31.1950, Review: English; Phonetics; Phonology: Carr (2019)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-31-1950. Fri Jun 12 2020. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 31.1950, Review: English; Phonetics; Phonology: Carr (2019)

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Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2020 14:47:45
From: Georgios Georgiou [georgiou.georgos at hotmail.com]
Subject: English Phonetics and Phonology

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36594977


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-3638.html

AUTHOR: Philip  Carr
TITLE: English Phonetics and Phonology
SUBTITLE: An Introduction, 3rd Edition
PUBLISHER: Wiley
YEAR: 2019

REVIEWER: Georgios P. Georgiou, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia

SUMMARY

The aim of this book is to present a brief introduction in the phonetics and
phonology of the English language. It is intended mainly for students who do
not have any previous background on the subject, and for teachers of English
as a foreign language since knowledge of English phonetics and phonology is
useful for a more qualitative teaching.

The book is divided into fifteen main chapters. The first four chapters
include topics in articulatory phonetics. These topics are described briefly,
offering an idea of the articulatory features of English vowels and
consonants. In particular, the first chapter explains how airstream is used to
articulate consonants, and how consonants are divided according to their place
and manner of articulation (stops, fricatives, and approximants). Chapter Two
continues with consonants, referring to the distinction between central and
lateral consonants, taps and trills, affricates, nasal stops as well as the
phenomena of aspiration and secondary articulation. Chapter Three talks about
the primary cardinal vowels of English and describes the articulatory features
of short Received Pronunciation and American English vowels. Chapter Four
discusses articulatory features of long vowels and diphthongs of Received
Pronunciation and American English.

Chapter Five introduces readers to the phonemic principle. Specifically, it
explains the function of phonemes and the allophones, and describes the
contexts in which they are found by providing examples from English and other
languages. 

Chapter Six deals with the English phonemes. First, it presents the English
consonant phonemes and makes an important distinction: that of accent and
dialect. Second, the phonological form of morphemes is presented and, finally,
the chapter ends with the presentation of English vowel phonemes. 

Chapter Seven is an introduction to the English syllable structure. It refers
to the two most important constituents within a syllable, that is, the onset
and the rhyme, and to other aspects relevant to syllable structure  such as
the sonority scale, the maximal onset, and the syllable weight. Also, this
chapter includes a subchapter on phonotactic constraints and another one on
syllabic consonants and phonotactics. One other subchapter refers to
phonological realizations which can be adequately expressed only with appeal
to syllable structure. Finally, the chapter ends with a reference to the
morphological and syllable structure and resyllabification. 

Chapter Eight introduces the reading audience to the aspect of rhythm and word
stress in English. Specifically, first, it is explained what rhythm is and how
it applies in English. The next subchapter talks about word stress in English
and clarifies whether word stress is a random procedure or not . Furthermore,
some general principles on English word stress such as the end-based principle
and the rhythmic principle are discussed. The chapter also discusses how word
stress assigns in morphologically simple bisyllabic and multisyllabic words,
and how word stress assignment is related to morphological structure. One
other subchapter explains what compound words are and how the word stress rule
applies to these words. 

Chapter Nine is focused on rhythm, reversal, and reduction. In particular, it
explains  more on the trochaic metrical foot, and provides evidence for the
metrical foot and the claim that all feet in English are trochaic. The
following subchapter attempts a representation of the metrical structure by
providing several examples from English words. The next subchapter discusses
phonological realizations and foot structure. This chapter also talks about
stress-timing, considering that the regular beats in the speech of English
speakers can be at more or less equal intervals, and eurythmic structures.  

Chapter Ten constitutes an introduction to the English intonational patterns.
First, the terms tonic syllable, tones, and intonation phrases are explained
by presenting examples from English utterances. In addition, it is mentioned
that there are cases in which tonic shifts away from the default position and
does not obey the last lexical item rule. The next subchapters discuss the
relationship between intonational phrases and syntactic units, tonic
placement, intonational phrase boundaries and syntax, tones and syntax, and
tonic placement and discourse context.

Chapter Eleven analyzes the association between spelling and pronunciation. At
the beginning, the chapter differentiates letters from graphemes. Then, it
presents the English vowel and consonant graphemes, both monographs and
digraphs (and trigraphs for consonants), and their phonemic values.

Chapter Twelve deals with the variation found in different English accents.
Initially, the chapter describes systemic and realizational differences
between accents; e.g., the distinction between book/buck (ʊ/ʌ) is not present
in many northern English accents. Also, the chapter talks about differences in
the lexical distribution of phonemes, which is often found in English
dialects.

Chapter Thirteen describes phonological and phonetic aspects of various
English accents. Specifically, acoustic features of London English, Tyneside
English, and Standard Scottish English sounds are described. Sounds of two
American accents, namely, New York City and Texas English, are also described.
Finally, the chapter presents the vowel and consonant acoustics of Australian
and Indian English.

