CHAPTER ONE Introduction

You probably want to know what the purpose of this monograph

is, and what you can expect to learn from it. An important purpose of
the monograph is to explain how English is pronounced in the accent
normally chosen as the standard for people learning the English. If this
was the only thing this monograph did, a more suitable title would
have been “problems in English pronunciation”.
Why is it necessary to learn this theoretical background? The
same question arises in connection with grammar: at lower level of
study one is concerned simply with setting out how to form
grammatical sentences, but people who are going to work with
language at advanced level as teachers or researchers need the deeper
understanding provided by the study of grammatical theory and
related areas of linguistics. The theoretical material in the present
course is necessary for anyone who needs to understand the principles
regulating the use of sounds in spoken English.
The nature of problems in pronunciation will be explained as the
course progresses, but one or two basic ideas need to be introduced at
this introductory stage. In any language we can identify a small
number of regularly used sounds( vowels and consonants) that we call
phonemes; for example, the vowels in the words ‘pin’ and ‘ pen’ are
different phonemes, and so are the consonants at the beginning of the
words ‘pet’ and ‘ bet’. Because of the notoriously confusing nature of
English spelling it is particularly important to learn to think of English
pronunciation in terms of phonemes rather than letters of the alphabet;
1
one must be aware, for example, that the word ‘ enough’ begins with
the same vowel phoneme as that at the beginning of ‘ inept’ and ends
with same consonant as’ stuff’. We often use special symbols to
represent speech sounds; using the symbols chosen for this
monograph, the word’ enough’ would be written (transcribed) as ɪᴧηf.

2
 CHAPTER TWO
2.1. Problems in Pronunciation
2.1.1. How is English Pronounced?

The question is deceptively simple, and it cannot have a simple

answer. English today is the native language of nearly 400 million
people and the second language of many others scattered all over the
world. A language so widespread is bound to be different in different
places. We are all aware that the Scots and the Australians, Londoners
and New Yorkers, Irish, New Zealanders, South Africans, Jamaicans,
Welsh, and Canadians do not sound the same when they speak.
How can anyone describe the pronunciation of so many different
people? The diversity is real and must be treated in an account of how
English is pronounced, but the commonality is greater. There is much
more to be said about what is common to all speakers of English than
there is regarding what is different. Furthermore, although to describe
pronunciation obviously requires us to tell what people do with their
voices, we will be, in a sense, more concerned with the language they
possess in common.

2.1.2. LanguageVariation:

In every language there is variety. A language varies from one place

to another, from one era to another, from one occasion to another. The
differences may be in choice of words to express a meaning, as with
petrol versus gas (oline) or dual carriageway versus divided highway.
Differences exist in word formation: for the past tense of the verb dive
does one say dived or dove? There are possible differences in the

3
 ways that words are put together to form phrases and sentences: would
you say, for instance, they gave it me, or they gave me it,
Or
They gave it to me? In this book we are concerned with differences in
pronunciation. Some words are spoken differently by different speakers of
English, for instance either, garage, and tomato. We are more concerned,
however, with the pronunciation of English.
systematic differences; for example, some speakers of English
pronounce an R in such words as car and horn and other speakers do not;
for the former spa and spar sound different, for the latter group the two
words are homophones.
There are interesting differences in the vowel systems of different
dialects: how different are stock and stalk (and stork), for instance?
We can discuss language variation under two headings: differences
among people, the users of language, and differences in the uses of
language, the ways in which people employ language on different
occasions.
First, we are all aware of the differences of the sort mentioned in the
first paragraph, above. People who live in different areas speak different
regional, or geographic, dialects. The geographic differences in English
reflect the different times in which speakers of English settled in an area,
how diverse they were in their origins, how much contact they have had
with other speakers of the language and what influence there has been from
speakers of other languages.(kareidler 2004)

4
2.2. How to Learn English Pronunciation

 Learn the sounds of English

 Learn the pronunciation of English words
 Choose American or British pronunciation (or both)
 Learn about both American and British pronunciation
 English uses different sounds than other languages. For example,
the first sound in the word thin and the first sound in the word
away are never spoken in many languages.

So you have to know all the English sounds. You also have to practice
your pronunciation — listen to English words and sentences, and try to
repeat the English sounds as well as you can.
Reading an English word does not tell you how it is pronounced.
This means that, generally, you have to learn the pronunciation of
every word that you use.
How can you learn the pronunciation of an English word? You can
look it up in a dictionary and read about how it is pronounced. Dictionaries
tell you about pronunciation through a special system called "phonetic
transcription".
Phonetic transcription is written in a phonetic alphabet. The most
popular phonetic alphabet is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
Antimoon has also created the ASCII Phonetic Alphabet, which is suitable
for typing on a computer.
Different kinds of English have different pronunciation. For example,
the pronunciation (the accent) in British English is different from the
pronunciation in American English.
5
 You have a choice between British English and American English,
because these are the most important kinds of English in the world. Which
one should you choose? Probably the kind that you like the most. Whether
you choose British or American pronunciation, people will understand you
wherever you go. Of course, you don't have to decide: you can learn to
speak both kinds of English.
Even if you choose to speak one kind of English, you should learn
about both kinds. Let's suppose you want to speak pure British English.
You don't want to have an American accent at all. Should you pay attention
to the American pronunciations in your dictionary? We believe you should.
You may want to speak British English, but you will hear some
American English, too. You may go see an American movie, visit the
United States, have an American teacher, etc. You may want to speak only
British English, but you need to understand both British and American
English.
Also, consider what happens if you (a student of British English) hear a
new English word from an American? You may learn the American
pronunciation of the word. And you may start using that pronunciation in
your own speech. So your British English will no longer be pure.
For example, if you hear the word nuke on American TV, it will be
pronounced [nu:k]. If, all your life, you have been reading only British
phonetic transcriptions, you will not know that many words which have the
sound [ju:] in British English, have [u:] in American English. So you will
probably learn that nuke is pronounced [nu:k]. But if you learn it like this,
you will make your pronunciation "wrong", because a Briton would
pronounce the word [nju:k].

6
 Of course, the same advice is true if you're learning American English.
In such a case, you should be interested in both British and American
pronunciations, too. http/www.google.com

2.3. Writing English and Spoken English are Obviously very

Different Things

Writing of marks on paper which make no noise and are taken in by the
eye, while speaking is organized sound, taken in by the ear. How can a
book, which is nothing but marks on paper, help anyone to make their
English sound better?
The answer to this is that it can’t, not by itself. But if you will co-
operate, and listen to English as much as you can, along the lines that I
shall suggest to you, then you will find that the instructions given in the
following pages will make you ears sharper for the sound of English and
when you can hear English properly you can go on and improve you
performance. Language starts with the ear. When a baby stars to talk he
does it by hearing the sounds his mother makes and imitating them. If a
baby is born deaf he cannot hear these sounds and therefore cannot imitate
them and will not speak. But normal babies can hear and can imitate; they
are wonderful imitators, and this gift of imitation, which gives us the gift
of speech, lasts for a number of years. It is well known that a child of ten
years old or less can learn any language perfectly, if it is brought up
surrounded by that language, no matter where it was born or who its
parents were. But after this age the ability to imitate perfectly becomes
less, and we all know only too well that adults have great difficulty in

7
mastering the pronunciation (as well as other parts) of foreign languages.
Some people are more talented that others; they find pronouncing other
languages less difficult, but they never find them easy. Why is this? Why
should this gift that we all have as children disappear in later life? Why
can’t grown-up people pick up the characteristic sound of a foreign
language as a child can?
The answer to this is that our native language won’t let us. By the time
we are grown up the habits of our own language are so strong that they are
difficult to break. In our own language we have a fairly small number of
sound-units which we put together in many different combinations to form
the word and sentences we use every day. And as we get older we are
dominated by this small number of units it is as if we listen to our own
language we hear the sounds and we put each into the right box, and when
we speak we go to the boxes and take out the sounds we want in the order
we want them. And as we do this over the years the boxes get stronger and
stronger until everything we hear, whether it is our own language or
another, has to be put into one of these boxes, and everything we say
comes out of one of them. But every language has a different number of
boxes, and the boxes are arranged differently. For example, three of our
English boxes contain the sounds at the beginning of the words fin, thin
and sin, that is, ƒ, th (this is one sound, of course) and s, like this:
F th S
Now, many other languages have boxes which are similar to the
English ones for ƒ and s, but they do not have a special box for the th-
sound. And we can picture this in the following way:

8
 F th S
F S

When the foreign listener hears the English th- sound he has to put it in
one of his own boxes, his habits force him to do so, and he has no special
th box, so he puts it into either the ƒ box or the s box:
F Th S
F S

In the other words, he ‘hears’ he th-sound as either ƒ or s; a funny ƒ or

a funny s, no doubt, but he has nowhere else to put it. And in speaking the
same thing happens: if he has to say thin, he has no th box to go to so he
goes to the nearest box available to him, either the ƒ or the s, and he says
either fin or sin ( or it may be tin, if he has a t box in his language).
The main problem of English pronunciation is to build a new set of
boxes corresponding to the sounds of English, and to break down the
arrangement of boxes which the habits of our native language have so
strongly built up. We do this by establishing new ways of hearing, new
ways of using our speech organs, new speech habits.
This may sound easy, but it isn’t. unfortunately, it is never easy to
establish good habits, it is always the bad ones which come most naturally,
and you will need to do a great deal of hard work if you want to build
yourself a set of English boxes which are nearly as firm as those of your
own language. Anyone who says that you can get a good English
pronunciation without hard work is talking rubbish, unless you happen to
be one of the very small number of lucky people to whom pronunciation
comes fairly easily. Most of us need to work hard at it, and this book is for
9
people who are prepared to work hard. If you work hard and regularly
along the lines suggested in this book, you will improve. One of the most
important things to remember is that everyone can improve, even if they
have no great talent for language. Quite apart from anything else, there is
great satisfaction to be got from the development of what talent you have.
You may never sound like a native English speaker, but at least you will
have got as close to it as you can.

