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This unit discusses the teaching of pronunciation and phonology. Phonology is defined as the study, science, analysis and classification of the physical properties of sound. Aspects addressed in this unite are intonation, stress, the phonemic alphabet and articulation A. Intonation Intonation is considered to be the variation in volume and pitch in a whole sentence. Intonation carries the message in a sentence, being especially important in agreeing, disagreeing, confirming statements and questions. It is also fundamental in the expression of emotions or feelings. It can furthermore be a powerful predictor of the nature of forthcoming information. When to use what intonation pattern: 1. Rise / fall intonation pattern - For statements - Short utterances where we agree with someone or agree to do something - To indicate you finished what you want to say. This goes for positive and negative statements, straightforward questions, greetings and instructions 2. Fall / rise intonation pattern - Indicates surprise and often disagreement. - Indicates we expect a response from the person whom we are speaking to. - Can indicate the speaker hasn’t yet finished what he / she wants to say. 3. Level intonation (flat) - Indicates the speaker hasn’t much to say and might not what to communicate at all. Common instances are short ones. Some techniques for indicating and teaching intonation are nonsense words, by gesture, humming or singing, the board. B. Stress Stress, unlike intonation, is concerned with individual words and a stress on a different word within a sentence can completely change what the speaker is trying to say or imply. All multi-syllable words in English have one or more parts that are stressed. The two basic rules for knowing which part to stress are: 1. One word has only one stress and can’t have two stresses. 2. We can only stress syllables not individual vowels or consonants. Further detailed rules: 3. Stress on the first syllable - Most 2-syllable nouns - Most 2-syllable adjectives 4. Stress on the last syllable - Most 2-syllable verbs 5. Stress on the penultimate syllable (the stress can change according to where the native speaker of English is from - Words ending in -ic - Words ending in -sion and -tion 6. Stress on the ante-penultimate syllable - Words ending in -cy, -ty, -phy and -gy - Words ending in -ive - Words ending in -al 7. Compound words - For compound nouns, the stress is on the first part - For compound adjectives, the stress is on the second part - For compound verbs, the stress is on the second part. There are many exceptions, therefore it is important to stress to students that should try and feel the music of the language and at the stress naturally. However, the stress doesn’t change in most cases, so once learned students no longer need to worry about it. Normally there are more syllables without stress than with in a sentence. A rough rule to explain this is: only the vital syllables in the words conveying the essential meaning are stressed. Further rules: - Auxiliary verbs in all their forms are rarely stressed, except for special emphasis. - Articles are normally unstressed and are pronounced with a very short er with no hint of the r sound. - Pronouns and prepositions are normally unstressed Some techniques for indicating and teaching stress are contrastive stress, by gesture, choral work, the board and stress marks. Sound joining ? There are 4 major ways for sounds to join in English: - Linking - Sound dropping (t,d) - Sound changing - Extra lettering C. Phonemic Alphabet The phonemic alphabet knows consonants that are voiced and unvoiced and vowels and diphthongs. Voiced vs. unvoiced consonants: when saying a voiced consonant, you make a noise when the vocal chords vibrate. In the case of an unvoiced consonant, there is no vibration of the vocal chords, only a movement of air. D. Articulation When speaking we use the vocal chords, the tongue, the larynx and the glottis. The places of articulation are: - Velar: the soft palate is also known as the velum. When the back of the tongue is raised and strikes the velum, velar consonants are produced. - Palatal: the central part of the tongue comes in close contact with the central part of the roof of the mouth. - Palatal -alveolar: the tip of the tongue is between the alveolar ridge and the palate. - Alveolar: the front or tip of the tongue is raised toward the alveolar ridge. - Dental: there are two dental sounds in which the tongue is placed between the teeth. - Labio-dental: the top teeth come into contact with the lower lip. - Bilabial: sounds made by putting the lips together. - Glottal: the opening between the vocal cords is called the glottis. In English there is one sound in which air is restricted at the Glottis. The manner of articulation - Plosives: before making these sounds, the air is completely blocked before being released in an explosive manner. - Fricatives: in all these sounds, an obstruction is made, but the air is still forced through. The air being pushed through a very small space, turbulence or friction is produced. - Nasal: all nasal sounds are produced by making an obstacle in the mouth and lowering the soft palate so that air can only escape through the nasal cavity. - Lateral: lateral consonants are pronounced with the air escaping on the side of the tongue rather than on the front. - Affricate: A common found sequence in English is a plosive sound followed by a corresponding fricative. The release of the plosive merges with the attack of the fricative to form an affricate: a plosive with a constrictive release. - Approximant: a sound which is produced by narrowing (but not blocking) the vocal tract, by placing the tongue near another part of the vocal tract. Some teaching techniques for the pronunciation of individual sounds are peer dictation, your own mouth, visuals, phonemes and tongue twisters. E. When to teach pronunciation - Whole lesson - Lessons slots - As and when required This is an important chapter to me as my private students occasionally ask about rules concerning pronunciation, stress and intonation and there have been times when I had a hard time explaining it to them in easy clear English, this should now be a lot easier. I know about the Phonemic Alphabet, however I have never had to use it myself or teach it. When we study English in the Netherlands we never use it should come naturally through extensive exposure and use of the language. The same goes for intonation and stress. None of the schools or institutes I worked for have used it either, however I am glad I learned the basics now, just in case I might need it in the future. For example, if a student ever asks about it.