- •Theoretical english phonetics phonic substance of language and ways of its analysis and description
- •1. Language use in oral verbal communication
- •2. Pronunciation as a way of materializing of oral form of language
- •3. Phonic structure of language and its components
- •4. Units of language vs. Speech
- •5. Phonetics as a science and its branches. Phonetics and phonology
- •Pronunciation varieties/accents of english
- •1. Defining an accent
- •2. Major accents of english
- •1) Southern English or rp/bbc English;
- •2) General American/GenAm or Network English.
- •3. Social shapes of english
- •4. Pronunciation norm and its codification
- •5. Specialist dictionaries of english pronunciation
- •Articulatory and functional aspects of speech sounds
- •1. Aspects of speech sounds
- •2. Speech sounds as articulatory units and the problem of their classification
- •The sounds of English
- •3. The articulatory classification of the english vowels
- •4. The articulatory classification of the english consonants
- •5. Vowel and consonant adjustments in connected speech: coarticulatory phenomena
- •Basic rules of syllabification in english
- •Guidelines for syllabification of syllabic consonants
- •Division into syllables in writing
- •Word stress
- •1. The nature of english word stress
- •2. Types of english word stress
- •3. English word stress functions
- •4. Word accentual paterns. Guidelines to english word stress placement
- •Lexical stress of three-syllable simple words
- •Lexical stress of words of four or more syllables
- •Words with prefixes
- •References
1) Southern English or rp/bbc English;
2) General American/GenAm or Network English.
3. Social shapes of english
A speaker’s experiences of languages may typically embrace a first language, a second language, and a foreign language.
A first language (L1) is the speaker’s native language (NL)/ mother tongue (MT), whose learning normally begins in the speaker’s earliest experience of language acquisition as a very small child.
Speakers in the world understand at least one language other than their own. A second language (L2) is any other language that the speaker learns to control, at any time, to a level of near native-like proficiency. Typically immigrants acquire it in L1’s natural environment.
A foreign language (FL) is any language spoken by the speaker to less than L2 level.
In case of English teaching and learning different terms applicable to different groups of non-native speakers are in use:
ELT – English Language Teaching, – i.e. teaching English to learners of all types.
TEFL – Teaching English as a Foreign Language, – where learners are neither native speakers, nor immigrants.
TESL – Teaching English as a Second Language, – where learners addressed are often immigrants to an English-speaking culture.
TESOL – Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, –- which is slightly more neutral term encompassing both TESL and TEFL, but avoiding the labels such as ‘second’ or ‘foreign’ (mainly used in American English).
A lingua franca is a language used as a means of communication by speakers who do not have a native language in common. Originally it was a special case when a foreign language was used as the medium of linguistic communication in some area, e.g. for trade purposes (literally ‘language of the Franks’, the Arabic term of the day for all Europeans). The largest world lingua francas in use today include English and Mandarin Chinese.
A pidgin language is the language used for the purpose of communication between speakers of mutually unintelligible languages (usually in the Third World), which has been developed out of the mixture of the languages of the communities concerned (e.g. Papua New Guinea Pidgin English, Chinese Pidgin = Tok Pisin). E.g. English - Lots of men have no wives. Pidgin English - Plenti man no get woman
A creole is a second stage in the process of the pidgin development, i.e. is the first language of the children of Pidgin speakers.
4. Pronunciation norm and its codification
Speakers of the same accent typically share a common set of values for the production and evaluation of speech. Thus they tend to agree implicitly on the rules of speaking or norms.
Literary pronunciation/standard of pronunciation is defined by its norm.
PRONUNCIATION NORM is a set of parameters describing that phonetic shaping of spoken form of a national language which at a given time is 1) generally considered correct, 2) statistically relevant and/or 3) enjoys social prestige.
No one way of speaking is seen as superior to any other; nevertheless, it is an actual fact of language use that the way of speaking received by the speakers who are most educated and/or who hold social and political power is often viewed as the most prestigious variety which has the greatest social advantage.
The English pronunciation norm appears for EFL learners in the explicit, materialized form through its codification, i.e. reflection/fixing of actual pronunciation forms in pronunciation dictionaries and other sources of reference.