Teaching American English Pronunciation

Teaching American English

Pronunciation

Also published in

Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers

Teaching English Overseas: An Introduction

Sandra Lee McKay

How Languages are Learned (second edition)

Paxy M Lightbown and Nina Spada

Teaching Business English

Mark Ellis and Christine Johnson

Explaining English Grammar

George Yule

Communication in the Language Classroom

Tony Lynch

Teaching

American English

Pronunciation

Peter Aaery and Susan Ehrlich

Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

Oxford New York

Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai

Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata

Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi

Sdo Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto

Oxford and Oxford Englisb

are trade marks of Oxford University Press

rsBN 0 19 432 8r5 5

O Peter Avery and Susan Ehrlich 1992

First published 1992

Tenth impression 2002

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior perrnission in

writing of Oxford Universify Press (with the sole excePtion of photocopying carried out

under the conditions stated in the paragraph headed 'Photocopying'), or as expressly

permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights

organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should

be sent to the ELT Rights Department, Oxf()rd University Press, at the address above

You must not circulate this book in any other binding ()r cover ancl you must impose this

same condition on any atcluirer

Photocopying

The Publisher grants permission for the photocopying of those pages marked

'photocopiable' according to the following conditions. Indiviclual purchasers may make

copies for their own use or for use by classes that they teach. School purchasers may

make copies for use by staff and students, btrt this permission does not extend to

additional schools or branches

Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale

Any websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses

are provided by Oxford University Press f<rr information only. Oxford Llniversity Press

disclaims any responsibility for the content.

Set in Adobe Garamond

by Tradespools Ltd, Frome, S<>merset, UK

Printed in China

To the memory of Carlos Yorio

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction: Preliminary considerations

in the teaching of pronunciation

Biological factors

Socio-cultural factors

Personaliry factors

The role of the native language

Setting realistic goals

xlll

XV

XV

xvi

xvi

xvii

xviii

3

4

6

6

8

PART oNE: The sound system of English

Spelling and pronunciation

The English spelling system

Sound-spelling correspondences

Spelling in other languages

The phonetic alphabet

Exercises

Individual sounds of English

How speech sounds are made

Consonants and vowels

The description of English consonants

Place of articulation

Manner of articulation

Voicing

Summary

The description of English vowels

Tongue height

Frontness/backness of tongue

Tenseness/laxness

Lip rounding

Phonetic symbols for vowels

ll

l2

t2

l2

l8

24

26

28

29

30

31

4)

32

Complex vowels (diphthongs)

The vowel/erl

The consonant lhl

Semi-vowels (glides)

Exercises

English sounds in context

Positional variation

Contrastive sounds of English

Non-contrastive sounds of English

Implications for teaching

Conclusion

Grammatical endings

The regular past tense

The plural, possessive, and third person singular

Grammatical endings in the pronunciation classroom

Exercises

The shape of English words

Syllable types

Consonant clusters

Exercises

'S7ord stress and vowel reduction

\What is stress?

Schwa

Major and minor stress

Placement of word srress

Exercises

Connected Speech

Rhythm, sentence stress, and intonation

The stress-timed rhythm of English

Placement of stress in sentences

Intonation

Modifications of sounds in connected speech

The pronunciation of function words

Linking

Deletion of consonanrs

Contents uii

39

39

40

45

4/

47

4/

49

5r

5l

73

73

74

76

81

8l

84

86

34

34

35

35

35

53

54

60

63

63

66

67

7l

ul.tl Contents

Assimilation

Summary

Exercises

PART TVo: The identification and correction

specific pronunciation problems

Introduction

7 Common pronunciation problems

English vowels

English consonants

Stress, rhythm, and intonation

8 Problems of selected language groups

Arabic

Chinese

Farsi

French

German

Greek

Hindi and Punjabi

Italian

Japanese

Korean

Polish

Portuguese

Spanish

Vietnamese

PART THREE: Classroom activities

Introduction

9 A communicative approach to pronunciation teaching

Introduction

Consonants and vowels

Connected speech

Suprasegmentals

87

89

89

of

93

95

101

106

lll

tt4

ll9

t2l

r23

r25

r28

r32

r34

138

r42

r45

t49

t53

161

r63

165

168

r69

Contents

170

17r

173

173

174

175

178

181

t82

185

186

lBB

189

r92

194

195

196

r97

r99

20r

202

204

205

207

207

207

209

2r0

212

214

ix

l1

Monitoring

Conclusion

10 Pronunciation syllabus design: a question of focus

The zoom principle

Assessing learner variables

Collection of speech samples

Diagnosis of speech samples

From diagnosis to syllabus design

Monitoring progress

Appendix: Srudent diagnostic profile

Suprasegmentals in the pronunciation class: setting priorities

Introduction

Stress/unstress

Stress and rhythm

Major sentence stress

Intonation

Linking and pausing

Palatalization

Conclusion

Pronunciation-based listening exercises for the multilevel class

Introduction

Minimal pairs

Stress assignment

Function words

Intonation

Conclusion

Teaching pronunciation: an inventory of techniques

Introduction

Individual sounds

Minimal pairs

Visual aids

Stress, rhythm, and intonation

Developing fluency

Conclusion

t2

r3

Contents

I 4 Developing self-correcting and self-monitoring strategies

Introduction

Self-correction

Self-monitoring

Conclusion

15 Developing naturd and confident speech: drama techniques

in the pronunciation class

Introduction

futiculation

Pitch, volume, and rate

Variety

Conclusion

16 Unintelligibility and the ESL learner

Introduction

The receiver

The sender

Conclusion

Glossary

Further reading

Bibliography

Contributors

Index

215

216

218

2rg

22r

222

224

226

227

229

232

234

236

237

24r

246

250

)7)

