[lg policy] book notice: English Pronunciation Models: A Changing Scene

[Harold Schiffman]

English Pronunciation Models: A Changing Scene

Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/20/20-425.html
EDITORS: Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, Katarzyna; Przedlacka, Joanna
TITLE: English Pronunciation Models: A Changing Scene
SUBTITLE: Second Edition
PUBLISHER: Peter Lang AG
YEAR: 2008

Beatrice Szczepek Reed, Centre for English Language Education, University of
Nottingham, UK

SUMMARY

The book under review is a collection of papers presented at the 2003 and 2004
Poznań Linguistic Meetings. It addresses a number of current issues for
pronunciation teaching and learning, in particular the Lingua Franca Core (LFC)
introduced by Jenkins (2000). Contributions are arranged into five parts: part
one is concerned with the issue of standard accent models; part two addresses
the LFC model directly; part three explores learners' perspectives; part four
deals with intonation; and part five focuses on issues concerning dictionaries
and teaching materials.

Part 1 on '(In)stability of Native Models' begins with Joanna Przedlacka's
chapter 'Models and Myth: Updating the (Non)standard Accents', in which she
explores the changing nature of Received Pronunciation (RP), and its role for
English pronunciation teaching. By presenting a number of sound changes that
have occurred in RP throughout the last century she shows that RP is an accent
that is as much subject to change as any other. She goes on to present positive
and negative expressions of attitudes towards RP, and Estuary English,
which she
characterizes as a myth. In her concluding remarks, Przedlacka argues for a
continuation of an up-to-date variety of RP to be used as the standard
pronunciation model for English language teaching.

Dennis R. Preston's chapter 'How Can You Learn a Language that Isn't There?'
presents findings regarding General American English (GA) in the form of a
dialogue between a Polish English language teacher and an American
dialectologist. By citing counter-evidence for a number of claims regarding GA
he shows that the accent as it is described in many textbooks has no native
speakers. The author then explores sociolinguistic aspects of US
American native
speakers' classifications of spoken American English, showing that perceptions
of 'good' or 'bad' American English are closely connected to social prejudice.
The paper argues for pronunciation teaching which exposes learners to as many
English varieties as possible, rather than a model which is based upon a
specific 'native' concept.

In her chapter 'Language Variation and Change: The Case of English as a Lingua
Franca', Barbara Seidlhofer sets out her concept of English as a lingua franca
(ELF). She makes a strong case against the claim that 'the true repository of
the English language is its native speakers, and there are so many of them that
they can afford to let non-natives do what they like with it so long as what
they do is confined to a few words here and there' (Trudgill 2002: 151).
Seidlhofer argues that the opposite argument is also possible: as
there are many
more non-native speakers than there are native ones, one could say that it is
the ELF speakers that own the English language. Her chapter ends on a
distinction between pedagogical implications for learners of ELF (English as a
lingua franca) and EFL (English as a foreign language): while the aim of the
first group is to communicate with other non-native speakers of
English, that of
the second group is primarily interaction with native English speakers.

Peter Trudgill's chapter 'Native-speaker Segmental Phonological Models and the
English Lingua Franca Core' makes a polemic argument against Jenkins' LFC
concept. Trudgill does not accept the argument that non-native
speakers find the
speech of other non-native speakers easier to understand than that of native
speakers; neither does he accept Jenkins' attempted deconstruction of the
concept of 'native speaker'. Instead, he argues strongly in favour of a
continuation of English pronunciation teaching according to a model of native
speech, given the large amount of teaching material already available. Trudgill
also shows that some phonetic and phonological aspects of the LFC are not
necessarily only characteristics of English as an International Language (EIL),
but also of Irish English. In the final section, he takes particular offence at
Jenkins' suggestion that native speakers should incorporate some
features of EIL
into their interactions with non-native speakers, and the underlying assumption
that he should have to relearn the pronunciation of his own native language.

Part 2 of the book is entitled 'Lingua Franca Core as a Democratic Alternative?
Attempts at Evaluation'. All contributions to this part of the book deal
directly with Jenkins' (2000) suggestion of the LFC; the final chapter is a
response by Jennifer Jenkins. J. C. Wells's chapter 'Goals in Teaching English
Pronunciation' outlines what he sees as the main priorities in pronunciation
teaching. He points out that a simplification of English for the purpose of EIL
could be argued to include not only phonology, but also vocabulary, syntax, and
orthography. He suggests that a potential remedy for the teaching of complex
pronunciation patterns is for teachers to be familiar with phonetic symbols.
After a close examination of Jenkins' LFC proposals, Wells presents his
recommendations for English pronunciation teaching, which include concentrating
on matters that hinder intelligibility; encouraging interaction with native
speakers; and allowing findings from contrastive analysis to inform
the teaching
and learning of challenging areas.

