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WEEK |
TOPIC |
| 1 |
Introduction |
| Organisation of the course. Phonetics and phonology as scholarly disciplines. Varieties of English pronunciation. The model: BBC pronunciation. Articulatory phonetics: the speech organs | |
| 2 |
Phonemic transcription |
| The case for phonemic transcription of English. The International Phonetic Alphabet. Phonetic versus phonemic transcription. BBC phonemes: an overview. Pronunciation in dictionaries. | |
| 3 |
English vowels, diphthongs and triphthongs |
| Short and long vowels in English. The Cardinal vowel system. English vowels versus cardinal vowels: a comparison. Diphthongs and triphthongs. Teaching English vowels by Adrian Underhill. | |
| 4 |
Consonants |
| English consonants: plosives, fricatives, affricates, nasals, approximants. Slovak and English plosives compared: voiced versus voiceless, fortis versus lenis. Teaching English consonants by Adrian Underhill. | |
| 5 |
Strong and weak syllables |
| Stressed and unstressed syllables. Strong and weak syllables. Schwa: the central vowel. Weak vowels: occurrence and neutralisation. Syllabic consonants. | |
| 6 |
Stress in simple words |
| The nature of stress. Level of stress. Stressed and unstressed syllables. Two, three and four-level stress analysis. Free-stress and fixed-stress languages. Tips for TEFL/TESOL teachers. | |
|
Mid-semester written test on topics 1 - 6 |
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| 7 |
Complex word stress |
| Prefixes and suffixes in relation to word stress. Compound words. Stress shift and individual variation. Word-class pairs. | |
| 8 |
Weak forms: Part I |
| Weak-forms as a feature of suprasegmental phonology. Weak and strong forms: definition and occurrence. Exercises. | |
| 9 |
Weak forms: Part II |
| More exercises. | |
| 10 |
Varieties of English pronunciation: BBC Accent v. General American |
| BBC and GA compared. Phonological differences. Variation in word stress. | |
| 11 |
Aspects of connected speech |
| Rhythm, stress-timing, assimilation, elision, linking. | |
| 12 |
Intonation: Part I |
| Form and function, simple and complex tones. | |
| 13 |
Intonation: Part II |
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The tone unit. The functions of intonation -- attitudinal, accentual, grammatical, discursive. |
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