24.3465, Review: Phonetics; English: Paunovic & Cubrovic (2012)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-24-3465. Wed Sep 04 2013. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 24.3465, Review: Phonetics; English: Paunovic & Cubrovic (2012)

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Anja Wanner, U of Wisconsin Madison
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Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 13:09:16
From: J. Varden [varden at pr.email.ne.jp]
Subject: Exploring English Phonetics

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/23/23-3506.html

EDITOR: Tatjana  Paunović
EDITOR: Biljana  Čubrović
TITLE: Exploring English Phonetics
PUBLISHER: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
YEAR: 2012

REVIEWER: J. Kevin Varden, Meiji Gakuin University

SUMMARY

‘Exploring English Phonetics’, from Cambridge Scholars Publishing, is a
collection of sixteen papers arranged in two parts. Part I, Phoneme and
Beyond, contains eight papers focusing on ''the segmental and prosodic
properties of English'' (p. vii). This section covers a range of topics, from
segmental issues such as vowel and segmental quality, Voice Onset Time (VOT),
and reduced forms, to suprasegmental issues such as stress placement by
learners and intonation. Part II, Applied Phonetics and Beyond, presents both
practical and theoretical English as a Foreign Language (EFL) work while also
touching on research issues in EFL. The introduction and the closing list of
contributors and index round out the contents of the volume. A brief
description of each paper follows.

Part I

''Vowel frequencies in traditional Cockney and popular London speech'', by
Brian Mott, presents the vowel qualities of three older male speakers of
Cockney. The speakers read lists of words of the form /h-V-d/, where V is a
simple vowel. After reviewing the characteristics of the Cockney accent, Mott
compares his vowel formant values to previously published values for Received
Pronunciation (RP) speakers, and finds the following: the vowel in ‘kit’ was
found to be more fronted than the RP values; the vowel in ‘palm’ was found to
be slightly higher; the vowel in ‘strut’ similar in height to RP, despite
expectations to the contrary based on transcriptions in the literature; and
the vowel in ‘lot’ was slightly lower and more fronted than the RP equivalent,
again contrary to expectations. The paper is presumably an introduction to
both phonetic data and the target language of many of the studies in the
volume.

''Some controversies about /v/ in Serbian, transfer in English, and other
related issues'', by Maja Markovic and Bojana Jakovljevic, is the other paper
dealing with segmentals. The topic here is the debate surrounding the
labiodental ''fricative'' in Serbian, “the sound denoted by the IPA symbol
/v/” (p. 13). With an eye toward first language (L1) negative transfer for
Serbian learners of English, the authors give background information on both
the English and Serbian /v/, and then a detailed acoustic analysis of samples
extracted from extensive read corpora in both languages. In particular, they
note the need for Serbian learners to develop a strong distinction between
/f/, /v/ and /w/.

Bojana Jakovljevic's ''VOT transfer in the production of English stops by
Serbian native speakers'' deals with the pronunciation of two British English
and five Serbian native speakers (all female). The latter group were graduate
students who learned English as a second language (L2) during the 12 years
preceding the study. The author first provides baseline VOT measurements for
the speakers in both languages. This is followed by a detailed acoustic
analysis of the differences. Measures of transfer from Serbian to English are
then discussed, in particular, the strong transfer of Serbian pre-voicing for
the /b-d-g/ series.

''The evolution of a phonetic phenomenon: The case of Voice Onset Time in
Serbian intermediate EFL learners'', by Biljana Cubrovic, also discusses VOT
and L1 transfer. Results for four native Serbian speakers -- two female and
two male university freshman -- are given for both Serbian and Serbian
English. The author notes that the two male speakers demonstrate shorter VOTs
than the female speakers, tentatively attributing it to the overall lower
level of English of the males. The author also notes the expected traits of
longer VOTs for Serbian English than for Serbian, and an average increase in
VOT from labial to dental to velar stops for both sets of data.

