The Applications of Phonetics and Phonology A Level

1. The Applications of Phonetics and PhonologyA Level Dr RanaAlmbark r. almbark@hud.ac.uk 6th Annual Symposium for A-Level English Language Teachers (SALT)

2. Outline • Background: Phonetics & Phonology • The application of phonetics and phonology in: • First Language Acquisition (L1) • Second Language Acquisition (L2) • Sociolinguistics • Technology and media in teaching phonetics

3. Structure of Spoken Language (from Crystal 1997) Pragmatics Use Structure Medium of Transmission Grammar Meaning (semantics) Phonetics Phonology Morphology Syntax Lexicon Discourse

4. Structure of Spoken Language (from Crystal 1997) Pragmatics Use Structure Medium of Transmission Grammar Meaning (semantics) Phonetics Phonology Morphology Syntax Lexicon Discourse

5. Background: Phonetics & Phonology • Phonetics and Phonology are two disciplines that deal with the SOUND • Production • Perception • Segmentation • Segmentals (consonants and vowels ) and suprasegmentals (stress, rhythm and intonation)

6. Background: Phonetics • Phonetics is the study of: • how speech sounds are made in the body (articulatory phonetics), • the physical properties of the sounds that are made (acoustic phonetics), • and what happens to the speech signal when it reaches the listener’s ear (auditory phonetics) (Ogden 2009)

7. Background: Phonology • Phonology: is the description of the systems and patterns of sounds that occur in a language, distinctive sounds that convey a difference in meaning • Phoneme: main element that is used to distinguish words • White - right (/w/ vs. /ɹ/) • Cat - bat (/k/ vs. /b/) • Allophones: Shades of sounds that are not used to distinguish words • Pop [pʰɒp] (Ladefoged 2006)

8. Background: IPA • The International Phonetic Alphabet IPA • IPA is the alphabet of the worlds spoken languages • http://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/

9. Background: Applications of P&P • Phonetics and phonology can be used in: • pronunciation teaching, • describing and teaching other languages, • clinical work and speech training.

10. First Language Acquisition (L1)

11. First Language Acquisition (L1) Wait for Rebecca Woods Language acquisition: still learning about children's language

12. Second Language Acquisition (L2)

13. Second Language Acquisition (L2) • L2 Acquisition is the study of how to learn a foreign language • how to produce an L2 • how to perceive an L2 • Foreign accent: • contrastive analysis to study the differences between phonological elements in a learner’s native language (L1) and his target language (L2), • it would be possible to predict what a speaker’s difficulties would be in learning the target language. (Lado 1957)

14. English as a Second Language ESL • Studying phonetics and phonology of L2 is particularly important for learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) because it has a practical application • English has a larger phoneme inventory than other languages • English is not a phonographic language, i.e. There isn’t a direct match between spelling and pronunciation

15. The speech accent archive • presents a large set of speech samples from a variety of language backgrounds. Native and non-native speakers of English read the same paragraph and are carefully transcribed. The archive is used by people who wish to compare and analyze the accents of different English speakers.

16. The speech accent archive

17. Spanish • compare the consonantal inventory of both L1 Spanish and L2 English • Can you predict some problems for L2 learners? English

18. Second language acquisition • L2 phonological theories focus on the role of perception vs. production on L2 performance of speakers • Accumulating evidence shows that perception precedes production • Thus, perceptual difficulty is likely to cause production difficulty for L2 learners (Escudero, 2007)

19. Second language acquisition • Assimilation of English vowels GOAT-THOUGHT to Syrian Arabic vowels mainly/oː/ (Almbark, 2012)

20. Second language acquisition • Assimilation of English vowels GOAT-THOUGHT to Syrian Arabic vowels mainly/oː/ (Almbark, 2012) Difficulty in assimilating L2 vowels to specific L1 vowels, particularly GOAT

21. Second language acquisition • Identification of English vowels GOAT-THOUGHT by Syrian Arabic L2 learners of English (Almbark, 2012)

22. Second language acquisition • Identification of English vowels GOAT-THOUGHT by Syrian Arabic L2 learners of English (Almbark, 2012) Difficulty in identifying L2 GOAT-THOUGHT

23. Second language acquisition • Production of English vowels GOAT-THOUGHT by Syrian Arabic L2 learners of English (Almbark, 2012)

24. Second language acquisition Difficulty in producing L2 GOAT-THOUGHT • Production of English vowels GOAT-THOUGHT by Syrian Arabic L2 learners of English (Almbark, 2012)

25. Second language acquisition • Syrian Arabic vowel chart • British English RP vowel chart: monophthongs and diphthongs Difficulty in producing L2 GOAT-THOUGHT

26. Second language acquisition • Syrian Arabic vowel chart • British English RP vowel chart: monophthongs and diphthongs Difficulty in producing L2 GOAT-THOUGHT

27. Second language acquisition • Syrian Arabic vowel chart • British English RP vowel chart: monophthongs and diphthongs Comparing charts shows why L2 learners of English have difficulty in GOAT-THOUGHT

28. Sociolinguistics

29. Sociolinguistic • Sociolinguistics: is the study of language in relation to social factors (extra-linguistics), including differences of region, class, occupation, gender, education, and bilingualism ...etc (Hudson 1996).

30. Sociolinguistic: T Glottalization • water [wɔtər], [wɔʔə] • Within your dialect: • Do you glottalize your /t/? • In what context? • Do males and females glottalize? • Does the social class play a role in glottalization?

31. Sociolinguistic applications • Several dedicated database websites: • represent dialects of English worldwide as well as non-native accents  • include MP3/wav audio files • read and spontaneous speech • Text

32. Sociolinguistic applications • International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA), by Paul Meier, University of Kansas http://www.dialectsarchive.com/

33. Sociolinguistic applications • Intonational Variation in English (The IViE Corpus), at the University of Oxford • http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/files/apps/IViE/

34. Sociolinguistic applications • The Talk Bank • https://talkbank.org/

35. Sociolinguistic applications • Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) • http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/

36. Technology & Media

37. Technology & Media • Nowadays, technology and media have a greater role in the teaching of phonetics than conventional classroom activities • Audio recordings clearly constitute a key phonetics teaching resource

38. Technology & Media: applications • Sounds the Pronunciation App • http://www.macmillaneducationapps.com/soundspron/ • mobile English pronunciation aid, for students andteachers •  helps to study, practise and play with pronunciation wherever you are. • Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trEWW3ZlWfA • ... and it is free

39. Technology & Media: applications

40. References • Almbark, R. (2012). ‘The production of English (GOAT, THOUGHT) by Syrian Arabic learners: the Native Language Magnet theory (NLM)’. Poster presented at the British Association of Academic Phoneticians (BAAP), March 26-28, Leeds, UK. • Davenport, M., Davenport, M., & Hannahs, S. J. (2010). Introducing phonetics and phonology. Routledge. • David, C. (1997). English as a global language. UK: Cambridge University Press. Print. • Hudson, R. A. (1996). Sociolinguistics. Cambridge University Press. • Ladefoged, P. (2006). A Course in Phonetics (5th). Thomson Wadsworth. • Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics Across Cultures: Applied Linguistics for Language Teachers. • Nathan, G. S. (2008). Phonology: a cognitive grammar introduction (Vol. 3). John Benjamins Publishing. • Ogden, R. (2009). An introduction to English phonetics. Edinburgh University Press.

41. Thank you/θæŋkjuː/