Describing Spoken English: An Introduction

by Kreidler,Charles W.

• ISBN13: 9780415150958
• ISBN10: 0415150957
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1997-05-05
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Describing Spoken Englishprovides a practical introduction to the pronunciation of contemporary English. Requiring no prior knowledge of phonetics or phonology, the book examines the main varieties of English, focusing on the elements common to all native-speaker varieties and presents the differences as minor variations on a theme. The book is divided into twelve chapters which cover speech production, principles of phonological analysis, consonants, the vowel systems of different varieties of the language, syllable structure, strong and weak syllables, phonological processes in connected speech, stress in simple words and compounds, tone units and utterances, the role of accent in discourse, and the interrelations of morphology and phonology. Presented in an accessible jargon-free style,Describing Spoken Englishwill be essential for all students of the English language and linguistics.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi	(1)
Symbols and typographic conventions	xii	()
1 The pronunciation of English	1	(12)
1.1 Dialects	2	(3)
1.2 English outside of England	5	(2)
1.3 Differences and commonalities	7	(2)
1.4 Plan of this book	9	(4)
2 Speech	13	(20)
2.1 The nature of sound	14	(2)
2.2 Speech	16	(2)
2.3 Consonants	18	(8)
2.4 Vowels	26	(3)
2.5 Syllables and prosodic features	29	(4)
3 The structure of language	33	(16)
3.1 Units of language	34	(3)
3.2 Knowing one's native language	37	(2)
3.3 Phonemes	39	(10)
4 English consonants	49	(16)
4.1 Distinctive features	50	(6)
4.2 Consonant allophones	56	(9)
5 English vowels	65	(20)
5.1 Dialect differences	66	(3)
5.2 A general inventory of vowels	69	(11)
5.3 Vowel inventories of specific English dialects	80	(5)
6 Syllables	85	(16)
6.1 The structure of a syllable	87	(3)
6.2 Consonants in clusters	90	(6)
6.3 Inflections	96	(5)
7 Strong and weak syllables	101	(22)
7.1 Accent and stress	102	(7)
7.2 Weak syllables	109	(3)
7.3 Variation in weak syllables	112	(11)
8 Word stress	123	(20)
8.1 The phonological structure of words: stress patterns	124	(6)
8.2 The morphological structure of words	130	(5)
8.3 Rules for stress in simple words	135	(8)
9 Stress in compound words and phrases	143	(18)
9.1 Noun phrases and noun compounds	144	(5)
9.2 Adjective and adverb constructions	149	(3)
9.3 Compounds in phrases and larger compounds	152	(2)
9.4 Verb phrases and verb compounds	154	(7)
10 The role of accent in discourse	161	(16)
10.1 the structure of a tone unit	162	(2)
10.2 Tonality	164	(2)
10.3 Tonicity	166	(11)
11 Intonation	177	(18)
11.1 Paralanguage	178	(2)
11.2 Intonations of the simple tone unit	180	(6)
11.3 Low and high onsets	186	(1)
11.4 Compound tunes	187	(8)
12 Morphemes that vary in form	195	(17)
12.1 Phonologically conditioned alternations	197	(3)
12.2 Morphological conditioning	200	(6)
12.3 Another past tense suffix	206	(6)
Feedback on exercises	212	(13)
Bibliography	225	(6)
Index	231