XXI CENTURY RENAISSANCE IN THE PARADIGM OF SCIENCE,
EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY INNOVATIONS
238
INTONATION AS A SEPARATE AREA IN ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN
LINGUISTICS
Seksenbaeva D.
Nukus, Uzbekistan
1
st
year Student, Berdakh KSU
Kewlimjaeva G.K.
Scientific adviser: teacher of Berdakh KSU
Annotation:
The article deals with problem of intonation in the English and Russian
languages. There the importance of stress and speech melodics of two languages is
considered.
Key words:
intonation, rate, stress, tone, rhythm, timbre, intonology, phrasal stress,
logical stress, intensity of speech.
The problem of intonation, being an organic part of linguistics, has been of
constant interest throughout its centuries-old development. I.P. Susov is right when he
believes that “the scientific study of language will not be complete if the problems of
historical changes in the lexicon, in the grammatical structure, in the organization of the
sound system of the language remain aside” [1]. The need and importance of mastering
intonation for a foreign language learner is obvious. Intonation always begins in oral
speech, expressing both its semantic and expressive sides.
It should be noted that the problem of intonation was originally the object of study
by theorists of oratory back in ancient times. Laying the foundations of oratory, orators of
Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome wrote about intonation. In their works, which have
survived to this day, a speech melody is described, its difference from a musical one is
determined, the rhythm, tempo, pauses, and the division of the importance of the flow of
speech into semantic parts are characterized.
In the field of linguistics, one of the first to study the problem of intonation was
the English scientist George Hart, who in 1551 published the first book on the melody of
English speech, distinguishing 6 types of word stress. In his work, the linguist paid
special attention to phrasal stress, a description of the rules of punctuation, differentiated
the intonations of interrogative and exclamatory sentences, and for the first time provides
information about phrasal units. It was George Hart who first wrote about the melody of
speech, which is now called the “descending tone.” His work contributed to further
discussions and the establishment of intonology as a separate field of linguistics [2, 182-
185].
In 1755, M.V. Lomonosov published his work “Russian Grammar”, in which he
attached great importance to the problem of intonation. In the chapter “On the Voice,”
first of all, he writes about the great gift that nature has endowed man with – hearing and
voice. Lomonosov is surprised by how many different ideas are perceived by sight, “but
one should hardly be less amazed at the unfortunate multitude of them, acceptable
through hearing.” This is how the author formulates about the endless possibilities of
intonation, its richness and diversity.
XXI CENTURY RENAISSANCE IN THE PARADIGM OF SCIENCE,
EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY INNOVATIONS
239
Interest in the problem of intonation increased in the second half of the twentieth
century. By this time, the attention of scientists was focused on the structure of intonation
and its components. A discussion of the problems of intonation is contained in works on
general linguistics and general phonetics, textbooks and teaching aids on phonetics and a
number of actively studied intonation languages.
In our opinion, the collective monograph “Intonation” seems valuable, which
clearly reflects the problems of intonation studies of the Russian language in the 70s of
the twentieth century. A number of chapters of this book, in particular those written by
I.G. Torsueva, E.A. Bryzgunova, T.M. Nikolaeva, A.I. Bagmut, A.M. Antipova, are
devoted to general issues of the theory of intonation, where the authors propose various
ways solutions to its most important problems.
The problem of the theory of intonation received the most complete coverage in
the monograph “The Phonological Method in Intonation.” Thus, E.A. Bryzgunova
defines the essence of the concept of “intonation”, regarding it as a complex complex of
expressive means of speech, including melody, tempo, pauses, stress and timbre [4, 279].
Unlike E.A. Bryzgunova, L.G. Zubkov, in a narrower sense, intonation is
understood as the rhythmic and melodic side of the utterance, which is a rise and fall of
the voice that occurs on stressed and unstressed syllables [5, 528].
Most linguists believe that intonation is a set of prosodic elements of speech, such
as: tone - the melody of speech, carried out by raising and lowering the voice in a phrase;
rhythm of speech - alternation of stressed and unstressed, long and short syllables; speech
intensity - the strength and weakness of pronunciation associated with the strengthening
and weakening of exhalation; tempo of speech - the speed or slowness of speech over
time and pauses between speech segments; phrasal and logical stress - stress that serves
as a means of highlighting speech segments or individual words in a phrase.