In her chapter 'Why Native Speakers are (Still) Relevant', Sylwia Scheuer makes
a strong argument against the LFC approach. She identifies as an
inconsistency a
bias in the LFC towards native speaker pronunciation, particularly in its
inclusion of aspiration and consonant cluster reduction. Scheuer cites Jenkins
as being concerned not only with intelligibility, but also with acceptability;
by aligning the concept of acceptability with 'irritability', Scheuer makes a
strong claim that establishing a common core is 'virtually impossible'
(p. 116).
In an experiment, she asks subjects for their responses to non-native accented
English speech. Her findings show that subjects' professed irritation runs in
parallel with their impression of how strongly a speech sample deviates from a
perceived native-speaker norm. Therefore, she argues, teaching pronunciation
according to the LFC is less beneficial to learners than Jenkins
claims. Scheuer
rejects Jenkins' proposal, making a strong argument for native speakers as 'the
keepers of the key to what is irritating and what is acceptable' (p. 127).

Similarly, Włodzimierz Sobkowiak's chapter 'Why Not LFC' is a strong rejection
of Jenkins' book. He does not accept her empirically based argument against RP
as an appropriate target accent, firstly on philosophical grounds. The
occurrence of certain phonetic patterns, no matter how frequent, can, in the
author's view, not be the sole basis for teaching goals, which must also be
informed by other, non-empirical norms. Secondly, in his sociolinguistic
arguments against the LFC he points out that the LFC is an artifice, similar to
Esperanto, and therefore unlikely to succeed. Furthermore, he claims that
pronunciation is routinely rated an important issue in experiments which test
the acceptability of English accents. Thirdly, Sobkowiak makes a pedagogical
argument against falling teaching standards, and against the
implications of the
LFC for grammar, spelling and vocabulary teaching. Finally, his psychological
argument against the LFC is one that is reiterated throughout the volume:
native-like pronunciation is indeed an ambition for many learners,
rather than a
threat of loss of identity.

Jolanta Szpyra-Kozłowska's chapter 'Lingua Franca Core, Phonetic Universals and
the Polish Context' is another strong rejection of the LFC. Here, the arguments
are made on phonetic and prosodic grounds, and with the Polish learner in mind.
Her section on segmental issues argues, for example, that Jenkins' inclusion of
the retroflex [r] is not ideal for Polish learners, or indeed many other
learners of English, who find it easier to produce alveolar trills. The
exclusion of dental fricatives, on the other hand, while welcomed as a
simplification, is described as stigmatized. Amongst the prosodic features
discussed in the chapter are weak forms, speech rhythm and intonation, none of
which are included in the LFC. Szpyra-Kozłowska presents arguments for their
inclusion, in particular that of weak forms. She agrees, however, with the
inclusion of nuclear stress and the division of speech into word groups.

In his chapter 'The Lingua Franca Core and the Phonetics-Phonology Interface',
Geoffrey Schwartz introduces the angle of speech perception to the debate over
English sound structure and its teachability. He reminds his readers that the
phonetic classification into phonemes does not necessarily translate
easily into
the perceived speech signal, which is typically dynamic and continuously
changing. His example of tense and lax vowels and voicing/devoicing show how
knowledge about context, linguistic variety and articulatory detail can inform
teachers and learners in their pursuit of native-like speech and their ability
to understand native speakers. Schwartz goes on to argue strongly in favour of
such metacompetence in second language acquisition, both for teachers and
students. The chapter continues with an in-depth look at parts of the
LFC from a
perceptual perspective; overall, his analysis confirms many of
Jenkins' suggestions.

Jennifer Jenkins' chapter 'Misinterpretation, Bias, and Resistance to Change:
The Case of the Lingua Franca Core' is a response to other contributions in the
volume. It begins with a summary of her original LFC proposal, before
addressing
'misinterpretations and misrepresentations' (p. 202). For example, one
misinterpretation identified by Jenkins is that the LFC promotes pronunciation
errors. This mistake is based on some contributors' confusion over the
distinction between EFL and ELF: what is an error in EFL may promote
intelligibility in ELF. The author concludes that contributions to the volume
clearly show that the title of the book, 'English Pronunciation Models - a
Changing Scene', is overly optimistic, given that so many authors seem
resistant
to change.

