PRONUNCIATION CONNECTED SPEECH There is a strong tendency in English to simplify and link words together in the stream of speech, in order to help the language flow rhythmically. Some of the most common features: Assimilation This is when the sound at the end of one word changes to make it easier to say the next word. For example: ‘ten boys’ sounds like ‘ tem boys’ (the /n/ sound changes to the bilabial /m/ to make it easier to transition to the also bilabial /b/) Incidentally bilabial just means two lips together, which is a good example of the kind of jargon that puts people off! Catenation This is when the last consonant of the first word is joined to the first vowel of the next word. This is very very common in English, and can be very confusing for students. For example: ‘an apple’ sounds like ‘a napple’ (Teacher, what is a napple?) Elision Elision means that you lose a sound in the middle of a consonant cluster, sometimes from the middle of a word. E.g. ‘sandwich’ becomes ‘sanwich’. Or from the end of a word. For example: ‘fish and chips’ ‘fishnchips’ Intrusion This is when an extra sound ‘intrudes’. There are three sounds that often do this /r/ /j/ and /w/ E.g. ‘go on’ sounds like ‘gowon’ I agree sounds like ‘aiyagree’ Law and order sounds like ‘lawrunorder’ From elt-resourceful/
Posted on: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 18:51:15 +0000
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