CH. 2 - The Pronunciation of English - A Handbook of Present-Day English PDF

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Riassunto del secondo capitolo di A Handbook of Present-Day English...

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CAP. 2 : THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH 2.1 – ACCENTS OF ENGLISH - ACCENT : The way in which language is pronounced in a specific geographical area. The pronunciation of English language is regarded by many learners as the hardest aspect to master. This difficulty is determined by the complex nature of the phonological system of English and for Italian learners by the structural differences between the sound system of English and Italian. Another problem which students encounter is the variety of English accents : - NATIVE : U.K ; AUSTRALIA ; NEW ZEALAND ; USA ; CANADA o In the British Isles where the history of language began one finds the largest variety of regional accents (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland ). o Variation is less marked in linguistically younger countries such as the U.S.A , Canada, Australia, New Zealand o Accent is also determined by sociolinguistic factors. - NATIVISED or NON – NATIVE : INDIA; KENYA ; NIGERIA ; SINGAPORE; HONG KONG , where English is a second language introduced as a colonial language and retained after independence for international communication and intra-national affairs. Its spread worldwide causes an high degree of variation in pronunciation.

- FOREIGN ACCENTS : where English is a foreign language (e.g.Europe and China). In Scandinavian regions learners have acquired extreme competence in the use of English. This is because they start to learn it from a very early age -> (films are not dubbed, and it’s widely used in education). - TWO MAIN STANDARDS OF PRONUNCIATION o BRITISH ENGLISH o AMERICAN ENGLISH

2.2 – PHONETICS, PHONOLOGY AND THE ARTICULATORS PHONETICS - PHONETICS : It is the science that studies the physical characteristics of sounds. Phonetics deals with the production (articulatory), transmission (acoustic), and reception (auditory) aspects of sounds and its applications may span across different fields. Any speaker is capable of making a wide range of modifications to the vocal tract in order to utter many different sounds, such as raising the tongue close to the palate to produce the vowel /i:/ etc. etc.

THE ARTICULATORS The act of phonation consist in the contraction of the muscle in our chest and the production of a flow of air which passes through the larynx, the glottis, the pharynx, and then the oral cavity or the nose. - LARYNX : it is situated in the neck and is made of cartilage. Its front part may be visible in man and in that case is called the Adam’s Apple. The larynx is also called “voice-box” because it contains the vocal cords. o VOCAL CORDS : they are two mucous membranes which are kept apart for normal breathing and for the production of voiceless sounds, or set into vibration by the pressure of the air coming from the lungs for the production of vowels and voiced consonants. - GLOTTIS : It is the opening between the vocal cords. Its closure creates and interruption of the airstream called “glottal stop” - PHARYNX : It is a passage leading from the top of the larynx to the back of the mouth - VELUM or SOFT PALATE : It is the back part of the palate which can be raised or lowered so that the air may escape through the mouth or the nose. Some consonants are called “velar” because they involve a stricture between the tongue and the velum - HARD PALATE : It can be touched with the tip of the tongue and is also called the “roof of the mouth” - ALVEOLAR RIDGE : it is between the hard palate and the front teeth; its surface is rough because it presents small ridges - TONGUE : it is perhaps the most important articulator because the change of its position inside the oral cavity determines the type of sound produced. - NOSE : it’s involved in the production of the nasal sounds

The LIPS, TEETH, TONGUE, PALATE and PHARYNX are the main articulators.

GRAPHEMES and PHONEMES GRAPHEME : It refers to a letter of the alphabet (a discrete mark in writing or print ) - PHONEME : this term refers to a distinctive sound in a language capable of creating a distinction in meaning between 2 words. For example : o /d/ in dog substituted by /l/ -> we obtain the existing word [log] - MINIMAL PAIR : this term refers to a couple of words which are made up of the same phonemes except for one.

