Pronunciation of English 2 PDF

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The pronounciation of American English British and American English have become more similar thanks to continuous contacts and exchange of material and cultural good, even thought they're geographically separated. The two varieties are mutually intelligible, and differences in pronunciation are perhaps more marked than differences in vocabulary and grammar.

Vowels and diphthongs The most important difference between American and British English is the pronunciation and the distribution of the vowels /ɒ/, /a:/ and /ɔː/. Their realization in American English is usually more open and advanced. In American English the diphthongs /ɪə, ɛə, əʊ/ are absent due to rhoticity, but there are pure vowels followed by [r] --> [ir, er, ʊr].

Consonants British and American consonants are the same. Differences are found in the phonetic quality of the phoneme /r/ and the phoneme /l/ (always "dark"). American English is said to be a "rhotic" variety because orthographic is always pronounced, and the phenomenon of rhoticity gives this variety its characteristic " full-mouth" acoustic effect. Another phonetic phenomenon which distinguish the two varieties is called Yod dropping. It refers, in American English, to the omission of the sound [j] after dental and alveolar consonants and followed by the phoneme /u:/; it is present only after labial and velar consonants, while in British English is absent only after palato-alveolar consonants, after conosonants followed by [r] and [l] and uncertain after fricatives. In American English, intervocalic /t/ is tapped and voiced --> T-tapping phenomenon. This is probably the most noticeable feature for a foreign learner, together with rhoticity. Moreover, in American English post-nasal /t/ is elided (ex. Twenty).

Pronunciation differences and stress placement Latin-derived words ending in –ile are pronounced differently in the two varieties, and some pronunciation variants are associated with one or the other variety. [see pag. 79 for examples] In some cases, differences are attributed to geopraphical variation between British English and American English rather than to different pronunciation within the same variety. An example is the pronunciations /ˈaɪðə/ and /ˈiːðər/ for the word "either" attriuted respectively to British English and American English. Actually, both pronunciations are used in both countries.

Some differences between British and American English regard stress placement, that can change according to the variety (ex. Address; cigarette) A characteristic difference betwen British and American English is the pronunciation of the endings – ary, -ery, -ory, which are compressed in British English, whereas they keep a full vowel in American English.

The syllable A syllable is a phonological unit made up of one or more phonemes; a minimum syllable is made up of one vowel only. Some syllables have a consonant onset followed by a vowel --> open syllables because they end in a vowel. Others have a vowel nucleus followed by a consonant coda --> closed syllables because they end in a consonant. The initial and the final elements may be consonants clusters, that is group of consonants. The pattering of consonats clusters is subject to phonological rules. In syllable initial position in English it it not possible to have the sequences [zb] and [mn], which are possible in Italian. The most common type of syllable in English is the one which is made up of consonant + vowel + consonant (CVC). In English there is a 60% of closed syllables against a 40% of open syllables, whereas in Italian the most common type is the open syllable.

Stress in words and multi-word units Stress is the relative prominence given to a syllable. The effect of prominence is the result of four acoustic components: pitch, loudness, duration and quality. In phonetic transcription stress is indicated by a vertical line, called stress mark, placed before the stressed syllable. Usually, onesyllable grammatical words are unstressed when they occur is weak position; polysillabic words normally carry primary stress on one syllable, and sometimes also a secondary stress on another syllable. The main stress patterns in English are: • • • • • • • • • •

2-syllable words with primary stress on the first syllable (strong + weak) 2-syllable words with primary stres on the first syllable and a full vowel on the second (strong + strong) Not all unstressed syllables are weak. 2-syllable words with primary stress on the second syllable (weak + strong) 2-syllable words with a full vowel on the first syllable and primary stress on the second syllable (strong + strong) 3-syllable word with primary stress on the first syllable (strong + weak + weak) 3-syllable words with primary stress on the first syllable and a full vowel on the third syllable (strong + weak + strong) 3-syllable words with primary stress on the first sylable and a full vowel on the second (strong + strong + weak) 3-sylable words with primary stress on the second syllable (weak + strong + weak) 3-syllable words with full vowel on the first syllable and primary stress on the second syllable (strong + strong + weak) 3-syllable words with a full vowel on the first syllable and primary stress on third syllable (strong + weak + strong)

