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Pdco 1 - Booklet
Pdco 1 - Booklet
Profesorado de Inglés
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introducción ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Unit 1 ...................................................................................................................................................... 7
Speech and Writing ............................................................................................................................... 9
Phonetics and phonology…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………12
Unit 2 .................................................................................................................................................... 15
Vowels……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..16
Consonants……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….19
Unit 3………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..23
Stress…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………28
Weak forms………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………31
Unit 4………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..37
More activities……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………41
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Prácticas Discursivas de la Comunicación Oral 1
1st year – Profesorado de Inglés -ISFDYT #83
Teacher Information
Email Timetable
. Laura Segovia pf.laurasegovia@gmail.com Tuesday 6.20 to 10.20 pm
General Information
Description
This course is designed to give theoretical and practical knowledge of English phonetics and
phonology. It provides a comprehensive introduction to phonetic and phonological theory and
terminology, includes development of skill in sound identification and discrimination, the control
of speech production abilities. It focuses on the sound systems of one model accents of English
(Received Pronunciation). English phonetics includes description of phonetic features for
segmental phonemes (i.e., consonants an vowels) and supra-segmental phonemes (i.e., stress and
intonation and juncture). Students taking phonetics also learn the knowledge and practical skill
of reading and writing phonetic transcription, both broad and narrow transcription.
Course Objectives
A student who successfully completes this course will have the opportunity to:
• acquire knowledge of phonetics and phonology, and apply it to data
• Describe the organs of speech and their mechanism to produce the speech sounds.
• Describe basic phonological rules in English.
• Be able to do words phonetic transcription of words.
• Have more understanding about English words’ stress.
• Have more understanding about sound patterns in English.
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Materials required
Compulsory material
This booklet printed or in its digitalised version.
Pronunciation Dictionary from any publisher house.
Regular internet connection to work with the TELEGRAM CHANNEL.
Important bibliography
Roach, P. (1991). English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical Course. (pp. 3-16).UK:
Cambridge University Press.
Claire-A. Forel & Genoveva Puskás (2005) PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY: University of
Oldenburg
Course Units
Units General Topics Contents
1 Phonetics and phonology Phonetics as part of the Linguistic study. Features of Sounds
in the English Language
The Speech mechanism.
The production of speech sounds. Description, organization
and classification of sounds.
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Units General Topics Contents
Vowels, diphthongs and triphthongs. Vowels articulation:
Production of vowels. Semi vowels.
Consonants: Place and manner of articulation.
3 Word Stress Weak and strong syllables.
Weak and strong forms.
Word stress: stress in one, two, three - syllable and
compound words.
4 Connected Speech Fluency and rhythm.
Aspect of connected speech: Linking words. Contractions.
Assimilation, elision, gemination and junctions.
Written Exams
Date1 Topic
Units 1 and 2
Units 3 and 4
• Read the theoretical material when it is asked. Be updated with the info by
• Regular attendance.
• Participation in the virtual campus of the subject. This item is very important
because you will find activities and theoretical material to complete this booklet
• Pass all Oral tests sent by campus and / or their make ups.
• Show improvement in oral skill using vocabulary and language properly according
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These dates could be changed according to the development of the subject.
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• Hand in tasks, recordings, works on time.
• Don’t wait until the last minute for your questions. If you read the theory, your
questions will challenge your structures and to challenge means to change what we
knew, so ASK!
• Every question should be post in the proper place, i.e. if you have a question or
query from a text in Unit 2, write down your questions in that post, where the file
• We may work with audios and recordings produced by the students in pairs or
individual. These have deadlines and it is important to take that into account.
• Language in class and in the Telegram channel should be checked all the time.
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UNIT 1
Phonetics and Phonology
Do you know and recognise the phonetic symbols? Do you know what RP means? And the acronym
IPA?
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WHY DO YOU THINK THEY ARE CALLED SYMBOLS? WHAT DO THEY REPRESENT?
We are concerned with the difference between spoken and written forms of
language. In this unit, the concepts “speech sounds”, “vowel” and “consonant”
are introduced. We also begin to explore differences between some varieties
of spoken English.
