Teaching pronunciation

Teaching pronunciation

There are many ways of teaching pronunciation, and many different opinions as to which
ways are the best or most effective. However there has been to date relatively little
serious comparative research on what really works in helping learners of a second
language with pronunciation. This is an area which needs considerable improvement
.
Nevertheless, there are a few things which are becoming well
established as key factors in effective pronunciation tuition.


It is important to emphasise that pronunciation teaching is currently undergoing a revival
after several decades of neglect. There are many questions requiring detailed research
and empirical investigation. The account presented here represents a current ‘best
guess’ for which there is considerable evidence but which is most certainly not the last
word on the subject.

Here are some of the factors that have been shown to be most relevant in creating good
outcomes in pronunciation teaching (see references under Pronunciation Research in
Appendix). The first three are becoming more widely known and accepted. The last,
though, is less well understood.

􀂙 Pronunciation teaching works better if the focus is on larger chunks
of speech, such as words, phrases and sentences, than if the focus
is on individual sounds and syllables. This does not mean that
individual sounds and syllables should never be referred to; it simply
means that the general focus should be on the larger units.

􀂙 Pronunciation lessons work best if they involve the students in
actually speaking, rather than in just learning facts or rules of
pronunciation. Many students of course feel more comfortable
learning the rules of the language, because it is less threatening than
actually speaking. However, the transfer of explicit knowledge of
rules into pronunciation practice is very limited.

Why study Phonetics?

Why study Phonetics?

Obviously it’s a fundamental part of Linguistics, so no-one studying this subject can ignore it. But for students of languages, there are also practical advantages to be gained from knowing some basic Phonetics.
Firstly, you should be able to improve your pronunciation of foreign languages if you have a clearer idea of how the sounds are actually produced. Troublesome sounds like French r, German ü or Spanish j lose their mystery and become less daunting once you know how they relate to other more familiar sounds. And there are various general features of the “British accent” which can be characterized by phonetic analysis: when you know what it is that makes British accents so British, you’ll be well on the way to getting rid of yours (if you have one: most
people do to some extent at least). What’s more, you’ll be able to look up the pronunciation of words in the dictionary once you’re familiar with the phonetic alphabet.

Secondly, many of you will at some stage or other nd yourselves teaching a language to other people: either French, German, Spanish, etc. if you make a career of teaching, or English if you are involved in ESOL (English as a Second Language, also known as EFL: English as a Foreign Language). ESOL is not just a useful source of vac jobs: it is a serious career in itself. And many students spend year 3 of their degree course working abroad as English language teachers.

In all such cases, you are likely to have to help learners to improve their accents. If someone is having difculty with English th, it’s not much help just to tell them “don’t say it like that, say it like I do”. (Unless they’re natural mimics, in which case they won’t need instruction from you anyway.) Much better if you can guide them to make the appropriate tongue movements, on a basis of your knowledge of phonetics.

Non-verbal communication

Non-verbal communication

Non-verbal communication uses signs, signals, gestures, expressions and sounds. It is God-made language and, as a rule, should not suffer from any limitations excepting the fact that our knowledge about the language is limited by our lack of understanding of nature‟s ways of communication! In common parlance, non-verbal communication is also called body language. As a rule, it does not lie or mislead unless someone has mastered the art of deceit or camouflaging. It is the richest language known. During the last few decades a lot of research has been done to identify and isolate all the signs, signals, gestures, expression and sounds among humans.
The non-verbal communication has changed the way we look at the subject of communication. We seem to be communicating all the time through gestures, expressions, sounds, signs and signals.
Every one can recall the personal experience they would have gone through when they had to ask for a favour from mother, father, elder brother or even boss. When they went to speak to the person on the appointed date and time, one quick look at the person made them change their mind, thinking that the day and time was not propitious for seeking favour because of the mood he was emoting. The interaction would have been very upsetting but they could avoid it because they could observe from the body language of the person that the response would not be favourable.
Similarly, it is said that we emote even when we are asleep! We have also read a story in Mahabharata that Abhimanyu, son of Arjun, had picked up the art of entering a kind of warfare known as Chakarvyu while in the womb of his mother. It has been thought to be rather unbelievable phenomenon. The recent advances in medical history confirm that a child has already well developed five senses and mind as early as the seventh week of its conception when even mothers may not have become aware of their pregnancy!
Another thing students must appreciate is the body language is not man-made; it is God‟s own creation. Studies are directed to observing those gestures, expressions, sounds etc and record their meaning for its students to understand the language. Body language rarely lies and if one can master it, it will propel them on fast track to become good communicators.
Another well-known story common in India is that good vaids of ayuvedic medicines were able to diagnose the type of ailment from the feel of the pulse and general examination of their patients!

Speech signal

Speech signal

Speech signal is the basic study and analysis material in speech technology
as well phonetics. To form meaningful chunks of language, the speech signal
should have dynamically varying spectral characteristics, sometimes varying within
a stretch of a few milliseconds. Phonetics groups these temporally varying spectral
chunks into abstract classes roughly called as allophones. Distribution of these allophones
into higher level classes called phonemes takes us closer to their function in a
language. Phonemes and letters in the scripts of literate languages – languages which
use writing have varying degrees of correspondence. As such a relationship exists,
a major part of speech technology deals with the correlation of script letters with
chunks of time-varying spectral stretches in that language. Indian languages are said
to have a more direct correlation between their sounds and letters. Such similarity
gives a false impression of similarity of text-to-sound rule sets across these languages.
A given letter which has parallels across various languages may have different
degrees of divergence in its phonetic realization in these languages. We illustrate
such differences and point out the problem areas where speech scientists need to pay
greater attention in building their systems, especially multilingual systems for Indian
languages.

Phonetics?

Phonetics?

Languages can basically be thought of as systems - highly complicated ones - which enable us to express our
thoughts by means of “vocal noises”, and to extract meaning from the “noises” (speech sounds from now on!) that
are made by other people. Linguistics is the study of the nature and properties of these systems, and its various
branches focus on different aspects of the communication process.
Phonetics is the branch concerned with human speech sounds, and itself has three different aspects:
• Articulatory Phonetics (the most anatomical and physiological division) describes how vowels
and consonants are produced or “articulated” in various parts of the mouth and throat.
• Acoustic Phonetics (the branch that has the closest afnities with physics) studies the sound
waves that transmit the vowels and consonants through the air from the speaker to the hearer
• Auditory Phonetics (the branch of most interest to psychologists) looks at the way in which the hearer’s
brain decodes the sound waves back into the vowels and consonants originally intended by the speaker.
Closely associated with Phonetics is another branch of linguistics known as Phonology. This focuses on the way
languages use differences between sounds in order to convey differences of meaning between words, and how
each language has its own unique sound pattern. Phonology is really the link between Phonetics and the rest of Linguistics.

Approximants

Approximants

Approximants are sounds made by narrowing the oral cavity but not enough
to cause turbulence in the airstream; the airstream is said to be smooth. The
beginning sounds of lye and rye are approximants. The narrowest point in
the airstream is wider in approximants than in fricatives, but is not as wide
as it is in vowels. Approximants are more sonorant (resonant, i.e., naturally
loud) than consonants, but less so than vowels. They are like consonants in
that they typically occur before or after the vowels of syllables (see below).
English has three kinds of approximants.
Lateral approximants are made by touching the tongue to the alveolar
ridge while allowing the air to pass along one or both sides, as in [l]—in
lack, call, and callow.
Central approximants are made by raising the sides of the tongue so that
the air flows along the center of the tongue, as in [r]—in rock, roll, and Rory.
[r] is regarded as an alveolar sound.
Glides (semivowels) come in two kinds: palatal and labio-velar. Palatal glides are made by raising the tongue toward the hard palate, close to where
the vowel in eat is made. The first sound of yet, yolk, and y’all is a palatal glide,
represented phonetically as [j]. Labio-velar glides are made by rounding the
lips and simultaneously raising the back of the tongue toward the velum,
close to where the vowel sound of ooze is made. Labio-velar glides thus have
two places of articulation—they are both labial and velar. The first sound of
wet, wall, and wink is a labio-velar glide, represented phonetically as [w].

