculiarities of the prosodic portrait of a preacher in English-language film discourse

Shevchenko S.S.

Postgraduate Student at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Phonetics of the English Language Odesa National Maritime University Odesa,

The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of the prosodic organization of the monologue speech of preachers - characters in English- language feature films. Taking into account the various speech functions of the parish priest, which include preaching from the pulpit, speeches outside differential prosodic parameters, the church and private spiritual conversations with parishioners, these three prosodic expressiveness, speech types of speech activity were involved in the study. The article highlights the activity.special features of the Anglican faith, which distinguish it from other Christian denominations and lead to a special atmosphere of cooperation between the parishioners and the priest not only during the service and delivery of the sermon, but also during communication on spiritual topics outside the church. The research material, consisting of oral English-language sermons, speeches, and conversations extracted from five contemporary feature films, was subjected to perceptual, auditory, and electroacoustic analysis. The auditory analysis confirmed the prosodic differences between the three speech realizations at the level of perception, revealed the leading role of tempo and melodic component of intonation in the differentiation of speech types and in strengthening its influential effect. Instrumental analysis of the characteristics of preachers' speech, firstly, made it possible to establish the presence of integral and differential prosodic parameters inherent in three types of speech behaviour of speakers during sermons, speeches outside the church and conversations with parishioners, and secondly, made it possible to create a prosodic portrait of the preacher in his three speech embodiments. A comparison of prosodic portraits of the preacher in various communicative situations related to his functions as a spiritual mentor and pastor showed that it is in the preaching activity of the pastor that greater prosodic expressiveness of all intonation parameters is observed. The smallest prosodic indicators are typical for the priest's private conversation with the parishioners, where mimicry and kinetic means of expressiveness and emotionality come to the fore. This fact confirms the proposed hypothesis that the sermon is the main speech activity of the priest, and therefore it is in the sermon that the priest uses all his oratorical abilities and skills to the maximum.

Key words: oral English sermons, speeches and conversations, prosodic organization, integral and

ОСОБЛИВОСТІ ПРОСОДИЧНОГО ПОРТРЕТУ ПРОПОВІДНИКА У АНГЛОМОВНОМУ КІНОДИСКУРСІ

Шевченко С.С.

аспірант кафедри теоретичної та прикладної фонетики англійської мови

Одеський національний морський університет, Одеса,

Статтю присвячено дослідженню особливостей просодичної організації висловлювань монологічного характеру проповідників - персонажів англомовних художніх фільмів. Враховуючи різноманітні мовленнєві функції приходського священника, які передбачають ведення проповіді з амвону, промови поза межами храму та приватні духовні бесіди з парафіянами, до дослідження були залучені ці три види мовленнєвої діяльності. У статті розглянуто особливі риси англіканського віровчення, що відрізняють його від інших християнських деномінацій та призводять до особливої атмосфери співпраці парафіян зі священиком не тільки під час богослужіння та виголошення проповіді, але й під час спілкування на духовні теми поза межами храму. Матеріал дослідження, що складав усні англомовні проповіді, промови та бесіди, вилучені з п'ятьох сучасних кінофільмів, був підданий перцептивному, аудиторському та електроакустичному аналізу. Аудиторський аналіз підтвердив просодичні відмінності між трьома мовленнєвими реалізаціями на рівні сприйняття, виявив провідну роль темпу та мелодійного компоненту інтонації у диференціації видів мовлення й у посиленні його впливового ефекту. Інструментальний аналіз характеристик промови проповідників, по-перше, дозволив констатувати наявність інтегральних і диференційних просодичних параметрів, притаманних трьом типам мовленнєвої поведінки мовців під час проповіді, промов поза церквою та розмов з парафіянами, а по-друге, уможливив створення просодичного портрету проповідника у його трьох мовленнєвих утіленнях. Порівняння просодичних портретів проповідника в різних комунікативних ситуаціях, пов'язаних із його функціями духовного наставника та пастиря, показав, що саме в проповідницькій діяльності пастора спостерігається більша просодична виразність усіх інтонаційних параметрів. Найменшими просодичними показниками характеризується приватна розмова священника з парафіянами, де на перший план виступають мімічні та кінетичні засоби виразності та емоційності. Цей факт підтверджує висунуту гіпотезу про те, що проповідь є основною мовленнєвою діяльністю священника, тому саме в проповіді священник максимально використовує всі свої ораторські здібності та вміння.