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The homophones we have just considered happen to have different spellings, but this is not
always the case. For instance, there are 3 distinct words TICK in English:
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Letters and Sounds
They are not at all the same things. The word COUGH has 5 letters in spelling
– but when we say it, it has only 3 sounds. The first is like the sound in KITE,
the second is like the middle sound of TOP, and the last is like the end of
ROOF. A reliable source for pronunciation and spelling difference are
PHONETICS TRANSCRIPTIONS, using internationally agreed SYMBOLS; the
british pronunciation of the word is /k ɒ f/. One principle governing the use of
phonetic symbols is that there should be one symbol for every sound; the
number of letters in the ordinary spelling.
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So, when we talk about VOWELS or CONSONANTS we are not talking about normal
spelling or words. We are talking about sounds and their union in SYLLABLES.
READ THE FOLLOWING INFO:
Now you download from the FACEBOOK group (file section) a pdf
to read and work with. These files will help you to understand deeply
this first part and to practice the difference between spelling and
sounds.
You can print it all together or just the Units I ask you to or you can
work with them from your devices but we will use it throughout the year. The files
are:
What you need to know before you begin.
Introducing Sounds and Letters
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Let’s move on to the next level in this unit.
Diana Finch and Hector Ortiz Lira explain the possibility of being understood
when speaking and how the process of communication and the speech chain
take the leading role here.
Please read the first chapter “The Linguistic Science” in the file called:
1 The Linguistic Science – 2 Articulatory Phonetics to understand the diagram.
READ the chapter from Odgen, R “An Introduction to English phonetics”. Summarize
it and find key words.
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Read the different materials and compare them. Think about it and summarise your
own definitions as possible answers in a test.
All the sounds we make when we speak are the result of muscles
contracting. The muscles in the chest that we use for breathing produce
the flow of air that is needed for almost all speech sounds; muscles in the
larynx produce many different modifications in the flow of air from the
chest to the mouth. After passing through the larynx, the air goes
through what we call the vocal tract, which ends at the mouth and
nostrils; we call the part comprising the mouth the oral cavity and the part
that leads to the nostrils the nasal cavity. Here the air from the lungs
escapes into the atmosphere. We have a large and complex set of muscles
that can produce changes in the shape of the vocal tract, and in
order to learn how the sounds of speech are produced it is necessary to
become familiar with the different parts of the vocal tract. These different
parts are called articulators, and the study of them is called articulatory
phonetics.
Fig. 1 is a diagram that is used frequently in the study of phonetics. It
represents the human head, seen from the side, displayed as though it had
been cut in half. You will need to look at it carefully as the articulators are
described, and you will find it useful to have a mirror and a good light
placed so that you can look at the inside of your mouth.
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READ THE SECOND CHAPTER IN THE FILE 1 The
Linguistic Science – 2 Articulatory Phonetics.
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Vowels and Consonants
The words vowel and consonant are very familiar ones, but when we
study the sounds of speech scientifically, we find that it is not easy to
define exactly what they mean. The most common view is that vowels
are sounds in which there is no obstruction to the flow of air as it passes
from the larynx to the lips. A doctor who wants to look at the back
of a patient’s mouth often asks them to say “ah”; making this vowel
sound is the best way of presenting an unobstructed view. But if we make
a sound like s, d it can be clearly felt that we are making it difficult or
impossible for the air to pass through the mouth. Most people would have
no doubt that sounds like s, d should be called consonants. However,
there are many cases where the decision is not so easy to make. One
problem is that some English sounds that we think of as consonants, such
as the sounds at the beginning of the words ‘hay’ and ‘way’, do not really
obstruct the flow of air more than some vowels do.
We begin the study of English sounds in this course by looking at vowels,
and it is necessary to say something about vowels in general before
turning to the vowels of English. We need to know in what ways vowels
differ from each other. The first matter to consider is the shape and
position of the tongue. It is usual to simplify the very complex
possibilities by describing just two things: firstly, the vertical distance
between the upper surface of the tongue and the palate and, secondly,
the part of the tongue, between front and back, which is raised highest.
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Most authors agree with the vertical and horizontal position of the tongue.
They agree in the way in which lips are set to produce the vowels.
The difference rises in the systems used to describe those movements and
positions. You have CARDINAL VOWELS diagram and system and the
monophthongs CHART.