Role of Teacher in the Multimedia Classroom

Role of Teacher in the Multimedia Classroom

The role of the teacher in the multimedia classroom is entirely different from the normal classroom
environment. Hence, the teacher has the important role to play in the conventional classroom atmosphere where he enters the class with some books and ready-made notes and conducts tests to assess the students.


There is no self-evaluation method for the students. However, in this new mode, the teacher is only a
facilitator or a coordinator and the teacher should have hands on experience on the computer, with
improved instructional capabilities and a vehicle through which to apply the instructional technology
skills acquired through training and professional development. The role of teachers and students
apparently change. The teacher orchestrates the flow of communication for the whole class. In this study, the computer software is not designed for teaching. Therefore, the intervention of computer in teacher‘s teaching is not obvious yet. In case that learning-oriented computer software is used in multimedia lab,teachers have to be aware that students no longer depend on the only source of knowledge. The computer software will ―teach‖ students the knowledge that teachers are supposed to teach. As a result, a teacher must transform his role from a coach or a director under the communicative framework to a coordinator.


The teacher coordinates the flow of communication between the teacher and the students as well as
between the students and the computer. Using technology in teaching is highly advantageous to a
teacher it gives the teacher the power to create ideas in the visual medium. Technology aids the
teacher in many ways like multiple accesses to learning content, tracking performance, offering
better solution s even during absence, empowering teaching from any place, breaking the concept of time bound learning and so on.

Technology is the basic tool through which the teacher facilitates the learning of the content and hence it needs to be customized for different curriculum and according to the need of the learning group. Content for learning plays an important role since it determines the instructional objectives. The level and quality of content and the ability of technology efficiently impart the ideas to help the teacher to teach/train a learner efficiently.


In this regard, as a user of technology as a tool of instruction, it becomes important for the teacher to
analyze the different features of the technology that we use to teach the students.
The multimedia lab has some features that cannot compete by any other method. First, the function of
video on demand. Students can choose an English teaching program they are interested in and learn on their pace of learning. The English learning program will just serve the student‘s desired goal of learning.

In one sense, students easily get the individual attention from the computer. Second, the function of a
multimedia lab is multiple. It offers teachers more powerful teaching tools with the aid of modern
technology. High motivation to study English is observed by using multimedia which gives variety of
forms of teaching from listening to audio records and watching video, up to works with computer
programs and dialogue chat. As it is known, all these kinds of activity are sources of entertainments of students during leisure time.

The process of teaching English becomes interesting, easy and thus, productive. The development of language skills and media skills is carried out only in the university at the classes of English, but also in the daily life of students.

INTONATION

INTONATION

i) Intonation enables us to express emotions and attitudes as we speak, and this adds a special kind of "meaning" to spoken language. This is often called the attitudinal function of intonation.
ii) Intonation helps to produce the effect of prominence on syllables that need to be perceived as stressed, and in particular the placing of tonic stress on a particular syllable marks out the word to which it belongs as the most important in the tone-unit. In this case, intonation works to focus attention on a particular lexical item or syllable. This has been called the accentual function of intonation.
iii) The listener is better able to recognize the grammar and syntactic structure of what is being said by using the information contained in the intonation; for example, such things as the placement of boundaries between phrases, clauses or sentences, the difference between questions and statements, and the use of grammatical subordination may be indicated. This has been called the grammatical function of intonation.
iv) Looking at the act of speaking in a broader way, we can see that intonation can signal to the listener what is to be taken as "new" information and what is already "given", can suggest when the speaker is indicating some sort of contrast or link with material in another tone-unit and, in conversation, can convey to the listener what kind of response is expected. Such functions are examples of intonation's discourse function. The attitudinal function has been given so much importance in past work on intonation that it will be discussed separately in this chapter, although it should eventually become clear that it overlaps considerably with the discourse function. In the case of the other three functions, it will be argued that it is difficult to see how they could be treated as separate; for example, the placement of tonic stress is closely linked to the presentation of "new" information, while the question/statement distinction and the indication of contrast seem to be equally important in grammar and discourse. What seems to be common to accentual, grammatical and discourse functions is the indication, by means of intonation, of the relationship between some linguistic element and the context in which it occurs. The fact that they overlap with each other to a large degree is not so important if one does not insist on defining watertight boundaries between them.

RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH (RP) AND GENERAL AMERICAN PRONUNCIATION (GA)

RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH (RP) AND
GENERAL AMERICAN PRONUNCIATION (GA)

The manner of the pronunciation of one and the same person appears to be
different in different circumstances. For example, when delivering a speech, a
lecture, speaking over TV, talking to officials or chattering with friends and
relatives. These different ways of pronunciation are called pronunciation styles.

1) the rapid familiar style (Сан Саныч);
2) the slower colloquial style;
3) the natural style;
4) the formal style;
5) the acquired style – style of singing and recitation.

L.V. Shcherba while classifying pronunciation styles used the so-called
distinctive principle,i.e. the degree of carefulness with which words are
pronounced. Accordingly he suggested two types of pronunciation styles:
1) the full style, characterized by a moderately slow tempo and careful
pronunciation of words. Words retain their full forms, vowels and
consonants are not reduced and non-obligatory assimilation is avoided.

This style in its purest form is observed in singing and recitation;
2) the colloquial style differs from the full style in its tempo and clearness. It
is characterized by the use of weak forms, reduction and assimilation of
vowels and consonants.
As a result of its colonial expansion of Great Britain English has spread from
the British Isles to all the continents of the globe. As the colonies gained their
independence and nationhood, English remained the national language of several
countries: the USA, Australia, New Zealand, the greater part of Canada, the
Republic of South Africa. There are several national varieties or variants of
English. Accordingly all English speaking nations have their own variants of
pronunciation. Still all the national types of pronunciation have many features in
common, because they have the common origin. At the time they have varying
number of differences due to the new conditions of their development after the
separation from Great Britain. Following Marckwardt we shall use the terms Br.E.,
Am.E., Austr.E. etc. to denote the national varieties of English pronunciation. In
the USA there are three regional types of the American English: the Eastern, the
Western, the Southern.
Eastern American English (EA) is spoken along the Eastern coast of New England and largely in New York City. It bears a close resemblance to the
Southern English type because the early settlers were the people mostly from the
Southern and Eastern Great Britain. One of the features of the EA is the traditional
use of [a:] in the words “ask”, “answer”, though the tendency to use […] is
growing. [a:] is also used for […] in such words: learn, certainly; [e] –> […]: just,
such; [i] –> [e]: yes, get, several. EA speakers use […] in such words: dog, crop,
hot.
Southern American English (SA) is spoken in Southern American states of Virginia, Northern and Southern Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, Maryland. Generally speaking SA has some specific
differences in the manner of articulation as they lengthen vowels. It is called the
southern drawl. As a rule vowels are prolonged, monophthongs are turned into
diphthongs and even threephthongs: […] – > [………]: that [……………]. As far
as diphthongs are concerned some of them are turned into long monophthongs by
prolonging the nucleus and dropping the glide: fine [fa:n], oil […:l]. The final and
preconsonantal [r] is usually omitted: far [fa:], farm [fa:m]. Intervocalic [r] is also
not pronounced: vary [v……i]. The retention of [j] in such words as due, tune, new
is characteristic in the South. The pronunciation of some words is peculiar: with
[wi…], without [wi…aut]; in the words world, fast, kind the final -d, -t are not
pronounced.

Using Communication Games to Teach English

Using Communication Games to Teach English

·         Exercises for the ESL Classroom

Regardless of what country you are teaching in, speaking and communicating in a foreign language with confidence is something that is very difficult for many English second language learners. Students may fear being embarrassed by not speaking correctly or by making grammar mistakes. You do not want your students to be scared to speak; in fact, you want them ready to speak at every opportunity given. Playing a game is a great way for students to be more relaxed and eager to practice speaking.

It is always a great feeling as a teacher to see your students active and blurting out answers and opinions in English in class. This article will introduce four communication games that are easy to implement and fun for both students and teachers.