xx

PREFACE

This book is intended as both a textbook and a reference manual for teachers

of English as a Second Language. \7hile there are many other introductory

phonetics textbooks on the market, none has been written specifically for

the ESL teacher. This book attempts to fill this gap by providing an access￾ible introduction to the fields of phonetics and phonology as they relate to

second language learning.

Part One is an introduction to the English sound system, with many of the

descriptions and concepts exemplified through rypical errors made by ESL

students. Part Two describes pronunciation problems common to most

ESL students in addition to the specific pronunciation problems of fourteen

different language groups. Part Three, a set of articles written by practition￾ers in the field, considers practical issues in the teaching of pronunciation.

This book is based, to a large extent, on a book previously published by the

Ministry of Citizenship, Government of Ontario. \7e acknowledge the

Queen's Printe r for Ontario for pe rmission to reprint portions of our pre￾vious book. In preparing this book for Oxford Universiry Press, we have

substantially revised Chapters I to 4 and Chapters 7 and 8 for a wider inter￾national audience. Chapters ll, 12, and 16 in Part Three have been

substantially revised and rewritten for the present volume. The other chap￾ters in Part Three have undergone minor revisions.

Numerous individuals have contributed to the preparation of this book and

our previous Ministry of Citizenship publication. First, we acknowledge our

many ESL students whose enthusiasm for pronunciation made us under￾stand the importance of a book such as this. 'S?'e thank Jack Chambers and

Keren Rice for material and moral support over the last decade. Ed Bursryn￾sky, Rob Fink, Jila Ghomeshi, Bill Idsardi, Michael Kay, Ruth King, Fouad

Krichel, Maureen McNerney, Younghee Na, Jura Seskus, Ian Smith, and

Mark'Webber provided us with insights and information regarding pro￾nunciation problems of specific language groups. John Archibald and Ilsa

Mendelson Burns assisted in the original research for Chapter 8 and Doug

Jull and John Archibald did much of the research for the Annotated Biblio￾graphy. 'We would also like to acknowledge the detailed and helpful

comme nts of rwo anonymous reviewers for Oxford Universiry Press. Their

comments have allowed us to make many needed improvements to the

volume.

xii Preface

'We are most grateful to Esther Podoliak of the Ministry of Citizenship,

Government of Ontario, who was involved in every stage of the original

project. Esther's insistence on clarity and accessibiliry played a large role in

making this book as readable as it is. \7e would also like to thank Sandy

Feldman who did the original artwork. Findly, we acknowledge our

enormous debt to Carlos Yorio, whose commitment to the application of

linguistics to second language teaching made us both better linguists and

better second language pracdtioners. lVithout Carlos, we probably would

never have embarked upon this project. Peter Avery would like to express

special thanks to MaryAnn Neary for her continuing support and patience.

INTRODUCTION

Preliminary considerations in the

1.f.. teaclrrng ot pronuncratron

Peter Auer-v and Susan Ehrlich

Let us begin by considering two opposing views on the teaching of pro￾nunciation in the ESL classroom. One view holds that the purpose of

teaching pronunciation is to eradicate all traces of a'foreign' accent through

pronunciation drills. The other view holds that the teaching of pronun￾ciation is futile after a certain age due to a decreasing abiliry among learners

to develop native-like pronunciation in a second language. In this section,

we will point out that neither of these views is completely accurate by con￾sidering biological, socio-cultural, personaliry, and linguistic factors which

are known to affect the acquisition of the sound system of a second language.

This will lead to the understanding that while practice in pronunciation may

not make perfect, ignoring pronunciation totally can be a great disservice to

ESL students.

Biologicalfactors

A common observation made by people involved in the field of second lan￾guage learning is that adult second language learners almost always have a

'foreign' accent while child second language learners almost always attain

native-like pronunciation. One hypothesis that has been proposed to

explain this difference between adults and children is the'critical period hy￾pothesis'. This hypothesis holds that languages are learned differently by

children and adults, and that this is a direct result of the maturation of the

brain.

As all experienced ESL teachers know, adult learners do have difficulry in ac￾quiring native-like pronunciation in a second language. Thus, there may be

some truth to the critical period hypothesis. However, it is also true that

some adult learners do achieve native-like pronunciation and, among other

adult learners, the degree of pronunciation accuracy varies considerably

from individual to individual. The critical period hypothesis, therefore, does

not absolve ESL teachers of the responsibiliry of teaching pronunciation.

The very fact that variabiliry exists among adult learners means that ESL

classroom time can profitably be devoted to improving students' pronunci￾ation.

r(r