This study investigates the perception of the three Mandarin high vowels /i, u, y/ after dental, retroflex, and palatal fricatives and affricates (/s/-/[voiceless alveolar affricate]/-/[voiceless alveolar affricate][superscript voiceless glottal fricative]/; /[voiceless retroflex sibilant fricative]/-/[voiceless alveolar affricate]/-/[voiceless…

Within the field of linguistics, whether considering language contact situations (Weinreich, 1979) or foreign language education (Lado, 1957), the topic of language transfer, especially as it relates to pronunciation, has always been an item of particular interest. While research on such transfer has mostly focused on various phenomena of the L1…

This research is a multi-aspect exploratory investigation of Russian English institutional written discourse and highlights its features demonstrated by Russian native learners, tertiary students of English for the tourism and hospitality industry. The author approaches the theme from the perspectives of World Englishes and the pedagogical agenda.…

Examination of the effect of second-language experience on the production of second-language vowels found that experienced native-speaking German learners of English did not pronounce similar English vowels more intelligibly than inexperienced learners, but experienced speakers produced a dissimilar English vowel better than inexperienced…

Analyzes the physiological, acoustic, and auditory reasons for errors in the pronunciation of French nasal vowels by students, and suggests techniques for overcoming the difficulties identified. (AM)

Presents results of a study that sought to test the pronunciation problems of a large number of American students in a beginning college-level French course. Learner difficulties over a 15-week period were used to create a hierarchy of minimal contrasts representing major, secondary, and minor problems for the students in learning French sounds.…

Four papers report on phonetic differences between Finnish and English, with pedagogical implications for teaching English as a second language. "The English /ptk/-/bdg/ Distinction: Data and Discussion" by Kari Suomi is a survey of recent work on the phonetic parameters of the fortis/lenis distinction. The distinction…

This report deals with sporadic observations on the glottal stop in the English spoken by Finns. The data were collected in connection with two separate studies. An attempt is made to give a description of the factors which may explain the occurrence of glottalization and to outline the method by which the phenomenon will be approached in greater…

This booklet, part of a course for teaching English to adult Francophones, is designed to assist the student in learning to produce the "h" sound in English and to eliminate the "intrusive h," replacing it with the glottal stop. Sections one and two describe the interlanguage situation for each case, present techniques to guide the student's…

This booklet, part of a course for teaching English to adult Francophones, is designed to assist the student in learning to produce the "th" sound in English. The voiceless and voiced "th" sounds are described, articulation techniques for both sounds are presented, and listening discrimination and production exercises are provided. A special…

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…

Cross-cultural training for teachers of English to Navajo children is necessary because many concepts are not shared by both English and Navajo cultures. In addition, phonological, grammatical, and structural features constitute areas of wide divergence between the two languages. Similar letters and combinations of letters vary in placement and…

This text is designed for native speakers of American English who have a good command of Spanish and want to acquire a knowledge of Portuguese. The manual focuses on features of Portuguese pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary that have similar but not always identical counterparts in Spanish. Correspondences which often create interference for…

This paper lays out techniques for investing different types of phonation from acoustic data. Nearly all the world's languages distinguish between voiced and voiceless phonation. Many languages use other phonation types, such as the breathy voice--also described as speaking while sighing. Another kind of voice quality, one frequently found in…

This set of color-coded, phonetic diagrams of French vowels, semivowels, and consonants is intended to help students experiencing difficulty in mastering particular phonological features of the language and for use as an audiovisual aid in phonetics classes. Each diagram provides a color-contrasting description of the French sound and the…