Chapter Fourteen is focused on how English native speakers acquire the
phonetics and phonology of their native language. Specifically, it explains
how speech is acquired in the first six months of life, and then this
explanation is extended for the second year of life. Among other topics, the
perception-production link and the acquisition of English word stress
generalizations are discussed. Another subchapter talks about the bilingual
child, and it proposes different types of bilingual acquisition context. 

Chapter Fifteen highlights how English phonetics and phonology are acquired by
second language learners. In particular, types of problems in second language
acquisition of English phonetics and phonology are portrayed. These problems
emerge at both the phonemic and the phonetic level of the learners’ first
languages. Also, the chapter refers to problems that might arise due to the
interference of the learners’ first language graphophonemics with the
pronunciation of the written word in the second language. Problems of second
language learners are extended in regard to the phonotactic level, rhythm and
word stress, and intonation. Finally, the chapter ends with some remarks on
second language acquisition of English phonetics and phonology.

EVALUATION 

The purpose of the book is introduce readers to key concepts in English
phonetics and phonology. The book covers its goals since the reading audience
is provided with the necessary information in order to acquire a basic
knowledge on the phonetics and phonology of the English language. The language
of the textbook is simple, but still scientific, allowing a basic
understanding of complicated phenomena related to phonetics and phonology.

The book is well-structured starting with a brief and simple description of
the English vowel and consonant systems and the acoustic features of the
English sounds, and continuing with more complicated aspects such as rhythm,
stress, and intonation. Another advantage of this textbook is that it allows
readers to listen to speech material and respond to exercises in order to
better familiarize themselves with the phenomena of each chapter; this
material is found as an online database.

The inclusion of chapters on first and second language acquisition is welcome,
but some suggestions can be considered. In Chapter 15 ‘Second language
acquisition of English phonetics and phonology’, there is some reference to
the innateness hypothesis of Chomsky, as well as to the Critical Period
Hypothesis and maturational theories of second language acquisition. I would
suggest a brief reference on how Chomsky’s hypotheses are related to second
language acquisition. Also, it would be nice to briefly present other
important theories on second language acquisition, e.g., Acquisition-Learning
hypothesis, Input Hypothesis, Monitor Hypothesis (see Krushen, 1981, 1982).

Taking cue from the reference on the learners’ first language interference in
the acquisition of second language sounds (p. 194), it is suggested the
inclusion of a synoptic description of important speech acquisition models
such as the Speech Learning Model (Flege, 1995), the Perceptual Assimilation
Model (Best and Tyler, 2007), and the Native Magnet Model (Kuhl et al., 2008).
These models make explicit predictions on the perception and production of
second language sounds by second language learners on the basis of their
first-second language acoustic differences.

Page 195 refers to some problems that second language learners of English
might encounter due to the effect of their native phonological or phonetic
systems. One of the examples is the difficulty of Greek speakers to correctly
articulate the postalveolar fricative [ʃ] and the postalveolar affricate [tʃ]
since they are not present in their native language. However, this depends on
the speakers’ native Greek dialect. Although Standard Modern Greek speakers
might have difficulties with the English sounds [ʃ] and [tʃ], speakers of
Cypriot Greek or Cretan Greek can master them just like English native
speakers because these sounds are present in the inventory of the
aforementioned Greek dialects.

REFERENCES

Best, C. T., & Tyler, M. (2007). Non-native and second-language speech
perception: Commonalities and complementarities. In O-S. Bohn & M. J. Munro
(Eds.), Second language speech learning: In honor of James Emil Flege (pp.
13-34). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Flege, J. E., (1995). Second language speech learning: Theory, findings and
problems. In Strange, W. (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience:
Theoretical and methodological issues (pp. 233-277). Baltimore: York Press.

Krashen, S. (1981). Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning.
Pergamon Press Inc.

Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition.
Pergamon Press Inc.

Kuhl, P. K., Conboy, B. T., Coffey-Corina, S., Padden, D., Rivera-Gaxiola, M.,
& Nelson, T. (2008). Phonetic learning as a pathway to language: New data and
native language magnet  theory expanded (NLM-e). Philosophic Transactions of
the Royal Society B, 369, 979- 1000.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Dr Georgios P. Georgiou is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Temporary Lecturer at
the Department of General and Russian Linguistics of RUDN University, Moscow.
He is also an Adjunct Lecturer at the Department of Languages and Literature
of the University of Nicosia, Cyprus. His research interests include
phonetics, phonology, psycholinguistics, and second language acquisition.
Currently, he is the Head of RUDN University Phonetic Lab and Principal
Investigator in speech acquisition projects.





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