·         Make a Story with These Five Words

This game, for lack of a better name, is called "Make a Story with These Five Words." It is a great way to review how to use English vocabulary that is being learned as well as how to learn how to tell an organized and funny story in English. Some of the stories students come up with will have you laughing as well. The students should create a chain story; this means the second student must start his story where the last student ended her story. This forces students to listen to each story and keeps the class on their toes.

·         Survey Game

The "Survey Game" is a great way to get students up and moving. It can be played among all levels of English students. It is also a great method for letting students get to know each other by communicating in English. All you have to do is create a questionnaire and have students complete it by asking other students the questions on it. Here is an example of how it works.

You have a class of first graders who have an elementary grasp of English. You create a questionnaire that asks questions such as the following: How many students in the class like to eat watermelon? How many people in the class like to sing? Who in the class can play the piano? Who in the class likes to eat hamburgers?

Arrange the questionnaire according to the English level of your class. After students finish the questionnaire, have them present their findings to the class.

·         Guess the Object

This ESL communication game requires your students to listen to the student talking and use creative thinking to guess the answer. This "Guess the Object" game works like this: you put an object inside an opaque bag and ask one student to come to the front of the class and describe the object to the class. The student should not say what the object is, but rather should use English to describe the object. The other students listen and guess. It is a great way to review vocabulary and work on English-speaking and listening.

For example, if the object is a toy witch, the student can use phrases like "mean lady who does magic" or "ugly evil woman" to give the rest of the class hints. This game works for upper elementary to advanced ESL learners.

·         Role Play

Role play scenarios are wonderful for teaching students useful, everyday English. It also works for all ages and levels. I have done role play activities with students as young as three years old and as old as 30. Be sure to adjust the difficulty and complexity of this communication game according to the age and level.

Role play can simulate a variety of activities and scenarios, such as going to the bank, visiting a doctor, or hanging out with a group of friends at a bar. Simulating real life scenarios in this way greatly increases English communication ability among your students.

Queen/s English..............CALL

         Queen/s English..............CALL

Computer Assisted Language Learning is evolving as a new branch of learning and teaching
methodology. The focus of the paper is ―How well can CALL be used to teach Spoken English?‖ The program design for spoken English using CALL is called Queen/s English. This paper discusses the possibility of teaching spoken English using computers and web based technology.
Computer with internet connection is required, at both ends. Webcam can be of great help at the teaching end, in order that the teacher is visible. While teaching spoken English with webcam computer assistance, learners can watch lip movements. Lip movements are an essential part of pronouncing sounds such as ‗o, v, w‘

There has been an increase in vocational training and learning throughout the world. With the spread of globalization has come the increase in use of English as the language of international communication.

People are using English in large numbers in more and more occupational contexts. Students are starting to learn and master general English very early in their life. Even in English speaking countries governments are launching initiatives to help economic migrants obtain the practical English skills necessary to function in the workplace. For example, the new ESOL for Work Qualifications in the UK is designed to help employers and employees access courses which offer them the functional language skills required across a variety of employment sectors.

CALL facilitates a virtual classroom where the teacher and learner are present at the same time, though they may be in different locations. It saves time normally spent in traveling to a place of learning.

Learning is possible even across time zones. Internet access should be available in all learning locations. Time is set up at the convenience of all involved
Location is not restrictive. Both teacher and learners can switch on their computer , avail net connection facility , anywhere even in a car parked by the roadside. With computers holding charge for two hours or more and electricity connection available in the trains, one can teach or learn while travelling.

The production of speech sounds

The production of speech sounds 

                                      ARTICULATORS

All the sounds we make when we speak are the result of muscles contracting. The muscles in the chest that we use for breathing produce the flow of air that is needed for almost all speech sounds; muscles in the larynx produce many different modifications in the flow of air from the chest to the mouth. After passing through the larynx, the air goes through what we call the vocal tract, which ends at the mouth and nostrils; we call the part comprising the mouth the oral cavity and the part that leads to the nostrils the nasal cavity. Here the air from the lungs escapes into the atmosphere. We have a large and complex set of muscles that can produce changes in the shape of the vocal tract, and in order to learn how the sounds of speech are produced it is necessary to become familiar with the different parts of the vocal tract. These different parts are called articulators, and the study of them is called articulatory phonetics.

i) The pharynx is a tube which begins just above the larynx. It is about 2 cm long in women and about 5 cm in men, and at its top end it is divided into two, one part being the back of the oral cavity and the other being the beginning of the way through the nasal cavity. If you look in your mirror with your mouth open, you can see the back of the pharynx.

ii) The soft palate or velum is seen in the diagram in a position that allows air to pass through the nose and through the mouth. Yours is probably in that position now, but often in speech it is raised so that air cannot escape through the nose. The other important thing about the soft palate is that it is one of the articulators that can be touched by the tongue. When we make the sounds k, g the tongue is in contact with the lower side of the soft palate, and we call these velar consonants.

iii) The hard palate is often called the "roof of the mouth". You can feel its smooth curved surface with your tongue. A consonant made with the tongue close to the hard palate is called palatal. The sound j in 'yes' is palatal.

iv) The alveolar ridge is between the top front teeth and the hard palate. You can feel its shape with your tongue. Its surface is really much rougher than it feels, and is covered with little ridges. You can only see these if you have a mirror small enough to go inside your mouth, such as those used by dentists. Sounds made with the tongue touching here (such as t, d, n) are called alveolar.

v) The tongue is a very important articulator and it can be moved into many different places and different shapes. It is usual to divide the tongue into different parts, though there are no clear dividing lines within its structure.

vi) The teeth (upper and lower) are usually  only at the front of the mouth, immediately behind the lips. This is for the sake of a simple diagram, and you should remember that most speakers have teeth to the sides of their mouths, back almost to the soft palate. The tongue is in contact with the upper side teeth for most speech sounds. Sounds mad with the tongue touching the front teeth, such as English T, D, are called dental.

vii) The lips are important in speech. They can be pressed together (when we produce the sounds p, b), brought into contact with the teeth (as in f, v), or rounded to produce the lip-shape for vowels like u:. Sounds in which the lips are in contact with each other are called bilabial, while those with lip- to-teeth contact are called labiodental.

The seven articulators described above are the main ones used in speech, but there are a few other things to remember. Firstly, the larynx could also be described as an articulator - a very complex and independent one. Secondly, the jaws are sometimes called articulators; certainly we move the lower jaw a lot in speaking. But the jaws are not articulators in the same way as the others, because they cannot themselves make contact with other articulators. Finally, although there is practically nothing active that we can do with the nose and the nasal cavity when speaking, they are a very important part of our equipment for making sounds (which is sometimes called our vocal apparatus), particularly nasal consonants such as m, n. Again, we cannot really describe the nose and the nasal cavity as articulators in the same sense 

Semi-Vowels

Semi-Vowels

In English, a short version of [i], spelt y, occurs in yet and a short version of [u], spelt w, occurs in west. If you say yet giving the y the length of an ordinary vowel, you’ll notice that it is in fact the same as [i] in quality (high, front, unrounded). Similarly with the w of west (high, back, rounded.)
These truncated high vowels are, for obvious reasons, known as semi-vowels. They always occur at the beginnings or ends of syllables, just as consonants do, never as the centre of a syllable: thus met, pet, set (consonants) and yet (semi-vowel). In short, semi-vowels are sounds which are articulated like vowels but positioned in words like consonants. (Indeed the term semi-consonant is occasionally applied to them.)
The symbol [w] has been adopted unchanged by the IPA to represent the high back semi-vowel of west ([wEst]). However, the [y] symbol isn’t available for yet, as it’s already in use for Cardinal 9 (the vowel in rue and über). Instead [j] is used: so yet is transcribed [jEt]. Like [y], [j] in the IPA has the same value as in German spelling (cf. Jahr, etc.). But it’s not called “jay”, as this would be too suggestive of the sound it has in English. Instead you should read it as “yod”. [w] on the other hand is still read“double-you”.