''Pronunciation in connected speech: A survey of weak forms in a spoken corpus
of American English'', by Takehiko Makino, provides an extensive list of
reduced forms uncovered in The Ohio State University's Buckeye Corpus of
Conversational Speech, which contains speech of 40 Columbus, Ohio speakers. As
a starting point, Makino first introduces the 100 weak (reduced) forms listed
in Obendorfer (1998). To add to these forms, Makino searched the Buckeye
database with its accompanying software, looking for mismatches between the
phonetic transcription of utterances and their phonemic transcription. These
were taken as weak forms. He found, among others, another six weak forms of
the indefinite article ''a'' not on Obendorfer’s list. Findings for ''that''
and ''and'' testify to the wide range of pronunciations in the database: for
''that'', an additional eight strong (unreduced) forms and two weak forms not
found in Obendorfer occurred in the database 100 times or more; another 36
strong forms and 20 weak forms occurred 10 times or more, while the list of
strong and weak forms occurring less than 10 times takes up two-thirds a page
of print. As noted in the discussion, exactly what status the ''weak'' forms
found in the database should be given will require further principled
investigation into, among other things, the assimilation processes involved.

For the next paper, ''Tonic misplacement by Japanese learners of English'',
Isao Ueda and Hiroko Saito recorded 15 Japanese first-year university students
reading 15 test sentences containing interrogatives (e.g. ''which'') or
attributive adjectives (e.g. ''nice''). They were then asked to mark which
word should receive main prominence. If a student produced or marked main
stress on the correct lexical word, the item was counted as correct and if the
student marked or produced main stress on the (incorrect) target interrogative
or adjective, the item was marked incorrect. All other productions or markings
were excluded from analysis. The task was then repeated after one year's time.
Contrary to any expectations of a match between knowledge and production, for
both tests, all students displayed all possible matches/mismatches between
production and knowledge (both correct, only one correct, both incorrect).
Over the course of the two tests, students improved overall in terms of both
knowledge and production, but the authors note and discuss the fact that 86 of
122 items were incorrect in both tests. The authors conclude with a call for
formal instruction on tonic placement rather than reliance on audio-lingual
practice.

''Punch Line Paratone in English'', by Ken-Ichi Kadooka, discusses the (at
least subconsciously) well-known method of telling a joke: set up the punch
line, pause slightly, and then deliver it at a slightly lower pitch of voice.
Working within the framework of paratones, where high and low tones mark a
prosodic paragraph, Kadooka posits the punch line paratone as a slightly lower
variant of the ''normal'' low paratone: whereas pitch regularly falls over the
course of a paragraph to some target low tone marking the end of the
paragraph, when telling a joke, the punch line is uttered with a slightly
lower pitch to draw attention to its special status. This exaggerated lowered
pitch is most often preceded by a slight pause, further marking its
prominence. After providing a brief introduction to English jokes, Kadooka
shows how this punch line paratone is also used in Japanese story-joke
telling, providing many examples and pointing out the similarities and
differences between English and Japanese jokes.

In ''The sign character of intonation'', Vladimir Phillipov, covers the
history of the notion of intonation in both Eastern and Western traditions.
>From the work of Charles Bally (one of Saussure's students, evidently one of
the first to treat intonation as a critical element in understanding an
utterance), to Lehiste's ‘Suprasegmentals’ (Lehiste 1970), to Halliday's
‘Intonation and Grammar in British English’ (Halliday 1967), Phillipov covers
the development of intonational studies, in addition to detailing works and
trends which have downplayed or denied its existence. He ends by apparently
arguing for what is now a common theme in phonetic research: intonation is not
a suprasegmental phenomenon merely riding on the back of segments, but rather
is inextricably intertwined with all other elements of speech.

Part II of the volume focuses more on practical applications and
methodologies. Again, as in Part I, the papers range from fairly technical to
purely theoretical.

''The role of modernized prescriptivism in teaching pronunciation to EFL
university students'', by Tvrtko Prcic, offers an alternative to traditional
descriptivism (describing native speakers’ speech habits) or prescriptivism
(teaching the “grammar rules” of the language) in the classroom. Prcic
supports a blended approach where prescriptivism is well-informed by corpus
studies and actual language use. Also termed ''usage-enriched descriptivism'',
its application to pronunciation teaching at the university level is discussed
through such devices as ''advisory statements'' (e.g. notes on alternative
pronunciations of a given form) and ''cautionary statements'' noting
less-preferred and unacceptable pronunciations. Guidance is called for at all
linguistic levels: the phoneme, the word, the phrase and sentence. Prcic also
gives a useful list of reference and practical works on the teaching of
pronunciation, drawing particular attention to the merits of the 3rd edition
of ‘Well's Longman Pronunciation Dictionary’ (Wells 2008a) and the ‘Longman
Pronunciation Coach’ (Wells 2008b).