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Finch, D. A Course in English Phonetics for Spanish Speakers.Uk: Heinneman
Adrian Underhill explains the distribution in the chart he has designed. Again, as
you could see with the cardinal vowels, you have to imagine that this chart simulates
being inside your mouth and the vertical and horizontal axes are the way in which
the tongue moves.
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Pronunciation Skills: The Phonemic Chart part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ue4mrFG68Y&list=PLbEWGLATRxw_2hL5hY164nvHdTpwhE
OXC&index=3
Diphthongs:
Their names are related to the second sound:
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There are more activities in the group, please download the file “Vowels
activities” to practise each vowel and consonant at a time or in their
minimal pair. By the way, what is a minimal pair?
Consonants
If we think about Underhill’s chart, we know that the last part of it is devoted to
consonants. Their distribution is related to three main concepts: Voicing, place
and manner of articulation.
According to Finch, D and Ortiz Lira, H the description and classification of
consonant sounds are found after answering the following questions:
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Let’s go deeper in the concept of voicing…
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Download and read the chapter called “Symbols and Terminology”.
Some activities are to be done in class or homework.
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Read Underhill’s chapter on consonants – chart distribution.
After reading, watch the following video:
Pronunciation Skills: Consonants part 1 Guided tour of consonants:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tck2HHlfEgQ&list=PLbEWGLATRxw_2hL5hY164nvHdTpwhEOXC&inde
x=27
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Word Stress
Before you start reading theory deeply, it is important you get some
concepts first. You need to remember that we are not dealing with normal
spelling. We are talking about sounds, phonemes and segments. A syllable
is a segment made out by a consonant plus a vowel or that is what we have
discussed until now.
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The syllable is a fundamentally important unit both in phonetics and in
phonology. It is a good idea to keep phonetic notions of the syllable
separate from phonological ones. Phonetically we can observe that the flow
of speech typically consists of an alternation between vowel-like states
(where the vocal tract is comparatively open and unobstructed) and
consonant-like states where some obstruction to the airflow is made.
Silence and pause are to be regarded as being of consonantal type in this
case. So, from the speech production point of view a syllable consists of a
movement from a constricted or silent state to a vowel-like state and then
back to constricted or silent. From the acoustic point of view, this means
that the speech signal shows a series of peaks of energy corresponding to
vowel-like states separated by troughs of lower energy.
Syllables are claimed to be the most basic unit in speech: every language
has syllables, and babies learn to produce syllables before they can manage
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Roach, P. English phonetics and phonology - glossary
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to say a word of their native language. When a person has a speech
disorder, their speech will still display syllabic organisation, and slips of
the tongue also show that syllabic regularity tends to be preserved even
in “faulty” speech.
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Weak and Strong Syllables
In English phonology it is possible to identify a type of
syllable that is called weak. Such syllables are never stressed,
and in rapid speech are sometimes reduced so much that they no
longer count as syllables. The majority of weak syllables
contain the schwa (ə) vowel, but the vowels i, u, i also appear
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in such syllables. Instead of a vowel, weak syllables may contain
syllabic consonants such as l- (as in ‘bottle’) or n-(as in
‘button’).
After reading Roach’s chapter, you will find easy to identify the four
possible centres of a weak syllable. Write only a key word for each:
1
2
3
4
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Now that you have learned how to identify the strength and
the weakness of a syllable, you will find the concept of
stress easy to follow.
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Until now, we have discussed the properties of syllables, taking into account their
strength in isolated words. However, when we speak, we set those words or syllables
inside particular contexts. They are surrounded of others words or syllables with their
own properties which can also affect the strength they may have in a sentence.
From now on, bare in mind that words suffer changes depending on those contexts and
their neighbours in an utterance. Context and intentions are always the key factor.
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Begin your reading by reading and studying “stress,
rhythm and weak forms”
In relation to the idea previously presented we move on to the next topic in our course,
which closely connected with the idea of stress:
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Roach, P. English Phonetics and Phonology – 4th edition.
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forms; since practically all native speakers of British
English use them, learners of the language need to learn
about these weak forms to help them to understand what they
hear.
The reason for this is that to someone who knows the language well these words are
usually highly predictable in their normal context.