2.3.1. Which English?

What do we mean by a perfect English pronunciation? In one sense

there are as many different kinds of English as there are speakers of it; no
two peoples speak exactly a like we can always hear differences between
them and the pronunciation of English varies a great deal in different
geographical areas. How do we decide what sort of English to use as a
model? This isn’t a question which can be decided in the same way for all
foreign learners of English. If you live in a part of the world like India or
west Africa, where there is a tradition of speaking English for general
communication purposes, you should aim to acquire a good variety of the
pronunciation of this area; such varieties of IndianEnglish or African
English and the like are to be respected and used as a model by all those
who will need their English mainly for the purpose of communication with
their fellows in these areas. It would be a mistake in these circumstances to
use as a model B.B.C English or anything of the sort.
On the other hand, if you live in an area where there is no traditional
use of English and no body of people who speak it for general
communication purposes, then you must take as your model some form of
native English pronunciation, and which form you choose does not very

10
much matter. The most sensible thing to do is to take as your model the
sort of English which you can hear most often. If you have gramophone
records of English speech based on, let us say, an American pronunciation,
make American your model; if you can listen regularly to the B.B.C., and
use that kind of English. Btu whatever you choose to do, remember this: all
these different accents of English have a great deal in common, they have
far more similarities than differences, so don’t worry too much what sort of
English you are listening to provided It is English.
In this book I cannot describe all the possible pronunciations of English
that might be useful to you so I shall concentrate on one, the sort of
English used by educated native speakers in south-east England, often
referred to as Received pronunciation(R.P. for short), that is ‘ accepted’
pronunciation. R.P will be the basis; but I am less interested in making you
speak with this particular accent of English than in helping you to make the
necessary differences between the basic sounds which are found in all
kinds of English: these are found in R.P and because of this it is as useful
to describe R.P. as to describe any other native pronunciation, and if you
really want to speak with a British accent, then this is as good as any, in the
same sense that it is widely acceptable.

2.3.2. Intonation:

Every language has melody in it; no language is spoken on the same

musical note all the time. The voice goes up and down and the different
notes of the voice combine to make tunes. In some languages the tune
mainly belongs to the word, being part of its shape, and if the tune of the
word is wrong its shape is spoiled. The Chinese languages are like this and
so are many others in south-east Africa and America. In these languages

11
the same sounds said with different tunes may make quite different words:
in mandarin Chinese mɑ: said with a level tune means mother but ma:
with a rising tune means horse, an important difference! In many other
languages, of which English is one, the tune belongs not to the word but to
the word group. If you say the English word No with different tunes it is
still the same word, but nevertheless tune plays an important part in
English. We can say a word group definitely or we can say it hesitantly, we
can say it angrily or kindly, we can say it with interest or without interest,
and these differences are largely made by the tunes we use: the words do
not change their meaning but the tune we use adds something to the words,
and what it adds is the speaker’s feelings at that moment; this way of using
tunes is called intonation.
English intonation is English: it is not the same as the intonation of any
other language. Some people imagine that intonation is the same for all
languages, but this is not true. You must learn the shapes of the English
tunes, and these may be quite different from the normal tunes of your own
language; and you must learn the meaning of the English tunes too,
because they are important. For example, thank you may be said two ways:
in the first the voice starts high and ends low, and this shows real gratitude;
in the second the voice starts low and ends high, and this shows a rather
casual acknowledgement of something not very important. A bus
conductor will say thank you in this second way when he coll (Better
English pronunciation 1980)ects your money and this is quite reasonable
since he does not feel great gratitude. But if an English friend invites you
to spend a week-end at his home and you reply with the second thank you
instead of the first you r friend will be offended because you don’t sound

12
really grateful. You may have made an honest mistake but it is different for
him to realize that; he will think that you are being impolite.
(O' connor 1980)

2.4. Problems of Vowel and Consonant

The words vowel and consonant are very familiar ones, but when we
study the sounds of speech scientifically we find that it is not easy to define
exactly what they mean. The most common view is that vowels from the
larynx to lips. A doctor who wants to look at the back of a patient’s mouth
often asks the patient to say “ ah” ; making this vowel sound is the best
way of presenting an unobstructed view. But if we make a sound like s or d
it can be clearly felt that we are making it difficult or impossible for the air
to pass through the mouth. Most people would have no doubt that sounds
like s and d should be called consonants. However, there are many cases
where the decision is not so easy to make. One problem is that some
English sounds that we think of as consonants, such as the sounds at the
beginning of the words’ hay’ and ‘way’, do not really obstruct the flow of
air more than some vowels do. Another problem is that different languages
have different ways of dividing their sounds into vowel and consonant; for
example, the usual sound produced at the beginning of the word ‘red’ is
felt to be a consonant by most English speakers, but in some other
languages (some dialects of Chinese, for example) the same sound is
treated as one of the vowels.
If we say that the difference between vowels and consonant is a
difference in the way that they are produced, there will inevitably be some
cases of uncertainty of disagreement; this is a problem that cannot be
avoided. It is possible to establish two distinct groups of sounds (vowel

13
and consonants) in another way. Consider English words beginning with
the sound h; what sounds can come next after this h?We find that most of
the sounds we normally think of as vowels can follow (for example e in the
word ‘hen’), but practically none of the sounds we class as consonants.
Now think of English words beginning with the two sound bI; we find
many cases where a consonant can follow ( for example d in the word
‘bid’, or I in the word ‘bill’), but hardly any cases where a vowel may
follow. What we are doing here is looking at the different contests and
positions in which particular sounds can occur; this is the study of the
distribution of the sounds, and is of great importance in phonology. Study
of the sounds found at the beginning and end of English words has shown
that two groups of sounds with quire different patterns of distribution can
be identified, and these two groups are those of vowel and consonant. If we
look at the vowel-consonant distinction in this way, we must say that the
most important difference between vowel and consonant is not the way
that they are made, but their different distributions. Of course, the
distribution of vowels and consonants is different for each language.
There are many interesting theoretical problems connected with the
vowel-consonant distinction, but we will not return to this question. For the
rest of this course it will be assumed that the sounds are clearly divide into
vowels and consonants.
We need to know In what ways vowels differ from each other. The first
matter to consider is the shape and position of the tongue. It is usual to
simplify the very complex possibilities by describing just two things:
Firstly, the vertical distance between the upper surface of the tongue
and the palate, and secondly the part of the tongue, between front and back,
which is raised highest,

14
2.4.1. Problems in Phonemic Analysis:

The concept of the phoneme was introduced in chapter 5, and a few

theoretical problems connected with phonemic analysis have been
mentioned in other chapters. The general assumption ( as in most phonetics
books) has been that speech is composed of phonemes and that usually
whenever a speech sound is produced by a speaker it is possible to identify
which phoneme that sound belongs to. While this is often true, we must
recognize that there are several quite serious theoretical problems that
should be considered. From the comparatively simple point of view of
learning pronunciation, these problems are not particularly important;
however, from the point of view of learning about the phonology of
English they are too important to ignore.
There are two main areas of difficulty. The first will be called the
problem of analysis: we may accept the principle of the phoneme as a
fundamental unit in language, but we find difficulty I deciding what are the
phonemes of a language (in ourcase, of English) the result of this is that
different writers produce different analyses of the phonemic system of
English; it is clear that phonemic analysis is not as clear and simple as
studying the letters of the alphabet.
The second area of difficulty will be called the problem of assignment.
As an example of what is meant by “assignment”, we might say that a
botanist who discovers an unusual plant will try to assign it to a known
species; if this is found impossible, it will be decided that a new species
has been discovered, and that future examples of this plant will be assigned
to this new species. We find many cases where it is difficult to assign as a
particular speech sound to a particular phoneme.(roach 1991)

