PHONETIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SPEECH OF THE YOUNGER GENERATION OF BRITISH ENGLISH NATIVE SPEAKERS

This paper presents the results of the study of the phonetic features traced in the speech of the younger generation of British English native speakers. It contains the phonetic portraits of speakers and reveals some modern pronunciation trends in their speech. Special attention is paid to the extent to which socio-cultural factors influence the phonetic characteristics of their speech. Objectives: to describe the phonetic features of the speech of the younger generation of British English native speakers at segmental and suprasegmental level, to identify some new pronunciation trends in their speech. Methods: The study was based on the analysis of audio recordings of interviews with British young people (total sound time 75 minutes). All speech examples refer to spontaneous unprepared speech. The phonetic study included an audit analysis performed by two professional auditors as well as a speech analysis of speakers using the phonetic portrait method. The method of phonetic portrait is the most suitable for achieving the goal of the research, because it allows to reveal phonetic features of speech, socio-cultural and socio-status features of the speaker, such as origin, education, professional affiliation, etc., and to identify the relationship and co-influence of these characteristics. Moreover, audit analysis will give a more detailed and profound description of all features of the speech of all the speakers on both segmental and suprasegmental levels. From the conducted research and the results obtained, it can be concluded that despite the different origins of these representatives of the younger generation of British English native speakers, there are no features of regional accents in their speech typical of their regions or of the regions which their parents belong to, but on the contrary, their speech contains common phonetic features that can be attributed to modern fashionable trends both on segmental and suprasegmental levels. Moreover, common phonetic features are traced in their speech, which can also be attributed to modern trends, it indicates a trend of “smoothening” regional features in the pronunciation which is typical of the younger generation of British native speakers. It should be noted that despite the high mobility of the population and the spread of mixed accents, representatives of modern British youth seek to follow modern pronunciation trends in order to indicate their belonging to this social group.