Ключові слова: усні англомовні проповіді, промови та бесіди, просодична організація, інтегральні й диференційні просодичні параметри, просодична виразність, мовленнєва діяльність.

Different approaches to understanding religion in general and religious phenomena in particular emphasize not only the transcendent, sacred and mystical nature of religion, but also the real social basis. Well- known researchers of religion understand religion as a life in communion with God (S. Frank), as an individual's encounter with God (R. Bart), as a means of uniting and connecting people in society (O. Conte),

as a sacralization of values and those social ties that determine the integrity of social groups (E. Durkheim), etc [8, р. 50].

The sphere of religion has not escaped the general trend in the humanities in general and in linguistics in particular, which involves turning to the concept of “discourse” used in the stud y of religious phenomena. That is why many researchers consider the discursive

nature of religion and use the concept of discourse when studying various genres and manifestations of religion in our lives.

The scientific study of religious discourse is not only of particular interest, but also of certain difficulties. Being formally institutional communication, religious discourse is essentially a discourse of faith, “which dominates rational knowledge and at the same time allows knowledge-revela- tion”[3, р. 6]. The specifics of religious discourse, according to N. Kravchenko, “only with a certain degree of conventionality allows us to classify it (religious discourse) as a purely institutional communication” [2, р. 19].

Before proceeding to highlight the features of the preaching discourse, let us dwell on the description of the system-forming features of institutionality. According to the definition of T.A. van Dyck, “institutional discourse is a stable system of status-role relations that has developed in the communicative space of the life of a certain social institution, within which the power functions of symbolic coercion are carried out in the form of a normative prescription and legitimization of certain ways of worldview, attitude, vectors of value orientations and patterns of behaviour” [7].

Based on the fact that institutional discourse is communication within a given framework of status-role relations based on certain value-pragmatic attitudes, discourse studies distinguish four groups of features by which one or another type of institutional discourse can be modelled: constitutive features of discourse, signs of institutionality, typological signs and neutral signs.

According to N. Kravchenko, the literal application of the institutional model to religious discourse in general, to the whole variety of religious genres, without taking into account the specifics of the types of religious discourse (in our case, preaching) will lead to formalism and reductionism in its study. In her works devoted to the phenomena of preaching, the researcher substantiates this point of view, dwelling in detail on the analysis of the backbone features of preaching discourse [2].

Until a certain time, the linguistic analysis of religious texts was practically not the focus of scientific research of Ukrainian linguists. The issues of language and religion were mainly considered from historical, cultural, sociological and religious standpoints, while abroad the sermon was actively studied both from the standpoint of compositional construction and lexical-syntactic content, as well as from the point of view of its rhetorical orientation and the foundations of effective communication. Foreign studies of preaching from the standpoint of homiletics, as a section of rhetoric, are represented by the works of F. Craddock, J. Minz, D. Braga, and H. Robinson. Their works are teaching aids for all stages of sermon preparation.

In the works of D. Buttrick and J. Killinger [5; 8], the sermon is understood as a special genre, which is characterized by a specific structure and special means of linguistic expressiveness. In the books of G. Adams and J. McClure, the sermon is explored as an integral part of worship, its place and tasks in religious communication [4; 9]. D. Crystal in the work “Language and Religion” highlighted the question of the place of religion in the life of the English and analysed the socio-cultural factors affecting the manner of the preacher's speech [6].

The aim of this article is to create a prosodic portrait of the preacher in all the variety of its manifestations. In accordance with the aim of the study, the following tasks are formulated: to consider the features of preaching discourse in Anglican church practice; to describe briefly the specifics of the Anglican Church and the peculiarities of the preacher's interaction with parishioners; to characterize the prosodic means of realization of the preacher's speech at the perceptual level; to compare prosodic characteristics of preachers' speech in different communicative situations - during church sermons, speeches outside the church, private conversations with parishioners on the basis of integral and differential prosodic features of the studied utterances.

The object of the research is the spiritual-educational (preaching, instructive) discourse in the context of its accompanying extralingual factors reflected in English-language feature films.

The subject of the study is the prosodic portrait of the preacher, i.e the prosodic organization of the preacher's speech, reflected in English-language feature films, which consists of the priest's speech behaviour in various communicative situations.