15
 CHAPTER THREE
3.1 Other Language Backgrounds
The problems of learners from other language backgrounds also reflect
transferred features of their L1s. For example, speakers of Polish and
Italian – languages which have simple vowel systems with no central
vowels – will have difficulties with the complexities of the richer English
vowel system. In particular, the English central vowels, such as bonus,
nurse and strut, prove major problems. Even if you speak a language with a
complex vowel system like French, errors may arise from gaps in the L1.
In fact, French learners of English stumble over checked vs. free vowel
contrasts (confusing the kit–fleece vowels), and the diphthongs vs. steady-
state vowels (confusing goat and thought).
An overall lack of word-final lenis consonants affects English
learners from many language backgrounds including German and
Polish. This implies that pairs such as bet – bed, safe – save will be
confused. Apart from Spanish, none of the languages we have dealt
with have dental fricatives similar to /0q/, so that learners from all the
other language backgrounds we discuss here usually replace these
sounds with /t d/ or /s z/, e.g. these things as /diiz Btxfz/ or /ziiz
Bsxfz/. We have already mentioned that English /h/ poses problems
for Spanish and Japanese learners of English, and this also applies to
learners with French, Italian or Polish as L1. The articulation of
English post- alveolar /r/ is frequently an obstacle (especially for
beginners) for French and Germans, whose /r/ is uvular. Unlike
Japanese and Spanish learners, speakers of Polish, German or French

16
will have fewer problems with English consonant clusters, since their
own languages contain many complex consonant sequences.
Although languages show considerable intonational variation, and
exact mimicry of intonation patterns is extremely difficult for most
learners, deficiencies in this area hardly ever cause any breakdown in
intelligibility, so its importance should not be overestimated. Much
more significant is rhythm, and the impact of English stress-timing
(see pp. 135–8), where speakers from many language backgrounds,
including French, Spanish, Italian, Polish and Japanese, will encounter
difficulties. French speakers, whose language lacks word stress and
has invariable nucleus location, have particular problems here. On the
other hand, speakers of German, Dutch or Scandinavian languages,
whose L1s also have stress timing similar to English, are at a
considerable advantage.
It will be seen that the main areas of difficulty for learners can
indeed be largelypredicted from contrastive analysis. Interestingly, not
all learners’ difficulties can bepredicted in this way, while some
expected problems may fail to materialise. It is, however, no
exaggeration to say that a great many second-language
pronunciationproblems can indeed be traced back to the sound system
of the learners’ L1.
Other errors may arise through difficulties derived from confusing
spelling systems – particularly in the case of target languages like
English (or French or Danish),which have archaic orthography
incorporating many perplexing sound–spelling relationships. In other
cases, we may be faced with teaching traditions which are inaccurate
or out of date – this may be the reason for the German reluctance to

17
 distinguish trap and dress when two reasonably adequate vowels for
the contrastexist in their L1 (namely /a/ as in acht ‘eight’ and /™/ as in
Bett ‘bed’).

3.2 How to Learn a Foreign Language

How can phonetics help you if you’re an English native speaker

learning a foreign language? If you have acquired the language in school,
perhaps the first thing to recognize is that you may need to do a lot of
repair work. Many language teachers feel they donot have sufficient time
to give their students prolonged pronunciation training. Some,indeed,
devote no time to it whatsoever. All too often, language labs, where they
exist,are locked up gathering dust whilst the students who should be
allowed to use themplod away on written exercises. Nevertheless, it’s
amazing how quickly great improvements can be achieved inyour
pronunciation by applying a few basic phonetic principles.
1 Choose an appropriate variety as a model and stick to it.
2Discover Differences and similarities between the target
language and English interms of:q consonant and vowel systems;q
sound and spelling relationships;q stress, rhythm and other features of
connected speech.
Here are four concise overviews which will help you use your
phonetic expertiseto gain a better understanding of the pronunciation
of Spanish, French, German and Italian – all very popular languages
for non-natives to learn. We go on to discuss two major languages,
Japanese and Polish, which are less commonly studied outsidetheir
national borders, but which have many interesting
phonetic/phonological features.
18
3.1.1 Pronunciation Changein the Past, Present and Future

Speech habits vary not only geographically but also chronologically.

Changes take place not only from one area to another but also from one
generation to another. You are probably aware that you don’t speak in
quite the same way as your parents do and that your grandparents speak or
spoke differently again. And you may have noticed that if you watch old
films, or see extracts from newsreels on TV, the pronunciation of, say, fifty
or sixty years ago is in many ways different from that used today.
If we move further back in time, then the differences become much
more obvious. When reading Shakespeare (sixteenth century) you have
undoubtedly noticed the changes that have taken place in grammar and
vocabulary between his English and ours. But it is not perhaps as
immediately apparent that Elizabethan pronunciation would also have been
quite different from ours. The English of Chaucer’s time (fourteenth
century) strikes us as being very far removed from modern English, while
Old English (sometimes called Anglo-Saxon), which was spoken in
England before the Norman Conquest in 1066, looks like – and certainly
would have sounded like – a totally alien language, as just a couple of lines
(ll. 312–13) from a famous poem, The Battle of Maldon, will indicate.
Although, obviously, we can’t dig up our ancestors and get them
talking, never- the less it’s possible to reconstruct their pronunciation from
the historical evidence that’s available. We can do this in a number of
ways. For instance, we can derive a great deal of information from the
orthography: the current spelling of knight indicates that this word was
probably originally pronounced as [kniçt]. In addition, we can examine
poetry to see how certain words in previous eras rhymed where they don’t
rhyme today (for example, Shakespeare rhymed love and prove while Pope
19
rhymed tea and obey). In some cases, present-day regional accents still
preserve older pronunciation forms which have been lost in the majority of
English varieties. And, finally, a very important source of information are
books written by the phoneticians of previous eras, who published either
works on elocution for native speakers or books to help non-natives
acquire English (one of the earliest and best examples was produced in
1550 by a Welshman, William sales bury, in an attempt to persuade the
Welsh to learn English, and the English to learn Welsh). Assembling and
analyzing information from these various sources has enabled historical
linguists to construct patterns of sound change and apply these to many
areas of pronunciation.
Let’s now have a look at the changes which took place in English over
a period of several centuries from about 1350 to 1750 by examining the
reconstructed English pronunciations of three famous writers – Geoffrey
Chaucer, William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.

3.2.2 Change in RecentTimes and in Progress:

Regularly in the newspapers you will come across journalists deploring

the changes taking place in the English language. Or you may find
members of the public complaining in letters to the editor on the lines of:
‘Will the younger generation totally destroy our beautiful language? Will it
ever stop? Is there anything we can do about it?’ The answer in each case
is in all probability ‘no’. Even if you wanted to, there’s nothing you can do
to stop linguistic change; it has always taken place and always will.
Nevertheless, although linguistic change must, by definition, alter certain
aspects of our language, English will survive. One cannot charge the

20
upcoming generation with ill-treating their linguistic inheritance any more
than one can accuse the people of Pope’s or Shakespeare’s time of
destroying the English that had gone before them.
To take a more positive attitude, linguistic change is always interesting
to explore – and especially so when it is change in progress happening all
around us. So let’s move on to examine how speech has developed in
relatively recent years: changes which have taken place in your parents’
and grandparents’ lifetimes, and also some changes which are going on at
the very moment.

3.2.3 Changing Consonants:

The only systemic change in seven centuries has been the loss of the
palatal/velar voiceless fricative (see p. 202). In addition, there has been the
virtual loss of /Q/ in most varieties. Listening to early twentieth-century
recordings of British English speakers, one is struck by the clearer quality
of syllable-final /l/. Nowadays, l-vocalization, i.e. a dark l with a back
vowel quality of an [k] type, is especially noticeable following back
vowels, e.g. in doll [dbk], ball [bcik], etc. Until recently such
pronunciations would have been regarded as ‘Cockney’, and they may
indeed have come into late twentieth- century speech from London
English.
The same London influence may be at work in the spread of glottal stop
– a feature which is often thought of as a ‘slipshod Cockneyism’ that has
invaded young people’s speech in the last few years. In fact, glottalisation
in one form or another is something which has been around in English for a
long time. It can be heard in the speech of George V – born in 1865, and
hardly a Cockney!1 The King’s pronunciation provides evidence that,

21
contrary to what is sometimes believed, glottalisation was actually to be
found in traditional RP – even though it only occurred in pre-consonantal
syllable-final contexts (and not medially or before dark l). See also Section
B2. T-voicing, giving a rapid tap, with slight voicing carrying on through
the articulation, is getting very common indeed. In colloquial speech, many
speakers tap intervocalic /t/, especially across word boundaries (e.g. that I,
not a bit, get it) and medially in high-frequency words like better, later,
little, e.g. but I’d better get it a little later [beÄ axd BbeÄe geÄx t eB lxÄl
BlexÄe]. Nevertheless, there is no sign in British English of the medial /t –
d/ contrast being lost in colloquial speech, as is true of much General
American, e.g. writing – riding. Even though /Q/ in wh-words has largely
disappeared, curiously, /hj/ in words like huge, humour, etc. is now
universal. Not so long ago, one could still hear old-fashioned speakers who
would pronounce /juidnBjuime/, but this had died out in RP by the 1970s
and has no place in modern NRP. It is still, however, to be heard from a
minority of General American speakers, and is common in South African
English. Nevertheless, yod-dropping is on the increase. After /l/, as in lute
/ljuit/, /j/ has effectively died out, although it is still shown in some
dictionaries. It is rare nowadays to hear /sjuit Bsjuipe/ for suit, super, etc.,
and the vast majority pronounce /suit Bsuipe/. On the other hand, /j/ lives
on in assume and presume, where /eBsuim preBzuim/ are minority
variants. Furthermore, there’s no tendency in NRP – or indeed in most
British English – to remove /j/ from duke, tune, news /djuik tjuin njuiz/.
Pronunciations such as /duik tuin nuiz/ (all of which are the majority form
in America) are confined to regional accents, notably some Cockney, East
Anglia and parts of the West Country. In fact, /tj/ and /dj/ are increasingly
replaced by /tt/ and /dn/, e.g. tune /Bttuin/,duke /Bdnuik/; this has been true

22
for many years, but still starts alarm bells ringing for many speakers of
traditional RP.

