TEMA 9: DESCRIPCIÓN DEL SISTEMA FONOLÓGICO DE LA LENGUA INGLESA. MODELOS Y TÉCNICAS DE APRENDIZAJE. PERCEPCIÓN, DISCRIMINACIÓN DISCRIMINACI ÓN Y EMISIÓN DE SONIDOS, ENTONACIONES, RITMOS Y ACENTOS. LA CORRECCIÓN CORRECCIÓN FONÉTICA. DESCRIPTION OF THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. LEARNING MODELS AND TECHNIQUES. PERCEPTION DISTINCTION AND PRODUCTION OF SOUNDS, INTONATIONS, RHYTHMS AND ACCENTS. THE PHONETICAL CORRECTION 1. DESCRIPTION OF THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 1.1.- Why is phonetics important? 1.2.- What English? Which accents? 1.3.- How are sounds represented? 1.4.- The voice: vocal folds, articulation and phoning. Auxiliary organs. 1.4.1.- How is voice produced? 1.4.2.- Phoning 1.4.3.- Articulation. 2.- LEARNING MODELS AND TECHNIQUES. 2.1.- Role of the teacher. 2.2.- Communication techniques 2.3.- Production techniques. 3.- PERCEPTION DISTINCTION AND PRODUCTION OF SOUNDS, INTONATIONS, RHYTHMS AND ACCENTS. 3.1.- Introduction. 3.2.- Vowels and diphthongs. 3.3.- Consonants. 3.4.- Semivowels. 3.5.- Intonation, accent and rhythm. 4.- THE PHONETICAL CORRECTION.
1.- DESCRIPCIÓN DEL SISTEMA FONOLÓGICO DE LA LENGUA INGLESA. 1.1.- Why is Phonetics important? Alter many years studying and teaching English to Spanish speakers, we can come to the conclusion that most of students aim at the same target: to acquire fluency in oral communication. This is not easy to get, if we consider that English belongs to a non-romance group of languages –as it is the case of Spanish, and the phonetic apparatus of the speaker gets used to certain movements, making very difficult to produce a greater variety of sounds, and, in a general sense, students are not in direct contact with the necessary English speaking environment. To someone studying a language outside the original country, it is completely necessary the establishment of some codes allowing the explanation of the sounds of that language. The non native speakers have the only resource of IMITATION of those sounds. This “imitation” will lead to a better or worse degree of “accuracy” depending on many factors. Among them, the main one is the exact understanding of all the sounds existing in the language to be studied. And for a good understanding of the sounds, it is necessary a GOOD DESCRIPTION of them: the ear has the natural tendency to “assimilate” phonemes –some of them very different from the mother tongue. This means that we listen what we are used to listen. In a simple way, a Spanish speaker is only able to distinguish a single /a/, and any sound similar to it will be hear like an /a/. 1.2.- Which English? Accents? The first thing you can discover when you start speaking English is the great difference of language “forms” that exist (both oral and written). The richness of accents in English is really surprising, therefore, considering we have to IMITATE an English speaker, who do we choose as a model? This is a difficult question, to which we can only answer to choose the model you like best, which adapt best to your necessities and possibilities. But, above all, the most accessible one and the one which allows you a greater number of listening hours. For example, if you can tune the BBC, you can use it as a model. In this unit we will show explanations corresponding to the pronunciation known as RSP Received Standard Pronunciation). The RP accent is the variety of English corresponding to the south of England and is one of the most used in education. This is the only reason why it is shown here. The greater the information source and the possibilities of contact are, the better the IMITATION will be.
