This document discusses discourse analysis and phonology. It summarizes key aspects of pronunciation including segmenting sounds into phonemes, minimal word pairs, and how pronunciation can be affected by surrounding sounds. It also discusses the importance of teaching pronunciation by addressing segmental, voice-setting, and prosodic features. Additional topics covered include rhythm, word stress and prominence, intonational units, tone units, tones and their meaning related to grammar, attitude, and interaction, and how pitch varies across speakers in a conversation.

1. Discourse Analysis and Phonology
Discourse Analysis
Pamela Bermeo Maurat
Learning Activity 1.4

2. Pronunciation
Segment the sounds of language into phonemes, which, when used in the
construction of words, produce meaningful contrast with other words.
Example :
Minimal pairs hot - hat
There can be considerable changes in
pronunciation of words followed one another in
speech.
Good evening' [gadi:vn~rj], and good morning'
[gabm~:nrg]. The Id/ of the form of good
becomes more like a /b/ when it precedes the
bilabial /m/ of
morning.
Consonants and vowels can be
affected by themselves or by the
rhythmic structures they occurs.

3. Importance of pronunciation
Pronunciation is an important aspect of discourse-
oriented language teaching when 3 components are
addressed:
1. Segmental features:
Teaching of general articulatory characteristics of
stretches of speech.
2. Voice-setting features: features of accent that result
from the characteristic disposition and use of the
articulatory organs by speakers of a particular
language, and which affects the production of all the
individual sounds
3. Prosodic features: stress and intonation

4. Rhythm
Alternation between strong
and weak beats in various
patterned recurrences
Rhythm has been considered an
important element in the teaching of
spoken English due to two main factors.
• There does seem to be rhythmically in
varying degrees in long stretches of
speech, especially considered deliveries
such as broadcast talks, fluent reading
aloud, speeches and monologues, as well
as some ordinary conversation.
• The concept of English as a stress-timed
language, deeply rooted in theoretical
and applied linguistics, has dominated
approaches to the teaching of rhythm

5. Word stress and prominence
Prominence: syllables which loom in the flow of talk, because the speaker has uttered them
with great intensity, duration or pitch variation compared with surrounding syllables
Difference between prominence and stress
• word stress appears in the citation forms of
the words (sometimes called their isolate
pronunciations).
• prominence given to syllables depends on
the choice of the speaker to make certain
words salient.
• Polysyllabic words may have one
prominence and secondary word stress.

6. The placing of prominence
1. It is not necessary by the speaker to make prominent items where can be
taken as understood.
2. The choice of the speaker in highlight words he consider relevant.
3. Not all the traditional statements of lexical words and grammar function can
be prominent. It depends by the elements of the discourse.
4. If a speaker makes a word prominent which would not normally be made
prominent, listeners seek motivation for the prominence as part of the
general desire of participants to find coherence in discourse.
5. English speakers have a tendency to make the last element of an utterance
prominent.

7. Intonational units
Divide speech into
small units with one
main nuclear
prominence
The unit may have
other non-nuclear
prominences
The nuclear
prominence is the last
in the unit. Those units
are called tone units
Tone units have pauses
after them and
correspond to clauses
Speaker decides how
to segment the units in
information to be
transmitted
The neutral unit of
information is a clause
with the last lexical
item

8. The speaker decides how
the information is
distributed, and highlight
them depending the
listener
Tone units are the basic
structure for the analysis
of talk
Paratone: short sequence
of units beginning with a
stressed peak, then
descending to the final
prominence to low pitch
Paratones are related to
topic, rather than
information structures
Turn-taking: knowing
when to start and finish a
turn in a conversation at
the end of syntactic units
It depends of some
factors: syntax, lexis, non-
verbal communication
and context

9. Tones and their meaning
Types of tones Grammatical approaches
Intonation for grammatical functions:
Questions
Sentence-tags
Subordinate clauses
The choice of using them depend entirely
on the speaker’s assessment of
knowledge between speaker and listener.

10. Tones and their meaning
Attitudinal approaches
The most view of intonation is
related to attitude and emotions.
Some intonations express
surprise or detachment
How people express attitudes and
emotions is a complex combination of
vocal cues, intonation, lexis, nonverbal
behavior and contextual factors. Such
matters may well be cultural universals
Interactive approaches
Fulfilling an interactive role in the
signaling of the “state of play” in
the discourse
The interpretation of tone choice
that seems most reliable and which
seems to make most sense in the
intonational system

11. Pitch across speakers
how speakers sometimes begin a new
topic by asking a question which begins
high in the speaker's pitch range, and
how this high pitch is echoed by the
hearer with high pitch at the beginning
of the answer.
This kind of 'termination' choice exercises
constraints on the listener as to what sort
of key will be used in the answer.