South Africa is a country characterised by great linguistic diversity. Large indigenous languages, such as isiZulu and isiXhosa, are spoken by many millions of people, as well as the languages with European roots, such as Afrikaans and English, which are spoken by several millions and used by many more in daily life. This situation provides a…

This engaging text clearly presents essential concepts that teachers need to guide their students toward clearly intelligible pronunciation and more effective communication skills. Based on a sound theoretical background, the book presents practical, imaginative ways to teach and practice pronunciation that go beyond simple "Repeat after…

Murphy provides a comprehensive overview of teaching pronunciation with a focus on thought groups and prominence. Understanding thought groups, or how speakers use clusters of words to best fit the communicative situation, is essential for clearer understanding of most components of English pronunciation that are teachable in ESL/EFL classrooms.…

This book offers an easy-to-use, effective approach to teaching reading accuracy and fluency to students of all ages, using a pyramid format. Reading pyramids begin with one word, and build into phrases and sentences of gradually increasing complexity. As the student moves from the pinnacle to the base of each pyramid, the phrase or sentence…

This book provides tools to enhance upper-level spelling and vocabulary instruction, and features more than 120 reproducible sorting activities and games. It offers suggestions for helping students build mastery of vowel patterns, syllable structure, syllable stress, consonant and vowel alternations, compound words, prefixes, suffixes, and word…

Conditions favoring the development of the three major types of vowel-harmony systems: horizontal, palatal, and labial are examined in terms of correlations between sonority, contiguity, or phonetic distance on the one hand and relative assimilability of vowels on the other. Broadly speaking, the less sonorous, the more contiguous, and the closer…

The effects of syllable timing and syllable sequence type on vowel sandhi in Spanish are investigated in this paper. It is argued that structuralist and generative treatments of vowel sandhi, which are characterized by generalizations about vowel "shortening" and dropping and glide formation, are inadequate because they focus exclusively…

A systematic analysis of the distribution of Nancowry phonological and morphological elements at word level is presented. Included is a systematically transcribed vocabulary which is ordered according to the word roots. In the section devoted to word phonology, included topics are syllabic structure, stress placement, vowel length and nasality,…

This book is directed at the pre-service undergraduate and the in-service graduate student who must possess basic knowledge of how the orthography of American English is structured while pursuing the requisite skills for teaching competence in reading. Chapter one is a brief introduction. Chapter two, "Phonetics, Phonemics, and Phonics," considers…

This collection of papers considers processes involved in language change and issues of how they can be modeled and studied. After "Introduction" (Raymond Hickey), there are 15 papers in 6 parts. Part 1, "The Phenomenon of Language Change," includes: (1) "On Change in 'E-language'" (Peter Matthews); and (2)…

Intended to answer questions from practicing teachers, concerned parents, and college students about the sounds and spelling patterns of English, this book presents an overview of the structure of written words that shows readers how the sounds of English are paired with their spelling patterns. The book delineates the task of decoding written…

An analysis of the Dinka (Sudan) vowel system consists of: (1) an overview of Dinka phonological structure, including the phonological sentence, the phonological word, the syllable, and the consonantal and vocalic features of the sound system; (2) an examination of breathy versus nonbreathy vowels, including a review of previous research using a…

Presenting the positive role phonics can play in a student's ability to learn to read, this book emphasizes that phonics can be extremely beneficial when it is integrated as a part of a balanced reading program. Based on the author's real-world experience, the book covers the entire range of practical phonics applications for the elementary…

This treatise on the theoretical and historical foundations of distinctive feature theory traces the evolution of the distinctive features concept in the context of related notions current in linguistic theory, discusses the evolution of individual distinctive features, and criticizes certain acoustic and perceptual correlates attributed to these…

This primer is the first in a series of four trial primers intended to teach the speakers of the Murrinh-patha language to read and write in their mother tongue. The approach and method of this primer is eclectic, based on principles developed by Dr. Sarah Gudschinsky. It has been designed to teach the vowels…