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Graphemes and Phonemes should not be confused. In many cases they have the same mark or symbol e.g. and /t/ . In many other cases there’s no one-to-one correspondence between graphemes and phonemes e.g. represents the phoneme /k/ in [kʌt], /s/ in [nais] , /ʃ/ in ocean. - SILENT GRAPHEMES : they are graphemes which are not pronounced in certain English words -> in castle ; in know

- HOMOPHONES : words orthographically different but phonetically identical -> aloud and allowed - HOMOGRAPHS : words orthographically identical but phonetically different : lead [led] (piombo) lead [li:d] (condurre)

THE IPA (INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET) It is the most widely used phonemic and phonetic notation, a set of symbols used for representing the phonemes and sounds of all languages. By convention the phoneme symbols are enclosed within slant brackets and the phonetic transcription of words is enclosed in square brackets -> This is to distinguish between the fixed set of distinctive sounds in English and their actual phonetic values in combination with other. The phonetic transcription which considers only phonemic values is called “broad transcription “ while the transcription which signals a greater amount of phonetic information is called “narrow transcription”

ENGLISH PHONOLOGY - PHONOLOGY : It describes the organization of the sound system of language. It is the study of the sounds which have a functional and distinctive role in a language. - SUPRASEGMENTAL PHONOLOGY : It deals with units larger than the phoneme (syllables, rhythm groups, and intonation phrases) and their related phenomena (stress, rhythm and intonation) - PHONEMES : they are a set of distinctive units into which the continuous flow of speech can be segmented. The phonemes have no individual meaning but they can combine to form meaningful words. Their primary function is the creation of semantic oppositions that distinguish one word from another. - MINIMAL PAIRS : they are a couple of words that differ only by one phoneme. - ALLOPHONES : The different realizations of the same phonemes in different contexts are called allophones and are represented in

transcription by diacritic symbols added to the phonemic ones. Allophonic variation does not involve any change in the meaning of words but is responsible for some differences in accents. For these reasons phoneticians consider the phonemes as abstract identities or conventional representations. o The realization of the phoneme /l/ is “clear” in syllable initial position as in lip [lip] and “dark” in syllable final position as in hill [hiɫ] o /t/ in top is accompanied by an aspiration because it occurs before A STRESSES VOWEL, but in word train it is accompanied by an AFFRICATION because of the presence of the phoneme /r/. In final position instead /t/ is only partly released and not fully audible as in set

2.3 – THE PRONUNCIATION OF BRITISH ENGLISH THE GAP BETWEEN SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION

- ENGLISH ALPHABET : it’ s made of 26 letters - ENGLISH PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM : it’s made of 43 phonemes. These are divided into : o VOWELS o DIPHTHONGS o CONSONANTS

VOWELS They are phonetically oral, egressive, voiced sounds produced without any obstruction to the airstream coming from the lungs. In order to describe them we must take into consideration the position of the tongue. Depending on the vertical distance between the tongue and the palate, a vowels may be : - OPEN : - HALF OPEN : - CLOSE :

/æ ʌ ɑ: ɒ / /e ɜ: ɔ: / /i: ɪ ʊ u:/

Depending on which part of the tongue is raised it may be : - FRONT : /i: ɪ e æ / - CENTRAL: / ɜ : ʌ / - BACK : / u: ʊ ɔ : ɑ : ɒ / Depending on duration it may be : /i: ɑ : ɜ : ɔ : u: / - LONG : - SHORT / æ ʌ ɒ e ɪ ʊ / Long vowels are also classified as tense while short vowels are classified as lax, with reference to the tension of the muscle at the back of the tongue Finally the position of the lips may be : - ROUNDED : /u: / - SPREAD : /i: / - NEUTRAL : / ɜ: /

- SCHWA [ə]. : It is a CENTRAL, LAX, sound, also used as an expression of hesitation. The final sound added to the vowel inventory is the schwa This is a sound of English which doesn’t have a proper phonemic status, because it occurs only in unstressed syllables. It is a word of Hebrew origin, referring to a weak or missing vowel sound.

