Borodina D. Phonostylistic distinctive characteristics of the English speech of Danish-English bilingual speakers (based on students’ sociolect)

The thesis is devoted to the investigation of pronunciation distinctions typical of the English speech of Danish-English bilingual students. The study is based on the evaluation of language contacts leading to the appearance of new national varieties of English. The analysis of modern linguistic state of the art characterized by the spread of national-English bilingualism and code switching in students' sociolects precedes the experimental study. The significance of phonetic interference as a sociolinguistic factor that promotes the so-called “global foreign accent” in the speech of certain social groups has been grounded. The notion of bilingualism and its types have been depicted, the factors of formation and development of this phenomenon in the conditions of specific language community have been determined. On the basis of the comparison of the phonemic systems of Danish and English, new experimental data have been collected using the spectrographic and statistic analyses. The distinctive featuresof phonemes that can be realized in the English speech of Danish-English bilinguals and form their phonetic system have been pointed out. Articulatory and acoustic distinctors characterizing the specific English phonetic system of the students' sociolect and serving for identifying this social group have been singled out.