1.3.- How are sounds represented? After stating what has been mentioned above, there is only one important question to answer, how is it possible to represent sounds by writing?. It is not easy but every important thing requires an effort. But, fortunately for us, others have made that effort to solve the problem: to represent sounds we use a group of symbols, including features that allow us to sign the pronunciation strength, the sound quality, the mouth opening, the position of the phoning organs, etc… That group of symbols is what has been called INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET (IPA) 1.4.- The voice: vocal cords, articulation and phoning. Auxiliary organs. It is fundamental to explain briefly, the mechanisms of production of the human voice and the elements intervening on them. Only through the knowledge of them we could, on a conscious way, make an influence in the production of sounds that we emit and get the best approximation to the English pronunciation. 1.4.1.- How is voice produced? During the process of breathing, the air passes through the trachea from the lungs. When it comes to a point, Adam’s apple, it finds an important obstacle, the vocal cords, situated in the area known as larynx. The vocal cords are two elastic bands situated one opposite the other. We must not think on them as “strings” but as “bands” or “tapes”. Their edges are a little thicker than the rest and are known as vocal folds. The cords and folds have the capability to approximate and move away from its opposite, producing a total closeness of the tracheal “tube” –and so impeding completely the air flow-, or they can separate –relaxed position- leaving a gap between them allowing the air flow. We call GLOTIS or glottal opening to this gap. Voice is generated during the process of air expelling, and can be summarized in two great parts: 1) Phoning; and 2) Articulation 1.4.2.- Phoning. The great speed with which air moves through the larynx provokes the vibration of the cords, at a really surprising frequency: 800 pulses per second or more. This vibration so regular and quick provokes a musical note, which is, in essence, the production of the voice. The note pitch can be modified, what produces a variety of “sounds” that will cause the spoken language. The pitch is modified by two mechanisms:
•
The tension or relax of the vocal cords, producing a greater or lesser frequency on the vibration (high or low pitch)
•
The modification of the volume of the edges: thinner for the high frequencies, thicker for the low frequencies)
The control of the vocal cords is produced through the participation of several muscles and ligaments placed in Adam’s apple. If we stop to listen to a single sentence, we could check the complexity and work of the mentioned muscles, which allow a quick and accurate articulation of many different sounds. 1.4.3.- Articulation. The primary sound formed in the larynx will be modified later in the rest of the way to travel. The participations, sometimes active and sometimes passive, of different organs, will modify the sound up to transform it in a “phoneme”, that is, the most reduced linguistic expression. The organs participating in the articulation are called auxiliary organs and they are the following: •
The tongue: its position and form are fundamental in the language articulation. To demonstrate it, we could simply remember the way in which a drunk man talks: its speaking “incapability” derives, fundamentally, from the loss of control over the tongue movements. It is undoubtedly the most important organ for the speech. We can distinguish three fundamental parts in the tongue:
•
•
•
The tongue tip that will be used with extreme precision to articulate some sounds.
•
The front in which we will distinguish two parts: •
The part under the high alveoli, named blade. It has a great mobility and can get, with the tip, to the lips, teeth, alveoli, etc…
•
The next part, called back, under the hard palate. The possibility to modify its form, from flatness to concavity, will also modify the quality of the sound. It can also touch the palate producing a closeness of the air flow.
The root can also flatten or rise to touch the soft palate.
The palate. It is divided in two parts: •
The hard palate, which is fixed and participates passively.
•
The soft palate, that can be vertically moved provoking the closeness of the nasal cavity
•
The nasal cavity: acts as a resonance box.
•
The teeth. They are fundamental and we can distinguish 3 parts:
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The proper teeth, that is, their cutting edge
•
The alveoli: the place where the teeth have their “roots”.
•
The internal part of the dental pieces that, from the inside, can be used as support for the tongue, besides a physical barrier in itself.
2.- LEARNING MODELS AND TECHNIQUES. 2.1.- Role of the teacher. In all the learning models and techniques, the teacher must have the following roles: -
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He/she must help the students to perceive sounds. Students will have a strong tendency to imitate the sounds of Spanish. The teacher must check that the pupils are listening to the sounds according to the appropriate categories and help them to create new categories if necessary. He/she must help the students to produce sounds not occurring in their mother tongue (in this case Spanish). If imitation is not enough, the teacher must be able to provide tricks and techniques helping pupils to produce the new sound. He/she must give feedback and information about the students’ performances and the results. He/she must be able to recognize possible problems which students can face. He/she must establish priorities and decide which aspect they should concentrate first. He/she must design adequate activities for the level and the purpose to reach, guaranteeing the students’ progress and motivation.
