Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

Box 4.3 Phonemes and distinctive features
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Much learning of pronunciation depends on aspects other than the phoneme,
for example, distinctive features.
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L2 learners gradually acquire the L2 way of voicing stop consonants.
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Their first language is affected by their knowledge of the second language,
as well as their second being affected by their first.
4.2 Learning syllable structure
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How many syllables are there in ‘constitution’? in ‘fire’? in ‘autosegmentalism’?
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How do you think syllables work in your own speech?
Focusing questions
syllable: a unit of phonology consisting of a structure of phonemes, stresses,
and so on
syllable structure: how consonants (C) and vowels (V) may be combined into
syllables in a particular language; for example, English has CVC syllables
while Japanese has CV
epenthesis: padding out the syllable by adding extra vowels or consonants; for
example, ‘Espain’ for ‘Spain’
Keywords

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In Chapter 2 we saw how elements of language such as morphemes build up into
sentences through phrases and structures. The same is true of phonology:
phonemes are part of the phonological structure of the sentence, not just items
strung together like beads on a necklace. In particular they form part of the struc-
ture of syllables.
One way of analysing syllables is in terms of consonants (C) such as /
t/, /s/, /p/,
and so on, and vowels (V) such as /
i/ or /ai/. The simplest syllable consists of a vowel
V /
ai/ ‘eye’; this structure is found in all languages. In English, all syllables must have
a vowel, with the occasional exception of syllabic /
n/ in /btn

/ (‘button’) and /
l/ in
/
bɒtl

/ (‘bottle’).
Another type of syllable combines a single consonant with a vowel, CV as in /
tai/
‘tie’. In languages such as Japanese all syllables have this CV structure with few
exceptions, hence the familiar-looking pattern of Japanese words such as
‘Miyazaki’, ‘Toyota’ or ‘Yokahama’.
A third syllable structure allows combinations of CVC as in /
tait/ ‘tight’. CVC
languages vary in how many consonants can come at the beginning or end of the
syllable. Chinese allows only one of each, again resulting in familiar-looking
names like ‘Chan’ and ‘Wong’.
One difficulty for the L2 learner comes from how the consonants combine with
each other to make CC – the permissible consonant clusters. English combines /
p/
with /
l/ in ‘plan’ and with /r/ in ‘pray’ /prei/, but does not combine /p/ with /f/ or
/
z/; there are no English words like ‘pfan’ or ‘pzan’. In German, however, /pn/ and
/
ps/ are possible combinations, as in ‘Psychologie’ (psychology) and ‘Pneu’ (tyre).
Aliens in Larry Niven science fiction stories can be identified because their names
have non-English clusters – ‘tnuctipun’ /
tn/ and ‘ptavvs’ /pt/. English does not
allow ‘tn’ at the beginning of a word and doubles /
v/ in the spelling of a handful
of words, such as ‘skivvy’.
The compulsory vowel in the English syllable can be preceded or followed 
by one or more consonants. So ‘lie’ /
lai/, which has a consonant/vowel (CV) 
structure, and ‘sly’ /
slai/, which starts with a two-consonant cluster /sl/ (CC), are
both possible, as are ‘eel’ /
il/ with VC and ‘eels’ /ilz/ with VCC. Longer clusters
of three or four consonants can also occur, for example, at the end of ‘lengths’
/
leŋkθs/ or the beginning of ‘splinter’ /splintə/. The ultimate seems to be the five
final consonants in the /
mpfst/ of ‘Thou triumphst!’ The syllable structure of
some languages allows only a single consonant before or after the vowel.
Japanese, for instance, has no consonant clusters and most syllables end in a
vowel, that is, it has a bare CV syllable structure; the English word ‘strike’ starting
with CCC becomes ‘sutoraki’ in Japanese, in conformity with the syllable struc-
ture of the language.
L2 learners often try by one means or another to make English clusters fit their
first languages. Examples are Koreans saying /
kəlas/ for ‘class’, and Arabs saying
/
bəlstik/ for ‘plastic’. They are inserting extra vowels to make English conform to
Korean or Arabic, a process known as epenthesis. So British Indian children in
Yorkshire pronounce ‘blue’ as /
bəlu/ not /blu/, ‘friend’ as /fərend/ not /frend/, and
‘sphere’ as /
səfiə/ not /sfiə/, all with epenthetic vowels (Verma et al., 1992).
An alternative strategy is to leave consonants out of words if they are not
allowed in the LI – the process of ‘simplification’. Cantonese speakers, whose L1
syllables have no final consonants, turn English ‘girl’ /
əl/ into ‘gir’ /ə/ and
‘Joan’ /
d ə n/ into ‘Joa’ /d ə /. Arabic syllables too can be CV but not CCV, that
is, there are no two-consonant clusters. ‘Straw’ /
strɔ/ is an impossible syllable in
Acquiring and teaching pronunciation
74

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Arabic because it starts with a three-consonant cluster /
str/ CCC. Indian children
in Yorkshire simplify the /
nd/ of ‘thousand’ and the /dz/ of ‘Leeds’ to /d/ (Verma
et al., 1992).
Egyptian-Arabic learners of English often add an epenthetic vowel /
ə/ to avoid
two or three-consonant clusters. ‘Children’ /
tʃildrən/ becomes ‘childiren’
/
tʃildirən/ in their speech because the CC combination /dr/ is not allowed.
‘Translate’ /
trnzleit/ comes out as ‘tiransilate’ /tirnzileit/ to avoid the two con-
sonant CC sequences /
tr/ and /sl/. Part of their first language system is being trans-
ferred into English.
So the clash between the syllable structures of the first and second languages is
resolved by the expedient of adding vowels or leaving out consonants, a true
interlanguage solution. It is not just the phonemes in the sentence that matter,
but the abstract syllable structure that governs their combination. Indeed, some
phonologists regard the syllable as the main unit in speaking or listening, rather
than the phoneme, one reason being that the sheer number of phonemes per sec-
ond is too many for the brain to process and so some other unit must be involved.
General ideas about phonology learning 75