1. A good example is George V’s speech at the launch of the liner

Queen Mary in 1934 (BBC audio cassette ZCD 593).
2. Laura Soames employed monophthongal [ê] to transcribe non-final
/™i/ as in Mary, scaring, etc. in her (1899) Introduction to English,
French and German Phonetics.

3.2.4 Changing Vowels:

The only systemic change in the NRP vowel system from that of
traditional RP is that /ce/ as in shore – still shown in most pre-1970
dictionaries – has disappeared. This, of course, does not take account of
speakers of varieties which contrast words of the force– north type,
common in Wales, Scotland, Ireland and much of northern England and
the USA. Nor does it include Londoners who contrast paws – pause /ce -
ci/. But in NRP, there is no longer any /ce - ci/ contrast, so that oar/ore –
awe are homophones. One possible systemic change that could take place
in the near future is that NRP English will lose both of its centring
diphthongs near and cure. Of these, near /xe/ is the more stable, although it
tends nowadays to have a closer starting-point [ie]. Some younger speakers
replace it by a long steady-state vowel of a kit type, e.g. really [Brxili]. In
mainstream NRP, cure /ke/ is nowadays more and more replaced by /ci/,
especially in high-frequency words like poor, sure, your, etc. In other –
potentially two-syllable – words, e.g. fewer, jewel, a sequence /uie/ is used
instead of cure /ke/. This may imply that many speakers regard these
vowels as being sequences of /ii + + e/ and /ui + + e/. Traditional RP also
had a third centring diphthong in square represented with ee. In NRP, this
23
is now overwhelmingly a steady-state vowel – something which was first
noted in certain contexts well over a hundred years ago.2 We have
recognised this develop- ment by using a steady-state vowel transcription
symbol ™£.
Say the following words. All traditionally had /ke/. Do you yourself
pronounce /ke/, /uie/ or /ci/? Ask your friends what they say. Can you think
of any other words of this type? cure, sure, furious, cruel, insure, tourist,
endure, reviewer In terms of lexical variation there has been a change in
thought replacing lot before fricatives in words like cost, off, cloth (see p.
203). This process, which began the eighteenth century, seemed to have
become almost universal by the early twentieth, but has now boomeranged.
In this context, the thought vowel is retained only by a few traditional RP
speakers of the 60-plus generation. All other speakers have reverted to lot.
In words such as halt, malt, salt the use of /ci/ is much more prevalent, but
even so is diminishing.
Another change is that the foot vowel, formerly used in words like
room, broom /rkm brkm/, etc. is now generally replaced by goose, i.e.
/ruim bruim/. Curiously, our Estuary speaker (p. 6) retains this archaism.
An example of change involving distributional variation is that in happy
words, the final vowel is now fleece – rather than the kit of traditional RP –
but most NRP speakers realize it as a short vowel with a quality between
/x/ and /ii/ (see Section B1 on neutralization). Only regional varieties in
Yorkshire, Lancashire, Scotland and Northern Ireland overwhelmingly
keep the kit vowel. In endings such as -ate, -less, -ness, -ity, the kit vowel
has largely been replaced by /e/. Words such as obstinate, careless,
softness, calamity are now overwhelmingly said as /Bbbstxnet Bk™iles
Bsbftnes keBlæmeti/. A notable realization change has been that the trap

24
vowel /æ/ is now much more open (similar to [a]). In traditional RP it
sounded a little like present-day square, something which can be clearly
heard in old British newsreels and feature films (Celia Johnson in Brief
Encounter is a famous example). A close trap vowel is also found in most
other world varieties (American, Australian, New Zealand and South
African; see Section C4). And a small minority of traditional RP speakers
(almost all now 60- plus – listen to veteran cricket commentator Henry
Blofeld) retain the traditional closer quality of the vowel. Nevertheless, in
twenty-first-century Britain old-fashioned RP realizations’ of trap as [™e
™i] are found comic by the younger generation. (Interestingly, as early as
1918 the phonetician Daniel Jones warned non-native learners against
over-close /æ/, and cited possible confusion of ballet dancer and belly
dancer.) The fleece and goose vowels (/ii/ and /ui/) are now typically
diphthongal [xi ku] in all contexts except before fortis consonants. A much
commented-on change in the speech of the younger generation is that the
goose vowel /ui/ is becoming front and losing its rounding. The effect is
particularly striking following palatal /j/ and also palato- alveolar /ttt/, as in
few, music, new, Tuesday, shoe, etc., making a young person’s shoe sound
rather like she to older people. The foot vowel /k/ is typically more central
in NRP, markedly so with many younger speakers. In addition, it often
lacks lip- rounding, especially in common words, e.g. good, put sounding
almost like [gxd pxt]. See also Section B3 for more detail on all these
changes. The diphthongs mouth /ak/ and price /ax/ have swapped their
traditional RP starting-points. They are now either the same or – as with
many younger speakers – /ak/ has a front starting-point while /ax/ starts
back. It’s noticeable that members of the Royal Family are frequently
accused of pronouncing house as ‘hice’ and round the town as ‘rind the

25
tine’. Of the diphthongs, goat /ek/ has moved from a back vowel [ok] – a
quality which it still has in much American English – to a central starting-
point [ek]. (A lot of American English seems to be going the same way.)
With many younger NRP speakers the quality is further fronted to [ek].
This realisation may be confusing to older speakers, who interpret it as the
face vowel, thus understanding younger- generation road as older-
generation raid.
This is an extract from Stephen Fry’s The Stars’ Tennis Balls (2001:
32). Suggest some possible reasons why the character speaking might want
to change his accent in these ways. Explain Fry’s examples, using phonetic
symbols for the purpose. But firstly, there must come the accent. When I
arrive, the accent will be in place and they will never know. I have my
exercises all written out:
Don’t say good, say gid Don’t say post, say paste Don’t say real, say
rail Don’t say go, say gay

3.2.5 Changing Stress and Intonation:

Intonation One striking intonation change which has occurred in the

last few years is the increase in what has been dubbed ‘upspeak’ or
‘Australian question intonation’, referring to terminal rising patterns
employed particularly for narrative. Since this is a well-known feature of
Australian English, its popularity in British accents has been put down to
the influence of Australian ‘soaps’ (see also Bradford 1997, Section D, pp.
274–8). But it’s worth noting that very similar patterns existed in regional
British English (e.g. certain West Country and South Wales accents,
notably Bristol and Cardiff) long before Australian English penetrated the

26
airwaves. Whatever the origins, it is without doubt the most obvious
instance of ongoing change affecting intonation.
Stress In 1855, the writer Samuel Rogers complained about the way
words were changing their stress patterns. ‘The now fashionable
pronunciation of several words is to me at least very offensive:
CONtemplate is bad enough; but BALcony makes me sick’ (quoted in
Crystal 1988: 64). The stress patterns indicated seem pretty normal to us in
the twenty-first century, but Rogers was regretting the passing of the
pronunciations of his youth /kenBtemplxt bælBkoknx/. Changes in stress
have affected a number of words in the course of the twentieth century.
Examples are:
Exquisite, formerly Bexquisite, now instead exBquisite dispute,
formerly diBspute, now also Bdispute comparable, formerly Bcomparable,
now also comBparable primarily, formerly Bprimarily, now also
priBmarily laboratory, formerly Blaboratory, now instead laBboratory
There is a strong tendency for stress change in longer words (three
syllables or more) to result in stress shifting to the antepenultimate syllable
(two from the end). This will usually also affect the vowels in the word.
Primarily shows this tendency. (Mess 2013)

3.3 Summary of Historical Changes in The English Sound

System
Vowels: the similarities of the systems given above may obscure the
fact the same sound, especially as far as the vowels are concerned,
may occur in different categories of words according to the period.
Thus [Ι:], now in food, occurred in OE in words such as town; [Ι:],
now in team, occurred in OE in time. The following summary shows

27
 some of the most striking changes affecting the vowel quality used in
particular types of word:

OE ME EModE PresE
Time İ: İ: əi aI
Sweet e: e: İ: İ:
Clean æ: Ɛ: e: İ:
Stone a: Ͻ: O: əƲ
Name A a: Ɛ: eI
Moon o: o: u: u:
House u: u: əu aƱ
Love Ʊ Ʊ ɤ Ʌ

Several trends are apparent from the development from OE to pres E:

(a) OE long vowels have closed or diphthongized.