Part 3 of the book considers 'The Learners' Views. Implications for Teaching'.
Peter Trudgill's chapter 'Finding the Speaker-listener Equilibrium: Segmental
Phonological Models in EFL' considers the possibility of introducing a 'common
core' of consonants and vowels which are employed by all varieties of English,
rather than the higher number of sounds used by RP. While Trudgill argues that
such an approach would be very efficient in terms of pronunciation acquisition,
listening and comprehension would be made more difficult for learners by such a
reduction, as non-native speakers require more, rather than less information to
process speech in the target language. He argues that while other factors such
as speech rhythm and phonotactics are also relevant for listening, segmental
information is of primary importance. He therefore calls for a compromise
between the importance of communicating with the least effort and the necessity
to do so with the greatest possible accuracy. In order to achieve such a
balance, a maximum, rather than a minimum, of segmental contrasts
should be taught.

Ewa Waniek-Klimczak and Karol Klimczak's chapter 'Target in Speech Development:
Learners' Views' reports on a student needs and attitude analysis with
regard to
learning English, in particular pronunciation. Two student groups were
compared:
students of English, and students of sociology and economics. The authors'
pre-questionnaire hypothesis was that students who were not majoring in English
would be less interested in native-like pronunciation, and also more interested
to learn American English pronunciation, rather than British English. The first
hypothesis is in part confirmed by the questionnaire findings: sociology and
economics students believe it less likely that they will acquire native-like
pronunciation (43%) than English students (81%). However, both groups prefer
British over American English. The article concludes with a tentative
suggestion
that providing students whose aim is mainly international communication with a
well-defined core of pronunciation features, such as the LFC, may
increase their
confidence in their ability to acquire pronunciation skills.

Similarly, Katarzyna Janicka, Małgorzata Kul and Jarosław Weckwerth's chapter
'Polish Students' Attitudes to Native English Accents as Models for EFL
Pronunciation' reports on three questionnaire surveys on student attitudes
towards English pronunciation and its teaching. The first survey sets out to
investigate what motivations lie behind Polish students' choice for either
British or American English as their target accent, and what opinions they have
on their own practice as future teachers. Almost all respondents place
very high
importance on the teaching of native-like accent models. The second reported
survey evaluates Polish learners' attitudes towards RP and GA, respectively. On
the whole, students estimate GA easier to produce; and only students of RP find
RP easier to understand. The third survey concentrates on RP, and students'
recognition of and attitudes towards it. In a listening session, RP is rated
highest in terms of 'goodness', compared to other accents.

Michał Remiszewski's chapter 'Lingua Franca Core: Picture Incomplete' offers a
tentatively skeptical evaluation of the LFC, however, without the palpable
antagonism of some previous chapters. The author argues from a perspective of
social psychology that Jenkins' assumed clash between L2 pronunciation
proficiency and speaker identity is highly speculative and without evidence. He
provides evidence from previous research which shows that the majority of
learners would like to be able to speak like a native speaker, if that was a
possibility. In addition, he argues that most learners like to strive for the
best, whatever it is they are learning; and that the fact that learners may be
interacting only with non-native speakers at a certain moment in time does not
mean they may not want to communicate with native speakers in the future. Thus,
the LFC proposal seems only appropriate for a narrowly defined type of learner.
Remiszewski concludes by identifying the need for increased research
activity in
the area of learner motivation and attitude.

Part 4 of the book focuses on 'Intonational Variation in English and
its Role in
Communication'. The first chapter, Esther Grabe's, Greg Kochanski's and John
Coleman's 'The Intonation of Native Accent Varieties in the British Isles:
Potential for Miscommunication?' investigates variation in intonation patterns
across British accents. Their findings point to a high degree of intonational
variation within dialects, with typically one or two patterns more popular than
others. Their findings also show a high degree of variation between different
dialects. The authors conclude that learners of English must be prepared for
high degrees of variation within individual varieties, including the Southern
English variety. They also conclude that their findings support the
LFC proposal
in its inclusion of nuclear accent placement, and its exclusion of
pitch patterns.

John Levis' chapter 'Comparing Apples with Oranges? Pedagogical Approaches to
Intonation in British and American English' reports on implications for
pronunciation teaching that derive from the differences between the British and
the American schools of intonation research. He shows that teacher training
materials and pronunciation course books treat intonation according to
either of
these approaches, depending on which side of the Atlantic they are published.
His main focus is on Brazil (1997), representing the British school, and
Celce-Murcia et al. (1996), representing the American approach. The chapter
shows that the American approach is based on a practice of predicting
intonation
patterns, whereas the British school prioritizes the description of actual
speech. Subsequently, the British approach is less inclined than the American
one to link intonational choices with the status of information as
given or new.
This leads the author to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of tying the
study and teaching of intonation to grammar. While he concedes that such a link
can be pedagogically beneficial because of its seeming promise of certainties,
it is ultimately too simplistic. Levis concludes, similarly to the previous
chapter, that Jenkins' (2000) exclusion of pitch movement and inclusion of
nuclear stress placement represent the most 'learnable option' (p. 363).

