Phonetics with Listening Practice (British), SoSe 2024

In this course we are concerned with certain aspects of what the British linguist J. R. Firth called “the noises we make with our faces in order to live”.

You will learn how the sounds of English differ from the sounds of German, both in terms of the way they are produced and in terms of the way they relate to other sounds in the system(s) of the English language. You will practise producing individual English sounds and will also practise what the 18th century phonetician Joshua Steele called the “melody and measure” of English speech, i.e. its intonation and rhythm. Rhythm will provide a context in which to practise some other very important aspects of English, such as weak forms (the reduced, simplified way in which short function words like “should” or “some” or “than” are typically pronounced in normal speech), linking (running your words together smoothly into larger units, so that “an apron” sounds the same as “a napron”), and clipping (of which there are two types: 1) pre-fortis clipping, or shortening the length of the middle of a syllable if the end of the syllable is to be pronounced with more force, as in “search”, where the vowel is somewhat shorter than the vowel in “surge”, and 2) rhythmic clipping, or shortening the length of a stressed syllable if it is followed by unstressed ones, as in “search” – “searching” – “searchable”). In addition, you will have opportunities to review what you already know about the complicated relationship between sound and spelling in English.

The course includes a series of listening exercises, which are designed to provide a sample of all the major varieties of English. We will learn, among other things, why so many people misheard Neil Armstrong’s famous first words from the surface of the moon, why Australians and New Zealanders misunderstand each other’s short vowels (e.g. pan–pen–pin–pun), and what the underlying rhythm of Indian English is that presents speakers of other Englishes with so many hurdles when they try to understand what is being said. We will also listen to a recording of what English is predicted to sound like in 100 years’ time.

During the first two weeks, students have a choice: they can work at their own pace in asynchronous online mode, or attend the classes in person (building A2_2, room 1.22). From week 3 (Tuesday 30 April) onwards, students can choose between following the course in synchronous online mode (via MS Teams meetings) or attending in person (building A2_2, room 1.22). There will be other tasks for you to work on between the weekly (virtual or face-to-face) meetings.

At the end of the course, there will be a brief (20 minutes) online oral exam, which will involve reading a text aloud, speaking spontaneously, and demonstrating at least a passive knowledge of the phonetic symbols used for transcribing English sounds.

There are two groups.
Group 1 meets Tuesdays from 10:15 to 11:45
Group 2 meets Tuesdays from 14:15 to 15:45

Students can attend whichever meeting they want, but please let me know in advance if you are switching groups just for one week.

The course will be structured in a number of blocks:

The first block will involve exchanging contact details and making decisions about communication channels and frequency of virtual or real contact, as well as providing a general overview of free online resources available for doing phonetics. You will give me information about your previous experience and the goals you wish to achieve in this course.

The second block will involve you sending me a voice message in which you read aloud two paragraphs of English prose. You can then tell me what aspects of your pronunciation you think you need to work on, and I can tell you whether I agree with you or whether there are other things I think you should work on. I will then point you to the resources you will need to practice with.

The third block will involve becoming more familiar with the basic concepts and terminology of Systemic Functional Linguistics and of phonetics and phonology; there will be reading material as well as slide shows. The central unit of the sound system of English is the syllable, so we will take the syllable as the point of departure for our explorations. We will look at the internal structure of the syllable, and at the larger units in which the syllable functions. We will also look at the more abstract phenomena that the sound system of English helps to “realise”, and at the more concrete phenomena that the sound system helps to organise and structure.

The fourth block will consist of practice in describing and producing the individual consonant and vowel sounds of English as they occur in syllables. We will begin with the material world: the anatomical organs of articulation, and the physiology and physics of sound. We will then study the differences between the sound systems of English and German. These differing systems are projected onto the material world of anatomy and physiology and physics to create the actual phonetic differences that you will need to master: you will learn to hear, and become able to produce, the difference between the English word “happy" and the German word “happy” (which is the same as the difference between the English word “jam” and the English word “gem”) and you will learn to “speak with one voice” in English.

The fifth block will involve becoming more aware of what happens when syllables are strung together to form larger rhythmic units. Syllables rub against each other at their edges; sometimes sounds adapt to the new environment, sometimes they are simplified or lost. Some syllables stand out more than others. We will study the functions of these differences and practise their physical manifestations.

The sixth block will consist of practice in English intonation, based on material by M.A.K. Halliday. Intonation is understood in the broader sense, where it includes all the consequences of deciding how to chunk information into digestible bits and how to assign degress of importance, as well as the interpersonal and logical functions of rising or falling pitch.

The seventh block will involve assessment. Students will demonstrate that they can read IPA transcriptions, and will read aloud the same passage as at the beginning of the course, as well as discussing a topic of their own choosing.