The objective to reach must be reasonable depending on the necessities of the student. A reasonable objective for Primary Education is to reach a maximum comprehension, i.e., to be able to identify accurately the highest number of words. 2.2.- Communication Techniques. To face students to “strange” sounds, we should avoid them to be perceived as variants of already familiar sounds. To do this, they must practice with aural discrimination exercises. Once they are able to “listen” to the differences, they can work towards a better pronunciation. There exist several kinds of discrimination exercises - Sound identification: •
In a familiar context: Where is it? Come in.
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In isolated words: live, sit, if finish.
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In a wider context: Come in, Mrs Mitchell.
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-
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“minimal pairs” technique •
Between English and Spanish: fin / fin
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Between similar sounds in English: bit/beet
Differentiation of sounds: •
English/Spanish it, it (same fin, fin (different) vida, vida (same)
•
English/English eat, eat (same) feel, fill (different)
Variation: Sign the different vowel in read, heat, his, crease, ease.
2.3.- Production Techniques Through these techniques, the student produces the sounds which he/she can already discriminate correctly. There are several types. -
Imitative production exercises, in which the pupil repeats a model, corrects or confirms its pronunciation. Non-imitative production exercises (guided) Teacher: Where is your book? Student: My book is on the desk.
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Autonomous production exercises, in which conversation takes place in students.
3.- PERCEPTION DISCRIMINATION Y EMISION OF SOUNDS, INTONATIONS, RHYTHMS & ACCENTS. 3.1.- Introduction. The English language has 46 different phonemes or sounds, whereas its alphabet has only 26 letters or graphs. It results from this that some letters respond to more than one sound. On the other hand, some sounds can be written with different letters. The letter “u”, for example, in bus and put represents two different phonemes and are pronounced in different ways. Although their orthographic code is not the same, it is the same phoneme or sound which is given in the words: she, east, receive, field, key, police. The sounds of a language are grouped in “families” formed by each of these sounds and their variants as they occur in the different frequencies, and each “sound families”
constitute a phoneme whose pronunciation can slightly vary as the fundamental limits of frequency and the corresponding harmonics are not crossed. Each phoneme has, as it has been mentioned, one or more letters representing orthographically and, at the same time, it corresponds to a phonological sound which, sometimes, has not a special letter representing it. Because of this, and to facilitate the correct acquisition of all the sounds in a language, we should use the representation of them through special symbols present in the IPA, in which each phoneme as a special graphic representation that helps to identify it. The phonetic alphabet is, therefore, undoubtedly useful in the language learning process. Next The IPA symbols corresponding to each phoneme and their orthographic representation are specified. 3.2.- Vowels and diphthongs Vowels are made by voiced air passing through different mouth shapes; the differences in the shapes of the mouth are caused by different positions of the tongue and the lips. There are 12 different vowels in English, they are different in the position the tongue takes and in the rounding or spreading of the lips. Furthermore, they are different in length and all of them have different realizations or allophones. These vowels are classified by the place and manner of articulation in Hellwag’s triangle which represents the oral cavity and the positions the tongue reach to obtain the pronunciation of a certain vowel. The triangle of English vowels was ideated by Daniel Jones.
These vowels are phonetically represented by means of some symbols:
/ι: / The front of the tongue is raised to a height slightly below and behind the close front position; the lips are spread; the tongue is tense:
e.g.: tree, complete, reason, receive, machine
/H/ Pronounced with a part of the tongue nearer to centre than to front, raised just above the half-close position, the lips are loosely spread; the tongue is lax. e.g.: sit, city, poetry, ladies, private.
/ e / The front of the tongue is raised between half-open and half-closed positions; the lips are loosely spread and are slightly wider apart than for /I/; the tongue may have some tension. e.g.: set, dead, many
/z/ The mouth is slightly more open than for /e/; the front of the tongue is raised just below the halfopen position, the ips are neutrally open, the tongue itself having rather more tension than in the case for /e/. e.g.: sat, plait
/U /
Considerable separation of the jaws and with the lips neutrally open; the centre of the tongue is
raised just above the fully open position. e.g.: sun, come, country, blood, does.