Jane Setter's chapter 'Communicative Patterns of Intonation in L2 English
Teaching and Learning: The Impact of Discourse Approaches' focuses on David
Brazil's (1997) discourse approach to intonation. The chapter begins by
introducing the British tradition of intonation research in general; and
Brazil's discourse intonation approach in particular, summarizing his concepts
of tones, key, tone unit and tonicity. Subsequently, the author discusses both
teacher education materials and teaching materials for learners which
incorporate the discourse intonation (DI) approach to varying degrees. Finally,
Setter discusses recent research that uses the DI approach. She concludes by
suggesting that a DI model can make the teaching and learning of English
intonation more easily accessible.

Part 5 of the book contains four short chapters which focus on
'Dictionaries and
Teaching Materials: Reflection of a Changing Scene?' Peter Roach's chapter
'Representing the English Model' begins by pointing out that RP is not
an accent
that has been defined on the basis of research on speech samples from
a specific
group of speakers, but is in fact 'a convention' (p. 393). The author reports
some difficulties in finding an ideal RP speaker for his recent 'illustration'
of RP, i.e. its phonetic analysis and description for the Journal of the
International Phonetic Association. However, the main problems of
representation
encountered by Roach were caused by the necessity for a phonemic as well as a
phonetic description. He therefore argues that conventional phonemic
transcription should be extended to include a more detailed account of phonetic
patterns.

J.C. Wells' chapter 'Abbreviatory Conventions in Pronunciation Dictionaries'
compares the three currently available English pronunciation dictionaries, the
English Pronouncing Dictionary (EPD), the Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation
(ODP), and the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (LPD) in terms of their use of
certain types of abbreviations. He finds differences in the way the
dictionaries
indicate elision, stress shift and variations in lexical pronunciations, and
discusses the issue of description vs. prescription. Wells goes on to compare
other abbreviatory conventions, closing on the note that the more varied a
dictionary's abbreviations are, the more phonetic detail can be recorded.

Clive Upton's, Lawrence M. Davis' and Charles L. Houck's chapter 'Modelling RP:
A Variationist Case' focuses on three vowels - those in 'flat hat',
'fair share'
and 'fine line' - and reports on their realization in different data corpora.
Findings show significant variations across corpora, and across time.
Similarly,
RP pronunciations of the same vowels have changed over time, with some recent
pronunciations very similar to earlier Leeds samples. The authors conclude that
both the Leeds accent, as well as the RP accent are subject to diachronic
change. Furthermore, they argue that cities such as Leeds have contributed to
the development of RP. Finally, the chapter argues for a phonetic,
rather than a
phonemic representation for dictionary use.

In her chapter 'An Overview of English Pronunciation Teaching Materials.
Patterns of change: Model Accents, Goals and Priorities', Magdalena Wrembel
investigates changes in pronunciation teaching materials, and compares their
goals and priorities. Regarding the issue of model accents, British English is
the main model accent taught in textbooks, followed by American and Australian
English. However, in CD-ROM publications, American English is the main model
accent used. Regarding teaching priorities, the interest in suprasegmental
aspects of speech has grown considerably. On the basis of a
comparative analysis
of pronunciation syllabi across materials, the author suggests a 'common core'
of pronunciation features that are most frequently included in textbooks and
CD-ROMs. She then compares this common core to the LFC suggested by Jenkins
(2000). Wrembel concludes that pronunciation teaching materials have
become more
inclusive of different accent varieties over the years; and that the LFC
proposal differs widely from the status quo of current teaching materials.