A point to note about [w] relates to words like when, which, whether. In some accents (notably American, Scots, and conservative RP), [w] in such cases becomes voiceless: the wh in the spelling is an attempt to represent this, in the absence of any distinctive letter. A special symbol has been devised for the IPA, however — an inverted w: [˜]. So for some English speakers there is a difference between [wain] (wine) and [˜ain] (whine), or [weilz] (Wales) and [˜eilz] (whales).
French specialists should know that as well as [j] and [w], French (unlike English, German or Spanish) has a third semi-vowel — a shortened version of [y]. The phonetic symbol is [] (“turned h”). This is the sound that is usually represented in ordinary French spelling by u when followed by another vowel, e.g. in puis or nuage. It should be distinguished from [w], which corresponds to ou in the spelling. So there’s a difference between Louis [lwi] and lui [li], and between “bury oneself
— s’enfouir, with [w]: [sfwir] — and “run away” — s’enfuir, with []: [sfi]. The best way to practise a word like puis is to start by pronouncing it with two full vowels [py] + [i] and gradually shorten the [y] so that you end up with a word of one syllable, containing a semi-vowel and just one vowel: [pi]. But make sure you’re pronouncing the [y] as [y] and not as [u]: otherwise you’ll be saying [pwi]!
Notice also that [j] can occur at the end of words in French: travail [travaj], pareil [parj], grenouille [grnuj]. [aj, j, uj] aren’t diphthongs: in [aj] for example there is a rapid transition from low [a] to high [j], with minimal time spent on the intervening stages. This is quite unlike the much more “drawn out” diphthong of English high, with its gradual transition. (The case of haï — mentioned in Exercise 42c — is different again: this word has two syllables each consisting of a full-length vowel [a +i], and the same amount of time is spent on each.)

TONGUE AS A SPEECH ORGAN

TONGUE AS A SPEECH ORGAN 

The tongue has long been thought of the speech organ par excellence, even though its biological role lies in tasting and swallowing, not in vocalizing. In many languages the word for “tongue” and the word for “language” are one and the same (French langue, Spanish lengua, Russian iazyk for instance, or tongue in Biblical and Shakespearean English). In actual fact the larynx is also important, as we have seen — but as people are much less conscious of it, it seems to have attracted less attention.
Anyway, the tongue is certainly involved in the articulation of a large number of sounds, just a few of which have been mentioned above. Its versatility is due to the fact that it consists entirely of nerve and muscle tissue, so it is highly flexible and mobile.  The tongue is not thin and flat (even though it may feel that way), but has a considerable amount of depth or body.
It’s convenient to consider the tongue as consisting of a number of different sections . As there are no clear cut-off points on the tongue itself, these division are somewhat arbitrary, and can vary from one authority to another. But most phoneticians distinguish between the TIP, the BLADE, the FRONT (not a good name, as it’s more like the middle than the front!), the BACK and the ROOT. These articulate against different parts of the roof of the mouth, giving sounds like the s of so (with the blade),the sh of shall (with the front), and so on.

Nasalization in phonetics

Nasalization in phonetics

In linguistics, the imparting of a nasal quality to a sound, by opening up the nasal cavity as an extra resonator. All speech sounds are made with some configuration of the throat and oral cavity. The velum or soft palate acts as a drawbridge: it is normally retracted so as to close off the nasal cavity, but in nasal sounds it is lowered to allow air to resonate simultaneously through the nose.

Nasal consonants, like M and N and the Ng in sing and the Ñ in España, have a complete closure somewhere in the mouth, and air escapes only through the nose. They may also be called nasal stops.

Nasal vowels have both the oral and nasal cavities open. Nasalization is thus an extra articulation on an oral vowel, so nasal vowels may also be called nasalized vowels. This is nitpicking, but there are no solely nasal sounds. Also, configuration of the nasal cavity can't be altered (say by flaring the nostrils), or at least if this is physically possible it's never been reported as used in any language. The only parameter of nasality is whether the velum is open or shut.

Familiar languages with nasal vowels are French, Portuguese, Polish, and Hindi, and they are quite common world-wide, especially in West African languages. The four French vowels are illustrated by
 the phrase un bon vin blanc 'a good white wine'. All languages without exception have oral vowels, and usually have more oral than nasal.

The IPA phonetic symbol for nasalization is a tilde, thus [œ˜ bõ vE˜ blã]. (Only the Portuguese letters ã õ will show up correctly in HTML, so I've had to use a separate tilde: it should be over the vowel in all cases.) In Polish Lech Wałęsa = [lex va'we˜sa]

This is called primary nasalization when the language systematically uses nasal vowels as distinct phonemes: French [bõ] 'good' contrasts with [bo] 'beautiful'.

Most consonants can't be nasalized, or rather a nasalized B just is an M. They are the same orally, and instead of exploding abruptly as B does, the air is released continuously through the nose in M. But some consonants, those called sonorants, allow their normal oral articulation to have simultaneous nasality imposed over them. This set includes the laterals or L-like sounds, the rhotics or R-like sounds, and the approximants including W and Y. However, it is extremely rare to have nasalized sonorants as phonemes: usually they are the result of secondary nasalization.

The success of teaching English in Globalized World

The success of teaching English in  Globalized World

The success of teaching depends on the interest of students to the subject, on their desire to learn it.
Sometimes classes pass by, not leaving a trace in education of students. Studying time is whiled away by drawing pictures, talking to the neighbor or sending SMS. In some cases the stimulus is very difficult to create. But the high motivation to study English is observed by using multimedia which gives a variety of forms of teaching from listening to audio records and watching video, up to works with computer programs and dialogue in a chat. As it is known, all these kinds of activity are sources of entertainments of students during leisure time. The process of teaching English becomes interesting, easy and thus, productive. The development of language skills and media skills is carried out not only in the university at the classes of English, but also in the daily life of students
.
The use of multimedia for language learning and teaching is multifarious in the world of science
and technology, the role of multimedia in learning and teaching is indispensable .computerized instruction helps to overcome the short coming found in traditional methods, as it is interactive and more friendly closer with the learner which is at the disposal of the learner himself. It also removes psychological atmosphere they feel discomfort. The multimedia programs equipped by sound recording tasks build less stress full conditions. Each student individually has an opportunity to write down his/her speech, to listen to it and compare to the authentic speech. Such kind of work removes the psychological difficulties of speaking, develops practical skills, phonetic skills and media skills without the trauma of psyche of the students. So these are the ways available to develop and enrich the language in one who learns English language as a second language. The second language leaner will get fluency and good pronunciation also.

Thus teaching English using multimedia is the solution to the demands of the globalize world.

REGIONAL VARIANTS OF ENGLISH

REGIONAL VARIANTS OF ENGLISH

It is common knowledge that any national language has two material forms:
written and spoken. The written form of a national language is usually a generally
accepted standard and is uniform throughout the country. Spoken language on the
contrary is not so uniform because it varies from locality to locality. Such distinct
spoken forms of a language are called local dialects. Dialects may be defined as
language varieties that are spoken by a socially limited number of people. In the
course of time the pronunciation of the dialects can become generally accepted or
standard. So we may say that the two polar varieties of the national language in its
spoken form are the standard literary pronunciation and dialects.

Standard pronunciation may be defined as the elaborated variety of the
national language which obeys definite norms, recognized as standard and
acceptable in all kinds and types of oral communication. Standard pronunciation
in other words is governed by the orthoepical norms (Greek orthos – straight,
correct; epic –> epos – speech).
So the standard pronunciation includes the pronunciation norms which reflect the main tendencies in the pronunciation which exist in the language. It is the pronunciation used by educated people typified by radio and TV announcers and recorded in pronunciation dictionaries as the proper
and correct pronunciation. The factual material testifies to the fact that each
national language may fall into several regional standards in terms of
pronunciation.

 These regional standards are considered equally correct and
acceptable and they can be described as varieties of national standard
pronunciation. Each regional standard of pronunciation is characterized by features
that are common to all the dialects used in that region. national language is defined as a unified complex of regional and dialectal varieties from the point of view of its pronunciation.