Of no small importance is the method proposed by E.A. Bryzgunova for
describing intonation in the Russian language using the concept of “intonation structure”
(IC), associated with distinguishing the meaning of statements with the same syntactic
structure and lexical composition. The formal features of IC are, most often, the location
of the intonation center and melodic characteristics; however, when describing some ICs,
such features as intensity, timbre, and duration are used.
The intonation of the English language is very popular in terms of research. The
problem of intonation in the English language has become the subject of study by T.G.
Medvedev, G.M. Vishnevsky, A.A. Metlyuk, L.R. Zinder, E.A. Bryzgunov, L.V. Minaev
and many others who study the types intonations, differences between dialect and
regional intonations. English intonation differs significantly from Russian, both in
melody and phrasal stress: a) The range of the English speech voice is much wider than
the Russian one, i.e. the beginning of the phrase is higher and the end is higher than in
Russian; b) in the English language there is a movement of vocal tone within one vowel
sound, which occurs over a period of time that is significant for perception; c) for English
intonation, the starting point for variability of vocal tone is the lowest level of the
speaking voice, in Russian it is the average level. Unstressed syllables preceding the first
stressed syllable and following the last stressed syllable are pronounced at the lowest
level of the voice, which is almost never used in the Russian range, and therefore require
special training; d) the English fall reaches the lowest level of the range; e) an English
XXI CENTURY RENAISSANCE IN THE PARADIGM OF SCIENCE,
EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY INNOVATIONS
240
utterance is characterized by the presence of a centralized stress, i.e. one (nuclear word)
is significantly more emphasized than the other stressed words. It produces a significant
(the widest in range and duration of the voice tone) drop. In a Russian statement, the
stress is decentralized, i.e. all stressed words receive more or less the same degree of
emphasis:
Helen’seyeswerenotverygood. Lena had poor eyesight.
f) the emphasis of
stressed (non-nuclear) syllables in an English phrase is carried out by moving the vocal
tone from top to bottom, in Russian – from bottom to top.
In English linguistics, there are several types of stressed tones: falling - descending
tone (NT) - expresses the incompleteness of a statement or part of it, certainty,
confidence, categoricalness, independence:
We are going to Samarkand.
Rising - rising
tone (VT) - expresses the incompleteness of the statement or part of it, uncertainty,
dependence, polite address. In English, the rise in tone occurs at the end of a syllable, in
Russian - at the beginning.
Do you think so?
Falling-rising - descending-rising tone
(DVT) - expresses incompleteness with the additional meaning of a polite offer, reluctant
refusal, reluctant consent, etc.:
Could you help me to solve this problem, please?
In
Russian, the descending-rising tone is used in comparative questions:
I will tea. And you?
Thus, intonation is a characteristic phonetic feature of any language. We can say that
from a phonetic point of view, the languages being studied, along with the same
characteristics, have a number of specific features. When considering the rhythmic and
intonation design of Russian and English speech, it turned out that in both languages
intonation plays an important role: it is a means of expressing the semantic meanings of a
statement, but in English it is more emotional.
REFERENCES:
1. Susov I.P. Introduction to theoretical linguistics. // Module 3 Fundamentals of general
phonetics and phonology. 2012.
2. Gasanova T.N. A brief history of the development and formation of intonology //
Young scientist - 2012. - No. 9.
3. Lomonosov M.V. A short guide to rhetoric for the benefit of lovers of eloquence //
Lomonosov M.V. Collection Op. –M.; –L., 1952 T.7
4. Bryzgunova E.A. Sounds and intonations of Russian speech. – M.; “Russian
language”, 1977.
5. Zubkova G.A. Communicative grammar of the Russian language: textbook // G.A.
Zolotova, N.K. Onipenko, M.Yu. Sidorov. –M.; 1998.
6. Садуллаева А., Сейтянов Ж. Differences of application of the concept»
muhabbat/love» in poetry genre //Ренессанс в парадигме новаций образования и
технологий в XXI веке. – 2022. – №. 1. – С. 89-91.
7. Nizamaddinovna S.A. Verbalization of the concept “love/muhabbat” in the proverbs of
English and Karakalpak languages //METHODS. – 2022. – Т. 3. – С. 30.
8. Садуллаева А.Н. СТИЛИСТИЧЕСКИЙ АНАЛИЗ КОНЦЕПТА «МУҲАББАТ»
(ЛЮБОВЬ) В ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИИ «ТЕРБЕНБЕС» // European journal of literature and
linguistics. 2023. №2. URL: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/stilisticheskiy-analiz-
kontsepta-mu-abbat-lyubov-v-proizvedenii-terbenbes (дата обращения: 12.11.2023).
