Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Second Edition
Pronunciation and grammar
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- Variability within the system
Pronunciation and grammar
There are a number of important links between English grammar and both segmental and supra-segmental features of pronunciation. The traditionally labelled 5 plural, for example, has a different pronunciation according to which sound it follows, as does the ed past tense ending. Thus the final sounds of all the following words are different: ships, shoes, roses, laughed, loved, hated. In the sentences There he is’ and ‘There’s a man outside’, the different stressing and vowel sounds in the first word signal that in the former Pronunciation 56 sentence there is an adverb, while in the latter it is an empty slot-filler, the ‘existential there’. At the supra-segmental level, stress and intonation show distinctions like that between ‘My husband who lives in New York is a banker’ and ‘My husband, who lives in New York, is a banker’—in this case matched by a punctuation difference. In sentences like ‘He didn’t go to London because he was ill’ only intonation, which cannot be shown by punctuation, distinguishes the two possible meanings (cf. the problem on p. 18). Variability within the system There are several ways in which the pronunciation of English can vary. The most obvious one is dialectal variation. Even if RP, or Standard Southern English, is accepted as a convenient general norm for international purposes (as it is in this book), there are many areas in which a local version of English is acceptable and of greater usefulness to students. In this case many features of the sound system will differ from those generally presented in texts and courses covering English phonetics. Whichever dialect is chosen as a model for teaching, students should wherever possible be exposed to other dialects of English so that, at the very least, they will not be too narrowly restricted in their expectations of what English can sound like. There is nowadays such a range of varieties of English in evidence on radio, TV, records and tapes, not to mention films and native speakers living locally, that most learners can gain experience of a range of dialects. It is inevitable that a language in normal use in a community will in time change in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. No amount of formal teaching can prevent the development of local varieties of English, however desirable an international standard might be. As soon as he leaves the classroom, every second language learner will consciously or unconsciously strive to speak in the way that is acceptable to the people he wishes to group himself with. One cannot even say that the retention of RP as the norm at school will ensure that the local dialect does not move too far from international standards. What is more likely to happen is Pronunciation 57 that learners operate two dialects, the school’s and the local variety. Since this is very common in Great Britain, as well as many countries, e.g. Nigeria, it is quite a reasonable compromise, though in some cases it may increase the students’ learning burden too much. Within any dialect, there are usually further variations related to social class, educational level and idiosyncratic factors. But these variations are still subject to the rules of the system used by the speech community in general—otherwise communication would break down. That is to say, while speakers have a certain amount of freedom to vary the way they pronounce words, they are by no means totally free. The sound /t/, which can be said clearly and distinctly in isolation, can, in the middle of a word like matter sound rather like /d/ or like /ð/ as in mother, or like /r/, or even like the sound we make when we cough (a glottal stop—a quick closure and release of the vocal chords). All of these will, in context, suffice for the word matter. But if a speaker were to use /f/ he would not be understood. For every sound system, there is a range of possible variations and native speakers do not (except when sleepy, drunk or ill) go beyond the permitted range. Such variations are a source of difficulty when a foreigner encounters native English speakers after studying English pronunciation in his own country. Since it is impractical for a teacher to teach more than one pronunciation in class, and, in any case, most teachers tend to think of an ideal, careful, way of speech when they are in the classroom, the student gains a limited view of what the actual pronunciation of English really is like. Usually this affects his understanding more than his own speech. It does not matter if he habitually speaks more ‘carefully’ than native speakers, and, for example, always pronounces the /t/ in matter the same way as the /t/ in term. He will at least always be understood. He will not mind being recognised as a foreigner, since he will realise that this is usually inevitable and even carries some advantages! But he can expect his teaching to equip him to follow normal English speech. The teacher therefore has to operate a double standard in his pronunciation teaching. For the students’ own speech he can choose a conventional model Pronunciation 58 which is optimally useful for general understanding. But for the students’ recognition of speech he must ensure that a good variety of styles is used for practice listening. Download 0.82 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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