At present there may be distinguished three large regional types of cultivated
English in GB: Northern English pronunciation; Southern EP which is variously
known as the Standard EP, RP or public school pronunciation; 

Accent

Accent

While pronouncing words, we can distinguish syllables which are articulated
with different degrees of prominence. Syllables given a special degree of
prominence may occur at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of words. A
greater degree of prominence given to one or more syllables in a word which
singles it out through changes in the pitch and intensity of the voice and
results in qualitative and quantitative modifications of sounds in the accented

Accent performs three basic functions:
1) constitutive, because it organizes a word as a complicated sound unit;
2) recognitive, as it helps to recognize words;
3) distinctive for it helps to distinguish words and their grammar forms
(import – import; produce – produce; perfect – perfect). It also helps to
distinguish compound words from word-combinations.  this distinctive function makes word accent a separate
phonological unit performing a sense-differentiating function. He calls it
accenteme.
a.).
In spite of the fact that word accent in English is free, the freedom of its
incidence is restricted by certain factors that determine the place and different
degrees of word accent.

1) recessive tendency (tending to move away) – results in placing the
word accent on the initial syllable under the influence of the
Germanic tendency to stress the first syllable. Many English words
are of the Germanic origin (Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian). E.g.
father, mother, brother. Under the influence of this tendency words
of the Romanic origin (French) illustrate this tendency as well;

2) rhythmical tendency has caused the appearance in borrowed words
of many syllables of a secondary stress separated from the word
final principal stress by one unstressed syllable. E.g. the word
“radical” was borrowed from French. Later the word received the
recessive stress. Gradually the stress on the last syllable began to
weaken because it was contrary to the strong English tendency toplace the word accent on the fist syllable. This is an example of a
historical or diachronical rhythmical tendency. Nowadays there is a
genuine rhythmical stress in word of four or more syllables (e.g. in
the word “celebration”);

3) retentive tendency consists in the retention of the primary accent in
word derivations. E.g. norm – normal; person – personal;

4) the semantic factor plays an important role in the accentuation of
certain categories of words. For example in prefixed words in which
the prefix lost its meaning (become, before, behind, forever) the
stress falls on the root of the word, but there are words with prefixes
which have their own meaning. In such words the semantic factor
cancels the rhythmical tendency. The same is true with compound
words in which both elements are considered to be of equal
semantic importance. The classes of double-stressed English
words are:
a) words with the so called strong or separable prefixes: mispronunciation,
anti-revolutionary, non-party and some others:
disrespectful, unknown, to overwork, to underpay, to rewrite;
b) compound adjectives: dark-green, hardworking, blue-eyed;
c) phrasal verbs: come in, put off, bring up;
d) any numerals from 13 to 19 and compound numerals (23);
e) a small number of compound nouns consisting of two
elements of which the second element according to D. Jones
is felt to be of special importance: gas-stove, absentmindedness,
eye-witness.
In addition to double-stressed compound nouns English has a greater number of compound
nouns with a single stress or so called unity stress:
blacksmith, greenhouse. It should be born in mind that when
words with double stress occur in actual speech the
rhythmical tendency becomes operative and one of the
stresses is inevitably lost. 

ACCENTUAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH

ACCENTUAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH

While pronouncing words, we can distinguish syllables which are articulated
with different degrees of prominence. Syllables given a special degree of
prominence may occur at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of words. A
greater degree of prominence given to one or more syllables in a word which
singles it out through changes in the pitch and intensity of the voice and
results in qualitative and quantitative modifications of sounds in the accented
syllable is known as word accent.

Languages differ from each other in the principal means by which the
special prominence of speech sounds is achieved and word accent thus effected.
One of such means is the pronunciation of a syllable in a word with greater force
of utterance as compared with that of the other syllables of the same word. Word
accent effected by these means is called dynamic or force stress.

A syllable can be made especially prominent by uttering each on a different pitch level than the
other syllable or syllables of the same word. Word accent effected by these means
is called musical or tonic accent.

 A syllable becomes more prominent when its vowel is pronounced longer than another vowel or other vowels of the same timbre. Word accent effected by these means is called quantitative accent. In most languages stressed syllables are made prominent by the combination of
several all the above mentioned means.Scandinavian languages make use of both
dynamic stress and tonic accent in a more or less equal degree.

Recent investigations of the acoustic nature of word accent in English and
Russian have shown that word stress in these languages is effected rather by
creating a definite pattern of relationships among all the syllables of every
disyllabic or polysyllabic word.

From a purely phonetic point of view a polysyllabic word has as many degrees of stress as there are syllables in it.

Free word accent is characterized by the fact
that in different words of the language different syllables are stressed.

Free word accent has two sub-types: constant which always remains on the same morpheme in different grammar forms of a word or in different derivatives fromthe same root (wonder, wonderful, wonderfully)

shifting accent is one which fallson different morphemes in different grammatical forms of a word or in derivatives from one and the same root (history – historical; active – activity;

The source of air for SPEECH SOUNDS

 The source of air for SPEECH SOUNDS

The LUNGS (Fig. 1) are basically sponge-like in design, except that they hold air (in a myriad of tiny airsacs), not water. When we breathe in, we enlarge the chest cavity (in part by lowering the diaphragm). This in turn expands the lungs, and air rushes in to fill the vacuum. Breathing out involves the opposite procedure. The chest is contracted and air is squeezed out of the lungs, passing through the two BRONCHI (or bronchial tubes), then through the windpipe (more technically the TRACHEA), and finally emerging in the throat.
First, we normally speak only while breathing out. It’s also quite possible to speak while breathing in (for example when counting and not wishing to pause to draw breath), but this is an inefficient way of making sounds and therefore not a regular feature of any language. In some speech-communities, though, people use “ingressive air” as a conventional means of disguising their voices.
Second, there are various ways of making speech sounds with air that doesn’t originate in the lungs. The disapproving noise conventionally represented as tut tut! is an example. Some languages make regular use of “click” sounds like this one, as well as other “non-pulmonic” sounds that from a European point of view seem even more exotic.
Third, if we used the same breathing rhythm for talking as for just breathing quietly, we’d have to pause for breath every couple of words. (Try it and see.) In speech, quite complex adjustments of the chest muscles and diaphragm are constantly being made in order to slow down the airstream and hold it back as it leaves the lungs.

PHONETICS-FUNDAMENTAL PART OF LINGUISTICS

PHONETICS-FUNDAMENTAL PART OF LINGUISTICS 

Languages can basically be thought of as systems — highly complicated ones — which enable us to express our thoughts by means of “vocal noises”, and to extract meaning from the “noises” (speech sounds from now on) that are made by other people. Linguistics is the study of the nature and properties of these systems, and its various branches focus on different aspects of the communication process.
Phonetics is the branch concerned with human speech sounds, and itself has three different aspects:
• Articulatory Phonetics (the most anatomical and physiological division) describes how vowels and consonants are produced or “articulated” in various parts of the mouth and throat.
• Acoustic Phonetics (the branch that has the closest affinities with physics) studies the sound waves that transmit the vowels and consonants through the air from the speaker to the hearer.
• Auditory Phonetics (the branch of most interest to psychologists) looks at the way in which the hearer’s brain decodes the sound waves back into the vowels and consonants originally intended by the speaker.
Closely associated with Phonetics is another branch of linguistics known as Phonology. This focuses on the way languages use differences between sounds in order to convey differences of meaning between words, each language having its own unique sound pattern. Phonology is really the link between Phonetics and the rest of Linguistics.

Obviously it’s a fundamental part of Linguistics, so no-one studying this subject can ignore it. But for students of languages, there are also practical advantages to be gained from knowing some basic Phonetics.
Firstly, you should be able to improve your pronunciation of foreign languages if you have a clearer idea of how the sounds are actually produced. Troublesome sounds like French r, German ü or Spanish j lose their mystery and become less daunting once you know how they relate to other more familiar sounds. And there are various general features of the “British accent” which can be characterized by phonetic analysis: when you know what it is that makes British accents so British, you’ll be well on the way to getting rid of yours (if you have one: most people do to some extent at least). What’s more, you’ll be able to look up the pronunciation of words in the dictionary once you’re familiar with the phonetic alphabet.
Secondly, many of you will at some stage or other find yourselves teaching a language to other people: either French, German, Spanish, etc. if you make a career of teaching, or English if you are involved in ESOL (English as a Second Language, also known as EFL: English as a Foreign Language). ESOL is not just a useful source of vac jobs: it is a serious career in itself. And many Modern Languages students spend a year of their degree course working abroad as English language teachers. In all such cases, you are likely to have to help learners to improve their accents. If someone is having difficulty with English th, it’s not much help just to tell them “don’t say it like that, say it like I do”. (Unless they’re natural mimics, in which case they won’t need instruction from you anyway.) Much better if you can guide them to make the appropriate tongue movements, on a basis of your knowledge of phonetics.

