C. Meyer
Office: Wheatley 6-68
Office Phone: 287-6748 (with voice mail)
To get this syllabus on line, go to: www.cs.umb.edu/~meyer/courses/apling627.html
E-Mail: meyer [at] cs [dot] umb [dot] edu
Office hours by appointment only: T: 1:30-3:30 and Th: 1:30-3:30 [please call Michele Ladanyi at 617-2387-5760 to make an appointment]
 

Required Books (available in the bookstore):

Ashby and Maidment, Introducing Phonetic Science
Celce-Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin, Teaching Pronunciation

The course has three primary goals: (1) to familiarize you with the sound system of English and other languages; (2) to enable you to use this knowledge to better teach pronunciation to students learning English as an additional language; and (3) to investigate how technology can facilitate the study and teaching of speech sounds. To accomplish these goals, we will study the consonants and vowels of English and other languages, practice doing phonetic transcriptions, survey some phonological processes, investigate intonation and stress, do some accoustical analyses, survey the sounds of the major dialects of English, and discuss the differences between speech and writing. Throughout our discussion of these topics, we will explore how the theoretical principles we are studying can be applied in the ESL/bilingual/foreign language classroom.

          (1) Regular attendance

(2) Class participation

(3) Two transcription exercises (1/3 of final grade).

(4) One in-class exam that will be given towards the middle of the semester and cover phonetics, phonology, and intonation (topics covered in the first part of the course). There will not be a final exam. (1/3 of final grade)

(5) A paper (10-15 double-spaced typed pages) that (a) contains an analysis of the speech of a non-native speaker of English (or a group of non-native speakers), and that (b) uses the results of this analysis to determine the most effective pedagogical strategy for teaching the individual(s) (1/3 of final grade).

CBG = Celce-Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin, Teaching Pronunciation

AM = Ashby and Maidment, Introducing Phonetic Science

Readings that are underlined and highlighted can be found by clicking on the article title

All other readings are on e-reserve (to obtain an article on e-reserve, go here and then click 'accept' after typing in the course password, which I will give you in class)

An archive of lectures and handouts can be found here

Introduction

Jan. 29: Discussion of course policies and goals; introduction to the study of speech sounds.

Overview of the Study of Sound Systems

Feb. 5: "Introduction to Speech," AM, pp. 1-16; CBG, "The History and Scope of Pronunciation Teaching," pp. 2-11, and "Research on the Teaching and Acquisition of Pronunciation Skills," pp. 14-29; "International Phonetic Association"; Introduction to software that can be used to work with speech.

English Consonants

Feb. 12: "Voice," AM, pp. 21-30; "Place of Articulation," AM, pp. 33-46; "Manner of Articulation," AM, pp. 51-63; CBG, "The Consonant System," pp. 37-89; "Phonetics: The Sounds of American English".

English Vowels

Feb. 19: "Vowels," AM, pp. 69-83; CBG, "The Vowel System," pp. 93-129.

Consonants and Vowels in the Languages of the World

Feb. 26: "Airstream Mechanisms," AM, pp. 103-114; UCLA Phonetics Lab, "Index of Sounds from Many Languages"; Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, downloads of audio files for languages described in the handbook [note: we'll listen to some of these files in class]

Phonological Processes

March 4: "Basic Phonological Concepts," AM, pp. 135-148; CBG, "Adjustments in Connected Speech," pp. 157-172; Wolfram and Johnson, "Phonology and Second Language Acquisition" (on e-reserve); phonetic transcription exercise due.

 March 11: Phonological Processes (cont.)

March 18: No class (spring break)

Acoustic Phonetics

March 25: Ladefoged, "Acoustic Phonetics" (on e-reserve); Linguistics, University of Lund Sweden, "Speech Analysis Tutorial"; Center for Spoken Language Understanding, "Spectogram Reading". 

April 1: In-class exam.

Intonation: Word Stress, Sentence Stress, and Relationship to Grammar

April 8: "Suprasegmentals, AM, pp. 153-172; CBG, "Stress, Rhythm," pp. 131-157 and "Prominence and Intonation in Discourse," pp. 175-218.; Greenbaum and Quirk, "Theme, Focus, and Information Processing" (on e-reserve).

Speaking and Listening

April 15: CBG, "The Sound System and Listening," pp. 222-244, and "The Sound System and Grammar," pp. 247-267; "Speaker and Hearer," AM, pp. 177-187. 

English Dialects

April 22: In-class viewing of "American Tongues"; Laferriere, "Ethnicity in Phonological Variation and Change" (on e-reserve); Irwin and Nagy, "Bostonians /r/ Speaking: A Quantitative Look at (R) in Boston"; William Labov, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg, "A National Map of the Regional Dialects of American English"; "Linguistic Profiling: The Sound of Your Voice may Determine if You Get that Apartment or not"; "Linguistic Profiling" [categories explained here];  prosodic transcription exercise due.

Speech and Writing

April 29: Biber, "Textual Dimensions and Relations" (on e-reserve); Crystal and Davy, "The Language of Conversation" (on e-reserve); and CBG, "The Sound System and Orthography," pp. 269-286.

Teaching Pronunciation

May 6: CBG, "New Directions in the Teaching of Pronunciation," pp. 290-316; "Pronunciation in the Language Curriculum," pp. 319-338; and "Testing and Evaluation," pp. 341-359;  "The Speech Accent Archive"; Power, "English Language Learning and Teaching"

Teaching Pronunciation with Technology

May 13: ; Deborah Healey, "An Overview of Pronunciation Software"; Protea Software, "Connected Speech"; Dillon, "Resources for Studying Spoken English"; Sunburst Media, "Pronunciation Web Resources"; "Cutting Edge CALL Demos"; paper due.
 

THIS SYLLABUS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT ANY TIME

This is an ambitious syllabus. If we fall behind, some of the later topics may not be discussed in as much detail as the earlier topics.