sumetary

[Tom Zurinskas]

> And of course we know from the findings of historical linguistics
> that there's a strong correlation between the presence or absence of
> phonic instruction and the likelihood of sound change... ;-)
>
>
> LH

Got any studies you can cite one way or the other?

I wonder how many of us were actually taught any kind of correct pronunciation.  I remember being taught not to pronounce the "t" in "often" so I don't.  How many other of us when doing our 10 spelling words per week in grammar school were told how to pronounce our words correctly?  I sure was.

I understand in UK there's a movement to teach pronunciation in grammar school.  I think BBC pronunciation is the model.


Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
see truespel.com



----------------------------------------
> Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:23:13 -0400
> From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
> Subject: Re: sumetary
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: sumetary
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 6:54 AM +0000 3/31/09, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>Thanks, Herb, for that interesting clip in which Bill ~Lubbaaf talks
>>about the Great Lake Northern Cities Vowel Shift (for short vowels).
>>(I didn't see his last name spelled but I can spell it phonetically
>>in truespel). He says that around the great lakes cities certain
>>vowels are changing. This area contains cities such as Cleveland,
>>Detroit, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffaloe (about 34M people). It used
>>to be the USA English standard pronunciation for media. Some
>>examples are:
>>
>>saying "block" the same as "black"
>>saying "buses" the same as "bosses"
>>
>>Other short vowels are swapping too. ~Lubbaaf says we are growing
>>apart linguistically even with massive media exposure. To me this
>>is a bad thing. It should be changed and can be changed.
>>
>>I speculate that the main reason for this is that many schools have
>>dropped phonetic or phonic instruction for teaching reading and gone
>>with "whole language" or "whole word" approach. This forbids
>>teaching the alphabetic principle that letters stand for sounds, so
>>kids are taught that they have to learn words visually, and thus
>>pronunciation is not linked to spelling and can vary capriciously.
>>Huge mistake.
>>
>
> And of course we know from the findings of historical linguistics
> that there's a strong correlation between the presence or absence of
> phonic instruction and the likelihood of sound change... ;-)
>
>
> LH
>
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