/@:/ Considerable separation of the jaws and lips neutrally open; a part of the tongue between the
centre
and the back is in the fully open position. e.g. pass, part, heart, clerk, calm, aunt
/P / Wide open jaws and slight, open lip-rounding; the back of the tongue is in the fully open position. e.g. dog, was, cough, because
/N: / Medium lip-rounding; the back of the tongue is raised between the half open and the half close positions. e.g. horse, saw, daughter, salt, before. /T / Part of the tongue nearer to centre than to back, raised just above the half-close position (it has a symmetrical back relationship with the front vowel /I/) the tongue is laxly held. e.g.: put, woman, good, should
/u: / Back lose vowel, but the tongue raising is relaxed from the closest position and is somewhat advanced from back. The lips tend to be closely rounded. E.g.: food, do, group, rude, chew.
/2: / Centre of the tongue raised between half close and half open, lips are neutrally spread. e.g.: bird, her, church, word, journey
/? / Central vowel with neutral lip position. The position of the tongue tends to be in the place the following consonant must be. e.g.: very high occurrence in unaccented syllables: possible, gentlemen, woman, suppose, particular, driver, famous.
DIPHTHONGS Those sequences of vocalic elements forming a glide are called “diphthongs”. The glide goes from the first vocalic element (generally [`,
e, N, H, u] to a second vocalic element that could be [H,u, ? ].
Characteristics of RP diphthongs: 1.
The length and the stress is mostly concentrated on the first element. They are called “falling diphthongs”.
2.
They are equivalent in length to a long vowel and they are subject to the same variation of quantity: a diphthong will remain untouched in all contexts. However, the 1st element can become slightly lengthened when followed by a lenis consonant in a stressed position at the end of the word. E.g. :
3.
play
[!pleH]
Place
[!pleHs]
They are particularly susceptible to variation in different regional and social types of speech.
DIPHTHONGS IN DETAIL 1.
Falling Diphthongs
/eH/ The glide begins from slightly below the half close front position and moves in the direction of RP /Ι/ (close front position). Slight closing of jaws. Lips spread. E.g.: late, may, eight, great
/`H/ It begins at a point slightly behind the front open position and moves in the direction of RP /Ι/ although the tongue is not so much raised. The closing movement of the lower jaw is obvious. Lips change from neutral to loosely spread. E.g.: time, high, die, either
/NH/ The tongue begins at a point between the back half-open and open position and moves in the direction of /H/. The tongue movement extends from back to centralized front. The movement of jaws is not s marked as for /`H/. The lips are open rounded, changing to neutral. E.g.: boy, noise, point
/?T/ It begins at a central position (between half close and half open) and moves in the direction of RP /T/ (back close position). Slight closing of lower jaw. The lips are neutral with a tendency to round on the 2nd element. E.g. old, round, toe, soul
/`T/ The glide begins at a point between the back and front open positions (more fronted than the position for /@:/) and moves to RP /T/, although the tongue is not raised higher than the h alf-close level. Lips from neutrally open to weakly rounded position. E.g.: house, sound, how, town
2.
Centring Diphthongs
/H?/ The glide of RP /H?/ begins with a tongue position approximately that used for /H/ (centralized front half-closed) and moves in the direction of the more open variety of /? / (when de diphthong is in final position. When it is not, the variety of / æ / is mid open.) The lips are neutral with a movement from spread to open. E.g.: dear, fierce, idea
/e?/ It begins in the half-open position and moves in the direction of the more open variety of /æ/.(again when it is final positon). Lips neutrally open. E.g.: care, air, bear
/T?/ RP /T?/ glides from a tongue position similar to that used for /T/ towards the most open type of /?/ (when it is in final position). The lips are weakly wounded at the beginning of the glide, becoming neutrally spread. E.g.: cure, sewer, tour
3.
Diphthongs + [?] These diphthongs (/dH/, /NT/, /`H/) require an extensive movement of the tongue. All may be followed by [?] either as an inseparable part of the word, e.g. fire, iron, hire, our, tower; or as a suffix appended to the root: e.g. player, shower, higher.