For links to the course materials, see below:

BLOCK 1 — DEFINING GOALS

Week 01: Tuesday 16 April 2024 — Unit 01

First of all, some slides from the Contact Point for Studying with Disability, which is part of the university’s Equal Opportunities and Diversity Management Unit. If you are living with disability or chronic illness, the university can provide various forms of support.

http://www.spence.saar.de/phonetics/KSB/KSB_Slides_for_lecturers.pdf

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any kind of special needs.

Second, I will from time to time use the phrase CONTENT WARNING to alert you to the fact that some of the material may be offensive or triggering to some students, because it contains sexual innuendo, or references to drugs, or violence, or something else that could prove to be unsettling.

Third, you should all have received, as an email attachment, a one-page document containing all my contact details. If you haven’t received those contact details, please check the spam folder of your uni mail account and/or contact me directly.

You should also have received a four-page document entitled Initial Survey, containing a number of questions. These are not didactic questions, i.e. I’m not asking you questions to see whether you know something that I already know, I’m asking you questions because I want to find out something that I don’t yet know. If you haven’t already sent me your answers to these questions, could you please do so as soon as possible – preferably before the first class.

http://www.spence.saar.de/phonetics/unit01_20241/B__Survey/

The most important questions are the ones concerning previous experience with IPA symbols, whether you have already taken a lecture course in phonetics, and how easily you can work online. Just ignore any questions that you feel are too personal. All information will be treated in the strictest confidence and will be destroyed as soon as it is no longer needed (viz., once your results have been received by the examinations office).

Here is the plan for the course, showing what we will be doing each week:

http://www.spence.saar.de/phonetics/unit01_20241/C__Plan

A more detailed version of the plan will be published shortly. It will detail the work to be done before and after each session, as well as showing which activities we will be engaged in during each (virtual or face-to-face) meeting.

Here is the official chart of phonetic symbols published by the International Phonetic Association, together with an extended version that contains additional symbols that are in widespread use:

http://www.spence.saar.de/phonetics/unit01_20241/D__IPA_Chart

You don’t need to know all of those symbols, but it’s probably a good idea to have constant access to a full IPA chart.

Here is the text I would like you to read aloud, so that I can work out which pronunciation problems you need to work on in this course:

http://www.spence.saar.de/phonetics/unit01_20241/E__Initial_Assessment

I would need to have the recording of you reading this text aloud by the weekend before the second class. You can send it as an audio file attached to an email, or as a voice message via any platform you like. Many students choose WhatsApp, but I’m on all social media platforms; so take your pick.

Here you will soon be able to find the slides for the first week’s session, plus a printer-friendly version containing their content in a more compact format:

http://www.spence.saar.de/phonetics/unit01_20241/F__Slides_and_Printout

If you like working on paper, you could print out the printer-friendly version of the slides and use it to take notes on while looking at the slides and/or watching the screen recordings of me working through the slides.

Here there will be some screen recordings of me introducing the course and going through the slides:

http://www.spence.saar.de/phonetics/unit01_20241/G__Screen_Recordings

Note: There will probably only be recordings of the second half of the first week’s presentation – and those parts will have been recycled from previous semesters; the information contained in the slides should not have substantially changed since then, however.

In this directory you will find subdirectories containing photos of some of the people (linguists, phonologists, phoneticians ... ) whom you will become acquainted with during this course:

http://www.spence.saar.de/phonetics/unit01_20241/H__People

For one of the people — in all likelihood the most brilliant of them all – there is no photo available on the Internet. The main reason for that is probably that she was a woman. This notwithstanding, her students universally thought that she was awesome. If you are very keen, I can provide you with a link to a paper about a paper she delivered to her colleagues at a staff meeting once. “The rest is silence.”

The following directory contains handouts:

http://www.spence.saar.de/phonetics/unit01_20241/J__Handouts

BLOCK 2 — REFINING GOALS

Week 02: Tuesday 23 April 2024 — Unit 01

All of the materials for this week can be found here:

http://www.spence.saar.de/phonetics/unit02_20241/

The materials for the rest of the course will be uploaded shortly.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Listening Practice: Links

Local copies of videos for listening can be found here:

http://www.spence.saar.de/arcanum/phonetics/listening/videos_etc/

– ask the course leader to send you your login details.

Any local copies of the texts of those videos would be here:

http://www.spence.saar.de/arcanum/phonetics/listening/texts_etc/

The worksheets for some of the videos are here:

http://www.spence.saar.de/phonetics/exercise_sheet_01-01/exercise_sheet_01-01.pdf

http://www.spence.saar.de/phonetics/exercise_sheet_02-01/exercise_sheet_02-01.pdf

http://www.spence.saar.de/phonetics/exercise_sheet_11-07/exercise_sheet_11-07.pdf

LINKS TO VIDEOS FOR LISTENING PRACTICE: