Computer Technologies in Acoustic Analysis of English Television Advertising Discourse

Abstract

Research studies in a variety of linguistic areas indicate that scholars often refer to computer technologies that become popular as a tool to reinforce the findings and provide the validity of the experimental results. This paper discusses the use of computer technologies in the acoustic analysis of speech prosody focused on the English television advertising discourse. The article aims to determine what the main prosodic characteristics of English advertising discourse are, and how they contribute to the maximum influence on the television audience. Therefore, the study relies upon the acoustic analysis using sound processing software WaveLab, Cool Edit Pro, SpectraLAB, Wasp, Sound Forge to ensure the reliability and validity of the obtained results. Moreover, the computer programs used in this research allowed us to measure the pronunciation accuracy and present results based on many experimental data, not only on the assumptions. Besides, the linguistic interpretation of the data of the perceptual and acoustic analysis of the English television advertising discourse prosody proves a strong correlation of these data. The obtained results indicate that detailed analysis of the quantitative prosodic characteristics of speech enables to get a clear picture of the prosodic organization of the English television advertising discourse. The research proves that the prosody of the English advertising discourse closely correlates with its pragmatic potential and some sociolinguistic features, namely, the social status of the viewer, contribute to the maximum influence on the television audience.