Systemic Phonology - Recent Studies in English - Wendy L. Bowcher
Chapter 6: The spoken interpretation of written text
Systemic Phonology - Recent Studies in English - Wendy L. Bowcher
Michael Cummings [+]
York University, Toronto.
Michael Cummings is Professor emeritus and Senior Scholar in the English Department of York University, Toronto. His research interests include Systemic Functional linguistic approaches to discourse and lexico-grammar in Old English and modern English.
Description
This chapter takes its departure from written English, specifically, texts of written English prose designed to be read as written English which are nevertheless being recited aloud. It poses the problem, how does a reciter of such a written English prose text decide, just on the basis of the text, how to distribute and realize the focus or foci of information in each clause? Instead of moving from phonology as phenomenon to the lexicogrammar of the clause, we are trying to move in the opposite direction, from the lexicogrammar of the written clause to a hypothetical realization of intonation that is appropriate to its text.