DIPHTONGS A diphthong is a combination of 2 vowels , or better an oral voiced egressive glide from one vowel to another one uttered with emission of sound. The first element is normally more audible than the second. In English there are 8 diphthongs: - 5 of them are called CLOSING because their second element is a closed vowel : /ai ei ɔɪ aʊ əʊ/ - 3 of them are called CENTRING because their second element is the central unstressed sound [ә] : /iə eә ʊә /

TRIPHTHONGS They are formed by a [ə] added at the end of a closing diphthong.

CONSONANTS English consonants are sound produced with an egressive flow of air coming out of the mouth or the nose accompanied by obstruction or friction in the articulators. They may be : 1st Distinction

- ORAL (the air escapes through the mouth) - NASAL (the air escapes through the nose) o /m n ŋ/ 2nd Distinction - VOICELESS (no vibration of the vocal cords) o /p t k θ s h ʃ / - VOICED (the vocal cords vibrate in the larynx = VOICING). o /b d g v ∂ z ʤ m n ŋ l r w j /

They can be described according to 2 parameters : - MANNER OF ARTICULATION o PLOSIVE: / p t k b d g/ it involves a stricture in the articulation where air pressure is formed and then suddenly released, producing a noise or plosion. When the plosives are voiceless we can hear a sound like [h] . This phenomenon is called aspiration and it occurs when these phonemes are at the onset of a syllables o FRICATIVE : / ʃ ʒ s z f v θ ∂ h / they are also called sibilants or continuants. The air escapes through a small space between the articulators producing a hissing sound. o AFFRICATE : /ʧ ʤ/ they are a combination of homorganic (produced with the same articulators) plosives and fricatives. o NASAL : /m n ŋ/ in their production the air escapes through the nose. o LIQUID : / l r / They present some allophonic peculiarities.  The realization of the phoneme /l/ is “clear” in syllable initial position as in lip [lip] and “dark” in syllable final position as in hill [hiɫ]

 The liquid [r] presents many different types of pronunciation in English . In RP is a palato-alveolar consonant that is pronounced only prevocalic (red, arrive) . Contrary post-vocalic is silent (car [ka:]). If a word ending with silent /r/ is followed by another word beginning with a vowel , the /r/ is pronounced in order to link the two words. This phenomenon is called R-LINKING -> The car is parked in the street [∂ə ka:ʳ iz……] o SEMIVOWEL : / w j / they are also called approximants . They are phonetically similar to the vowels / ʊ/ and / ɪ / but phonologically behave like consonants, as they normal precede vowels in syllables. Morphologically too their behavior is consonant-like. - PLACE OF ARTICULATION: It indicates the place where obstruction is made for the pronunciation of the consonants : o BILABIAL : /p b m w / are pronounced with both lips brought together. o LABIODENTAL : / f v / the lower lip and the upper teeth are kept close to each other o DENTAL : / ∂ θ / involve the contact of the blade of the tongue behind the upper teeth o ALVEOLAR : / t d n l s z / the obstruction to the flow of air is realized with the tongue in contact or raised close to the alveolar ridge. o PALATO-ALVEOLAR : /ʃ ʤ ʧ ʒ r/ the tongue is in a further back position. o PALATAL : / j / semivowel. o VELAR : / k g ŋ / the contact occurs between the tongue and the soft palate or velum. o GLOTTAL : / h / it involves a stricture in the glottis

PARTICULARITIES IN PRONUNCIATION - SYLLABIC CONSONANTS : In English some consonants maybe syllabic, that is , they may occur as the nucleus of the syllable. The most common cases are : o /l/ and /n/ e.g. couple [‘kʌplˌ] ; listen [‘lɪsnˌ] - GLOTTALISATION : it is a phonetic phenomenon typical of British English but spreading to other accents of English indicated by the symbol /Ɂ/. It consist in the complete closure of the glottis in the pronunciation of o the plosives /p t k /  stop [stɒ?p] o and of the affricate /ʧ/ in final position  match [ mæ?ʧ ]

2.4 – THE PRONUNCIATION OF AMERICAN ENGLISH

American English has become more and more important as a variety of the English language because of its massive impact on world business and commerce, and on the mass media. DIFFERENCES IN PRONUNCIATION BETWEEN BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH Differences in pronunciation are more marked than the ones in grammar and vocabulary.