The material of the research is the texts of oral English sermons, speeches and private conversations of priests, removed from 5 modern English feature films, in which the main or secondary character is a clergyman. The total amount of speech material is 25 A4 pages, 14 Times New Roman fonts of written transcription of oral text (96 minutes of audio speech). The research material was subjected to auditive, auditory and electro-acoustic analysis in accordance with the traditional procedure of complex phonetic research. This made it possible to obtain factual data further used for the creation of a prosodic portrait of the preacher in three speech realizations - sermons, speeches, conversations.

Pragmalinguistic study of the preaching discourse will be incomplete without studying the speech behaviour of the main participant of this discourse - the preacher, the priest, who is not only an addressee of the sermon, but also a mediator between God and the congregation, an exponent of religious ideas, a teacher and mentor of his parishioners. That is why it seems expedient to consider pastoral activity in all its manifestations: oratorical activity, enlightening activity, educational activity. First of all, such activity is characteristic of a parish priest, whose duties include not only conducting services and reading sermons, but also caring for the mental and spiritual condition of his parishioners.

Taking into account the fact that the object of this study is preaching discourse in its broadest sense (sermon, teaching, moralizing conversation) in the Anglican religious tradition, let us briefly dwell on the distinctive features of Anglicanism in comparison with other Christian denominations. Anglicanism has occupied a special place among other Christian denominations since its inception. This special place is due to the choice of the middle way (“via media”) between Catholics and Protestants. The Anglican Church is not diplomatically involved in the confrontation between these two Christian denominations.

The audience of the Anglican liturgical sermon, if it is a parish, is usually familiar to the preacher. He knows not only its composition and the peculiarities of his listeners, but also what they live for, what worries them at present. All this is reflected in the choice of the theme of the sermon, the selection of illustrations, the style of presentation. Thus, the listeners are to some extent co-authors of the sermon. Usually after Divine Service, parishioners can approach the preacher and ask questions that interest them - there is a kind of delayed dialogue between the priest and the audience, which acts as feedback and can help the preacher understand what the audience wants to hear or which aspects should be paid more attention to.

This approach to interaction with the audience is fully consistent with modern communication theories, where the measure of the effectiveness of public speaking is not influence, but interaction.

Thus, the Anglican sermon, despite its common features with other Christian denominations, has pragmatic and rhetorical features, due to both the pronounced national specificity of the British and the special way in which the Anglican doctrine was developed.

Based on the foregoing, this paper explores the prosodic features of the parish priest's speech delivered in various communicative situations - liturgical sermon, speech outside the church and soul-saving conversations with parishioners.

Considering that any public speech is subject to a single compositional scheme, in which there are three obligatory rhetorical compositional parts, all speech realizations of the preacher were divided by us into three compositional parts - introductory, main and final, containing the conclusion.

Perceptual analysis is one of the stages of a comprehensive study. The purpose of perceptual analysis in this work was to identify perceived prosodic information, which would be sufficient for an adequate analysis of the intonation features of oral English sermons, speeches and conversations at the perceptual level.

The auditory analysis was the next stage after the perceptual analysis, which consisted of a preliminary linguistic analysis carried out by the researcher. The auditory analysis was attended by 10 auditors - graduate students and teachers of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Phonetics of the English Language. Auditory analysis consisted of 2 stages.

At the first stage, the auditors were asked to determine:

- to which type of speech (church sermon, extrachurch speech, conversation with parishioners) the heard statements refer;

- to what compositional part of speech the fragments belong;

- the degree of participation of certain prosodic parameters (melodic contour, phrasal stress, volume, tempo, rhythm, pause) in the realization of the intention of speech and expression of emotions in different parts of the text.

At the second stage of the auditory analysis, the auditors evaluated the main characteristic intonation features of the examined texts of preachers' (movie characters') speeches: volume, pitch, tempo.

Determination by the auditors of the type of speech showed that all the auditors with a high degree of probability identified the segment they listened to as belonging to one of the three types of speech. First of all, this applies to the introductory and concluding parts of a traditional church sermon, where all the auditors recognized exactly this type of speech implementation. In our opinion, this is explained by a special prosodic pattern of this type of speech activity, namely, a particularly solemn way of pronouncing, raising and/or emphasizing all prosodic means - pitch, volume, tempo, rhythm, timbre, as well as an ordered syntactic structure of utterances, which contained in the sermon. In addition, such a high percentage of recognition of a traditional church sermon is due to the presence of a quotation from the Bible in the introductory part, which is pronounced by the preacher with a special prosodic pattern, solemnly and significantly.

