An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

AXE
’ finishes on 
a relatively low pitch to end that topical segment. Pitch level, then, can be used to 
indicate relationships between successive tone units in terms of the informational 
value speakers attribute to them. A particularly useful example of this is the 
function of intonation in conveying ‘contrastive stress’. Notice, for instance, how 
in A1, Anne stresses pronouns, which would normally be unstressed, to convey 
this contrast:
// Sometimes 
HE
 used to cut the grass outside 
OUR
 place // and sometimes 
WE
’
D
 cut the 
grass outside 
HIS
 place //.
Thus, contrastive stress is a very important signpost for listeners.
Social Meanings and Roles/Degrees of Involvement
Dramatic pitch movement is often a sign of strong emotional involvement: in our 
text, for instance, Jane’s // Good 
HEA
vens // (J4 and J9) and her // doesn’t it give 
you the 
CREEPS
// as well as Anne’s ‘unbe
LIE
vably’ and //absolutely 
DREAD
ful // display 
such pitch movement. But emotional involvement and attitudinal meaning 
are notoriously difficult to generalize in any helpful way, as they are so highly 
dependent on context, situation and relationships. This is why descriptions of 
‘intonational meaning’ can hardly go beyond ad hoc observations (O’Connor and 
Arnold, 1973).

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206 An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
In contrast, Brazil’s (1997) model of the communicative role of intonation is a 
powerful one, as it works with a limited set of possible choices to capture the state 
of play in discourse as it is negotiated moment by moment by the interlocutors. A 
central concept for Brazil is that of ‘common ground’, ‘what knowledge speakers 
[think they] share about the world, about each other’s experiences, attitudes and 
emotions’ (Brazil, Coulthard and Johns, 1980: 15). According to Brazil (1997), it is 
this assessment as to what is shared and what is not that determines the speaker’s 
choice of tone. The basic options are: tones ending in a rise (‘fall-rise’ or ‘rise’) for 
a part of the message which the speaker regards as part of the existing common 
ground, and tones ending in a fall (‘fall’ or ‘rise-fall’) for what they see as adding 
to the common ground. Anne’s first utterance illustrates this distinction: in // 
Years ago when I was married //, ‘married’ will end in a rise if she assumes that 
Jane knows about this, and in a fall if she thinks this is new to Jane. // called 
Stan // , on the other hand, is clearly new, and therefore ends in a fall. The 
distinction between end-rising and end-falling tones is thus a distinction between 
invoking ‘the togetherness aspect of the conversational relationship’ as opposed 
to expressing ‘unassimilated viewpoints’ (Brazil, 1997: Chapter 4).
In this sense, then, intonation is the most important means by which 
interlocutors negotiate their mutual relationship and indicate how they view the 
topic under discussion. During the interaction, intonation enables participants to 
constantly check and establish common ground in order to achieve convergence 
and conversational solidarity or, alternatively, to assert conversational dominance.
Stress and Unstress
We have seen that the way we signal prominence in tone units by stressing 
important words is a crucial prosodic device for getting our meaning across. So which 
words get stressed is to a great extent a matter of speaker choice in the constantly 
evolving state of play in the participants’ conversation. However, speakers are 
not entirely free in their stress-placement: there are also certain grammatical and 
lexical constraints. Generally speaking, so-called ‘content words’ (nouns, verbs, 
adjectives, etc.) tend to be the main carriers of meaning and so often get selected 
for prominence. In contrast, so-called ‘function words’ (articles, prepositions, 
pronouns and conjunctions) mainly serve to indicate grammatical relationships 
and are usually unstressed in utterances (except when they carry contrastive stress). 
In A9, for example, the stressed words include antivenene, numb and later, and the 
unstressed ones And, he, in, but and was. It is important to realize, however, that for 
natural conversation these are general tendencies, not invariable rules, and that 
within any particular word, the syllable(s) to be stressed is relatively fixed.
Sound Segments
Having moved from the larger units of intonation to the smaller ones of stress 
in words, we can now consider the smallest units we can isolate intuitively, the 
individual sounds which make up utterances. However, it has to be emphasized 
that speech is a continuous stream without clear-cut borderlines between individual 
sounds, and when we speak, rather than producing carefully enunciated ‘citation 
forms’ of individual words, we tend to minimize our articulatory effort by making 
sounds more like each other (‘assimilation’), sometimes leaving sounds out 
altogether (‘elision’) and sometimes inserting a sound to make for a smoother 