- VOWELS : the most important difference the two phonemic inventories is in the open and back area namely, in the pronunciation and distribution of the vowels /ɒ ɑ: ɔ: / o The Am realization of / ɒ/ is open and more advanced  / ɑ: / e.g. Br not [nɒt] -> Am [nɑ:t] o The vowel / ɔ: / sometimes is pronounced the same in both Br and Am e.g. force Br [f ɔ: s] Am [f ɔ:rs] and sometimes in Am is different e.g. small Br [smɔ:l] Am [smɑ:l] o The open phoneme / ɑ: / in Br is replaced by /æ/ in Am when followed by a fricative sound e.g. class Br [kl ɑ:s] , in Am [klæs] - DIPHTHONGS : o in AmEnglish the CENTRING diphthongs ARE ABSTENT due to rhoticity. Instead AmE has pure vowels followed by /r/  E.g. severe Br [sɪˈvɪə], Am [sɪˈvɪr] o The first element of the British diphthong [əʊ] is less central in AmE i.e. [oʊ]  Gold in Br [gəʊld] , in Am [goʊld] o Words having a midcentral vowel followed by /r/ have /ʌ/ in BrE, and /ɜ:/ in AmE  courage in Br [ˈkʌrɪʤ] , in AmE [ˈkɜ:ɪʤ] - CONSONANTS British and American consonants are the same. Differences are found in the phonetic quality of the phoneme /r/ and /l/ . o RHOTICITY : AmE is said to be a “rhotic” variety because orthographic /r/ is always pronounced, no matter whether it is pre-vocalic or post-vocalic , unlike BrE in which post-vocalic /r/ is dropped except for linking on to a vowel.

o YOD DROPPING : It refers to the omission in AmE of the sound /j/ after dental and alveolar consonants and followed by the phoneme /u:/  E.g. tune in BrE [tju:n] , in AmE [tu:n]  News in BrE [nju:z] , in AmE [nu:z] The YOD in BrE is absent only after a palate-alveolar consonants /ʤ ʧ/ e.g.

 Juice and chew In AmE it is present only after labial and velar consonants  View , cue etc. etc. o T-TAPPING :In AmE intervocalic /t/ is tapped and voiced so that the word latter rhymes with ladder o ELISION OF POST-NASAL /t/ : in AmE postnasal /t/ as in twenty is elided [ˈtweni]

STRESS PLACEMENT Some differences between British and American English regard stress placement. - For example the words address and cigarette are stressed in initial position in AmE, but in BrE they usually have the following pattern [ə ˈdres] and [sɪgəˈret] - A characteristic difference between BrE and AmE is the pronunciation of the ending of –ary –ery –ory which are compressed in BrE but they keep a full vowel in AmE. E.g. o Laboratory in BrE [ləˈbɒrətri], while in AmE [ˈlæbˀrətɔ:ri]

2.5 – ITALIAN AND ENGLISH PHONEMES IN CONTRAST -

A difficulty can be the large number of vowels (11 in English) in comparison with the 7 in Italian. Italian speakers will tend to under-differentiate between long and tense /i:/ and short and lax /ɪ/ and pronounced them as if they sounded the same. o LENGHT is an important feature of English vowels and equally important is LAXNESS : the pronunciation of the six short vowels / ɪ e æ ʌ ɒ ʊ / with little tension in the articulators (particularly difficult for Italian because in Italian the vowels tend to be long and tense and length is not distinctive) - LACK OF ASPIRATION o of the voiceless consonants /p t k/ in syllable initial position e.g. o failing to aspirate /h/ represented by the grapheme [h] so that heart [hɑ:t] may be confused with art [ɑ:t] - FRICATIVE : o the dental fricatives /θ/ / ∂ / which are frequent sound in English this, that, those, these, the …. Tend to be substituted by the Italian dental plosives /d/ and /t/ o Italians tend to voice syllable initial fricatives and make a typical pronunciation mistake e.g. swim [swɪm] in BrE and *[zwɪm] in Italian , same for smile - INFLECTIONS : o As for the pronunciation of the past tense / past partiple forms of regular verbs, the –ed inflection is pronounced differently according to the phoneme preceding it :

