Word Pronunciation

5 Key excerpts on "Word Pronunciation"

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  eBook - ePub

  English Pronunciation Teaching and Research

  Contemporary Perspectives

  • Martha C. Pennington, Pamela Rogerson-Revell(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  phonology .

  Researchers and practitioners with a practical or applied emphasis may use any of these terms (phonology , pronunciation , or phonetics ) together with others, such as articulation , relating to the mechanics of producing speech sounds (e.g., speech therapists), or accent , relating to the general characteristics of speech that are associated with a certain geographical locale or social group (e.g., managers and trainers in business). Social psychologists may refer to pronunciation or accent as a focus of investigation on people’s attitudes to specific languages or speaker groups. Because we aim to focus on the practical aspects of phonology, we will refer to pronunciation for the most part, while using the other terms as appropriate for our coverage of research and practice in the various disciplines and areas of spoken language performance included in this book.

  As a type of linguistic skill or language proficiency, pronunciation involves learning to articulate and discriminate the individual sound elements or phonemes making up the system of consonants and vowels of a language, sometimes referred to as segmental phonology , and the features of connected speech making up its prosody or prosodic system , sometimes referred to as suprasegmental phonology . The prosodic system or suprasegmental phonology includes, at a minimum,

  tone

  and

  intonation

  (defined by pitch),

  rhythm

  (defined by duration), and

  stress

  or

  accentuation

  (defined by acoustic intensity , force of articulation , or perceptual prominence ). From the perspective of language teaching, prosody may also include articulatory (or vocal ) setting , a complex of specific postures of the vocal organs (lips, tongue, jaw, and vocal folds), and/or voice quality

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  eBook - PDF

  English Phonology and Pronunciation Teaching

  • Pamela Rogerson-Revell(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  (b) Explaining the components parts of pronunciation and how they fit together As we have seen in this book there are many components to pronunciation but we could summarize these under the following areas: (i) phonemic distinctions (ii) syllable structure English Phonology and Pronunciation Teaching 212 (iii) word stress (iv) features of connected speech (v) intonation patterns. Traditionally, pronunciation courses start with the smallest elements, that is the individual sounds or phonemes and work up towards the larger elements such as word stress, features of connected speech and finally intonation patterns. It can therefore seem to the learner that these are separate, unconnected components. However, it can make pronunciation learning more meaningful to explain that there is more to pronunciation than individual sounds and that these different components are inter-related and work together. For instance, the teacher can explain that the syllable is the basic unit of rhythm in English and typically has a central vowel. Understanding the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables will enhance listen-ing comprehension by making learners aware of those parts of speech which are highlighted and those which are de-emphasized. A connection can also be made between the rhythmic structure of English and vowel quality and the fact that stressed vowels are clearer and longer than their unstressed counterparts, which are typically reduced to schwa. This will in turn help learners hear and produce word stress patterns accurately. (c) Outlining the pronunciation sub-skills learners need to develop Just as we looked at the various sub-skills that the pronunciation teacher needs to develop, it can also be helpful to consider the skills that the learner needs to acquire in order to master the various elements of pronunciation.

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  eBook - ePub

  Understanding English Language Teaching in EFL Context

  From Idea to Practicality

  • Kamal Ud Din(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge India

    (Publisher)

  record, as discussed above (Honrby, 2015).

  6.2 Acoustic and Perceptual Phonetics

  There is much written on articulatory phonetics. I suggest readers go deeper if they can find the time. However, my purpose, I believe, would work well if teachers can absorb the above discussion on English phones and their articulatory phonetics. The purpose was to provide necessary or basic information to the prospective teachers regarding phonemes and their production for their practical use so that they could acknowledge articulatory phonetics in teaching English in the L2 language context.

  Some important considerations will be briefly discussed regarding the other two types of phonetics here as they are interconnected to process the sound from one brain to another in the form of sound waves of the speech signal chain. The physiological function of sounds and the biological function of auditory organs can be further understood through studies in biological sciences.

