PROSODIC EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONAL-AND-PRAGMATIC POTENTIAL OF W. SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Abstract

This paper is the study of the specificity of emotional-and-pragmatic potential of W. Shakespeare’s sonnets oral actualization, performed on the grounds of functional energetic approach to the research of oral speech. It is shown that according to its linguistic status, the text of the sonnet is a poetic work, characterized by a definite structure and lapidary of its style, distinguished by a specific rhyme, typical sonnet-like rhythm, which all contribute to the actualization of the sonnet emotional-and-pragmatic potential embedded in its structural and semantic basis. The study substantiates a generalized scheme of an algorithmic sequence of the actualization of sonnet structural elements. It comprises the following elements: “thesis” (sonnet theme) → “antithesis” (theme development) → “synthesis” (introduction of the opposite theme) → “denouement” (the result of the contradiction). The paper shows that it is expedient to use this structural scheme for the study of the sonnet prosodic patterns and dynamics of the deployment of its emotional-and-pragmatic potential. The results of the carried out auditory analysis proves that sonnets are characterized by a gradual dynamic of the growth of its emotional-and-pragmatic potential toward the midlevel within the first two quatrains, then to it medium-high level – in the third quatrain, reaching a high level within its final structural element and attenuating at the end of the denouement. The auditory analysis of the sonnets also revealed that, regardless of their semantic loading, their invariant intonation pattern contains the following prosodic features: parallelism of the intonation pattern, regular rhythmic pattern, emphatic prominence of the key words by means of melodic, dynamic and temporal contrasts, variation of the pitch contour (the use of the descending stepping scale, broken descending stepping scale, descending sliding scale), widened and wide pitch range, the presence of emphatic perceptive pauses.