Pronunciation Examples
Monday, March 9th, 2009
Originally uploaded by in touch
My first two notes on pronunciation were primarily for a general audience. This note is primarily for those with a little experience in teaching pronunciation; though the general reader may find it of interest.
I wouldn’t say the musical metaphor was correct while the building metaphor was incorrect. Both metaphors have their uses. I tend to think that the music metaphor is useful in getting one to think and feel how a native speaker of a language reacts to speech. For example, suppose a native speaker of English hears “I am going on bacation.” The confusion between /v/ and /b/ will not cause the native speaker much trouble. However, consider this exchange: Native speaker: “I am going on vacation.” The Second Language Learner says, “Where will you go?” with rising intonation (when speaking, people usually raise or lower the pitch of their voice). Her intention is to find out the location of your vacation (which a native speaker would ask by rising then falling intonation). A rising intonation would express surprise to a native speaker and so a serious misunderstanding could occur.