Based on the work of Tomatis (1977), ''Hearing the difference: An innovative
approach to the teaching of pronunciation'', by Ingrid Pfandl-Buchegger,
Isabel Landsiedler and Milena Insam, deals with training learners on
spectrally-modified speech materials. Speech materials in the target language
were recorded and formant frequencies important for segmental identification
but usually ignored in the learner’s native language were then enhanced
according to the work of Tomatis in order to help learners identify
problematic contrasts in the target language. Over a two-week period,
first-year Austrian university students of Russian and English listened to
5-10 minutes of Mozart followed by 10 minutes of enhanced speech materials in
supplemental classes. While the students of Russian in both the target and
control groups showed great improvement over the two weeks, the students using
the spectrally-enhanced materials did show more improvement than the control
group not using them. Likewise, the students of British English making
extensive use of the materials in class showed greater improvement than those
making incidental use of them. Student diaries and questionnaires support
their contention that the materials lead to greater ease and enhanced interest
in learning the language.

Tatjana Paunovic's paper, ''Qualitative methods in phonetic research: A
contradiction in adjecto?'', surveys three recent phonetic studies involving
Serbian EFL students. In each of these studies controlled elicitation
materials were used (including, in two of the studies, the story of Arthur the
Rat used in the ‘Dictionary of American Regional English’,
http://dare.wisc.edu/?q=node/44). In contrast to the exclusive use of
controlled materials, the author calls for ''…1) naturalistic data collection,
2) careful consideration of the social context in which [the] speech occurs,
and 3) understanding the background of spoken interaction — why people do what
they do in speech.'' (p. 155) The conclusion is that although including free
or spontaneous speech in data collection methods certainly increases the
researcher's experimental burden, it is necessary for a broader understanding
of speech acts.

''Research strategies in L2 phonological fieldwork investiagation [sic] and
significance and/or reliability of results'', by Klementina Jurancic Petek,
discusses the results of the study entitled ‘Pronunciation of English in
Slovania’ (Jurancic Petek 2007) conducted between 2002 and 2004. Rural Slovene
EFL elementary and secondary school students -- 287 students each from 5th and
7th grade of primary school and 1st and 3rd grade of secondary school-- were
tested in a 10-15 minute interview format on three separate tasks: Reading,
Free speech and Imitation. While originally designed to detect responses
deviating from the target British English and hence signaling language
interference, the study allowed the author to investigate the effect of
different test type through a comparison of correct responses. For vowels,
more correct responses were produced in the Free speech condition than in the
Reading condition across most vowels and age groups (results for Imitation
were much more mixed, and are not discussed). For consonants, the findings are
mixed, with more correct responses occurring in Reading for some segments and
in Free speech for others. The authors conclude that although reading
paradigms are easier to administer and perhaps more useful in comparing
multiple studies, the larger number of correct responses in the Free speech
condition of this study show that it is a necessary part of any study truly
reflecting speaker ability.

''Using web technologies in L2 phonological research: Methodological issues
and implications'', by Anastazija Kirkova-Naskova and Dimitar Trajanov,
presents results of an online phonetic experiment investigating the
intelligibility of the pronunciation of Macedonian EFL learners. Native
English-speaking raters with phonetics/phonology backgrounds (including
LINGUIST members recruited via the list) judged the accentedness of Macedonian
English speakers. Speakers recorded free speech narratives on one of four
topics, which were then edited to 17-29 second clips. Clips were presented to
the reviewers via a web browser and they marked any pronunciation anomalies
they observed (e.g. lack of aspiration, /w/ pronounced as [v], etc.), made an
impressionistic comment on the accentedness of the speaker, and finally gave
comments on the experiment. The authors compare the responses of the six
British and six American reviewers in depth and finish up by mentioning the
responses of the one Irish and one Canadian reviewer. They conclude that their
method could lend itself well to both language pedagogy and testing.

Rastislav Sustarsic provides the paper ''Learning from students' errors:
English phonetics theory exam''. He presents ten types of errors commonly
committed on the oral phonetics exam he gives his students (e.g. confusing
spelling with pronunciation), although some have nothing to do with phonetic
knowledge per se (e.g. not knowing how to pronounce a word due to lack of
class attendance, changing an answer because of a lack of confidence when
asked for confirmation). The author hopes that his discussion will be useful
to teachers of phonetics, suggesting that the best thing might be to give the
students the list so that they know what types of things to avoid in their own
study and tests.

