XXVI Открытая конференция студентов-филологов в СПбГУ

English Verbal Rhythmology from a Terminological Standpoint (corpus-based study)

Михаил Эдуардович Зверев
Докладчик
студент 4 курса
Ивановский государственный университет

Ключевые слова, аннотация

The primary goal of this research is to work out an approach for describing speech rhythm metalanguage (terminology system) and to compile an online bilingual (English-Russian) glossary of rhythmic terms for English language learners. Dictionaries on phonetics and phonology, as well as the academic papers from the field, have been used as a substantial resource for creating the glossary. The main results of this pilot research underline the complex nature of the phenomenon itself and the intricacies that are associated with its metalanguage.

Тезисы

Keywords: speech rhythm; verbal rhythmology; phonetic terminology; glossary; corpus-based approach
 
It is common knowledge that spoken language in its entirety is governed by rhythm, and it can be found at almost any level of language and speech [Peña et al., 2016]. Speech rhythm as a quasi-periodical explication of qualitatively similar and isochronous phenomena has been investigated in phonetic sciences for a long time. However, a vast number of crucial theoretical issues in verbal rhythmology (speech rhythm studies) have yet to be scrutinised, such as a) the place of speech rhythm in language system; b) speech rhythm interactions with suprasegmentals and with the other strata of language; c) the problem of defining universal and specific properties that are intrinsic to speech rhythm of a particular language; d) typological descriptions of speech rhythm represented in various human languages; e) working out methods of teaching speech rhythm at university; f) the problem of describing and systematising rhythmic terminology (metalanguage), etc.
The present paper is concerned with exploring verbal rhythmology from a terminological perspective. The convergence that is inherent in many research tasks and techniques of theoretical and applied phonetics is said to affect the terminology system of these intertwined scientific fields. While phonetic knowledge per se exists in a state of constant development, the explication and systematisation of metalanguage in various kinds of dictionaries, thesauri, glossaries, etc. are of paramount significance.  
The key objective of the research is to describe the initial stage of compiling an online bilingual (English-Russian) glossary of rhythmic terminology system based on the author’s corpus of academic publications on the subject under study. The research tasks are regarded as follows: a) analysing dictionaries on phonetics and phonology in order to select the core terms of verbal rhythmology; b) collecting research papers in the field of verbal rhythmology which were published in 2000-2023. It is pertinent to note that the number of works that have been included in the research corpus consists of 70 articles; c) making up a monolingual (English) corpus by means of «Sketch Engine» (SkE) software on the basis of the selected papers; d) creating glossary entries by using «Myefe.ru». All the dictionary entries comprise the following parts: an English term/s, a Russian equivalent/s, a definition/s and used resources.
The main results of examining verbal rhythmology from a theoretical (terminological) viewpoint underscore the complex character of speech rhythm terminological system, as well as the fact that inquiring into the terminology system of the field is vitally important for a better understanding of speech rhythm from theoretical and applied standpoints. A further perspective in studying rhythmic metalanguage lies in incorporating new research results and terminological items of the discipline into the online English-Russian glossary.
  
Literature:
Peña M. et al. Rhythm on Your Lips // Frontiers in Psychology., 2016. URL: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01708/full (accessed: 27.02.2023).