The processing of auditors' answers regarding the rate of pronunciation showed that, on average, in the text, the auditors perceived mostly normal and slowed tempo of pronunciation of utterances in the three types of discourse. Only in the main part, the auditors recorded relatively high indicators of an accelerated rate (in 12% of cases). The remaining parts in all implementations of discourses are not characterized by the use of an accelerated tempo, especially the final part. The highest percentage of the use of a slow tempo was recorded in the final part of the sermon (53%) and speech (62.9%), which gives reason to consider the use of a slow tempo in the most important and influential sections of the text as a characteristic feature of the studied discourses.

The next most informative component of intonation, according to the auditors' answers, is the melodic component, which involves changing the pitch of the preacher's voice in different parts of the text. Auditors generally noted the speaker's predominant use of a medium pitch level, which is the norm for the English pronunciation. Nevertheless, the auditors' answers made it possible to single out a certain common tendency of using high and low pitch in different parts of the text. Thus, the final part of the sermon and speech is characterized by a noticeable deviation of the speakers from the normal pitch level towards both high and low pitch levels. Such a contrasting melodic organisation of the semantically important part of the church sermon and the speech outside the church gives more emotional tension to the utterances and, as a result, leads to a persuasive effect of the utterance.

The auditors' assessment of the volume level of the parts of the speeches allows us to state the presence of a certain regularity in the auditors' perception of this intonation parameter. This regularity consists in the fact that the low level of text volume is generally noted by auditors in a rather low percentage of cases (7.2%). A normal volume level is mostly characteristic of the main parts of the conversation and the speech outside the church, as evidenced by a relatively high percentage of phrases marked by the auditors as phrases pronounced with a normal volume level (63.8% and б2.2%, respectively).

According to the answers of the auditors, 77.3% of the phrases of the sermon can be considered loud, which is explained by the public nature of this kind of speech, which is delivered from the pulpit of the church. In general, based on the analysis of the loudness level of different parts of the sermon and speech at the perceptual level, we can talk about the predominance of increased loudness in all parts of the studied speech texts, especially in the introductory and concluding ones.

To verify the data obtained as a result of perceptual analysis, an instrumental analysis of the prosodic characteristics of the studied speech segments was carried out. The frequency, dynamic and temporal characteristics of the preacher's speech were analysed using a computer system with the help of an online converter and the motion signal processing software package PRAAT 5.3.8, developed in 2002 by P. Boersma and D. Weenink from the University of Amsterdam presented on the official website.

On the basis of the conducted instrumental analysis of the main prosodic parameters of the preacher's speech, separate prosodic portraits of the preacher were created for each of the three types of speech activity of the pastor - sermons in the church, speeches outside the church, private conversations with parishioners.

The implementation of a church sermon at the prosodic level is characterized by the following features of the components of intonation on acoustic level:

- contrasting fundamental frequency range;

- expansion of the fundamental frequency range by increasing the upper limit;

- high or close to high fundamental frequency maximum values;

- normal range of intensity with a tendency to expand;

- medium or high intensity maximum values;

- long pauses between syntagms;

- normal with a tendency to slow duration of the syllable;

- maximum indicator of the duration of the emphatic centre.

The implementation of a speech outside the church at the prosodic level is characterized by the following features of the organization of the main intonation components according to acoustic parameters:

- normal range of fundamental frequency;

- expansion of the range of fundamental frequency at the expense of lowering the lower limit;

- normal (with a tendency to low) maximum values of fundamental frequency;

- normal intensity range;

- normal intensity maximum values

- normal or short pauses between syntagms;

- normal duration of the syllable;

- normal duration of the emphatic centre.

The implementation of a private conversation with parishioners at the prosodic level is characterized by the following features of the organization of the main components of intonation according to acoustic parameters:

- normal range of fundamental frequency;

- expansion of the range of fundamental frequency at the expense of lowering the lower limit;

- normal (with a tendency to low) maximum values of fundamental frequency;

- medium range of intensity with a tendency to be narrow;

- normal intensity maximum values;

- short and very short pauses between syntagms;

- normal indicator of the duration of the syllable with a tendency to be low;

- normal duration of the emphatic centre.

