Rudenko O. Prosodic Means of Subjective Modality in American and Ukrainian Television Interview (An Experimental Phonetic Study)

This thesis focuses on the experimental phonetic study of prosodic means expressing subjective modality in American and Ukrainian television interview. The research determines typologically isomorphic and allomorphic features that characterize the prosodic profile of subjective modal meanings pertaining to functional semantic fields of support and insistence in television interviews in the contrasted languages. It has been established that modality of support and insistence in American and Ukrainian interviewers' speech possesses common typological means of distinctive prosodic features manifestation, including pitch, intensity, and time parameters. Specific ways of employing prosodic inventory to express subjective modality in television interviews correlate with structural peculiarities of each language and differ in the shape of the pitch curve, the level of pitch and its phrasal range as well as the pitch interval of its segments, the character of terminal tones, and temporal organization of utterances.