Lysychkina O. Prosodic Actualization of Logical Argumentative Interactions: An Experimental Phonetic Study of English Business Negotiations

This thesis focuses on the study of prosody of logical argumentative interactions in business negotiations held in English, with regard to their interactivity and protocol adherence, as well as specificity of proponent-opponent communication. The research establishes the correlation between the speaker’s intention and prosodic actualisation of logical argumentative interactions communicatively grounded in “agreement – disagreement”. Prosodic means that highlight semantically charged parameters of initial and reactive argumentative steps have been determined. Prosodic features of English business negotiations are proven to reflect communicative and pragmatic value of interactions, their unison and contradictive character. It has been experimentally established that the pragmatic potential of logical argumentative interactions in English discourse of business negotiations is fostered by prosodic subsystems integration.