Thus, the comparison of prosodic portraits of a preacher in various communicative situations related to his functions as a spiritual mentor and shepherd shows that it is in the preaching activity of the parish priest that greater prosodic expressiveness of all intonation parameters is observed than in speech outside the church. The smallest prosodic indicators are registered in the priest's private conversation with the parishioners, where mimic and kinetic means of expressiveness and emotionality come to the fore.

This fact confirms the hypothesis put forward before the start of the study that preaching is the main speech activity of the priest and therefore it is in preaching that the priest makes the most of all his oratorical abilities and skills.

We see the prospect of further research in the complex analysis of lexical, syntactic and prosodic means of realization of the preacher's speech depicted in the artistic film discourse.

Bibliography

prosodic monologue preacher english-language

1. Академічне релігієзнавство : підручник / за наук. ред. проф. А. Колодного. Київ : Світ знань, 2000. 862 с.

2. Кравченко Н.О. Синергійність англомовного релігійного дискурсу: теолінгвістичний підхід : монографія. Одеса : КП ОМД, 2017. 408 с.

3. Яскевич О.В. Понятие «религиозный дискурс» в контексте современной теории дискурса: к проблеме определения. Мова і культура. 2012. № 15. Т VI (160). 464 с. С. 5-9.

4. Adams J. Preaching with Purpose, Zondervan, 1986. 176 Р.

5. Buttrick D. Homiletics : Moves and Structures. NY, 1987. 512 Р.

6. Crystal D. Linguistics, language and religion. Burns & Oates, London, 1965. 191 Р.

7. Dijk T.A. van. Introduction: Discourse Analysis as a New Cross-Discipline. Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Vol. 1. Disciplines of Discourse. Academic Press, London, 1987.

8. Killinger J. Fundamentals of Preaching. Augsburg Fortress, 1996. 107 Р.

9. McClure John S. Ethical Approaches to Preaching: Choosing the Best Way to Preach About Difficult Issues. Cascade Books, 2021. 152 p.

10. Robinson H.W. Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages. USA, Baker Academic, 1980. 264 Р.

REFERENCES

1. Kolodnyi A.M. (ed.) (2000) Akademichne reli- hiieznavstvo [Academic religious studies]. Kyiv : Svit znan, pp. 862.

2. Kravchenko N. O. (2017) Synerhiinist anhlo- movnoho relihiinoho dyskursu (teolinhvistychnyi pidkhid) [Synergy of English language religious

discourse (theolinguistic approach)]. Odesa: KP OMD, pp. 408.

3. Yaskevich O. V. (2012) Ponyatie “religio- znyy diskurs” v kontekste sovremennoy teorii diskursa: k probleme opredeleniya [The concept of “religious discourse” in the context of modern discourse theory: to the problem of definition]. MOVAIKULTURA. K.: Vydavnychyi dim Dmy- tra Buraho, 2012. Vol. 15. T. VI (160). 464 p. PP. 5-9.

4. Adams J. Preaching with Purpose, Zondervan, 1986. 176 Р.

5. Buttrick D. Homiletics : Moves and Structures. NY, 1987. 512 Р

6. Crystal D. Linguistics, language and religion. Burns & Oates, London, 1965. 191 Р.

7. Dijk T.A.van. Introduction: Discourse Analysis as a New Cross-Discipline // Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Vol. 1. Disciplines of Discourse. Academic Press, London, 1987.

8. Killinger J. Fundamentals of Preaching. Augsburg Fortress, 1996. 107 Р.

9. McClure John S. Ethical Approaches to Preaching:Choosing the Best Way to Preach About Difficult Issues. Cascade Books, 2021. 152 p.

10. Robinson H.W. Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages. USA, Baker Academic, 1980. 264 Р.

RESEARCH MATERIAL

1. Chocolat (2000). URL: http://lordfilms-s.com/38152-film-shokolad-2000.html.

2. The Sermon (2018). URL: https://www.imdb.com/ title/tt7906240/#:~:text=The%20Sermon,12m

3. The Revival (2017). The Movie Database (TMDB). URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/ movie/479381-the-revival.

4. The Christmas Candle (2013). URL: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2739338/?ref_=tt_ rvi_tt_t_3#:~:text=Sign%20In-,The%20Christ- mas%20Candle.

Размещено на Allbest.ru