This pronunciation manual for the study of English as a foreign/second language can be used with beginning as well as intermediate or advanced students. The text is organized in three parts or cycles. Part One is an introduction to selected features of pitch and stress and an inventory of the vowels and consonants, with contextual illustrations of…

Divides American (Midwestern) sounds into 10 categories, and describes their pronunciation on the basis of Daniel Jones'"English Pronuncing Dictionary." Also describes American peculiarities of intonation, rhythm and nasalization. A list of words differing in pronunciation from British is added. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

A study investigated requests as speech acts in "Zulu English," the English of Zulu first-language speakers, seeking to explain miscommunication in interactions between Zulu- and English-speakers by pointing to pragmatic transfer as one possible cause. Data were collected by means of a series of discourse completion tests in Zulu, Zulu…

Since 1971 the approach adopted in the teaching of English phonetics in Denmark has been a contrastive one. In this paper it is argued that although the original contrastive hypothesis (Lado 1957) has to be modified and weakened, a contrastive approach is highly useful in learning and teaching the pronunciation of a foreign language. Selected…

Describes processes of facilitation involved in exolingual conversation (interactions between persons who are dynamically adjusting their respective linguistic performances) between foreign language learners and native speakers, concluding that such behavior is dynamic and creative, and incapable of being described and defined within predetermined…

This paper discusses an ongoing experiment in teaching the communicative values of intonation to second-year students in an English department at a French university. The communication needs of the learners are described in terms of academic activities (e.g., formal discussion) and social contact. A basic three-term structure -- opening,…

A method for teaching French oral reading is presented. Prior to the actual oral reading, the student should: (1) read the text attentively for meaning and in order to decide on the appropriate tone; (2) determine the rhythm appropriate to the text; (3) indicate, by means of arrows, the general intonational curve; (4) indicate the "liaisons" to be…

Discusses the importance of all forms of nonverbal communication in the teaching of foreign languages, including body language, paralinguistics, cross cultural understanding, and visual aids in teaching. (AM)

Describes the University of Delaware's drama-based approach to enhancing the intelligibility of international teaching assistants (ITA). This training addresses the segmental and suprasegmental features of ITA pronunciation within the context of cultural, pedagogical, and linguistic factors unique to the university classroom environment, and…

A discussion of points raised by Dell Hymes in his article "On Communicative Competence" leads to a proposal for a clearer and more comprehensive theory of communicative competence based on two models, a matrix of discourse analysis and a model of communication interaction. Pedagogical implications of the theory are considered, including the…

The goal of this study is to discover the phonetic difficulties encountered in the acquisition of French as a second language by English-speaking children. The children are studying French in a total immersion situation without benefit of structural exercises or special French language laboratory classes. Of particular interest here is the extent…

This is a contrastive analysis of British English, American English and Hungarian sentence prosody. The first part is an introduction stating the study's objective, scope and data, and briefly surveying the related literature. It outlines the study's view of prosodic features and its principles of comparison and prediction. Part Two inventories…

It is argued that knowledge about the testing of intonation in English as a foreign language is inadequate; the major problems are outlined and tentative suggestions are given. The basic problem is that the traditional foreign language teacher's conception of intonation is limited. A three-part definition of intonation is favored, with suggestions…

This paper compares the tone systems of Vietnamese and English, with emphasis on the teaching of English as a second language. Rising, level, high, low, and falling tones are identified for English. Vietnamese has all of these except the last. While in Vietnamese, tones are predictable in the sense that tones and words go together, English tones…

This paper argues that context is an important factor to be considered in linguistic analysis. Context is defined as the aggregate of linguistic, situational, social and cultural variables that surround linguistic units such as texts, discourses, utterances, words, morphemes, phonemes, sounds, and distinctive features. A "textual…