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207
Speaking and Pronunciation
transition (‘linking’). The strangely persistent notion that pronunciation only has to 
do with individual sounds and how they are articulated is probably due to a human 
tendency to simplify and idealize in our effort to understand complex processes.
Individual sounds, then, are just one part of the story, but an important one. As 
all foreign language learners know, we find some sounds easy and others difficult 
when we study a new language. This is so because different languages select 
different parts of the sound spectrum (‘vowels and consonants’) for linguistic use. 
During first language acquisition, we come to regard the sounds of our mother 
tongue as ‘normal’, thus acquiring a kind of mental ‘filter’ which predisposes us to 
regard certain sounds as significant and others as not. To many learners of English, 
for instance, the so-called ‘th-sounds’ seem rather peculiar, whereas for English 
speakers, the ‘tones’ of, say, Mandarin Chinese and the ‘clicks’ of certain African 
languages are equally unfamiliar. On the other hand, most languages have o-like, 
i-like and e-like sounds. How exactly speech sounds get produced and received 
as physiological and acoustic events is explored in the field of ‘phonetics’. How 
they are utilized, how they are organized into a system of sounds in a particular 
language is the domain of ‘phonology’. Each distinctive sound within the system, 
for example /p/ or /b/, is called a ‘phoneme’ (see Chapter 9, Sociolinguistics, for a 
listing of the IPA representations of most of the phonemes of English).
What is not represented in the phoneme system is the actual phonetic realization 
of these distinctive sounds, which are called ‘allophones’. As in our handwriting, 
where the actual letters we write vary and are often quite different from the 
‘ideal’ shape, no two realizations of a phoneme, even by the same person, are 
ever exactly the same. In addition, there are individual and dialectal differences 
between the ‘accents’ of different speakers of the same language, that is, users of 
the same phoneme inventory. Also, certain sounds are pronounced differently 
depending on the position they occur in, such as the three occurrences of /l/ in 
A9: many English speakers would use a so-called ‘clear l’ in later and a ‘dark l’ 
in hospital and still – however, the way this phoneme is realized does not make 
any difference to the meaning. We can thus say that we ‘think in phonemes’ but 
‘speak in allophones’ (Dalton and Seidlhofer, 1994: Chapter 2).
Implications for Pedagogy
In this section we raise a series of questions typically asked, in our experience, about 
teaching speaking and pronunciation, and offer some practical suggestions. These 
suggestions assume ideas related to general learning theory that need to be taken 
into account, such as the tenet that perception needs to precede production and 
achievability, that is, success in little steps is important to counter the insecurity of 
learning another language. This factor also highlights the teacher’s role in ‘scaffolding’ 
manageable learning opportunities by providing more explicit support and input in 
initial learning through activities that give guided practice and strategically withdraw 
support as students become more able to complete tasks independently.
Should Speaking Activities Focus on Texts or Sentences?
There may be good reasons for focusing on sentence-level study. Cook (1989: 4ff) 
lists the following:
• Formal grammatical knowledge and skills that provide the basis for 
communication can be taught.

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208 An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
• Proficiency in specific aspects of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary can 
be easily diagnosed and assessed.
• ‘Abstract’ sentences are still the best material for language instruction as they 
isolate the language from the complexities of a particular context.
• Formal language rules underpin well-formed sentences and need to be 
understood and recognized.
• The treatment of language as sentences has been successful in language learning 
in revealing how language works.
• It is more difficult to establish rules and constraints about what is 
communicatively effective beyond sentence-level.
By way of contrast, the following are some of the arguments that have been 
advanced for a focus on text:
• Communicative competence requires more than producing and understanding 
sentences.
• Texts, in the form of scripted dialogues, are commonly used in language teaching.
• If dialogues are to be used, they should also introduce learners to some of the 
features of ‘real-life’ discourse, such as generic structure, associated grammatical 
choices and the role of pronunciation in creating meaning.
• Focusing on discourse and text helps students to notice and analyse authentic 
and appropriate usage of language.
• Discourse-based activities enable students to extend their communicative 
repertoire and prepare them more effectively for communication in the target 
language outside the classroom.
How Can a Discourse-based Approach be Applied in 
Classroom Practice?
Both teachers and students can benefit from an awareness of the discourse features 
of different texts (see Burns, 2006). Developing awareness of these features 
suggests a consciousness-raising approach, rather than implying that students 
should follow ‘recipe’ type models in a slavish fashion (Burns and Joyce, 1997).
At a macro-level, students can be sensitized to:
• Functional purpose: identifying whether a text is primarily transactional or 
interactional.
• Generic structure: highlighting the typical ways that different text types 
‘unfold’ in spoken interaction. This may help to clarify reasons for cross-cultural 
miscommunication where different expectations may be at play; intercultural 
differences in genres can also be compared.
• ‘Gate-keeping’ contexts: identifying situations where speakers may have unequal 
power relations and how language is used to confirm or contest these roles.
At a micro-level the following patterns can be explored:
• Exchange structure: showing how speakers position themselves to hold the 
floor and the strategies they use to do this (challenges, dispreferred responses, 
clarification checks, etc.).
• Turn-taking: highlighting what kinds of turns are likely to go together and how 
speakers can take up or modify different kinds of turns.