3.3.- THE ENGLISH CONSONANTS A consonant may be defined as one of a set of sounds in which air from the lungs is seriously obstructed in the mouth, and which occur in similar positions in words. Considering the syllable, we may say that the consonant is the marginal element of the syllable. In our definition, we have talked about OBSTRUCTION of the air by certain speech organs, this obstruction is carried out in different ways and in different places within the mouth. So, we can do a classification of PLACES AND MANNERS OF ARTICULATION of the English consonants. According to the place the obstruction of the air has taken place the sound can be: -
Glottal: if the obstruction takes place in the glottis. Velar: if the obstruction takes place in the velum or soft palate
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Palatal: if the obstruction takes place in the hard palate
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Palato-alveolar: if the obstruction takes place in the alveolar ridge
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Dental: if the obstruction takes place in the teeth
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Labio-dental: if the obstruction takes place between the lips and the lower jaw.
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Bilabial: if the obstruction takes place in the lips.
According to the manner the air is obstructed we have 5 types: -
Plosives: The air is compressed and then there is a sudden air escape. Affricates: The air is compressed and then there is a slow escaping.
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Fricatives: There is a constant air escape, causing a friction. No blockage.
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Nasal: The air goes out through the nasal cavity.
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Lateral: The air escapes slowly through the sides of the mouth.
The combination of different places and manners of articulation gives as a result the different English consonants. But we can find, for instance, that both /f/ and /v/ are labio-dental and fricative, so what’s the difference between them? The answer lies in the vocal folds (or cords). As we may notice, when we pronounce a vowel these little tissues vibrate. However, they do not with some consonants and they do with some others. This is the difference between pairs of consonants having the same place and manner of articulation, one of them is VOICED (the vocal cords vibrate) and the other one is VOICELESS (the vocal cords do not vibrate). In this case the phoneme /v/ is voiced and /f/ is voiceless. And there is one more subtle difference between this two consonants: it is the EFFORT used to pronounce it. If we make a superior muscular effort to pronounce a consonant, it will be FORTIS, if not, it will be LENIS. In this case, /f/ is fortis and /v/ is lenis. It is important to no tice that there is a coincidence in fortis/voiceless and lenis/voiced, and although they always coincide, they are not synonyms.
DESCRIPTION OF CONSONANTS IN DETAIL
/p/ - Bilabial, plosive, voiceless, fortis Spelling: “p” pick, put “pp” supper, appear
/b/ - bilabial, plosive, voice, lenis
Spelling: “b” – boat, bear Silent b: limb, comb
/t/ - alveolar, plosive, voiceless, fortis Spelling: “t” – tip “tt” – letter “th” – thames “ed” – looked
/d/ alveolar, plosive, voiced, lenis Spelling: “d” – do “dd” – middle
/k/ Velar, plosive, voiceless, fortis Spelling: “k” – king “c/cc + a,o,u” – cap, accurate “qu” – quick “ch” – chaos, chemist
/¿/ Glottal Plosive The glottal plosive is frequently used but it is not a significant sound in the RP system. Its more extended used in RP are:
/π,τ,κ/
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Reinforcement of finals
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Replacement of final
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Separation of hiatus – co-operate
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Instead intrusive “r”
/s/ alveolar, fricative, voiceless, fortis Spelling: “s” – sat “ss” – pass “c” – mice “sc” – science
/z/ alveolar, fricative, voiced, lenis Spelling: “s” – easy “ss” – scissors “z” – zoo “zz” – dizzy
/S/ dental, fricative, fortis, voiceless Spelling: “th” – thief, thought
/C/ dental, fricative, voiced, lenis Spelling: “th” – there, the
/π,τ,κ/
/f/ labio dental, fricative, voiceless, fortis Spelling: “f” – fork “ff” – off “ph” – physics “gh” – enough
/v/ labio-dental, fricative, voiced, lenis Spelling: “v” – vine “f” – of “ph” – nephew
/R/: palatal, fricative, voiceless, fortis Spelling: “sh” – shoe “ch” – machine “s” – sure “t” – nation “sc” – conscience “c” – special, ocean
/Y/: palatal, fricative, voiced, lenis Spelling: “s” – vision, measure “z” – seizure “g” – beige
/h/ Glottal fricative Spelling: “h” – house “wh” – who, whole
/tR/ palato-alveolar, affricate, voiceless, fortis Spelling: “ch” – chain “tch” – watch “t” – nature, question
/dY/ palato-alveolar, affricate, voiced, lenis Spelling: “j” – jam “g” – genius “gg” – suggest “dg” – judge
/n/ alveolar, nasal, voiced, lenis Spellings: “n” – net “nn” – funny “kn” – knot “gn” – gnat
“pn” – pneumonia
/m/ bilabial, nasal, voiced, lenis Spelling: “m” – mean “mm” – common “mb” – comb “mn” – autumn
/M/ velar, nasal, voiced, lenis Spelling: “ng” – sing, tongue “nk” – think
/r/ post alveolar, frictionless, voiced, lenis Spelling: “r” – raw “rr” – arrange “rh” – rhythm “wr” – write
/l/ lateral, fricative, voiced, lenis Spelling: “l” – lap “ll” – silly
3.4.- Semivowels There are two sounds in English which do not fit in any of the described groups. They are phonemes that linguistically work as consonants but they are realized as vowel phonetically due to their form of articulation. They are [j] and [w].