''English pronunciation models and tertiary-level students: A Bulgarian
perspective'', by Snezhina Dimitrova and Tsvetanka Chernogorova, discusses
reasons for choosing one native English-speaking model, the ‘Lingua Franca
Core of English’ (Jenkins 2000), over several others. Results from
questionnaires administered to 90 Sofia University students are presented to
support the authors’ contention that British (RP) English should be the
standard model for Bulgarian students. However, as the authors themselves
note, any survey asking for the ''best'' and ''worst'' anything (in this case,
the ''best'' and ''worst'' accents of English) should be interpreted with
great caution. It is interesting that at least some of the students who
answered that General American English is the most understandable dialect
still felt they would prefer to sound like a British speaker.

The final paper, ''English pronunciation norms and the case of Russian
English'', by Galina M. Vishnevskaya, is a wide-ranging discussion of
students' attitudes toward foreign accents and issues related to teaching
intonation in the Russian EFL classroom. Questionnaires were given to 40
American University of Boston students (14 question items) and 50 Russian
Ivanovo State University students (9 question items), with a particular
focusing on attitudes towards non-native accents. A detailed discussion of a
Russian English accent follows, with the conclusion containing a summary of
why intonation should be taught in the classroom.

EVALUATION

At the end of the introduction, the editors state that the volume ''aims to
draw attention to issues that can be of interest to both phonetic researchers
and applied phonetic practitioners or EFL teachers, and, in some parts, even
to a wider audience'' (p. xii). The volume does indeed contain a wide range of
papers, from narrowly-focused phonetic data to broad-ranging theoretical
discussion. In this regard the editors have succeeded in calling attention to
the breadth of EFL research and teaching, in particular, and foreign language
research and teaching, in general.

As for volume coherence, the work resembles more of a collection of conference
proceedings than a focused discourse on one subject. Since the goal of the
volume is to introduce a wide range of issues related to language teaching,
the wide-ranging collection of papers is understandable. However, the wide
disparity in terms of both thematic focus and depth leaves one wondering why
these specific authors were chosen to contribute to the text, as well as what
criteria the authors were presented with in terms of content.

Phonetics researchers and EFL researchers and instructors will most likely be
at least passingly familiar with most papers in the volume. Some of the papers
were new to the current reviewer, however. The Pfandl-Buchegger, Landsiedler &
Insam paper on teaching pronunciation via spectrally modified input is
particularly intriguing. Even those familiar with the plethora of reduced
forms in various American dialects will likely be amazed at the diversity of
the attested forms in the Makino paper. A full analysis of the data set should
keep Makino and others busy for some time. Further, the web technologies
discussed in Kirkova-Naskova & Trajanov show real promise for future
foreign-language-related research, particularly, as the authors note, for
''less-developed regions'' (p. 191) where access to the Internet is or could
be made freer than access to native or near-native speakers and/or other
traditional teaching resources. Finally, although the Vishnevskaya paper is
interesting with regard to teaching intonation, a summary of the results of
the study—such as a tabulation of results and concrete differences between
Russian and English intonation contours—would have been most welcome. Perhaps
these were given elsewhere or are in press.

The volume is no doubt a welcome addition to any university library,
especially at institutions where EFL teaching and research are prominent.
Phonetic practitioners who focus on language acquisition and related EFL
issues will probably also find the volume a useful addition to their personal
libraries. Most phonetic researchers and EFL instructors will likely recommend
the purchase to their library.

REFERENCES

Halliday, M. A. K. 1967. Intonation and grammar in British English. The Hague,
Paris: Mouton.

Jenkins, Jennifer. 2000. The phonology of English as an international
language. New models, new norms, new goals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jurancic Petek, K. 2007. The Pronunciation of English in Slovenai. Maribor:
Zora.

Lehiste, I. 1970. Suprasegmentals. Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press.

Obendorfor, R. 1998. Weak in forms in present-day English. Oslo: Novus Press.

Tomatis, Alfred. 1977. L'oreille et la vie. Paris: Robert Laffont. English
translation The Conscious Ear: my life of transformation through listening.
Station Hill press, 1992.

Wells, J. C. 2008a. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. 3rd edition. Harlow:
Pearson Education.

Wells, J. C. 2008b. Longman Pronunciation Coach. CD-ROM. Harlow: Pearson
Education.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

J. Kevin Varden is currently an administrator in the General Education English
program at Meiji Gakuin University, where he teaches classes related to EFL
and the history of the Japanese language. He also teaches an English phonetics
practicum for graduate students in a Master of Education program. His research
into Japanese vowel devoicing has branched out to include devoicing in other
languages, particularly the other languages found throughout the Japanese
archipelago.








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