 If it is a voiceless consonant, the inflection will be [t] as in asked [ɑ:skt]  If it is a voiced consonant or a vowel it will be [d] as in lived [ˈlɪvd]  If the base form of the verb ends in [t] or [d], the inflectional ending will be pronounced [ɪd] e.g. wanted and needed o PLURALS  [s] -> After a voiceless consonant e.g. books, claps  [z] -> After a vowel or voiced consonant e.g. trees, needs  [iz] - > After a fricative or affricates sound e.g. buses, washes

2.6 – THE SYLLABLE A syllable is a phonological unit made up of one or more phonemes. - A minimum syllable V is made of 1 vowel only, such as the verb form are [ɑ:] - OPEN CV syllables: Some syllables have a consonantal onset followed by a vowel at the end e.g. tea[ti:] -> - CLOSED VC syllables : These syllables are said to be closed because they have a vowel nucleus followed by a consonantal coda e.g. all [ɔ:l] - The most common syllable in English is the one which is made up of consonant + vowel + consonant CVC e.g. did [dɪd]

SYLLABLES IN ENGLISH AND ITALIAN

- Closed syllables are the most common in English -> 60 % - Open syllables are the most common in Italian -> 70 % SO ITALIAN SPEAKERS TEND TO ADD A VOWEL SOUND AT THE END OF ENGLISH CLOSED SYLLABLES e.g. book *[bʊkə] rather than [bʊk]

2.7 – STRESS

STRESS : Stress is the relative prominence given to a syllable. From a perceptual point of view we realize that a syllable is stressed because it stands out with greater prominence in the string of sounds making up a word. The effect of prominence is the result of 4 acoustic components : -

PITCH (altezza) LOUDNESS (volume) DURATION (lunghezza) QUALITY (qualità)

In phonetic transcription, stress is indicated by a vertical line (stress mark) preceding the stressed syllable.

MAIN TYPES OF STRESS PATTERNS - MONOSYLLABLES are normally stressed, but one syllable grammatical words are unstressed when they occur in weak position - POLYSYLLABIC WORDS : They normally carry primary stress on one syllable. Sometimes also a secondary stress on another one.

They can be : o 2-SYLLABLE WORDS :  With primary stress on the first syllable (strong + weak) e.g. money [ˈmʌnɪ] ; river [ˈrɪvə]  With primary stress on the first syllable and a full vowel on the second (strong + strong) e.g. pillow [ˈpɪləʊ], phoneme [ˈfəʊni:m]  With primary stress on the second syllable (weak + strong) e.g. result [rɪˈzʌlt]  With a full vowel on the first syllable and primary stress on the second syllable (strong + strong) e.g. myself [maɪ ˈself]. These words may have secondary stress on the first syllable, depending on the speed and the rhythm of the sentence  STRESS SHIFT: stress may be shifted to the first syllable when: o an adjective is used in attributive position as in “I lost 14 pounds” [ˈfɔ:ti:n] o Some noun or verb homographs change stress depending on whether they are nouns or verbs e.g. a digest [ˈdaɪʤest] , to digest [daɪ ˈʤest]

o 3 SYLLABLE WORDS :  With primary stress on the first syllable (strong + weak+weak) e.g. family [ˈfæməli]  With primary stress on the first syllable and a full vowel on the 3rd syllable (strong+weak+strong) e.g. telephone [ˈtelɪfəʊn]

The suffix –ate is always strong in verbs but weak in adjectives and nouns e.g. to operate [ˈɒpəreɪt], chocolate [ˈ...