THE ROLE OF PHONETIC ELLIPSIS IN MILITARY COMMAND SENTENCES
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
This article explores the functional role of phonetic ellipsis in military command sentences. Phonetic ellipsis is examined as a crucial linguistic and pragmatic device that enhances brevity, urgency, and authoritative force in military speech. In operational contexts where time pressure, environmental noise, and hierarchical relations dominate, the omission of certain sounds, syllables, or grammatical elements allows commands to be delivered more efficiently without loss of meaning. Using examples from English and Uzbek military discourse, the study analyzes the phonopragmatic features of elliptical command structures and highlights their role in expressing obligation, decisiveness, and control. Particular attention is paid to prosodic factors such as intonation, tempo, and loudness, which compensate for structural reduction and reinforce the illocutionary force of commands. The findings suggest that phonetic ellipsis in military commands is not a deviation from linguistic norms but a functional adaptation to communicative demands. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of military discourse from phonological and pragmatic perspectives.
Article Details
Section
References
Adams, T. K. (2012). The military as a subculture. In J. T. Johnson (Ed.), The just war tradition and the restraint of war (pp. 89-105). Princeton University Press.
Dalby, J. (1986). The phonetic structure of fast speech in American English (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University).
Department of Defense. (2010). Military radio communications standards. Department of Defense Technical Standards.
Grisham, K. L. (2015). Language and military leadership. Army War College Press.
Jurafsky, D., Bell, A., Gregory, M., & Raymond, W. D. (2001). Reducing bureaucratic burden in military communications. In J. L. Morgan & K. Demuth (Eds.), Signal to syntax: Bootstrapping from speech to grammar in early acquisition (pp. 321-346). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kahn, D. (1976). Syllable-based generalizations in English phonology. Doctoral dissertation, MIT.
Liberman, A. M., Cooper, F. S., Shankweiler, D. P., & Studdert-Kennedy, M. (1967). Perception of the speech code. Psychological Review, 74(6), 431-461.
Lindblom, B. (1990). Explaining phonetic variation: A sketch of the H&H theory. In W. J. Hardcastle & A. Marchal (Eds.), Speech production and speech modelling (pp. 403-439). Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Morrison, J. E., Meliza, L. L., Bartone, P. T., & Kolditz, T. A. (2003). Foundations of military professionalism. Strategic Studies Institute.
Pollack, I., & Pickett, J. M. (1964). Intelligibility of excerpts from fluent speech. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 36(12), 2331-2336.
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge University Press.
Shannon, C. E. (1948). A mathematical theory of communication. Bell System Technical Journal, 27(3), 379-423.
Shriberg, E. E. (1995). Phonetic consequences of speech rate and emphasis in conversational English (Doctoral dissertation, UC Berkeley).
Siddle, B. K. (1995). Sharpening the warrior's edge. PPCT Research Publications.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press.
Junqua, J. C. (1996). The Lombard effect and its consequences for device and control signal recognition. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 100(3), 1365-1373.