(b)Some long vowels and diphthongs have coalesced. OE/ e:/ and /æ:/ >
presE
/i:/ ; OE /i:/ and /y:/ > ME / i:/ . the diphthong of know has coalesced
with the originally pure vowel of stone; the dihthongs of day and way
have coalesced with the former pure vowel of name.
(c) Short vowels have remained relatively stable. The principal exception
is the spitting of ME/ Ʊ/ into /Ʌ/ and / Ʊ/, the latter remaining only in
some labial and velar contexts. In this category note also the
coalescence of OE/ I/ and / y/ > presE /I/ and OE/ a,æ/ (and the short
diphthong /Ɛə/ ) > presE / æ/.

28
 (d)The OE, rounded front vowels / y:,y/ have been lost (following even
earlier / o:, oe/)(cruttenden 2008)

3.4 Pronunciation and Grammar Differences Between

American and Briton
AnEnglishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him.

Both Americans and Britons have many regional accents. The linguistic
term accent refers to a variety of speech distinguished by pronunciation
differences, whereas the term dialect includes varieties differing in
grammar and vocabulary as well as pronunciation.
One important way in which dialects of English often differ is in the
pronunciation (or lack of pronunciation) of the consonant r. A dialect is
called rhotic [roe-tik] if the ris pronounced before a consonant or at the end
of a word. (This linguistic term is derived from the name of the Greek
letter rho.) Similarly, a dialect is called non-rhotic when consonant r is not
pronounced before a consonant or at the end of a word. For example, in the
present-day non-rhotic speech of Britain, harm sounds something like
[hahm] and farther and father both sound like [fahtha]. The weakening of r
probably began in Britain in the 1600s, and the r began to be lost
completely in the middle ofBritain in the 1800s. (Note that the rs are kept
in British speech at the beginning of words and between vowels. Rare is
pronounced something like [ray-uh], and only the first r is pronounced as a
ry the second makes an uh sound, or is dropped entirely. When it is
dropped completely, the word sounds something like [reh]. However, rarer
is pronounced something like [ray-ra], and the second ris pronounced
because it is now between two vowels.) It is thought that some colonists in
New England may have spoken a dialect of English in which the rs were

29
sounded weakly—that is, the dialect was beginning to become non-rhotic.
The first Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower in 1620 from Plymouth,
England, but many of them were originally from the Midlands and East
Anglia. English settlers in North America from these areas may have had
weakened rs or non-rhotic speech. In comparison with some other British
colonies in North America, New England maintained closer ties with
England during the Colonial period. During this period the r-less variety of
English began to become common in the south of Britain. The continual
influence from the British r-less standard would have reinforced the
possible r-weakening tendencies of the original dialects of the Pilgrims,
and this explains the non-rhotic speech in the New England area today.
The r-less dialects in other areas of the United States, such as certain parts
in the South, have a similar history.
Other colonists came from the West Country in England and settled
further south than New England. They would have spoken with an accent
probably not too unlike the present-day accent in the county of Devon,
England, which has rhotic speech. Later Scots-Irish immigrants also had
rhotic speech. The mixture of many different groups speaking rhotic
dialects from Britain and Ireland explains the rhotic speech heard in most
of the US today.
Most Britons have been so well exposed to American accent through
the media and movies that they have little difficulty understanding the
various accents, although some of the
Southern accents are hard even for fellow Americans to understand.
Americans have a much more difficult time understandingBritish speech,
so if a Briton wants to be understood easily, avoidslang—it is by no means
universal—and speak slowly and clearly.

30
 Vowel sounds are quite different. In Britain the vowel soundin such
words as paw, talk, and all, etc., is similar to the sound inbore without
pronouncing the r. In the US, it becomes ah insome dialects resulting in
[pah], [tahk], and [ahl]. Also the o inhot, top, on, and so forth is
pronounced in British English withrounded lips, quite different from the
American sound. In someAmerican dialects, the vowel sound spelled au in
caught and awin caw and the vowel sound spelled o in cot have become
thesame, as in the names Don and Dawn. However, Americans distinguish
clearly between talk and torque, which are phoneticallythe same for British
people.
In the US, a tis usually pronounced with a sound like ^/whenit comes
within a word between vowels or after r and before avowel. Hence thirty,
dirty, and fruity may sound like thirdy, dirdy,and fruidy. Sometimes the tis
lost altogether in words like dentistand interesting, which can sound like
dennist and inneresting. Theai in rain and stain is slightly shorter than its
British counterpart,as is the ew sound m few and grew. In the US, the short
a (thevowel in cat) is used in chance and fast, but it is more drawn outthan
its counterpart in Northern Britain. Words ending with ary,ory, and ery are
not contracted as they are in British speech.
Similarly the word berry, when forming part of the names offruits such
as raspberry and strawberry, is not contracted to [bree]in American speech.
Americans may pronounce the o in wordssuch as orange and Florida with a
short o as the British pronounceit, or like the o in the word or. However,
there is much variationas to which vowel is used in which words. In Maine
the or soundas in short sounds like [ah]. Similarly the word news may be
pronounced [nooz] or [nyooz], although [nooz] is more

31
common.Americans pronounce the u in the words mutual, cube, butane,
Cuba, and Houston as a yoo sound like the British.
The southern states in the US have an accent distinct from that of the
northern states. The most noticeable characteristic is the long /, which
becomes a drawn-out ah sound. For example, the word wide sounds like
[wahd]. Often the final vowel in a word becomes an indeterminate vowel
sound, e.g., Miami is sometimes pronounced [myams] . You will
frequently hear the expression y all m the South. This is a contraction of
you all and is frequently used when addressing more than one person. You-
uns is used in the same way in some areas, such as the Appalachians.
Another Southern trait is putting emphasis on the first syllable in words
such as entire and insurance.
In Britain, words such as tune and dual are sometimes pronounced
choon and jewel. You will often hear an intrusive r in phrases such as saw
it (sounding something like sore /> ) in Britain, but this is rarely heard in
the US except in the New England area. Issue and tissue are sometimes
pronounced [isyoo] and [tis-yoo]. In the north of England the u sound in
putt is almost the same vowel as in put, and book may have the vowel
sound of hoot.
Aluminum is not only pronounced differently, but it is spelled
differently in the two countries. Sir Humphrey Davy, who discovered the
metal in 1908, called it aluminum. It was later changed in Britain to
aluminium to conform to the spelling and sound of similar elements in the
periodic table, such as titanium. However, in the US the old form still
exists.

32
 CHAPTER FUOR

4.1 SOME PRONUNCIATION DIFFERENCES

In discussing the differences in pronunciation between British
English and American English, I have decided not to use the
International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA, simply because most readers
are not familiar with the symbols.
In general, English words that have recently been borrowed from
French are pronounced in the US with the emphasis on the last
syllable. For example, consommé is pronounced [consomay] in the
UK, but [con-sa-may] in the US. The past tenses of the verbs to dive,
to fit, and to sneak are often dove, fit, and snuck in the US, but in the
UK it is dived, fitted, and sneaked. The past participles of the verbs to
get and to mow are gotten and mowed respectively in the US, rather
than got and mown as in British English. The past tense of the verb to
plead may be pleaded or pled m the US, whereas only pleaded is used
in the UK.(Darragh 2000)

4.2 50 Incorrect Pronunciations That You Should Avoid

On a personal level, I cringe when I hear someone sound the “t”

in often or pronounce pecan with a short “a,” but I have to
acknowledge that both these pronunciations are widely accepted
alternate pronunciations that can be justified by the spelling.
Alternate pronunciations, however, are a different matter from out-
and-out mispronunciations. The latter, no matter how common, are

33
 incorrect, either because of the spelling that indicates another
pronunciation, or because of what is widely agreed upon to be
conventional usage. Word of caution: I’m writing from an American
perspective.
Here are 50 frequently mispronounced words. The list is by no
means exhaustive, but provides a good start.

1. Aegis: The ae in this word is pronounced /ee/. Say EE-JIS/, not /ay-
jis/. In mythology the “aegis” is associated especially with the goddess
Athene. It is her shield with the Gorgon’s head on it.

2. Anyway: The problem with this word is not so much pronunciation as

the addition of an unnecessary sound. Don’t add an s to make it
“anyways.” The word is ANYWAY.

3. Archipelago: Because the word is from Greek, the ch is pronounced

with a /k/ sound. Say /AR-KI-PEL-A-GO/, not /arch-i-pel-a-go/.

4. Arctic: Note the C after the R. Say /ARK-TIK/, not /ar-tik/.

5. Accessory: the first C has a “hard” sound. Say /AK-SESS-OR-Y/, not

/ass-ess-or-y/.

6. Ask: The S comes before the K. Say /ASK/ not /aks/.

34
7. Asterisk: Notice the second S. Say /AS-TER-ISK/, not /as-ter-ik/.

8. Athlete: The word has two syllables, not three. Say /ATH-LETE/, not
/ath-uh-lete/.

9. Barbed wire: Notice the AR in the first syllable. Say /BARBD/, not
/bob/.

10. Cache: The word is of French origin, but it does not end with an
accented syllable. A cache is a hiding place or something that is being
hidden: a cache of supplies; a cache of money; a cache of drugs. Say
/KASH/, not /ka-shay/.