- / j/. It is articulated as a brief /I/ with spread or natural lips, passing quickly to the following sound. This sound is often phonetically realized by “ew”, “ue” and “ui”. Its phonetic realization mainly responds to the semivowel and the vowel i. The words in sic it occurs must be specially practised so that its performance is quick enough :yes [jes], new [nju:]. - /w/. It is articulated with a “u”, realized with rounded lips from which we pass to the next sound. When the sound following a [w] is a vowel realized with rounded lips, like [o] or [u], the position of the lips will be more rounded to highlight the difference. It is necessary to take special care about the realization of this sound without confusing it with the Spanish fricative “g”, with which it has no connection. The assimilation is frequent in Spanish speaking people, as it happens with words like sandwich, phonetically and orthographically realized with “g” in Spanish.
PRONUNCIATION TABLE
3.5.- Stress, Rhythm and Intonation. STRESS According to Daniel Jones, “stress is the force with which a sound or syllable is uttered”. There is no simple way of knowing which syllable or syllables in an English word must be stressed. Anyway, we have some rules to know which words are or are not stressed: 1. All words of more than one syllable are stressed 2. Words of one syllable are: a. Not stressed if they are purely grammatical words (pronouns, prepositions, articles, etc…) b. Stressed if they are full verbs, nouns, adjectives or adverbs. The physical properties of the stress are four: 1. Loudness of the sound 2. Length of the sound 3. Height of the pitch 4. “Carrying power” of the sound Incorrect stress on syllables is an obstacle for communication. In English, in a situation which may not be ideal acoustically, a wrong stressing of the word would cause the hearer to discard other words with a different stress pattern. The WORD STRESS IN ENGLISH is organized in the following way:
TWO SYLLABLE WORDS: In general, a short vowel or light syllable (short vowel followed by one consonant) is not stressed, so, if the word has a long vowel or heavy syllable (short vowel followed by two consonants) it will be stressed. E.g.: mother, panic, famous Exceptions: yellow, female, honest If there is no heavy syllable the first syllable is stressed. THREE SYLLABLE WORDS The final syllable with long vowel or heavy syllable will get the stress. E.g.: persevere, comprehend Exceptions: attention, potato. If it is not heavy, the first one get the stress E.g.: communist, industry FOUR SYLLABLE WORDS Stress on first or last syllable is uncommon in these words. E.g.: centimetre, caterpillar As above, penultimate syllable gets the stress if it is heavy or long vowel, antepenultimate takes it if it is not. E.g.: declaration, gastronomic, conspirator, benevolent Some words vary according to their function as nouns, verbs and adjectives E.g.: NOUN/ADJECTIVE VERB Record Record Present Present However, when words are put together, the concept of rhythm becomes important, and words normally stressed may become unstressed or less stressed, or the stress may be moved onto another syllable. Sentence stress is also called ACCENT. Sometimes, we use stress at will to express emphasis or contrast in the sentence. E.g.: “I thought you love her” “No, I hate her” “I thought you hated him” “No, I hate her” RHYTHM Rhythm is the regular succession of strong and weak stresses in any utterance. In English the intervals between strong stresses is hardly equal, the effect of this tendency is to shorten or lengthen syllables in articulation to fit the rhythm pattern. Each stressed syllable constitutes the peak of prominence in a “rhythmic group”, a succession of sounds in connected speech with alternation of weak and strong syllables (unstressed and stressed). There are words with two different pronunciations depending on the stressing. If they are stressed (for special emphasis or contrast) they are called STRONG forms.
