The Intonation of American English

The Intonation of American English PDF

Author: Kenneth Lee Pike

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 1979

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This study explains the structure of the English intonation system in relation to the structural systems of stress, pause, and rhythm.

Pronouncing American English

Pronouncing American English PDF

Author: Gertrude F. Orion

Publisher: Newbury House

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A pronunciation guide for students of English as a second language, concentrating on sounds, stress and intonation.

Mastering the American Accent with Online Audio

Mastering the American Accent with Online Audio PDF

Author: Lisa Mojsin

Publisher: Barrons Educational Services

Published: 2016-09-15

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1438008104

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Mastering the American Accent is an easy-to-follow approach for reducing the accent of non-native speakers of English. Well-sequenced lessons in the book correspond over eight hours of audio files covering the entire text. The audio program provides clear models (both male and female) to help coach a standard American accent. The program is designed to help users speak Standard American English with clarity, confidence, and accuracy. The many exercises in the book concentrate on topics such as vowel sounds, problematic consonants such as V, W, TH, the American R and T and others. Correct lip and tongue positions for all sounds are discussed in detail. Beyond the production of sounds, the program provides detailed instruction in prosodic elements such as syllable stress, emphasis, intonation, linking words for smoother speech flow, common word contractions, and much more. Additional topics that often confuse ESL students are also discussed and explained. They include distinguishing between casual and formal speech, homophones (e.g., they're and there), recognizing words with silent letters (e.g., comb, receipt), and avoiding embarrassing pronunciation mistakes, such as mixing up "pull" and "pool." Students are familiarized with many irregular English spelling rules and exceptions, and are shown how such irregularities can contribute to pronunciation errors. A native language guide references problematic accent issues for 13 different language backgrounds. Publisher's Note: Products purchased from Third Party sellers are not guaranteed by the publisher for quality, authenticity, or access to any online entitlements included with the product.

English Speech Rhythm

English Speech Rhythm PDF

Author: Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1993-01-01

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 9027250375

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This monograph reconsiders the question of speech isochrony, the regular recurrence of (stressed) syllables in time, from an empirical point of view. It proposes a methodology for discovering isochrony auditorily in speech and for verifying it instrumentally in the acoustic laboratory. In a small-scale study of an English conversational extract, the gestalt-like rhythmic structures which isochrony creates are shown to have a hierarchical organization. Then in a large-scale study of a corpus of British and American radio phone-in programs and family table conversations, the function of speech rhythm at turn transitions is investigated. It is argued that speech rhythm serves as a metric for the timing of turn transitions in casual English conversation. The articular rhythmic configuration of a transition can be said to contextualize the next turn as, generally speaking, affiliative or disaffiliative with the prior turn. The empirical investigation suggests that speech rhythm patterns at turn transitions in everyday English conversation are not random occurrences or the result of a social-psychological adaptation process but are contextualization cues which figure systematically in the creation and interpretation of linguistic meaning in communication.