Received Pronunciation., RP in PHONETICS

Received Pronunciation., RP in PHONETICS

The accent described here is the present-day version of the accent that has been used as the
standard in phoneticians’ description of the pronunciation of British English for centuries. The
definition of this accent is a matter of heated debate and frequent controversy: the arguments
will not be rehearsed here,
a. The number of native speakers of this accent who originate in Ireland, Scotland andWales
is very small and probably diminishing, and it is therefore a misnomer to call it an accent
of BRITISH English. It is an accent spoken by some English people.
b. The great majority of native speakers of this accent are of middle-class or upper-class
origin, educated at private schools and (if of appropriate age) university. This does not
mean that the accent cannot be acquired by others:  originally spoke with an accent with noticeable regional features,but has over many years of teaching the phonetics of English acquired an accent not far from the standard one described here.
c. The majority of speakers of this accent live in, or originate from, the south-east of England.
d. The accent is most familiar as that used by most ‘official’ BBC speakers of English origin
(newsreaders and announcers on Radio 4 and Radio 3, and most television channels).

It is also frequently heard on the BBC World Service, though that service appears to
have adopted the policy of sometimes using newsreaders and announcers with noticeable
foreign accents. It is clear that this accent will eventually lose its pre-eminent status in
broadcasting as a result of the wish to broaden the social base of broadcast speech, but it
will take a long time for this to happen.

The accent has been known for nearly a century as RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION, or by its
abbreviation, RP. Early in the 20th century, Daniel Jones, the great exponent of the description
of English pronunciation, named it PUBLIC SCHOOL PRONUNCIATION , but later
changed the name to Received Pronunciation. Other names have been proposed, such as
GENERAL BRITISH (GB) and EDUCATED SOUTHERN BRITISH ENGLISH.
but given the continuing popularity of the name Received Pronunciation, this has
been used for the description which follows.
The choice of symbols for the representation of RP is one which has provoked much
discussion, but since the 1980s there has existed, largely as a result of pressure from the major
ELT publishers, a de facto standard set of symbolization conventions which has remained
almost unchanged to the present day. It is widely accepted that some modification of these
conventions is needed to take account of observable changes in the pronunciation of English,
but it is felt to be important that such modifications should not be introduced without general
agreement among practitioners of English phonetics so that the benefits of a common system
of transcription enjoyed over the last twenty or thirty years should not be lost. An alternative
set of transcriptions has, however, been used in the Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation

THE NATURE OF INTONATION.

THE NATURE OF INTONATION.

The alternation of words and their grammar forms is to be used in sentences.
Besides the syntactic factor the main factor that turns a word or a group of words
into a sentence is intonation. It is present in every sentence because words in the
sentence conditions are pronounced with certain tone, timbre, voice, loudness and
duration. These features are called supra-segmental or prosodic characteristics of
speech. The term “prosody” embraces such notions as pitch, loudness, tempo and
substitutes the term “intonation”.

The basic prosodic features of the sentence are: speech melody, sentence
accent, tempo, voice, timbre, rhythm, pausation. Intonation together with the
proper choice of grammar structure is the main constituent feature of the sentence.
So the major function of intonation is therefore sentence constitutive.

Simultaneously it performs the sentence distinctive function. It can be proved
by the following personal observations:
 a) intonation gives the final expression tothe sentence;
b) changes in the components of intonation alter the communicative
type of the sentence. E.g. “You have a personal objection to her” (falling tone –
statement; rising – general question). “Remove the luggage” (falling tone – order;
rising – polite request). It is seen from these examples that intonation alongside
with a sentence constitutive function performs the sentence distinctive function
simultaneously. It also has the recognitive function. Intonation can give the
sentence emotional colouring expressing joy, 

Aspects of connected speech

Aspects of connected speech

Many years ago scientists tried to develop machines that produced speech from a vocabulary of pre-recorded words; the machines were designed to join these words together to form sentences. For very limited messages, such as those of a "talking clock", this technique was usable, but for other purposes the quality of the speech was so unnatural that it was practically unintelligible. In recent years, developments in computer technology have led to big improvements in this way of producing speech, but the inadequacy of the original "mechanical speech" approach has many lessons to teach us about pronuncia-tion teaching and learning. In looking at connected speech it is useful to bear in mind the difference between the way humans speak and what would be found in "mechanical speech".

Rhythm 

The notion of rhythm involves some noticeable event happening at regular intervals of time; one can detect the rhythm of a heartbeat, of a flashing light or of a piece of music. It has often been claimed that English speech is rhythmical, and that the rhythm is detectable in the regular occurrence of stressed syllables.
Of course, it is not suggested that the timing is as regular as a clock: the regularity of occurrence is only relative. The theory that English has stress-timed rhythm implies that stressed syllables will tend to occur at relatively regular intervals whether they are separated by unstressed syllables or not; this would not be the case in "mechanical speech".
The stress-timed rhythm theory states that the times from each stressed syllable to the next will tend to be the same, irrespective of the number of intervening unstressed syllables. The theory also claims that while some languages (e.g. Russian, Arabic) have stress-timed rhythm similar to that of English, others (e.g. French, Telugu, Yoruba) have a different rhythmical structure called syllable-timed rhythm; in these languages, all syllables, whether stressed or unstressed, tend to occur at regular time intervals and the  time between stressed syllables will be shorter or longer in proportion to the number of unstressed syllables.
Some writers have developed theories of English rhythm in which a unit of rhythm, the foot, is used (with a parallel in the metrical analysis of verse).
The foot begins with a stressed syllable and includes all following unstressed syllables up to (but not including) the following stressed syllable.
Some theories of rhythm go further than this, and point to the fact that some feet are stronger than others, producing strong-weak patterns in larger pieces of speech above the level of the foot.
To understand how this could be done, let's start with a simple example: the word 'twenty' has one strong and one weak syllable, forming one foot. A diagram of its rhythmical structure can be made, where s stands for "strong" and w stands for "weak".

Strong and weak syllables

Strong and weak syllables

Strong and weak One of the most noticeable features of English pronunciation is that some of its syllables are strong while many others are weak; this is also true of many other languages, but it is necessary to study how these weak syllables are pronounced and where they occur in English.

The distribution of strong and weak syllables is a subject that will be met in several later chapters. For example, we will look later at stress, which is very important in deciding whether a syllable is strong or weak.
Elision is a closely related subject, and in considering intonation the difference between strong and weak syllables is also important. Finally, words with "strong forms" and "weak forms" are clearly a related matter. In this chapter we look at the general nature of weak syllables.
What do we mean by "strong" and "weak"? To begin with, we can look at how we use these terms to refer to phonetic characteristics of syllables. When we compare weak syllables with strong syllables, we find the vowel in a weak syllable tends to be shorter, of lower intensity (loudness) and different in quality. For example, in the word 'data' delta the second syllable, which is weak, is shorter than the first, is less loud and has a vowel that cannot occur in strong syllables. In a word like 'bottle' the weak second syllable contains no vowel at all, but consists entirely of the consonant . We call this a syllabic consonant.
There are other ways of characterising strong and weak syllables. We could describe them partly in terms of stress (by saying, for example, that strong syllables are stressed and weak syllables unstressed) but, until we describe what "stress" means, such a description would not be very useful.

