Language Teaching: A Scheme for Teacher Education Editors: C N Candlin and H G Widdowson Pronunciation Christiane Dalton and Barbara Seidlhofer Oxford University Press 1994 Oxford University Press Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan OXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are trade marks of Oxford University Press ISBNO 194371972 � Oxford University Press 1994 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Oxford University Press. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Set by Wyvern Typesetting Ltd, Bristol Printed in Hong Kong To Henry Widdowson and to Stephanie Contents v n i x 3 3 9 1 3 1 8 24 24 2 7 3 2 3 2 3 4 3 8 40 43 43 5 0 5 4 6 7 6 7 6 9 7 2 The authors and series editors Introduction Section One: Explanation 1 The significance of pronunciation 1.1 Pronunciation and identity 1.2 Pronunciation and intelligibility 2 The nature of speech sounds 2.1 Sounds in the body 2.2 Sounds in the mind 3 Connected speech 3.1 Stringing sounds together 3.2 Sound simplifications 4 Stress 4.1 The nature of stress 4.2 The syllable 4.3 Word-stress 4.4 Stress and rhythm 5 Intonation 5.1 The nature of intonation 5.2 The nature of discourse 5.3 Intonation in discourse Section Two: Demonstration 6 Pronunciation teaching 6.1 Relevance 6.2 Approaches to teaching 6.3 Teachability-learnability Contents VI 7 Focus on intonation 75 7.1 Intonation teaching: important but (too) difficult? 75 7.2 Ways into intonation 77 7.3 Foregrounding 81 7.4 New information and common ground 83 7.5 Managing conversation 87 7.6 Roles, status, and involvement 92 8 Focus on stress 97 8.1 Identifying and producing stressed syllables 97 8.2 Prediction skills for word-stress 100 8.3 The mystery of stress-time 105 8.4 Unstress and weak forms 110 9 Focus on connected speech 114 9.1 Teaching for perception or teaching for production? 114 9.2 Assimilation, elision, and linking 116 10 Focus on sounds 125 10.1 Ear training and awareness building 125 135 139 143 150 153 172 174 180 182 190 10.2 The fundamental problem: communicating vs. noticing 130 10.3 Innocence vs. sophistication 10.4 Articulatory settings 10.5 Individual sounds 10.6 Conclusion Section Three: Exploration 11 Exploring pronunciation in your own classroom Appendix List of symbols/conventions Glossary Further reading Bibliography Index The authors and series editors Barbara Seidlhofer read English and Italian at Vienna University. She qualified as a secondary school teacher and went on to read applied lin- guistics at London University. She holds an MA and a PhD in applied linguistics from London University and has taught German in the UK. She currently works as a researcher and lecturer in linguistics and methodology at the English Department of Vienna University. Christiane Dalton is a graduate of Vienna University where she read English, Spanish, and history. She qualified as a secondary school teacher and holds a PhD in English linguistics. She has taught German in the UK and currently works as a researcher and lecturer in linguistics and phonetics at the English Department of Vienna University. Christopher N. Candlin is Professor of Linguistics in the School of English and Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney, and Executive Director of the National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research, having previously been Professor of Applied Linguistics and Director of the Centre for Language in Social Life at the University of Lancaster. He also co-founded and directed the Institute for English Language Education at Lancaster. Henry Widdowson is Professor of English for Speakers of Other Languages at the University of London Institute of Education, and Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Essex. He was previously Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh, and has also worked as an English Language Officer for the British Council in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Through work with The British Council, The Council of Europe, and other agencies, both Editors have had extensive and varied experience of language teaching, teacher education, and curriculum development over- seas, and both contribute to seminars, conferences, and professional journals. Introduction Pronunciation Over recent years there has been renewed interest in the teaching of pronunciation which has resulted in a bewildering variety of new teaching materials being published. How, then, is the teacher to know which ones to use? This book aims to equip teachers with the necessary background knowledge and a rationale for applying this knowledge to principled decisions about their own classroom situation. Pronunciation is never an end in itself but a means to negotiate meaning in discourse, and this is what guided the selection of aspects covered. This book is thus not intended as a full-blown introduction to phonetics, but aims to provide a frame of reference which enables teachers to relate the 'what' and 'how' of their actual teaching to the 'why'. What teachers need to know is not necessarily what learners need to learn. We believe that there is an important distinction to be made between what is important for the teacher in training and what is useful for learners in the classroom. We have emphasized this distinction by arranging the contents of Sections One and Two in reverse order: bottom-up in Section One and top-down in Section Two. While teacher education may require an understanding of pronunciation as an aspect of the language system, it will often be preferable in teaching to proceed according to priorities determined by how pronunciation functions in language use. Section One introduces the main concepts and terminology of the field. Section Two then invites readers to reflect upon and evaluate activities from published materials with reference to these concepts. Section Three offers tasks for testing out ideas and insights from Sections One and Two against the reality of the classroom. In principle, the points made in this book apply to the pronunciation of any language. But as this book is written in English and this is therefore the only language shared by all readers, most examples and illustrations refer to English. Whatever the language in question, our hope is that the insights gained from working through this book will equip teachers with relevant points of reference. What is needed, it seems to us, are models to approximate to rather than norms to imitate. Knowledge about discourse tells us that Introduction appropriacy is a more important criterion for intelligibility than correct- ness. This view accordingly shifts the emphasis away from native speakers as yardsticks of 'correctness' to teachers taking informed decisions as to what is desirable and feasible in order to meet the needs of specific learners. We would like to thank several people for their help and support. Our students at Vienna University have over many years shaped our awareness of the complexities and sensitivities involved in pronunciation teaching. Use Schindler was an ideal combination of a sympathetic and critical reader. Our colleagues Herbert Schendl and Gunther Kaltenbock also made valuable comments on earlier drafts, and Keith Chester helped with the proof-reading. Harald Mittermann, our librarian, kept us abreast of a wealth of new publications, pointing out his latest acquisitions. The IATEFL PronSIG has offered a stimulating environment of fellow enthusiasts. Anne Conybeare and Julia Sallabank at OUP were very supportive editors and mended many a loophole in our manuscript. Christopher Candlin provided constructive criticism. And Nobody self-lessly relieved us from all the domestic chores and typed the manuscript from our illegible scribble. There is one person who deserves a separate paragraph: Henry Widdowson. His generosity in sharing his time and ideas with us, his Socratic gift of persistently asking the right questions have shaped this book and given us inspiration and confidence. Barbara Seidlhofer Christiane Dalton Language Teaching: A Scheme for Teacher Education ...
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