Correlation Between Melodic Patterns and Kinesic Means in Multimodal Discourse

At present, the issues of interaction of several discourse modalities in communication are becoming more relevant for linguistic research. In the article, based on a documentary cross-cultural interview, the interrelation of melodic patterns and kinesic means in the speech of Englishmen and Americans is investigated for the first time. At the intonation level, the change of pitch is studied in the pre-terminal part of the sense-group. In Received Pronunciation, stepping and sliding heads are scrutinised while in General American mid-level and mid-wavy level heads are under consideration. At the kinesic level, the focus is on accentuating gestures of the hand, head, and body, as well as eyebrow movement. The results of auditory, visual, and comprehensive comparative types of analysis allowed for singling out a number of melodic-kinesic patterns — combinations of intonation and gestural modalities, serving as important accentuating means. The acquired data, on the one hand, serves to deepen the existing ideas about the interaction of intonation and kinesics in documentary interview. On the other hand, due to the comparative analysis of the respondents’ speech, a more complete picture of cross-cultural interaction between representatives of English and American cultures is obtained.