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15. 3 Familiar (Conversational) Style

The usage of conversational (familiar) style is typical of the

English of everyday life. It occurs both within a family group and
in informal external relationships, namely, in the speech of

intimate friends or well-acquainted people.

Generally speaking, conversational style, unlike other styles,
allows the occurrence of the entire range of intonation patterns

existing in English. Relatively unexcited conversational situations

are characterised by stepping scales and simple low falling or
rising tones. Monosyllabic response utterances display

standardised narrowed pitch patterns. Degrees of increasing
intensity of excitement correlate with increased pitch height. As a

result, widened pitch patterns with the high falling nuclear tone
are typical of more excited situation. Besides, there is high

frequency of compound tones. There is also the occasional

completely unexpected placement of nuclear tone.

Memorization

In Ukrainian the leave-taking Дo побачення can be
pronounced both with low rising and low falling tone, which

sounds neutral, while in English Good-bye pronounced with a low

falling tone sounds fairly rude, while rising tone makes it neutral.

Test

Suggest one-word/phrase answers to the following

statements/questions:

№ Question Answer
1 A functional style can be … as a functional

set of formal patterns

2 … integrates language means constructing

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