The afterword by Dafydd Gibbon, 'Navigating Pronunciation in Search of the
Golden Fleece', discusses some of the issues raised in the volume, and proposes
a different approach to the common core model suggested in Jenkins (2000). In a
first section he argues that the economic dimension of the ELT market has a
major influence on the development of new paradigms in the field of ELT,
pointing out that the contributors to the volume under review are located at
different ends of the market spectrum. In a subsequent section the author makes
the point that there is no evidence that varieties of English across the world
share a common core. Instead, he puts forward an approach to ELT that is based
on a Family Resemblance Model, as introduced by Wittgenstein (1953). According
to Gibbon, such a model, which takes account of the resemblance between a
learner's accent in his first and his second language, has a stronger base in
reality than the artificially designed and globally applicable LFC, which is
constructed from only two accents, RP and GA, which in themselves are largely
artifices. Subsequently, Gibbon raises the issue of sociolinguistic
environments
for teaching and learning, pointing out that Jenkins' environment of the native
English speaker teaching polyglot classes is only one such environment. Other
environments include commercial language schools in non-English speaking
countries, European state schools, and European universities. The
author goes on
to discuss specific suggestions made by the LFC, and its strong tendency to
prioritize phonetic intelligibility over acceptability. He argues that focusing
on the phonetics is not realistic, given the large amount of
information derived
from context in natural interaction. Thus, he suggests an integration of more,
rather than less pragmatic issues into the teaching of pronunciation. Gibbon
ends by suggesting a 'Standardisation Consensus Framework' for ELT,
based on the
Family Resemblance Model, rather than a common core model.

EVALUATION

In his afterword, Daffyd Gibbon writes about the 'non-Gricean' communicative
style adopted in many of the contributions to this volume (p. 442); and indeed,
the book makes for uncomfortable reading, at least in parts. The antagonistic
stance with which many of the contributors approach Jennifer Jenkins' LFC
proposal is unusual in an academic publication. Several chapters argue
explicitly and vehemently for preserving the current - perceived - status quo,
i.e. the teaching of RP as the standard model accent, and the pursuit of
native-like competence as a universal underlying goal. It becomes
clear that the
debate held here is to a large extent an ideological, rather than a scholarly
one, with many of the arguments appealing to a populist common sense, rather
than an exploratory attitude. This is unfortunate, as beneath the heated
controversy there are arguments well worth discussing.

One is the emergence of very strong evidence - not only from the contributions
to this volume, but also from previous research - that some learners
do not feel
at all empowered by the suggestion that, at least in EIL interactions,
they need
not aim for native-like pronunciation. While the strong rejection of such
simplification is perhaps initially surprising, given the small number of
non-native speakers that do acquire near-native English accents, it points to a
very important area of language learning, which, as Remiszewski points out in a
slightly different context, is 'the most speculative of them all: the language
ego' (p. 295). In spite of recent efforts to the contrary, learning to speak
English is still an issue deeply rooted in the power relations of the current
global context. Telling learners that they do not need to speak like native
speakers seems to be interpreted by some as a (deliberate) 'denial of access'
(Scheuer, p. 126). And indeed, while Jenkins herself is clearly 'appalled' (p.
206) by this suggestion, it does seem as if this powerful sentiment may have
been slightly overlooked in the original proposal.

Another issue that deserves a lively debate is the precise nature of a common
core model such as the LFC, both in terms of its detailed composition, and its
nature as an artificially designed accent. Several chapters offer insightful
suggestions regarding which features and broader areas should be included in a
common pronunciation core, and which should not (see contributions by Wells,
Szpyra-Kozłowska, Schwartz, Grabe et al., Levis and Wrembel). The issue
regarding the artificial nature of an LFC-based accent is discussed by
Sobkowiak
and Gibbon. Both are pessimistic about the chances of survival of an
artificially created accent. Gibbon offers a very interesting alternative: a
learning and teaching model based on family resemblance between the
original and
the target language. This model seems better suited to the global learning
context outside the European and US American influenced Western world,
especially as it does not rely on 'native' accents such as RP and GA. This
approach takes the more difficult route of calling for teachers'
engagement with
their students' native language; a scenario less likely in, for example,
UK-based language institutions than in non-English speaking countries. However,
its integrative nature has the potential of being perceived as less threatening
to learners' identity than the LFC.

Not all contributions join in the heated discussion over the LFC proposal. Of
the few chapters containing original research, Grabe et al.'s work on
intonational variation stands out with its clearly defined research questions
and findings; while one of the most helpful chapters from a teaching
perspective
is Levis' comparison between the British and American approaches to intonation,
and their influence on different teaching materials. All in all, the volume
presents a valuable platform for the discussion of many significant issues
surrounding the learning and teaching of English pronunciation. It can be hoped
that in the future those issues will be taken up with a more measured stance,
and with a view to achieve Gibbon's proposal for a standardised consensus.

REFERENCES

Brazil, David (1997): The Communicative Value of Intonation in English.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Celce-Murcia, Marianne, Brinton, Donna and Goodwin, Janet (1996): Teaching
Pronunciation: A Reference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other
Languages. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Jenkins, Jennifer (2000): The Phonology of English as an International
Language.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Trudgill, Peter (2002): Sociolinguistic Variation and Change. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953): Philosophical Investigations / Philosophische
Untersuchungen. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and R. Rhees, translated
by G. E. M.
Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

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