The most important thing to note at present is that any strong syllable will have as its peak one of the vowel phonemes (or possibly a triphthong) , but not a, i, u. If the vowel is one of  then the strong syllable will always have a coda as well.
Weak syllables, on the other hand, as they are defined here, can only have one of a very small number of possible peaks. At the end of a word, we may have a weak syllable ending with a vowel 

PHONETICS AS A SCIENCE

PHONETICS AS A SCIENCE

Nowadays Phonetics is defined as an independent branch of Linguistics
which studies the sound matter of the language, its semantic functions and the lines
of its development. Phonetics began to be developed as a science in the 19th
century. The factors that stimulated its development were as follows:
• a more thorough acquaintance with the functioning of the human speaking
apparatus;
• investigations of many linguists who studied languages that had not
alphabets;
• compiling alphabets for such languages.
The objects, aims and value of Phonetics are defined on the basis of
scientific conception of language based on the thesis that being the most important
medium of human intercourse, language is at the same time directly and
inseparably connected with thought. This connection manifests itself not only in
the generally recognized fact that thoughts can be expressed in actual speech only
by means of words organized into sentences pronounced with the proper intonation
but also in the less obvious fact that thoughts can originate and be formulated in
the human mind also only on the basis of words and sentences. It is clear that
language can only exist in the material form of speech sound, though the sounds of
speech do not constitute a separate independent element of language.

Speech sounds are vibrating particles of air or sound waves or still in other
words – a variety of matter moving in space and time. Speech sounds are produced
by human organs of speech. Every speech sound is a complex of definite finely coordinated and differentiated movements and positions of various speech organs.
They can be considered from the physiological phenomenon having its articulating
and auditory aspects.
Accordingly to it Phonetics is subdivided into three principal parts: the branch of Phonetics concerned with the study, description and classification of speech sounds as regards their reduction by the human speaking apparatus is called Articulatory Phonetics. Its oldest and simplest method of
investigation is the method of direct observation (visual and auditory).
This method is subjective. The objective methods require the use of various apparatus
and devices such as the artificial palate, photography, X-ray photography, X-ray
cinematography, laryngoscopy etc.
The branch of Phonetics which is concerned with the study of the acoustic aspect is called Acoustic Phonetics. It uses kymograph (records, qualitative variations of sounds), a spectrograph (shows
frequencies of a given sound and its amplitudes), auscilograph (records sound
vibrations) and intonograph (investigates the fundamental frequency of speech as
the component of intonation).
The branch of Phonetics which studies the units serving people for communicative purposes is called Phonology. Besides we have Special Phonetics or Descriptive Phonetics, General Phonetics, Historical Phonetics, Comparative Phonetics.
All the branches of Phonetics are closely connected with each other as well as with some other branches of Linguistics such as Lexicology, Grammar, and Stylistics. The connection of Phonetics with Lexicology lies in the fact that distinction of words is realized by the variety of
their appearances.
The phonetic course of a given language determines the sound composition of words. For example Turkish languages do not admit two or more consonants at the beginning of words while in some Slavonic languages such a phenomenon is widely spread (вкрасти, спритний). Sound interchange is a very vivid manifestation of a close connection of Phonetics with Morphology. It can be
observed in the category of number (man – men; goose – geese; foot – feet).
 Sound interchange also helps to distinguish basic forms of irregular verbs (sing-sangsung),
adjectives and nouns (strong-strength), verbs and nouns (to extend-extent).

Phonetics is closely connected with Syntax. Any partition of a sentence is realized
with the help of pauses, sentence stresses, melody. Changes in pausation can alter
the meaning of an utterance. For example: One of the travelers / said Mr. Parker /
was likeable (direct speech). If the pause is after “said”, then we have another
meaning of this sentence: One of the travelers said / Mr. Parker was likeable. The
rising/falling nuclear tone determines the communicative type of the sentence: You
know him – statement / You know him – general question.

Phonetics is also connected with Stylistics through repetition of sounds,
words and phrases. Repetition of this kind creates the basis of rhythm, rhyme and
alliteration (repetition of sounds). Rhythm may be used as a special device not only
in poetry but in prose as well:
Round about the cauldron go
In the poison’d entrails throw
Double, double toil and trouble
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble
Investigations in historical aspects of languages and the field of
dialectology would be impossible without an understanding of phonetics. The
practical aspect of Phonetics is no less important. Teaching of reading and
writing is possible only when one clearly understands the difference between the
sounds and written forms of the language and the connection between them.
Phonetics is also widely used in teaching correct pronunciation and allocution of
actors, singers, TV announcers on the basis of established orthoepical norms.
Orthoepy is the correct pronunciation of the words of a language. Phonetics is
important for eliminating dialectical features from the pronunciation of dialect
speakers; in logopedics (in curing various speech defects); in surdopedagogics (in
teaching normal aural speech to deaf and dumb people). Acoustic Phonetics and
Phonology are of great use in technical acoustics or sound technology that is the
branch of science and technology which is concerned with the study and design of
techniques for the recording, transmission, reproduction, analysis and synthesis of
sound by means of various devices such as microphone, loud-speaker, radio and
television sets, speech synthesizers etc.

Levels of stress

Levels of stress

  Up to this point we have talked about stress as though there were a simple distinction between "stressed" and "unstressed" syllables with no intermediate levels; such a treatment would be a two-level analysis of stress.
Usually, however, we have to recognise one or more intermediate levels. It should be remembered that in this chapter we are dealing only with stress within the word. This means that we are looking at words as they are said in isolation, which is a rather artificial situation: we do not often say words in isolation, except for a few such as 'yes', 'no', 'possibly', 'please' and interrogative words such as 'what', 'who', etc. However, looking at words in isolation does help us to see stress placement and stress
levels more clearly than studying them in the context of continuous speech.

Let us begin by looking at the word 'around' , where the stress always falls clearly on the last syllable and the first syllable is weak. From the point of view of stress, the most important fact about the way we pronounce this word is that on the second syllable the pitch of the voice does not remain level, but usually falls from a higher to a lower pitch.  where the two parallel lines represent the speaker's highest and lowest pitch level.
The prominence that results from this pitch movement, or tone, gives the strongest type of stress; this is called primary stress.In some words, we can observe a type of stress that is weaker than primary stress but stronger than that of the first syllable of 'around'; for example, consider the first syllables of the words 'photographic' , 'anthropology' .
The stress in these words is called secondary stress. It is usually represented in transcription with a low mark .  We have now identified two levels of stress: primary and secondary; this also implies a third level which can be called unstressed and is regarded as being the absence of any recognizable amount of prominence.
These are the three levels that we will use in describing English stress. However, it is worth noting that unstressed syllables containing , i, u, or a syllabic consonant, will sound less prominent than an unstressed syllable containing some other vowel. For example, the first syllable of 'poetic'  is more prominent than the first syllable of 'pathetic'. This could be used as a basis for a further division of stress levels, giving us a third ("tertiary") level. It is also possible to suggest a tertiary level of stress in some polysyllabic words.
To take an example, it has been suggested that the word 'indivisibility' shows four different levels: the syllable bIl is the strongest (carrying primary stress), the initial syllable In has secondary stress, while the third syllable  has a level of stress which is weaker than those two but stronger than the second, fourth, sixth and seventh syllable (which are all unstressed). stress. While this may be a phonetically correct account of some pronunciations, the introduction of tertiary stress seems to introduce an unnecessary degree of complexity. 