11. Candidate: Notice the first d. Say /KAN-DI-DATE/, not /kan-i-date/.

12. Cavalry: This word refers to troops that fight on horseback. Say
/KAV-UL-RY/, not /kal-vuh-ry/.

NOTE: Calvary refers the place where Jesus was crucified and IS
pronounced /kal-vuh-ry/.)

35
 13. chaos: The spelling ch can represent three different sounds in
English: /tch/ as in church, /k/ as in Christmas, and /sh/ as in chef. The
first sound is heard in words of English origin and is the most
common. The second sound of ch, /k/, is heard in words of Greek
origin. The third and least common of the three ch sounds is heard in
words adopted from modern French. Chaos is a Greek word. Say
/KAY-OS/, not /tchay-os/.
14. clothes: Notice the TH spelling and sound. Say /KLOTHZ/,
not /kloz/.
15. daïs: A daïs is a raised platform. The pronunciation fault is to
reverse the vowel sounds. The word is often misspelled as well as
mispronounced. Say /DAY-IS/ not /dī-is/.
16. Dilate: The word has two syllables, not three. Say /DI-LATE/,
not /di-a-late/.
17. Drowned: This is the past participle form of the verb drown.
Notice that there is no D on drown. Don’t add one when using the
word in its past form. Say /DROWND/, not /drown-ded/.
18. et cetera: This Latin term is often mispronounced and its
abbreviation is frequently misspelled. Say /ET CET-ER-A/, not /ex
cet-er-a/. For the abbreviation, write ETC., not ect.
19. February: Just about everyone I know drops the first r in
February. The spelling calls for /FEB-ROO-AR-Y/, not /feb-u-ar-y/.
20. Foliage: The word has three syllables. Say /FO-LI-UJ/, not
/fol-uj/.
21. Forte: English has two words spelled this way. One comes
from Italian and the other from French. The Italian word, a musical
term meaning “loud,” is pronounced with two syllables: /FOR-TAY/.

36
The French word, an adjective meaning “strength” or “strong point,”
is pronounced with one syllable: /FORT/.
22. Halloween: The word for the holiday Americans celebrate
with such enthusiasm on October 31 derives from “Hallowed
Evening,” meaning “evening that has been made holy.” The word
“hallow” comes from Old English halig, meaning “holy.” Notice the a
in the first syllable and say /HAL-O-WEEN/, not /hol-lo-ween/.
23. Height: The word ends in a /T/ sound, not a /TH/ sound. Say
/HITE/, not /hith/.
24. Heinous: People unfamiliar with the TV show Law and
Order: S.V.U. may not know that heinous has two syllables. (The
show begins with this sentence: “In the criminal justice system,
sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous.”) Say
/HAY-NUS/, not /heen-i-us/.
25. Hierarchy: The word has four syllables. Say /HI -ER-AR-
KY,/ not /hi-ar-ky/.
26. Illinois: As with Arkansas, the final “s” in Illinois is not
pronounced. Say /IL-I-NOY/ (and /Ar-kan-saw/, not /il-li-noiz/ or /ar-
kan-sas/).
NOTE: Some unknowledgeable folks may still be trying to
pronounce Arkansas as if it had something to do with Kansas. The
pronunciation /ar-kan-zuz/ is waaay off base.
27. Interpret: The word has three syllables. Don’t add one! Say
/IN-TER-PRET/, not /in-ter-pre-tate/.
28. Incident: Something that happens is an “incident.” Don’t say
“incidence” when you mean a specific event. There IS a word
“incidence,” but it has a different meaning.

37
 29. “irregardless” :See the real word, regardless.
30. Jewelry: The word has three syllables. Say /JEW-EL-RY/, not
/jew-el-er-y/. The pronunciation /jewl-ry/ is common but not correct,
as it removes one syllable from the word.
31. Library: Notice where the R comes in the word. Say /LI-
BRAR-Y/, not /li-ber-ry/.
32. Medieval: The word has four syllables. The first E may be
pronounced either short [med] or long [meed]. Say /MED-EE-
EEVAL/ or /MEE-DEE-EEVAL/, not /meed-eval/.
33. Miniature: The word has four syllables. Say /MIN-I-A-
TURE/, not /min-a-ture/.
34. Mischievous: This is the adjective form of mischief whose
meaning is “calamity” or “harm.” Mischievous is now associated with
harmless fun so that the expression “malicious mischief” has been
coined as another term for vandalism. Mischievous has three syllables
with the accent on the first syllable: /MIS-CHI-VUS/. Don’t say /mis-
chee-vee-us/.
35. Niche:The word is from the French and, though many words
of French origin have been anglicized in standard usage, this is one
that cries out to retain a long “e” sound and a /SH/ sound for the che.
Say /NEESH/, not /nitch/.
36. Orient: This word has three syllables. As a verb it means to
place something in its proper position in relation to something else. It
comes from a word meaning “east” and originally meant positioning
something in relation to the east. Now it is used with a more general
meaning. Say /OR-I-ENT/, not /or-i-en-tate/.

38
 37. Old-fashioned: This adjective is formed from a past-
participle: “fashioned.” Don’t leave off the ED. Say /OLD-
FASHIOND/, not /old-fashion/.
38. Picture: There’s a K sound in picture. Don’t confuse picture
with pitcher. Say /PIK-TURE/, not /pitch-er/. Pitcher is a different
word. A pitcher is a serving vessel with a handle.
39. Precipitation: This is a noun that refers to rain or snow, or
anything else that normally falls from the sky. As
with prescription (below), the prefix is PRE-. Say /PRE-CIP-I-TA-
TION/, not /per-cip–i-ta-tion/.
40. Prescription:Note the prefix PRE- in this word. Say /PRE-
SCRIP-TION/, not /per- scrip-tion/ or /pro-scrip-tion/.
41. Preventive: The word has three syllables. A common fault is
to add a syllable. Say PRE-VEN-TIVE/, not /pre-ven-ta-tive.
42. Pronunciation: This word is a noun. It comes from the
verb pronounce, BUT it is not pronounced like the verb. Say /PRO-
NUN-CI-A-TION/, not /pro-nounce-i-a-tion/.
43. Prostate: This word for a male gland is often mispronounced.
There is an adjective prostrate which means to be stretched out
facedown on the ground. When speaking of the gland, however, say
/PROS-TATE/, not /pros-trate/.
44. Realtor: The word has three syllables. Say /RE-AL-TOR/, not
/re-a-la-tor/.
45. Regardless: The word has three syllables. Please don’t add an
IR to make it into the abomination “irregardless”.
46. Sherbet: The word has only one r in it. Say /SHER-BET/ not
/sher-bert/.

39
 47. Spayed: This is a one-syllable word, the past participle form
of the verbto spay, meaning to remove the ovaries from an animal.
Like the verb drown (above) the verb spay does not have a D in its
infinitive form. Don’t add one to the past participle. Say /SPADE/, not
/spay-ded/.
48. Ticklish: The word has two syllables. Say /TIK-LISH/, not
/tik-i-lish/.
49. Tract: Religious evangelists often hand out long printed
statements of belief called “tracts.” That’s one kind of “tract.” Houses
are built on “tracts.” Then there’s the word “track.” Athletes run on
“tracks.” Animals leave “tracks.” Don’t say /TRAKT/ when you mean
/TRAK/, and vice-versa.
50. Vehicle: Although there is an H in the word, to pronounce it is
to sound hicky. Say /VEE-IKL/, not /vee-Hikl/.
51. Wintry: Here’s another weather word often mispronounced,
even by the weather person. The word has two syllables. Say /WIN-
TRY/, not /win-ter-y/.http://www.dailywritingtips.com/50-
incorrect-pronunciations-that-you-should-avoid/

40
 CHAPTER FIVE
5.1 English Phonetics and Phonology
5.1.1 Some basic terminology; Pronunciation model Phonetics:

 linguistic discipline which studies speech sounds – their production,

perception and modulation in connected speech
 subdivided into 3 branches:

A. articulatory

 studies the way individual sounds are produced (manner and place of
articulation)
 describes movement and position of speech organs
 speech – a modified air stream, when we breath, the air is modulated
on the way out

B. acoustic

 studies thy physical properties of speech sounds

Sound: rapid variation of pressure travelling through the medium

of air → the source of this motion is vibration of vocal chords

 colour (timbre)
 loudness
 duration (length)
 pitch
Alveolar: stopped by tongue

41
5.1.2 Tools for Visualizing Sound:

1) Wave form
2) Spectrogram:shows the sound in a more complex way
C. auditory

 studies the way people perceive sounds, physical effects of speech

sounds upon the human ear
 3 parts: outer ear, middle ear, inner ear

The variations in pressure arrive at the ear and are turned into
mechanical movements in the middle ear by the eardrum. These
mechanical movements then change into electrical nerve impulses in
the inner ear, which can be transmitted to the brain and the brain
decodes the message.
The message is then encoded into speech sound by our
articulation apparatus, the channel of communication; the sound
travels through the air, then comes decoding of the message (by
perceiving the sounds) by the listener.