Connected speech Connected speech can be percieved as a continuum of sound. While in written language words are conventionally separated from one another by spaces, in spoken language the transition from each

sound segment to the next is "smooth". Phonetically, it is characterised by articulary accomodations and sound variability, especially in fast, fluent speech. Phonetic variability in conncected speech is caused by three main factors: • • •

The influence of the phonetic environment in which each phoneme occurs; The ryhthmic pattern of the syllable in which each phoneme occurs; The speed of the utterance.

There are five types of phonetic variations caused by the influence of the phonetic environment: 1. Similitude: it involves accomodation in the articulation of a sound segment to an adjacent segment, so that they become similiar in some of their characteristics. An example is the sequence nasal + plosive or plosive + nasal, but also between a consonant and a vowel. In this case, there is an adjustment of tongue position to facilitate co-articulation with the following vowel. Various kind of similitudes may be described in voice, in tongue position, in lip position, in vowel or consonant proximity and in nasality (position of soft palate). 2. Linking: realised across boundaries between consonants and vowels, between different conosnants, between the same consonants. Between vowels and semivowels the linking sounds [w] and [j] are added to obtain a smooth transition across word boundaries. 3. Assimilation: it occurs in the same cirumstances as similitude, but it involves the actual replacement of a sound with another owing to the influence of an adjacent one. This type of assimilation occurs at the boundaries between syllables, words and in compounds, and it is called juxtapositional or contextual . Historical assimilation occurs in the course of the centuries and explains changes in pronunciations, while contextual assimilation ocurs when utterances are spoken at normal speed. Some types of contextual assimlation can be percieved in voice, in tongue position, in the position of the lips and in the combination of two sounds into another. 4. Elision: also called deletion, it is the dropping of a sound which once existed (historical elision) or which exist in slow speech (contextual elision ). Elision is determined by economy in the articulatory effort. A typical example is the dropping of the in the weak form of grammatical items like he, him, his (ex. Tell him). Elision is also common in unstressed initial syllables as in the words suppose and police. A particular case of elision in British Enlgish is smoothing, which consists in the reduction of the elements of diphthongs and triphthongs. 5. Vowel reduction and weak forms: it is responsible for remarkable differences between the pronunciation of words in isolation and of the sames in connected speech. It consists in the reduction to a weak vowel (in general to the neutral schwa sound) of strong, longer vowels and diphthongs when there are in a weak, unstressed position. Vowel reduction is characteristic of grammatical words such as auxiliaries, modals, articles, conjunctions, personal pronouns and prepositions.

The rhythm of connected speech When we speak, we harldy even utter isolated sounds or syllables. There are two important phenomena that characterise connected speech, that is rhythm and intonation. In connected speech we naturally assing prominence to words which are important to give meaning to what we say.

We percieve the sense of rhythm which arises out of a feeling of alternation between strong and weak "beats". And usually, accented syllables are: • •

One-syllable words of major word classes; The stressed syllables of polysillabic words of major word classes;

While non-prominent syllables usually are: • •

Words of minor word classes Weak syllables of polysyllabic words

The assignment of rhythmic prominence is called tonicity. The alternation of weak and strong "beats" in connected speech determines its rhythm. In English, rhythm is said to be stress-timed, that is based on the regular occurrence of accented or prominent syllables. The time interval between one strong beat and the next is said to be isochronous, that is each chunk is given an approximately equal amount of time. Rhythm in spoken English has important consequences on the incidence of weak sounds, which typically occur in unstressed syllables. Some items may take a weak form when they occur in unstressed position....