In this sense strong forms are derived from the linguistic context which generally determines which
one is to be used. The difference between strong and weak forms is explained under weak form.
Peter Roach states that it is important to remember that there are certain contexts where only the
strong form is acceptable, and others where the weak form is the normal pronunciation. There
are some fairly simple rules; we can say that the strong form is used in the following cases:
1. For many weak-form words, when they occur at the end of a sentence; for
example, the word ‘of’ has the weak form /əv/in the following sentence:
However, when it comes at the end of the sentence, as in the following example,
it has the strong form /ɒv/:
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2. When a weak-form word is being contrasted with another word and what we might call a co-
ordinated use of prepositions ‘
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It is important you learn from the very beginning these weak forms
and in which circumstances they turn to their strong forms.
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Before we go on with the following unit there are several questions you
need to be able to answer properly. Use them as a study guide:
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Connected Speech
In spoken discourse the boundaries between words are very often not
clear-cut. Words and sounds are lost and linked together in different ways
to enable us to articulate with minimal movement.
This is one of the reasons learners find spoken discourse more difficult to
understand than written discourse. At higher levels it is often not a lack
of vocabulary which prevents understanding, but lack of ability to deal
with these features of connected speech. Native speakers are more able
to use top-down processing 4 to decide whether what they have heard
is red dye or red eye.
Here are some of the more common features of connected speech:
1. Assimilation
Assimilation occurs when a phoneme (sound) in one word causes a
change in a sound in a neighbouring word. For example, try saying the
following pairs of words:
4
Top-down processing is the idea that to process and understand a text we start with “higher-level” features –
background knowledge, context, overall meaning – and proceed through a series of steps “down” to “lower-level”
semantic, syntactical and phonological features.
This contextual information at the top can come from knowledge about the world or the speaker/writer, from a mental
image or expectation set up before or during listening or reading (often called a schema), or from predictions based on
the probability of one word following another.
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• in Bath
• last year
• Hyde Park
You’ll notice that the last sound of the first word changes in each case.
The /n/ sound becomes /m/, /t/ becomes /tʃ/ and /d/ becomes /b/.
2. Elision
Elision is the loss of a phoneme, most commonly the last phoneme of a
word, and most commonly the /t/ and /d/ sounds. Have a look at these
examples:
• left back
• stand by
• looked back
• I must go
In each case the last phoneme of the first word is elided (lost). In simplest
terms, the reason is that the time and effort required to change the mouth
position from the /t/ to the /b/ sound (as in the first example) or the /t/ to
the /g/ sound (as in the last example) is too great!
3. Catenation
In catenation the last consonant of the first word is joined to the vowel
sound at the start of the second word. For example:
• pick it up – (learners will hear something like pi ki tup)
• what is it – (learners will hear something like wo ti zit)
4. Intrusion
Intrusion is what you might expect from the name – an extra sound
“intrudes” into the spoken utternace. Try saying the following pairs of
words:
• media event
• I always
• go away
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Do you hear the /r/ sound intruding after “media”, the /j/ sound intruding
after “I” and the /w/ sound intruding after “go”?5.
READ:
• 14 - Aspects of connected speech (Roach, P).
Do the activities at the end of the
chapter.
• Plurals, 3rd person singular present simple and possessive ‘s. Rules for
voicing. (Picture)
PRACTISE…
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Summarised from https://www.eslbase.com/tefl-a-z/connected-speech
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DOWNLOAD: Final sounds Plurals and past tenses – Voicing
agreement.
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Besides all the tasks and activities, you do at
home, there are others to do in class or even in
pairs. You’ll do reading, listening and speaking
activities mostly and always with a purpose.
Enjoy them!
1. Here is transcribed passage in which you can find many grammatical words
in the weak or strong form. You will see the transcription is annotated. Each
number refers to a relevant explanation or comment of variations. Look at
the example and write the reasons for each variation.
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Example:
42
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FURTHER PRACTICE
The following section is devoted to develop some practises to your skills: READING,
LISTENING AND SPEAKING tasks.
The following chart is for you to control the development of the different tasks. They are all post
in FACEBOOK. I will ask you to do different activities in different moments.
WIN EXTRA CREDIT!!!
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Go for the Finals!!!
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