PECULIARITIES OF SPEECH BEHAVIOR OF SEAFARERS FROM INDIA AND CHINA

The article is devoted to the investigation of peculiarities of speech behavior of Indian and Chinese seafarers. Language, being the most important communicative tool as a general phenomenon, is constantly changing under the influence of social, political and economical causes. Modern development tendencies of global intercultural, interlingual communication caused a rising interest of linguists to the problem of dialogue of cultures and language. Lots of studies of domestic and foreign scientists were dedicated to the main features of the language varieties, their status and functional spheres. The interest in learning of English varieties in India and China, in particular their prosodic level, remains the least investigated. The analysis of social-historical context of formation of investigated varieties showed that the attitude of native population towards the English language in the territories of modern India and China, changes under the influence of political and economical events. Being on different stages of development, in these countries English serves as a means of expressing national identity. An experimental-phonetic investigation was carried out in the work, the aim of which is to define the differential professionally bulleted features of communicative behavior from India and China. The appearance of certain differential prosodic features of the English speech by Indian and Chinese seafarers was caused by means of bilingual situation, influence of autochthonous languages, American and British variants of English on prosodic characteristics of investigated informants. The relevant markers, contributing to expression of national identity of Indian seafarers are: high frequency of Falling, Falling-Rising tones; wave-movement of preterminal part of sense-group: high level of pitch; prevalence of medium and speech tempo. The prosodic markers of Chinese seafarers’ speech behavior are: abrupt movement of pitch preterminal part of sense-group; Falling tones realized as an abrupt shift to a lower pitch level on the stressed syllable; Rising tones of wide range; tendency to form plateau areas within diphthongs range. Prosodic characteristics of speech behavior of Indian and Chinese seafarers obtained by experimental method, can serve as a foundation for the development of a potential prosodic norm, which can be as a means of national identity.