Phonology:

 studies the function of sounds in the linguistic system → purely

linguistic discipline
 functional phonetics, picks the sound as a phoneme
 established in the beginning of 20th century (whilst phonetics in 19th)

42
  aims: to establish phonemic inventories of different languages (decide
which sounds function contrastively in languages)

Pie x why – the replacement of consonant and phoneme, “p”

changes meaning
Tomáš x Fomáš – “f” isn’t a phoneme, doesn’t change the
meaning

 discovers the principles that govern the way sounds are organised in
languages → how phonemes pattern and combine

5.1.3 Related Sciences:

 Acoustics
 physiology (describes speech organs)
 speech therapy (difficulties in pronouncing the sounds)
 phoniatry (examines voice disorder)

Language Speech

Langue (competence) parole

(performance)
Phonology – abstract realization x phonetics –
concrete realization
Phoneme phone (speech
sound)
- Saussure - Chomsky

43
5.1.4 Segmentation:
 segmentation of the wave form
 segments: vowels, consonants

Supra Segments: stress, rhythm, intonation (prosodic features)

Phoneme:

 a minimal distinctive and contrastive unit which can change the

meaning; the main unit of phonology /si:t/ - /mi:t/
 written in slashes /p/
 an abstract/mental representation of the sound minimal pair – pair of
words which differ in 1 phoneme (proves that the sound functions
contrastively in a language) phonemic inventory (44 phonemes in
English)

5.1.5 Allophone / Phone = sound:

 a positional variant of the phoneme, doesn’t change the meaning

 square brackets [p]
 pot [phot], spot [spot]
 deals with the actual pronunciation
 in Czech p function as a phoneme

1.) Auditory properties:

Colour (timbre) – how we perceive the sound:

 Loudness
 Length

44
 Pitch (výška)

2.) Physical properties:

Spectrum – colour is given by the spectrum, determined by the
first and second formantsIntensity (amplitude) – how high the
amplitude is
Duration – measured in milliseconds. Fundamental frequency –
frequency at which our vocal chords vibrate.

Accent Dialect– broader

 refers only to the  Variety uses differences of

pronunciation differences grammar, lexes – vocabulary,
pronunciation

Varieties: British, American, Australian, Indian English…

EIL – English as an international language.

5.2 Factors that influence the Accent

1.) Regional background:

 accents are less varied in US than in Britain at the end of 19th century

2.) Social and educational background

3.) Gender, age
Regional identity

45
 well-known but not used (dictionaries, model teaching books)

Widely intelligible (srozumitelný) across various accents, 1920´s –

adopted by BBC.
Pronunciation model – RP: (Received Pronunciation, also
referred to as BBC English or Queen’s English; “the educated spoken
English of south-east England”) – as a point of reference:

 accepted in higher society – middle and upper-middle classes

 no regional variation
 reveals info about your social and educational background
 used in public boarding schools (Eton)
and spread it → gained prestige
 the higher you are at the social scale, the less
regional accent you have
 working class is at the bottom of the social class
 the broadest regional accent

H-dropping:

 certain speakers from lower classes drop h-sound from lexical words
 upper-middle, lower-middle class (25%) and upper class

Variation within RP:

- conservative RP – a traditional variety associated with aristocracy,

older speakers and upper-class people
- mainstream or general RP – relatively neutral in term of signals
regarding lifestyle of the people
- contemporarily RP – typical for down speakers, sometimes referred-to
as regional RPs
The presence of a few regional characteristics

46
- don’t provoke, go unnoticed of other speakers of RP
- milk – pronouncing o instead of l

5.3 THE ORGANS OF SPEECH:

- The primary function of the speech organs: breathing + eating

- The secondary function: speaking
- Themost sounds are produced by the lungs when we breath
out, except clicks (non-pulmonic sound)
Respiratory organs:

 lungs, diaphragm (bránice), trachea/wind pipe (průdušnice) –

pulmonic egressive air stream
 pulmonic = produced by the lungs/created in the lungs
 egressive (výdechový) = airstream we breath out
 ingressive = airstream flows inward

When the velum/soft palate is raised, the nasal cavity is closed and
the air stream is directed to the mouth. When the velum is lowered,
isn’t closed and the air-stream isn’t directed to the mouth.
Airstream from the lungs goes through larynx where it is modified,
then goes to the pharynx, when soft palate is raised and nasal cavity is
blocked, and goes to the mouth where it is modified. The shape of the
oral cavity is changed → result in different sounds.
Tongue
1) the tip (n)
2) back

47
3) front
4) root

Phonation – a creation of voice (vocal folds vibration)

Phonation apparatus:

 vocal folds/chords - in the larynx, 2 thin mussles

 larynx is made of a big piece of cartilage (štítná chrupavka) at the
front, at the back there are 2 small pieces of cartilage that it can move
 glottis – primary voice, the gap between the glottal folds
Two flashy membranes, thin mussels stretched horizontally across
the larynx. At the front the vocal chords are horizontally, firmly
attached to the one piece of cartilage. At the back they are attached to
the 2 pieces of cartilages, which are moveable (open x close). The
space between the vocal chords is called glottis. (Crystal – chapter 4,
5, 11)
 glottal stop is used in Cockney everywhere: better /beə/
 open glottis – wide apart – typical for breathing
 voiceless sound: š, s, f, p – noises
 vocal fold vibration – the most important position; when vocal folds
vibrate, the voice sound is produced
 narrow gap (glottis) – for whispering and h-sound

Resonators – system of cavities

 pharyngeal, oral and nasal cavities (dutiny)

 constantly change their shape

48
 different resonances are given to the sound

Modulating organs:
Active:
Tongue
Lips
Jaws – can move towards
passive modulators

Passive:
Upper and lower teeth
Alveolar/teeth ridge
(dásňový výstupek) – behind
the upper teeth (n)
Hard palate – there is a
bone behind it
Soft palate/velum /viːləm/
– no bone

49
 CHAPTER SEX

6.1.ENGLISH VOWELS
6.1.1.Vowels:

- 20 vowels in RP
- voiced sounds
- created with no obstruction to the airstream, the sound wave is regular
- source: vocal fold vibration – vocal folds are vibrating when producing
vowels
- musical sounds; occupy the centre of a syllable
- carry less meaning than consonants → vary more than consonants and
are more unstable and variable than consonants
- vary across the accents and change rapidly over the time → house /hu:s/
- Chaucer, /hɔus/ - Shakespeare
- carry the sound, they are sonorous

 12 pure vowels (monophthongs)

3 different points of view: acoustically, articulatory

(phonetically) and phonologically:
a) Acoustically, vowels are complex tones represented by periodic
waveforms. The pattern repeats regularly in the time. The source of this
regularity is the vibration of the vocal folds.
Resonance → given by fundamental frequency F0 and other
overtones/harmonics – are multiples of the fundamental frequency (F0).
Vowels are created with a great degree of resonance in the cavities.
50
 b) Articulatory, vowels are characterised as there is no obstruction
to the airstream when vowels are produced. The vocal track is open.
c) Phonologically, vowels occupy the centres of syllables

6.1.2.Diphthongs:

Describes gradual gliding movement from one vowel position to

another performed within a single syllable
- 8 diphthongs (gliding vowels)

Problem with ə

- never stressed
- in week ɪ → /ə/
- no grapheme for ə - wide range of graphemes: support, yesterday,
famous, data, colour, figure
- Hebrew
- In AmEn: r-coloured ə = /ə./

51
52
 6.2.English Consonants

- 24 consonants – carry more meaning, create the skeleton of the word, are
more stable, don’t change so much across the various accents
- Phonetic point of view created either with the complete or the partial
obstruction placed to the air-stream (vowels: vocal tract is open, air-
stream goes down un obstructed)
- Phonological point of view (distribution - studies the function): occur at
the edges of syllables (vowels occur at the centre)
- Acoustically (Physical reality) – voiceless consonants are mostly noises
represented by aperiodic waveforms. Sometimes are accompanied by
phonation/voicing.
- Consonants employ voice and noise together / a mixture of periodicity

53
 ENGLISH PLOSIVES /P, B, T, D, K, ɡ/

= stops (explosivy, závěrové hlásky)

- belong to obstruents, are associated with noise

Manner of articulation:

- velum is raised in velar articulation

- 3 phases:
a) the approach or closing phase:2 organs are broad together and the full
obstruction is created
b) the hold or compression phase: the air is stopped/blocked by the
obstruction and the air-pressure builds up/rises/goes up, (compressed
behind the closure)
c) the release or plosion phase: the closure is released and the air
escapes/is released through the mouth with explosive sound, there is a
plosion

Place of articulation:

- where the obstruction is made

54
 → bilabial / /: 2 bilabial plosives - /p, b/
alveolar / /: /t,d/
velar / /: /k, g/
[got̪ ðætpleɪs] t: dental plosive articulation
[k͎i:] k with plus: fronted k – tongue moves forward

Silent letters:

Pneumonia, know, gnat, psychology, castle, cupboard, handsome,

bomb, debt, mortgage

5.1.1 Canadian and American English:

t-sound between 2 vowels (2 voiced sounds) at the beginning of the

non-stressed syllables
t-voicing or alveolar tap/flap (alveolární švih) – švihne se jazykem o
alveolární výstupek; fourteen, atom, matter

English fricatives /f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, h/ and affricates /tʃ, dʒ/