If they are not (the normal case) they are called WEAK forms. These words with two forms are mainly auxiliaries (primary and modals), prepositions and personal pronouns. INTONATION Every language has melody in it. The voice goes up and down and the different notes of the voice combine to make TUNES. In some languages, the tune belongs to the word. In other languages, like English or Spanish, the tune belongs to the word group. We can utter a word group hesitantly, angrily or kindly, the words are the same but the tune is not, neither the meaning interpreted. The importance of intonation in communication of meaning is basic, it has four mainly functions: 1. Attitudinal: reflecting the attitudinal or emotional state of a person E.g.: “thank you” : real gratitude (starting high and coming low) Acknowledge of something unimportant (starting low and coming high) 2. Grammatical: used as a type of oral punctuation to distinguish sentences or parts of them. E.g.: My husband … is a tailor. 3. Accentual: highlighting the most important words in an utterance in conjunction with stress. E.g.: John likes fish (although his wife doesn’t) John likes fish (although he is eating meat) 4. Discourse: D. Brazil states that a fall indicates new information, while a raise refers to back. E.g.: That man, as far as I was told, is a thief ______/ _______________/ ______ The SHAPE of a tune is decided partly by the number of important words in the group and partly by the exact attitude we wish to express. We have several meanings according to the different tune shapes: 1. THE FALLING TUNE OR GLIDE DOWN A fall on the voice from a fairly high pitch to a very low one. Usual in short word groups (of no more than two words) Used in: a. Statements: I’m a teacher b. Wh questions: What’s up? c. Commands: Be quiet! d. Question tags expecting agreement: You don’t like him, do you? 2. THE RISING TUNE OR GLIDE UP It is the opposite of the falling tune. It is used in:
a. b. c. d. e.
Yes / No questions: Are you a doctor? Wh- questions showing politeness or interest: Are you all right? Reassurance: He won’t bite you (Dis)agreement: yes, it is / No, it isn’t Question tags not expecting agreement: He is sick, isn’t he?
3. THE FALLING-RISING TUNE OR DIVE It consists of a fall from rather high pitch to low and then a rise to about the middle of the voice. Used for: a. Apologizing: I’m so sorry b. Different opinion: Well, I don’t think so.
4.- THE PHONETICAL CORRECTION In every learning technique, there are a series of factors affecting the pronunciation learning: -
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The native language. The more differences there are, the more difficulties the students have. The age factor. Studies demonstrate different conclusions, due to the interaction between age and other factors like ability, motivation, interest, etc. Quantity of exposition to the language. The way the student reacts to opportunities to use and practice the language. Phonetic ability. Some students distinguish the differences better than others. In any way, practice can improve their abilities. Attitude and identity. Imitate a person’s speech correctly can be a way to show respect and interest towards that person and the group he/she represents. People with a positive attitude towards the language can develop more perfect accents. Motivation and concern for a good pronunciation. The idea “I don’t want to say if I can’t do it perfectly”.
To correct pronunciation mistakes, above all those affecting communication, it is necessary that the student make some practice with discrimination exercises until the complete identification of the sounds. Those students who are not able to distinguish some sounds will not be able to produce them. It is necessary to concentrate in possible error focuses: -
Those sounds in English which have not equivalent in Spanish like / R , z/ or /f , v/.
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Those sounds in English which are apparently similar to some Spanish ones, like English /tR / and the Spanish (“ch”)
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Those English sounds that are similar to some Spanish one but have different distribution, like / C / in “this”, but with an allophone in Spanish (in the word “dado”)