The nature of stress

The nature of stress 

Stress has been mentioned several times already in this course without an explanation of what the word means. The nature of stress is simple enough: practically everyone would agree that the first syllable of words like 'father', 'open', 'camera' is stressed, that the middle syllable is stressed in 'potato', 'apartment', 'relation', and that the final syllable is stressed in 'about', 'receive', 'perhaps'. Also, most people feel they have some sort of idea of what the difference is between stressed and unstressed syllables, although they might explain it in different ways. We will mark a stressed syllable in transcription by placing a small vertical line (') high up, just before the syllable it relates to; What are the characteristics of stressed syllables that enable us to identify them? It is important to understand that there are two different ways of approaching this question. One is to consider what the speaker does in producing stressed syllables and the other is to consider what characteristics of sound make a syllable seem to a listener to be stressed. In other words, we can study stress from the points of view of production and of perception; the two are obviously closely related, but are not identical. The production of stress is generally believed to depend on the speaker using more muscular energy than is used for unstressed syllables.
Measuring muscular effort is difficult, but it seems possible, according to experimental studies, that when we produce stressed syllables, the muscles that we use to expel air from the lungs are often more active, producing higher subglottal pressure. It seems probable that similar things happen with muscles in other parts of our vocal apparatus. Many experiments have been carried out on the perception of stress, and it is clear that many different sound characteristics are important in making a syllable recognisably stressed. From the perceptual point of view, all stressed syllables have one characteristic in common, and that is prominence. Stressed syllables are recognised as stressed because theyare more prominent than unstressed syllables.
What makes a syllable prominent? At least four different factors are important: i) Most people seem to feel that stressed syllables are louder than unstressed syllables; in other words, loudness is a component of prominence. In a sequence of identical syllables (e.g. ba:ba:ba:ba:), if one syllable is made louder than the others, it will be heard as stressed. However, it is important to realise that it is very difficult for a speaker to make a syllable louder without changing other characteristics of the syllable  if one literally changes only the loudness, the perceptual effect is not very strong.
ii) The length of syllables has an important part to play in prominence. If one of the syllables in our "nonsense word" ba:ba:ba:ba: is made longer than the others, there is quite a strong tendency for that syllable to be heard as stressed.
iii) Every voiced syllable is said on some pitch; pitch in speech is closely related to the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds and to the musical notion of low- and high-pitched notes. It is essentially a perceptual characteristic of speech. If one syllable of our "nonsense word" is said with a pitch that is noticeably different from that of the others, this will have a strong tendency to produce the effect of prominence. For example, if all syllables are said with low pitch except for one said with high pitch, then the high-pitched syllable will be heard as stressed and the others as unstressed. To place some movement of pitch (e.g. rising or falling) on a syllable is even more effective in making it sound prominent.
 iv) A syllable will tend to be prominent if it contains a vowel that is different in quality from neighbouring vowels. If we change one of the vowels in our "nonsense word" (e.g. ba:bi:ba:ba:) the "odd" syllable bi: will tend to be heard as stressed. This effect is not very powerful, but there is one particular way in which it is relevant in English: the previous chapter explained how the most frequently encountered vowels in weak syllables are , , i, u (syllabic consonants are also common).
We can look on stressed syllables as occurring against a "background" of these weak syllables, so that their prominence is increased by contrast with these background qualities. Prominence, then, is produced by four main factors: (i) loudness, (ii) length, (iii) pitch and (iv) quality.
Generally these four factors work together in combination, although syllables may sometimes be made prominent by means of only one or two of them. Experimental work has shown that these factors are not equally important; the strongest effect is produced by pitch, and length is also a powerful factor. Loudness and quality have much less effect. 

PLOSIVES: classification in consonants

 PLOSIVES: classification in consonants

A plosive is a consonant articulation with the following characteristics: • One articulator is moved against another, or two articulators are moved against each other, so as to form a stricture that allows no air to escape from the vocal tract. The stricture is, then, total. • After this stricture has been formed and air has been compressed behind it, it is released - that is, air is allowed to escape. • If the air behind the stricture is still under pressure when the plosive is released, it is probable that the escape of air will produce noise loud enough to be heard. This noise is called plosion. There may be voicing during part or all of the plosive articulation. To give a complete description of a plosive consonant we must describe what happens at each of the following four phases in its production:
 • The first phase is when the articulator or articulators move to form the stricture for the plosive. We call this the closing phase.
• The second phase is when the compressed air is stopped from escaping. We call this the compression phase.
• The third phase is when the articulators used to form the stricture are moved so as to allow air to escape. This is the release phase.
• The fourth phase is what happens immediately after (iii), so we will call it the post-release phase.

 English plosives 

English has six plosive consonants: p, t, k, b, d, g. The glottal plosive ? occurs frequently but it is of less importance, since it is usually just an alternative pronunciation of p, t, k in certain contexts. The plosives have different places of articulation. The plosives p, b are bilabial since the lips are pressed together; t, d are alveolar since the tongue blade is pressed against the alveolar ridge . Normally the tongue does not touch the front teeth as it does in the dental plosives found in many languages. The plosives k, g are velar; the back of the tongue is pressed against the area where the hard palate ends and the soft palate begins . The plosives p, t, k are always voiceless; b, d, g are sometimes fully voiced, sometimes partly voiced andsometimes voiceless.  All six plosives can occur at the beginning of a word (initial position), between other sounds (medial position) and at the end of a word (final position). To begin with we will look at plosives preceding vowels (which can be abbreviated as CV, where C stands for a consonant and V stands for a vowel), between vowels (VCV) and following vowels (VC).
i) Initial position (CV): The closing phase for p, t, k and b, d, g takes place silently. During the compression
phase there is no voicing in p, t, k; in b, d, g there is normally very little voicing - it begins only just
before the release. If the speaker pronounces an initial b, d, g very slowly and carefully there may be
voicing during the entire compression phase (the plosive is then fully voiced), while in rapid speech there may be no voicing at all.
The release of p, t, k is followed by audible plosion - that is, a burst of noise. There is then, in the
post-release phase, a period during which air escapes through the vocal folds, making a sound like h.
This is called aspiration. Then the vocal folds come together and voicing begins. The release of b, d, g is followed by weak plosion, and this happens at about the same time as, or shortly after, the beginning of voicing. The most noticeable and important difference, then, between initial p, t, k and b, d, g is the aspiration of the voiceless plosives p, t, k.
The different phases of the plosive all happen very rapidly, but the ear distinguishes clearly between p, t, k and b, d, g. If English speakers hear a fully voiced initial plosive, they will hear it as one of b, d, g but will notice that it does not sound quite natural.
If they hear a voiceless unaspi- rated plosive they will also hear that as one of b, d, g, because it is aspiration, not voicing which distinguishes initial p, t, k from b, d, g. Only when they hear a voiceless aspirated plosive will they hear it as one of p, t, k; experiments have shown that we perceive aspiration when there is a delay between the sound of plosion and the beginning (or onset) of voicing.

In initial position, b, d, g cannot be preceded by any consonant, but p, t, k may be preceded by s. When one of p, t, k is preceded by s it is unaspirated. From what was said above it should be clear that the unaspirated p, t, k of the initial combinations sp, st, sk have the sound quality that makes English speakers perceive a plosive as one of b, d, g; if a recording of a word beginning with one of sp, st, sk is heard with the s removed, an initial b, d or g is perceived by English speakers.

 • Medial position (VCV): The pronunciation of p, t, k and b, d, g in medial position depends to some extent on whether the syllables preceding and following the plosive are stressed. In general we can say that a medial plosive may have the characteristics either of final or of initial plosives.

• Final position (VC): Final b, d, g normally have little voicing; if there is voicing, it is at the beginning of the compression phase; p, t, k are always voiceless. The plosion following the release of p, t, k and b, d, g is very weak and often not audible. The difference between p, t, k and b, d, g is primarily the fact that vowels preceding p, t, k are much shorter. The shortening effect of p, t, k is most noticeable when the vowel is one of the long vowels or diphthongs. This effect is sometimes known as pre-fortis clipping

The best way to improve pronunciation

 The best way to improve pronunciation

Many adults have the mistaken impression that the best way to learn a language is to
learn naturally, just as a child does. However, employing a child’s language learning
style is not doable. Children have infinite time to try out new language. If people do
not understand them, they simply try and try again until they get what they want.
Adults will not acquire language as readily because they are inhibited by social and
psychological constraints. Furthermore, some experts think that children are wired
for language, and that, as one grows older, it becomes biologically more difficult to
acquire a language naturally (because the brain loses the ability to make new
connections). The good thing is that adults, unlike small children, can readily deduce
and learn language rules. So any good language pronunciation course should
combine naturalistic methods (listening, guessing, trying out new things, etc.) and
rules (explanations of what to do with your mouth, explanations of how sounds
change based on their positions, etc.). Adults can and do benefit from some explicit
rule-based instruction.

Your native language does affect your accent. Often times, adults adjust English to
make it sound more like their native language.
Working on individual sounds is not the most important thing you can do to improve
your accent; the most important thing you can do to improve your accent is to work
on your prosody. Prosody is the larger patterns of a language, like rhythm,
tone/intonation, and pausing. Prosody varies from language to language, and in
English, prosody is used to convey emotion.