DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2019.1.28709

Abstract: This article is devoted to the description of methods, principles and results of audit analysis of television debates that involved candidates for the Head of the Fifth Republic during election campaigns of 2012 and 2017. The aforesaid analysis is a component of a full research of pre-election TV debates in order to define their phonostylistic features at the supra-segment level. The aim of this experiment is to verify a supposition about intonational emphasis that uses the main prosodiac features (melodics, volume and pause) expressed by lexical units and stylistic devices that constitute two opposing semantic complexes as the basis for political speeches. The research provides data obtained using the auditor survery. Based on the example of one speech utterance, the author of the article demonstrates the process of audit analysis. The novelty of the research is caused by the fact that the results of audit analysis prove the conclusions made in the course of lexical-semantic-stylistic analysis with psycholinguistic elements as well as experiment for subjective audit symbolism. These results prove a special intonational emphasis of pre-election TV debates. 

Keywords: television debates, supra-segment level, phono-stylistic features, intonational emphasis, prosodic design, audit analysis, auditory analysis, melodics, volume, pause