The document discusses several factors that affect pronunciation acquisition for English language learners, including amount of exposure, phonetic ability, attitude and identity, motivation, and age. Younger learners tend to adopt new accents more readily than adults. Learners with positive attitudes and integrative motivation acquire more accurate pronunciation. Some learners are more concerned about pronunciation and seek feedback, while others do not care as much about improving. Motivation and a concern for good pronunciation can be developed by emphasizing communication over native-like speech.

1. Amount of exposure: being in a n English-speaking environment will provide a lot of exposure and this exposure and interaction will lead to better pronunciation. How the L responds to the opportunities to listen to and use English also affects his learning. Phonetic ability : ‘ aptitude for oral mimicry’, ‘ phonetic coding ability’ ‘ auditory discrimination ability’ all refer to the ability of hearing and producing sounds, stress and intonation. Attitude and identity: ‘ sense of identity’ and ‘group affiliation’ affect the acquisition of pronunciation. Adopting and imitating the way the way our partners speak is a way of showing friendly feelings or attitudes. It is minimising differences and maximising similarities. Age is an important factor about such attitudes. Young children adopt the accents and styles more readily than the adults. Another factor is the length of time that will be spent in the new society. The longer one has to stay there the more likely it is to adopt that society’s pronunciation. The personal commitments to one’s own society, and the willingness to be identified with the members of that society are revcealed in the way one chooses to speak.

2. While learning a foreign language, students who have positive attitudes acquire more accurate pronunciation and this willingness is called ‘integrative motivation’. Motivation and concern for good pronunciation: Some learners are more concerned about their pronunciation and demand T feedback to improve their pronunciation. Another sign of this concern is the reluctance of speaking till one gets better. The desire to do well is called ‘achievement motivation’. Unlike those pewople, some others don’t care about their pronunciation and are unlikely to improve themselves. When they are not aware of the difficulty, irritation or misunderstandings their wrong pronunciation causes, they don’t bother themselves for better pronunciation. Conclusion There are some factors such as age or phonetic ability we cannot change for a good pronunciation teaching. However, motivation and a concern for good pronunciation may be created in the following ways:

3. a. Persuading students of the importance of good pronunciation for comfortable and effective communication b. Emphasizing the goal of intelligible speech rather than native like pronunciation c. Demonstrating a concern for our students’ pronunciation and their progress ASPECTS OF PRONUNCIATION Sounds : vowels and consonants. They perform different functions in the syllable. There is always at least one vowel in a syllable and it might be surrounded by some consonants. Combinations of sounds: sounds occurring in groups. When there are consonants together within a word, we call it consonant cluster. Linkage of sounds: while speaking, we move from word to word smoothly without pauses. Generally the final consonant is linked to the initial vowel.

4. Stress Word stress: one of the syllables are said more loudly holding the vowel a little longer and pronouncing the consonant more clearly. Rhythm : English speech has some strong and weak beats giving a feeling that it is a pece of music with a rhythm. Genereally strong beats are on the content words while the weak beats fall on function words. Weak forms: the word with one syllable may have different pronunciations depending on stressed or unstressed situations within a sentence. The unstressed syllables mostly have the vowel / ə/ This vowel is often prodyuced when people hesiate during speech. The contracted forms lose their vowels and so, they have weak stress. Sentence stress: In speech some words gain more prominence while others gain less prominence. This aspect is called sentence stress.

5. Intonation: In speech the voice goes up or down aor even jump to create melody. This is intonation. Basically we have rising or falling intonation. Stress and intonation work together to send a precise message to the listener. What can we achieve with intonation? - different meanings; for example, high and wavering pitch putting the information in the foreground lower pitch than normal putting the information in the background increasing the pitch beginning the conversation lowering the pitch ending the conversation - different emotions, involvement and empathy; for example, the sentence “What’s going on?” may show different emotions depending on intonation.

6. Exaggarated intonation (high pitch-large pitch leaps) surprised or frightened Flat intonation not concerned - different functions; for example, the word “well” may perform different functions such as aggrement, doubt, disagreement. - the certainty in our speech or our expectations about the response; for example, in the sentence “You’re okay, aren’t you?” falling intonation to confirm what we believe to be the case rising intonation to show our uncertainty

7. Speaking with a foreign accent Languages have different varieties and accents depending on their origins, societies even regions even sexes. So, it becomes an identity for a person. Similarly, a foreign accent indicates that the person does not belong to that language society. It may have some advantages: any mispronunciation may be tolerated without misunderstandings. Sometimes too perfect pronunciation of a foreigner may even be treated with scorn. This may be considered as an enncroach to the private territory. Still, some other people admire any native like pronunciation of foreigners. The most common attitude is that a foreign accent is the learner’s problem. Such attitudes may ruin self-confidence. It is not a real problem unless it spoils the communication or the speech is unintelligible.