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英語正音與口語表達 (I)

黃月貴淡江大學 英文系專任教授兼

英語中心主任10/01/2012

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Before we begin…

✤ Good pronunciation is very important for good spoken communication. What is good pronunciation?

✤ You don’t need to speak like a native speaker.

✤ Accent is fine as long as you speak clearly and do not prevent others from understanding you.

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What you should know about pronunciation

✤ Goals of Pronunciation instruction

✤ Native speaker myths

✤ “World Englishes” and Cross cultural communication

✤ Non-native speakers teaching pronunciation: issues of accent

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Sounds of English

✤ Sounds and spelling: Phonic rules

✤ English is not a phonetic language (as compared to Spanish)

--When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking.

ex: ie; ei, ea, ae, io, oi, oo, eu, ue, ou

--though; through; cough; rough; plough; ought; borough

--business; turn, busy, bury, burst, tube, turn

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Sounds of English - continued

✤ ow: we bow before the king; you wear bow-tie; a bowl of rice; bowling; cow; a queen dowager, how, low, know-how

✤ ou: loue, have a bout with someone, cough-couch, double, doubt, mouse

✤ au: author, caught, caution, daughter, fault, gauge, laugh, taught, drought, draught

✤ O: move, woman, women, hot, top, ton, tone, gone, tomb, tome, bomb

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Pronunciation problems: letters

Teach your students to pronounce these letters accurately:

✤g: [dʒi] never “ju” [dʒu] as in Chinese 具

✤n: [ɛn] never [ən]

✤l: [ɛl] never [ɛlo]

✤x: [ɛks] never [ɛkəs]

✤ http://film-english.com/2011/10/01/alphabet-lessons

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Pronunciation problems for Chinese EFL

x /ks/ should not be reduced to /s/

ex: excuse

Do not replace /ŋ/ with /n/

ex: strength [streŋkθ] or [streŋθ] never [strenθ]

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• /m/ is bilabial, with lips closedex: The name of the game is the

same.

• Do not drop tense markers -ed (voiced and voiceless consonants /d/, /t/ )

Pronunciation problems for Chinese EFL

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✤ Long (tense) and short (relaxed) sounds: /i:/ vs /i/

chip/cheap

live/leave

it/eat

bitch/beach

shit/sheet

fill/feel

sit/seatHttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0lRYM-h5Pw&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dasuQ9u8i0&feature=fvwrel

Pronunciation problems for Chinese EFL

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Pronunciation problems for Chinese EFL

Pronounce the following word pairs:

error/arrow

pose/pause

test/taste

later/letter

pain/pen

pant/paint

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Pronunciation tips

✤ Facial muscles are used more often in Standard American English(SAE) than in Chinese

✤ Open mouth wide as in lot, hot, spot, honest, lock, fond, Ed

✤ Word stress: noun and verb

✤ Stressed vowels: long and loud (clear)

✤ Unstressed vowels (schwa /Ə/): unstressed vowels are short and soft

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Stress and Rhythm

✤ English is a stressed-timed language

✤ Stress in spoken sentence occurs at regular intervals and the time to say something depends on the number of stressed syllables rather than the number of unstressed syllables

1 2 3 4

1 and 2 and 3 and 4

1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4

1 and then a 2 and then a 3 and then a 4

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How to pronounce word stress

✤ When a syllable is stressed, it is pronounced✤ louder

✤ longer

✤ higher in pitch

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Stress and rhythm - shrinking and linking

Example I✤ Sue likes jokes.

✤ Susan isn’t hungry.

✤ Samantha doesn’t like spaghetti.

Example II✤ Students take test.

✤ The students are taking the test.

✤ The students have been taking the test.

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Stress and rhythm: sentence stress

✤ Sentence stress is the music of spoken English. Like word stress, sentence stress can help you to understand spoken English, especially when spoken fast.

✤ Sentence stress is what gives English its rhythm or "beat". You remember that word stress is accent on one syllable within a word. Sentence stress is accent on certain words within a sentence.

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Online source for pronunciation

Pronunciation: Difficult words (Lisa Mojsin)

✤http://bit.ly/OnXEDD

✤http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dasuQ9u8i0&feature=fvwrel

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Pronunciation: online sources

More source here…Don’t miss the video series by Rebecca Linquist on articulation, accent modification and communicative competence.✤http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSxNs4a8ELc&feature=relmfu (slow down your speech)

✤http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Vlk1CZBbQ&feature=relmfu (articulation exercise)

✤http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSiTY4_8rOc (overcoming sluggish articulation)

✤http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYHt0cUDkW0&feature=relmfu (reality tv part I)

✤http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFwBElqYhY8&feature=relmfu (reality tv part II)

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Practice doesn’t make perfect;

perfect practice makes perfect !