  Acoustic phonetics helps in understanding how speech sounds associated with physiological production tools (for example human mouth) are processed to the ears and finally to the brain of the human mind (where sound signals are received for further treatment). The human voice in the form of air pulses travels in waveforms in the air and faces resistance, due to which the same quality of sound may not exactly reach the listener, due to which variation in imitation of the same sound can be noticed. Acoustic study is the study of the physical properties of sound. The variations in air pressure determine the frequency of sounds, which is called a pitch when a hearer hears it. The intensity or loudness of the sound is also determined by the variation in air pressure put on the sound. The physiology of the sound source and external factors such as pressures in the air (for example, in a noisy environment, the sound signals face more resistance) impact the quality of the sounds, causing hampering for the hearer to receive and transmit the sound to process into the brain for making sense of the sound.

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  eBook - PDF

  The Pronunciation of English

  A Course Book

  • Charles W. Kreidler(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Variations among users include geographic and social dialects, of which the former are of greater interest in this text. Variations in use include differences of function , differences of formality and politeness, and differences of tempo, all of which are intertwined. Language varieties based on such matters of use are called registers . Geographic varieties of English result from a long history of regional dif-ferences in England itself; the slow development of a standard which, in its spoken form, is called Received Pronunciation ; the political domination of Celtic-speaking countries by England from the beginnings of the Modern era; and the establishment of colonies overseas from the late sixteenth to the late nineteenth centuries. It is useful to recognize the distinction between speech, an activity, and language , the code which makes communication possible through numerous speech acts. Language is the knowledge which speakers have and which makes communication possible; it is also an inheritance from the past. A language consists of a lexicon , a phonology , and a grammar . Phonology is the descrip-tion of the sound system of a language, the link between speech and meaning. Phonetics is the science which studies speech sounds as sounds. Although speaking is ordinarily a constant movement of the vocal organs, it is convenient to view speech as a chain composed of individual segments one after another. Each such segment is a composite of certain articulatory features . Some of these features serve to differentiate meanings in a language; such features are distinctive in that language. Features which are not dis-tinctive are redundant . Segments which have the same distinctive features constitute a phoneme of the language. Phonemes combine in certain possible sequences to express morphemes , the units of meaning of the language. Pho-nemes contrast with one another to differentiate morphemes from one another.

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  eBook - PDF

  The Handbook of English Pronunciation

  • Marnie Reed, John Levis, Marnie Reed, John M. Levis(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  This implies that the teacher should focus on the physical production of sounds, i.e., the motor skills, because: • these rules are innate and cannot be taught (Krashen 1982) and • speech is “no more than the transmission phase of language” (Cruttenden 2001: 296), i.e., it is seen as the physical representation of language but is somehow separable from the underlying meaning. However, as Chomsky and Halle (1968: 3) note, pronunciation is not just a matter of phonological rules, there are “many other factors as well – factors such as memory restrictions, inattention, distraction, nonlinguistic knowledge and beliefs, and so on”. Clearly the impact of “other factors” on performance is much greater for the L2 learner, which leads us to look for different theoretical positions with greater explanatory power in terms of language learning and teaching. Bybee (2001: 34) proposes a usage‐based model that “goes beyond structuralist models to show how language use gives rise to structure”. This model views pronunciation as an integral part of the meaning‐making process rather than the transfer of a set of underlying phonological rules as it observes how speakers cat- egorize language and how they relate the physical sounds to meaning. Bybee con- cludes that phonological categories are based on exemplars and the development of prototypes. The value of a usage‐based approach is that it focuses on meaning and not on rules that create the impression of dichotomous features such as the voiced/voiceless distinction, when in fact they overlap (Mompean 2014). The Applying Theories of Language and Learning to Teaching Pronunciation 419 implications for the teacher and learner are that it is possible through cognitive skill learning processes to help learners understand the relationship between sound and meaning.

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