Phonological System of Standard British English Atula Ahuja
English the ‘language of survival and growth in the competitive world’. The main varieties of English have been classified according to their traditional historical and sociolinguistic bases. This presentation gives a description of the phonological system of British English and compares it to that of standard American English.
Phnotactics The linguistic term for possible phoneme combinations
Teachers who are awere of the demands of learning English for their ELLs and the specific linguistic needs based on students primary language are more effective during second langauge instruction.
Phonological System of Standard British English Atula Ahuja
English the ‘language of survival and growth in the competitive world’. The main varieties of English have been classified according to their traditional historical and sociolinguistic bases. This presentation gives a description of the phonological system of British English and compares it to that of standard American English.
Phnotactics The linguistic term for possible phoneme combinations
Teachers who are awere of the demands of learning English for their ELLs and the specific linguistic needs based on students primary language are more effective during second langauge instruction.
This is my 1st semester assignment on "Pronunciation" topic. This assignment will help the reader to understand how to pronounce English phonemes correctly. International Phonetic Alphabet is the tool for English students to practice their pronunciation.
1. Differences between NAE
and British English
There are a number of noticeable diferences
between estándar Shouthern British and estándar
NAE pronunciation:
-Phonemic pronunciation.
-Allophonic variation.
-Pronunciation of common words.
-Word stress.
2. Differences in phonemic inventories
• Differences in the consonant inventories
• One minor difference between consonant inventories
of NAE and British English are:
• NAE still have the voiceless /hw/ distinct from /w/.
(e.g. in words such as what, which, and whether)
• This /hw/ sound is also still common in Scottish
standard.
3. Differences in phonemic inventories
• Differences in the vowel inventories
• The phonemic differences between NAE and British
English vowel inventories are considerably greater
than the differences in their consonant inventories.
5. Differences in allophonic variation
• Differences in vowel production
• The differences in allophonic variation between British English
and NAE are much more extensive than the differences in their
phonemic inventories.
6. Differences in allophonic variation
• Differences in consonant production
• The pronunciation of /r/. In prevocalic position (e.g.
red, rice, row), the British /r/ is produced farther
forward in the mouth than NAE /r/.
• In postvocalic position, NAE speakers produce a
darker version of initial or medial /r/.
8. Different pronuntiations of common
words
• Words spelled with a: are pronounced with the
vowel /ɑ :/ in British English but with / æ / in NAE:
• Ask
• Dance
• Answer
• branch
9. Different pronunciations of common
words
• Words with syllable–initial alveolar consonants
• Many words with syllable-initial alveolar consonant
/t,d,n/ and now less frequently /l,s,z/ before a / ʊ w/
sound spelled /ʊ, ew or eʊ/.
10. Different pronuntiation of common
words
• Words with /ʊ/ spellings following alveolar
consonants
• Some speakers of British English have tendency to
pronounce /y/ in certain words with /ʊ/ spellings.
11. Different pronunciations of common
words
• Words spelled with er
• British English er is pronounced /ar/ but in NAE / ɜ : / ej:
• Clerk
• Derby
• keer
12. Different pronuntiation of common
words
• Words ending in –ile
• Words that end in –ile tend to be pronounced (/ail/ in British
English and /ə l/ in NAE) ej:
• Hostile, fertile,docile.
13. Differences in word stress
• There are also numerous words in British
English in which the primary differerence in
pronunciation can be traced to differences in
word stress.
14. Differences in word strees
• Verbs ending in –ate
• In many two syllable verbs ending in –ate NAE, tends
to stress the root syllable and British English the
suffix
15. Differences in word stress
• Words of french origin
• In this case NAE tends to mirror the french syllable-
final stress pattern, and British English anglicizes
these words with stress on the first syllable.
16. Differences in word stress
• There are also several types of three or four words
in which stress falls on the second syllable in NAE
but on the first syllable in British English
17. Differencess in word stress
• Secondary stress differences in words ending in –ily.
• There are many five-syllable words ending in –ily for which
British English gives primary stress to the first syllable whereas
NAE gives primary stress to the third syllable.
19. Differences in word stress
• Words ending in –day e.g: days of the week this
syllable is unestressed and has reduced vowel in
British English variety, however, it has a full vowel
and is stressed in NAE.
20. Differences in word stress
• Place names ending in –aster/-ester
• Place names ending in –aster/-ester have a different pattern in
NAE and British English, since the latter variety gives less
stress to penultimate syllable.
23. Southern Dialects
• Pronunciation
• Few generalizations can be made about Southern
pronunciation as there is great variation between the
regions of the South between older and younger
people, and between people of different ethnic
backgrounds.
24. Southern Dialects
• Newer Southern American English
The following phenomena are relatively widespread in
Newer SAE, though the extent of these features varies
across regions and between rural and urban areas. The
older the speaker, the less likely he or she is to display
these features.
25. Southern Dialects
• The merger of /e/and /ɪ / before nasal consonants.
• Lax and tense vowels often neutralize before /l/ .
• The diphthong / aɪ / becomes monophthongized to
/ɑ :/.
• Others monophthongized / aɪ / in all contexts.
• In some regions of the South, there is a merger
of /ɔ :r/ and /ɑ :r/.
26. Southern Dialects
• Grammar of Newer Southern American
English
• Use of the contraction y’all as the second person plural
pronoun.
• When addressing a group, y’all is general, e.g “I know y’all”,
and it used to address the group as a whole, whereas “all
y’all” is used to emphasize specificity of each and every
member of the group, e.g “I know all y’all”.
e.g: “I’ve got y’all’s assignments here”.
27. Southern Dialects
• In rural Southern Appalachia an “n” is added to
pronounce indicating “one”; “his’n: “his one”, “her’n:
“her one”, “yor’n”: “your one”. Another example is
“yemses”. It may be susstituted for the 2nd person
plural possessive yours.
e.g: “that book is yemses”.
• Use of done as an auxiliary verb between the subject
and verb in sentences conveying the past tense. e.g:
“I done told you before”.
28. Southern Dialects
• Vocabulary
• Use of over yonder in place of “over there” or “in or
at that indicated place”, especially to refer to a
particularly different spot, such as in “the house over
yonder”.