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209
Speaking and Pronunciation
• Conversational moves: enabling learners to practise expressions realizing 
conversational openings, closings, evaluative follow-ups, back-channelling and 
so on.
Should we use only ‘Authentic’ Texts?
In responding to this question, we support in general Lynch and Mendelssohn’s 
comments on authenticity in text and task (see Chapter 11, Listening). ‘Authentic’ 
texts may not be always be the most available or feasible, but teachers can 
potentially offer students a continuum of spoken text samples from single 
sentences to scripted dialogues to semi-scripted dialogues to completely natural 
speech. We have already commented on the use of single sentences. There are also 
advantages and disadvantages to each of the other options.
• Scripted dialogues constructed specifically for the purposes of language teaching 
are common in many published course books. They are valuable for students at 
lower levels because they often control the vocabulary and grammatical structures 
introduced. Usually the dialogue is a vehicle for practising particular patterns 
that have already been introduced through word- or sentence-level exercises. 
However, they may present spoken discourse as unrealistic and unproblematic 
and they rarely reflect the grammar, discourse features and idiomatic uses of the 
language in natural speech. If used exclusively, they represent a ‘restricted diet’ 
of speaking and pronunciation development.
• Semi-scripted texts are increasing in more recently published materials. They 
are sometimes based on recordings where speakers are given a general outline 
of a dialogue and asked to include features of natural discourse (de Silva Joyce 
and Burns, 1999). The resulting dialogues is less fragmented and ‘messy’ than 
authentic discourse and therefore lends itself to language teaching with a focus 
on particular topics, vocabulary, grammar, discourse features and pronunciation. 
Although it can be a ‘transition’ to authentic speech, it may suffer from some of 
the same restrictions as scripted dialogues.
• Authentic texts can introduce students to a full range of transactional and 
interpersonal speech, as well as the reality, unpredictability and complexity 
of spoken communication. They can highlight language variation and choice 
rather than fixed and formal sets of rules. However, authentic texts are highly 
context-dependent and may assume substantial cultural and social knowledge 
(Carter, 1997; Widdowson, 2003: especially Chapters 8 and 9). They may also be 
fragmented (hesitations, false starts, overlaps, interruptions, unclear utterances) 
and include too many different grammatical and other features for focused 
language pattern practice in the classroom.
What Procedures are there Specifically for 
Pronunciation Teaching?
The teacher’s decision as to what kind of activities to use in any specific context 
will, of course, depend on an analysis of learner needs and variables such as 
learning purpose, learners’ age and setting. Procedures range on a continuum 
from either fairly mechanical or analytic/cognitive exercises drawing attention 
to specifics of the language code on the one end to communication tasks on the 
other (a rich resource for both classroom work and self-study is Hewings, 2007).

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210 An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
Elicited Mechanical Production
Manipulation of sound patterns without apparent communicative reason and 
without offering learners an opportunity for making motivated choices of 
sounds, stress patterns, etc. Examples: manipulation of stress for prominence, as 
in ‘How about dinner with us to
NIGHT
? How about dinner with 
US
tonight? How 
about 
DINN
er with us tonight?’. For individual sounds, tongue twisters of the 
‘she sells sea shells on the sea shore’ kind. Another time-honoured technique 
is ‘listen and repeat’, which involves learners in imitating chunks of language 
provided by the teacher or a recording; still widely used in course books which 
are accompanied by a tape, and particularly popular as a language laboratory 
exercise.
Ear Training for Sound Contrasts
For instance, reading contrasting sounds or words aloud to a class and asking 
them to decide what has been uttered. This can take the form of a bingo-like 
game, as in Bowen and Marks’s (1992: 36f) ‘sound discrimination exercise’. 
An interesting variation of this particularly suitable for monolingual classes is 
‘bilingual minimal pairs’ (Bowen and Marks, 1992: 21), which asks learners to 
listen out for differences in articulatory settings in lists of L1–L2 word pairs, such 
as German Bild and English build.
Sounds for Meaning Contrasts
Although ‘listen and repeat’ is very drill-like, there are numerous ways in which 
such exercises can be modified to make them more meaningful for the learner 
while retaining a focus on sounds. Most recent textbooks offer such variations. 
What they have in common is that they endeavour to relate linguistic form 
to pragmatic meaning and action. This can be achieved through more active 
involvement of the part of the learner, a clearer specification of purpose, and 
a stronger element of choice. Minimal pairs (pairs of words distinguished by 
one phoneme only) can be embedded in sentences such as ‘This 
BED
is not 
BAD
’; ideally, minimal pairs can be used for listening for differences and giving 
appropriate responses, a technique in which Gilbert (2005) is unsurpassed, for 
example: