Articles Review(2)

   A Review on Pronunciation Revisited
                           By
 Martha C.Pennington and Jack C. Richards
                     Zahra Mojib

                  Dr.Hassaskhah

                         2010


THE COMPONENTS OF PRONUNCIATION


For most language teachers, pronunciation is largely identified with the articulation of individual sounds and, to a lesser extent, with the stress and intonation patterns of the target language. From the perspective of contemporary research in discourse

analysis, however pronunciation is seen not only as part of the system for expressing referential meaning, but also as an important part of the interfactional dynamics of the communication process. Pronunciation involves a complex interaction of perceptual, articulatory, and interfactional factors. In this article, that complex of factors is described in terms of three types of features: segmental features, voice-setting features, and prosodic features.
Segmental Features

Segmental features are minimal units of sound defined in phonetic terms. Traditionally, the fundamental components of pronunciation are phonemes, and acquisition of the target language phonological system is viewed as mastery of the phonemic distinctions.The point is that While phonemic and other types of features

that function at the level of individual segments provide a valuable basis for detailed analysis of languages, this kind of micro-perspective on phonology needs to be complemented by a macro-focus on voice-setting and prosodic features.

Voice-Setting Features
Voice-setting features refer to general articulatory characteristics of stretches of speech. The tendency of speakers of a particular language to adopt certain habitual positions of articulation in connected speech, resulting in a characteristic voice quality, can be described in terms of voice-setting features.


Prosodic Features and Related Coarticulatory Phenomena
The third dimension of pronunciation is stress and intonation, the so-called prosodic, or suprasegmental domain. Prosodic features involve the relative levels of stress and pitch within syllables, words, phrases, and longer stretches of speech.

Stress refers to the degree of effort involved in the production of individual syllables or combinations of syllables making up a word or longer utterance. The ability to produce English with an English-like pattern of stress and rhythm involves stress timing (the placement of stress only on selected syllables), which in turn requires speakers to take shortcuts in how they pronounce words.

In every language, characteristic intonation contours carry both referential and affective meaning (Ladefoged, 1982). In their referential function, intonation contours provide an interpretation for a sentence by indicating which part of the information is viewed as new versus known.


Intonation is an essential component of the “prosodic continuity” that makes connected stretches of speech—as opposed to individually spoken words or syllables—coherent and interpretable by the listener.
The view of pronunciation described above emphasizes that pronunciation in a second language involves far more than the correct articulation of individual sounds. Pronunciation is not simply a surface performance phenomenon but is rather a dynamic component of conversational fluency. The acquisition of the phonology of the second or foreign language involves learning how to produce a wide range of complex and subtle distinctions which relate sound to meaning at

several different levels. Articulatory, interfactional, and cognitive processes are all equally involved.
THE LEARNING OF PRONUNCIATION

While phonology has not occupied as central a position as syntax in second language acquisition research, some important characteristics of the phonological learning process have been isolated. These include the extent to which the second.

language phonological system is influenced by the phonological system of the first language, the role of universal acquisition processes in the development of L2 phonology, psychosocial and individual factors, and the context of language learning and use,which are discussed as follows.
The Influence of the First Language
Language transfer has always been recognized as basic to any theory of second language phonological development . Gumperz (1982), in his studies of cross-cultural interactions, demonstrates that transfer of voice-setting and prosodic features of the first language can lead to serious intercultural misunderstanding

in the target culture.
Acquisition Processes in L2 Phonology

There are other process which interact with language transfer in shaping the L2.
phenomenon cited as a developmental process in first and second language acquisition is simplification. Markedness theory has been invoked to account for the fact that certain phonological features are more difficult for second language learners to acquire than other features.Also, in second language learning a new item or rule is not acquired categorically: Learners do not immediately begin to use a new phonological rule or feature in all its contexts or in all its appropriate phonetic variants.
Psychosocial and Individual Factors
Some learners, wishing to integrate actively into the target culture and to be identified with its speakers, may be motivated to try to attain a native accent in the foreign language. Others, in contrast, may not have a strong integrative motivation toward the target culture and so may consciously or unconsciously seek to maintain a distinctive accent. Personality variables such as introversion, extroversion, or sociability have been suggested to explain differences among individuals in phonological attainment. The age factor still remains an unresolved issue in language acquisition research,and adults do not necessarily lose the linguistic capabilities which were present at earlier stages of development.
The Context of Learning and Use
The context and conditions for learning and using the language may also affect levels of attainment in phonology. The degree and type of exposure to the second language in classroom and naturalistic settings may in part determine eventual outcomes in phonology. Alearner’s phonological performance may differ in the controlled and automatic modes of processing. In particular, performance may suffer when it must be consciously maintained under stressful conditions.

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING
The model of pronunciation as a context-dependent and dynamic interaction of segmental, voice-setting, and prosodic features has a number of implications for language teaching.

Accuracy at the segmental level is no longer the fundamental aim of teaching,nor is it the primary basis for intelligible speech. As the emphasis moves away from a narrow focus on segments to a broader focus on stretches of speech, the effects of voice setting, stress and intonation, as well as coarticulatory phenomena such as shortenings, weakening, and assimilations, assume greater importance for teaching.Moreover intervention by the teacher may not be able to alter the learner’s path of development in mastering second language phonology.Moreover immediate improvements in pronunciation resulting from direct training may take time to become a part of spontaneous language use. In the domain of pronunciation, then, there is not likely to be a one-to-one relationship between teaching and learning.

According to the implications mentioned above the researchers outlined the following recommendations regarding pronunciation and its place in second language:
1-The teaching of pronunciation must focus on longer term goals; short-term objectives must be developed with reference to longterm goals.
2-The goal of any explicit training in pronunciation should be to bring learners gradually from controlled, cognitively based performance to automatic, skill-based performance.
3-Teaching should aim toward gradually reducing the amount of native language influence on segmental, voice-setting, and prosodic features but should not necessarily seek to eradicate totally the influence of the native language on the speaker’s pronunciation in the second language.

4-Pronunciation ought to be taught as an integral part of oral language use, as part of the means for creating both referential and interfactional meaning, not merely as an aspect of the oral production of words and sentences.

5-Pronunciation forms a natural link to other aspects of language use, such as listening, vocabulary, and grammar; ways of highlighting this interdependence in teaching need to be explored.
This article was a reexamination of the status of pronunciation in language teaching, the traditional phonemic –based view is contrasted with a broader discoursed-based one.

The article discussed that in older methods such as audiolingualism ,pronunciation has been identified with accurate production of isolated sounds or words, and this view is reflected in more contemporary methods such as the Silent Way. The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis regards pronunciation as central

to second language proficiency, but it likewise largely restricts the domain of pronunciation to the segmental level. However later on the goals of language teaching have changed under the impact of communicative views of language and interactive theories of language learning.

This article presented an overview of the nature of pronunciation and its role in spoken language interaction and then by considering issues in the learning of pronunciation and drawing implications for language teaching.Finally some useful

recommendations regarding pronunciation and its place in second language were presented.It seems that the article was successful in reaching it aim and presented a good review on the topic area of pronunciation, the factors that affect it and ,its importance and impact in different methods were demonstrated.