ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION

ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION [ gl prnnsen]

Facolt? di Lettere e Filosofia Corsi di Laurea in Filosofia, Lettere, Storia

A.A. 2010-2011 Frederika GEBHARDT

INDEX

UNIT 1 PHONETIC SYMBOLS AND SOUNDS IPA symbols ? vowels, dipthongs, consonants

UNIT 2 ENGLISH SPELLING AND SOUNDS Difficult vowel and consonant combinations -s and ?ed suffix pronunciation Homographs, homophones, silent letters

UNIT 3

STRESS PATTERNS IN WORDS Syllable division, primary stress patterns in prefix and suffix endings of nouns, verbs, adjectives, compound nouns and adjectives

UNIT 4 STRESS PATTERNS IN PHRASES Weak stress in function words, auxiliary and modal auxiliary verbs

UNIT 5

ENGLISH WORDS USED IN ITALIAN Pronunciation of words commonly used in Italian

English words translated into Italian, false anglicisms

ANSWER KEY TO EXERCISES

p.3 p.9 p.16 p.22 p.26 p.28

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INTRODUCTION The text follows the contents of G. Ludbrook: English Pronunciation. CD (Edizioni Erickson) Unlike Italian, English is not a phonetic language which is the principle reason why it is difficult to write and pronounce English words. Although there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, the sounds that may be produced are almost double that number. This text is a short introduction to the phonetic transcription of English phonemes (vowel and consonant sounds) to increase the Italian students understanding of English pronunciation, improve speech and reading, and help students consult a dictionary. The phonemic transcriptions in dictionaries are based on the standard English accent known as ,,Received Pronunciation (RP for short) and other regional and international English accents will not be considered here. The text will focus particularly on sounds that are difficult to pronounce for Italian students and those that may be easily confused.

Another common problem is the stress placed on the pronunciation of words and phrases, as English is stress-timed, unlike Italian which is syllable-timed. Attention is paid to strong and weak stress in words and phrases, taking into consideration function words, contracted forms, compound nouns and adjectives, prefixes and suffixes. The problem of English spelling is explored through a brief study of homophones, homographs and silent letters.

In conclusion, there is a brief section on English words used in Italian that are often mispronounced, and false anglicisms (words used by Italians that do not exist in English).

Frederika Gebhardt

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UNIT 1 PHONETIC SYMBOLS AND SOUNDS

International phonetic alphabet symbols

Vowels

//

pin, English, business

/e/

bed, head, bury, exit

/?/

cat, bag, apple, black

//

the, a, woman, banana

//

look, put, could, cushion

//

clock, what, because

// // // // // /u/

cut, come, mother girl, burn, word, heard car, art, heart, half or, board, door, small sea, bee, people, receive too, blue, fruit, fool

Dipthongs

/e/ // // //

take, pay, wait, ballet five, sigh, height, buy noise, boy, lawyer no, road, sew, broken

Consonants

/p/

play, stop, speak, power

/b/

bad, baby, big, object

/t/

ten, later, little, pot

/d/

day, advice, bed

/k/

character, quick, taxi

/g/

got, exam, ignore, finger

/f/

food, laugh, telephone

/v/

vain, over, Stephen

//

thin, earth, method, both

/?/

they, father, breathe, with

/s/

small, since, scene, psalm

/z/

zoo, goes, xenophobe

//

shell, nation, machine

// // /e/ //

round, renown, doubt here, deer, dear, fierce care, air, mayor, prayer poor, insure, tour, moor

// /h/ /m/ /n/ // /t/ /d/ /l/ /r/ /j/ /w/

genre, measure, vision hot, hair, whole, whose moon, lamp, lamb can, snow, pneumonia string, singer, tongue chair, match, future just, general, age, soldier look, small, bottle, isle real, train, wrong, write yes, Europe, university window, twin, quick, why

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Exercise 1 Match the phonetic transcriptions with the words.

1. /t/

a. later

2. /ht/

b. joke

3. /k/

c. heart

4. /wk/

d. there

5. /let/

e. doubt

6. /bt/

f. work

7. /pul/

g. shut

8. /dt/

h. think

9. /dk/

i. pool

10. /?e/

j. bought

Exercise 2 Listen to the following words and circle the sound that you hear.

1. /?/

//

2. /?/

/e/

3. //

//

4. //

//

5. //

//

6. /e/ 7. // 8. // 9. // 10. //

// /u/ /e/ /?/ //

Exercise 3 Complete the transcriptions with one of the following dipthongs:

/e/ // // // //

// /e/ //

1. make /m _ _ k/ 2. sure / _ _/ 3. bear /b _ _/ 4. island /- - lnd/ 5. employ /mpl _ _/

6. hear 7. town 8. home 9. sight 10. know

/h _ _/ /t _ _ n/ /h _ _ m/ /s _ _ t/ /n _ _ /

Exercise 4 Write out the correct spelling of these place names.

1. /k?ntbr/

2. /grent/ 3. /lest/ 4. /ednbr/ 5. /wrk/

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