Manner of articulation (audible friction):
- narrow opening between active and passive organs
- air is forced through this narrow gap and the flow becomes turbulence
(heard as a hissing sound/friction = tření)
- all English fricatives except h are median fricatives → the air flows
through a narrow channel in the centre of the mouth and the sides of
the tongue are in firm contract with the upper teeth and gums (dásně)

55
 Continuants: you can make them without interruption as long as you
have enough air in your lungs
Sibilants:
- are sounds with strong friction – grammatical ending with s is pronounce
as z after friction
- 6 sounds; 4 fricatives: /s, z, ʃ, ʒ/, 2 affricates: /tʃ, dʒ/

Place of articulation:

- 5 different places of articulation

- f, v – upper teeth, lower lip → labiodental
- θ, ð – dental (interdental – the tongue is between your teeth)
- s, z – alveolar (narrow gap between the tip of the tongue and the
alveolarridge)
- ʃ, ʒ - palatal, alveolar (lip rounding makes the difference between these
sounds), glottal sound

Fortis x lenis:
- force of articulation, more energy is required
- fortis: θ, ð, s, ʃ
- lenis: z, ʒ

56
 Voicing:
- presence or absence of voice vibration
- voiced fricatives: v, ð, z, ʒ
- fully voiced in medial position between the vowels (measure)
- in initial and final position are devoiced
- they never turn into viceless counterparts
- they maintain a lenis character

, southern, rhythm, bathe, loathe, -

/θ/ changes to /ð/: paths, mouths, youths → /ðz/
myths, deaths, smiths → /θs/
truths, baths, wreaths → /ðz/ or /θs/
/s, z/
Grammatical endings:
stops, Mike´s /s/
Lies, stands, Joe´s /z/
Buses, watches /ɪz/
house /s/ → houses /z/
„s“ silent in: isle, islant, aisle, debris /ˈdeb.riː/, chamois
/ˈʃæm.wɑː/…
/ʒ/
- Special distribution; usually in medial position, rarely in final or initial
positions
- / ʒɪvagɒ/

57
 /h/
- voiceless glottal fricative; it takes on the quality of the following vowel
- occures privocalicaly

„h“ silent in: her, hour, honour, exhibit, vehement, vehicle,

Graham…
H-dropping: RP drop it from short grammatical words: tell him
SEMI-VOWELS /W, J/ OR APPROXIMANT:
/j/ - lenis (voiced) palatal approximant / semi-vowel
Phonetically: They are simile to vowels; no obstruction, only
approximation of 2 organs involved
Phonologically: they behave in consonant-like way: before vowels,
within syllables
The tongue is in the position of the front close vowel /ɪ:/ and the
body of the tongue is raised towards hard palate and there is a Quit
movement (glide) in the direction of the following vowel.
Allophones: devoiced and fricative after /p, t, k, h/: queue /kju:/, pure,
tune, human
(kolarova.k 2012)

58
 6.3 What Is Accent?

Accent is a combination of three main components:

Intonation (speech music), liaisons (word connections), and
pronunciation (the spoken sounds of vowels, consonants, and
combinations). As you go along, you'll notice that you're being asked to
look at accent in a different way. You'll alsorealize that the grammar you
studied before and this accent you're studying now are
completelydifferent.
Part of the difference is that grammar and vocabulary are systematic
and structured— the letter of the language. Accent, on the other hand, is
free form, intuitive, and creative— more the spirit of the language. So,
thinking of music, feeling, and flow, let your mouth relax into the
American accent.
Can I Learn a New Accent?
Can a person actually learn a new accent? Many people feel that after
a certain age, it's just notpossible. Can classical musicians play jazz? If
they practice, of course they can! For your Americanaccent, it's just a
matter of learning and practicing techniques this book and CD set will
teach you. Itis up to you to use them or not. How well you do depends
mainly on how open and willing you areto sounding different from the
way you have sounded all your life.
A very important thing you need to remember is that you can use
your accent to say what you mean and how you mean it. Word stress

59
conveys meaning through tone or feeling, which can be muchmore
important than the actual words that you use. We'll cover the expression
of these feelingsthrough intonation in the first lesson.
You may have noticed that I talk fast and often run my words
together. You've probably heard enough "English-teacher English"—
where ... everything ... is ... pronounced without having to listentoo
carefully. That's why on the CDs we're going to talk just like the native
speakers that we are, in anormal conversational tone.
Native speakers may often tell people who are learning English to
"slow down" and to "speakclearly." This is meant with the best of
intentions, but it is exactly the opposite of what a studentreally needs to
do. If you speak fairly quickly and with strong intonation, you will be
understoodmore easily. To illustrate this point, you will hear a
Vietnamese student first trying to speak slowlyand carefully and then
repeating the same words quickly and with strong intonation. Studying,
thisexercise took her only about two minutes to practice, but the
difference makes her sound as if shehad been in America for many
years.
V Please listen. You will hear the same words twice. Hello, my name
is Muoi. I'm taking AmericanAccent Training.
iv You may have to listen to this CD a couple of times to catch
everything. To help you, every word onthe CD is also written in the
book. By seeing and hearing simultaneously, you'll learn to reconcile the
differences between the appearance of English (spelling) and the sound
of English(pronunciation and the other aspects of accent).

60
 The CD leaves a rather short pause for you to repeat into. The point
of this is to get you respondingquickly and without spending too much
time thinking about your response.

Accent Versus Pronunciation

Many people equate accent with pronunciation. I don't feel this to be
true at all. America is a bigcountry, and while the pronunciation varies
from the East Coast to the West Coast, from the southernto the northern
states, two components that are uniquely American stay basically the
same—the speech music, or intonation, and the word connections or
liaisons. Throughout this program, we will focus on them. In the latter
part of the book we will work on pronunciation concepts, such as Cat?
Caught? Cut? and Betty Bought a Bit of Better Butter; we also will
work our way through some ofthe difficult sounds, such as TH, the
American R, the L, V, and Z.
"Which Accent Is Correct?"
American Accent Training was created to help people "sound
American" for lectures, interviews, teaching, business situations, and
general daily communication. Although America has manyregional
pronunciation differences, the accent you will learn is that of standard
American English asspoken and understood by the majority of educated
native speakers in the United States. Don't worrythat you will sound
slangy or too casual because you most definitely won't. This is the way
aprofessor lectures to a class, the way a national newscaster broadcasts,

61
the way that is most comfortable and familiar to the majority of native
speakers.
"Why Is My Accent So Bad?"
Learners can be seriously hampered by a negative outlook, so I'll
address this very important point early. First, your accent is not bad; it is
nonstandard to the American ear. There is a joke that goes:
What do you call a person who can speak three languages?
Trilingual. What do you call a person who can speak two languages?
Bilingual. What do you call a person who can only speak one language?
American.
Every language is equally valid or good, so every accent is good. The
average American, however,truly does have a hard time understanding a
nonstandard accent. George Bernard Shaw said that theEnglish and
Americans are two people divided by the same language!
Some students learn to overpronounce English because they naturally
want to say the word as it iswritten. Too often an English teacher may
allow this, perhaps thinking that colloquial AmericanEnglish is
unsophisticated, unrefined, or even incorrect. Not so at all! Just as you
don't say the T in listen, the TT in better is pronounced D, bedder. Any
other pronunciation will sound foreign, strange, wrong, or different to a
native speaker.
(cook 2000)

62
 CHAPTER SEVEN
Conclusion

Is this book only about pronunciation in speaking?

All human needs listen first, then talk and make a good
communication. Is it possible to understand each other well without
having a good pronunciation?
No it isn’t. Pronunciation is important for both listening and
speaking. Some times when you face with English speakers especially
the natives, the pronunciation point is more important for listening than
speaking. For example, when they are speaking fast, many native
speakers join words together certain ways. You need to be able to
understand this when you hear it, but it doesn’t matter if do not speak in
this way. People will still understand you. It is your choice whether you
want to just focus on listening or whether you want to try to speak that
way too.
You have to choose an English accent for a model for you to copy
when speaking, but when you are listening to people speaking English,
you will hear many different accents. If you are not used to these, it can
be very difficult to understand what is being said. For this reason, you
will need to hear a variety of accents.
It can help you to speak more fluently if you say some very common
expressions with a fixed pronunciation, like a single word. To know the
sentence stress or rhythm and practice listening and repeating you will
get improved in fluency.

63
 Reference

1) cook, Ann. 2000. Amrican accent training. 2nd. New york: Matrix press.
2) cruttenden, Alan. 2008. An introduction to the pronunciation of English.
seventh. London: Hodder education.
3) Darragh, Glenn. 2000. A TO ZED, A TO ZEE. Spain: Editorial stanley.
4) kareidler, charles w. 2004. The pronunciation of English. second edition.
oxford: Black well publishing.
5) kolarova.k. 2012. English phonetics and phonology 1. London: Oxford
university.
6) Mess, Beverley collins and inger M. 2013. practical phonetics and
phonology. third edition . New york: Routledge Group.
7) O' connor, joseph desmond. 1980. Better English pronunciation. 2nd.
London: cambridge university.
8) roach, peter. 1991. English phonetics and phonology. London:
cambridge university.

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