ELT Journal Advance Access published August 22, 2014
Review
Pronunciation and Phonetics: A Practical Guide for melody. A pronunciation teacher may well decide
English Language Teachers to teach tonic stress placement but not tone, as
A. Brown recommended by Jenkins (2000), for instance.
Routledge 2014, 309 pp., £25.99 The book has many little gems, and the first one
I would mention comes in Chapter 3 ‘Airstreams
Downloaded from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/ at New York University on October 8, 2014
ISBN 978 0 415 72276 6
and the vocal cords’. Here, during a discussion
of voicing, the author gives a number of bullet-
This book consists of 35 chapters, each one pointed tips for testing whether a consonant is
formatted as a lesson for a trainee teacher, voiced or not, for instance, block your ears and
with learning objectives at the beginning, and a feel whether the sound booms or not. Similarly,
summary, exercises, and references at the end. in the same chapter we see ways of becoming
The chapters are divided across two sections: aware of glottal stops such as imagining you are
‘Phonetics’ in Section 1 and ‘Pronunciation trapping air in your lungs while lifting a weight.
teaching’ in Section 2. In addition, there is a third Pedagogic tricks of this kind can be the very heart
section of sample exercises and a support website of a pronunciation lesson.
with audio recordings.
In Chapter 7, ‘Plosives and nasals’, and other
The first and longest section of the book, chapters on consonant sounds, there are some
‘Phonetics’, presents the essential background useful diagrams which analyse the movement
knowledge a pronunciation teacher will need in of the parts of the mouth responsible for the
23 bite-sized chapters, moving from individual sound. The diagrams represent time moving
sounds through features of connected speech from left to right and show in detail how the
to suprasegmental aspects. The brevity of the airstream is modified not only during the sound,
chapters makes for a very accessible read, easing but also immediately before and afterwards. This
the new teacher into what can be a very daunting close analysis yields useful insights as to how
topic. This section was for me the strongest part the sounds vary according to their context, for
of the book and I can easily imagine using it as instance the circumstances under which plosives
a set text in a teacher training context. I will not such as /p/ are aspirated or not.
attempt to summarize it all here, but just highlight
Chapter 13, ‘Accent differences’, was particularly
some of the content I found most interesting,
interesting in dealing with a topic which is often
plus one or two points I would query.
high in the minds of pronunciation teachers, but
Chapter 1, ‘Introduction’, includes a tree poorly represented in the books they use. I would
diagram showing how the various components therefore like to dwell on it at some length. The
of pronunciation relate to one another. The author classifies accent differences into four
diagram has four stems: segmentals, connected types. The first is where two accents differ in their
speech processes, syllable structure, and phonemic inventory. So, for example, for many
suprasegmentals. A notable absence on the Scots speakers, there is only one vowel sound in
diagram was tonic stress placement, which the pair full–fool, while in Southern English, these
seems to be subsumed under ‘pitch movement’. are two different sounds. The second is where
Although it is mentioned later in the book, it two accents share the same sound distinctions,
might have been better to include it here in view of but differ in the precise realization of many of
its importance and to counteract the impression these sounds, for instance an /r/ being more or
that intonation is only about the ups and downs in less rolled. The third area of variation relates to
ELT Journal Page 1 of 3
© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
the rules of how sounds are realized in different book would need to have covered these topics
positions in the syllable. For example in Southern elsewhere at much greater length. Secondly, I felt
English, an /r/ does not occur at the end of a the area of pedagogy specific to pronunciation
syllable, while in many other accents it does. The teaching was not covered in sufficient depth.
fourth and final category, ‘Lexical differences’, For example perhaps there should have been a
is much more idiosyncratic, referring to the way chapter of strategies which teachers can use in
specific words or groups of words are pronounced class to work the physical articulation of sounds:
one way in one accent and another way in another for instance, the kind of material in Underhill
accent, for no generalizable reason. Examples (2005). All in all, then, I had the feeling that there
here include whether words like ‘laugh’ have a was a hole in the middle of the book, which can be
short or long vowel sound, or the much disputed visualized as in Figure 1.
alternative pronunciations of ‘either’ and ‘neither’.
Section 1 of the book deals very effectively with
It seems that this fourth category of accent
the topic of ‘Pronunciation and phonetics’, on the
variation is what looms largest in the popular
left of the diagram; Section 2 deals too broadly
imagination of native speakers, but it is also
with ‘ELT pedagogy’, on the right, but without
arguably the most trivial in terms of pronunciation
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enough detail on the intersection of this with
teaching, having negligible impact on intelligibility.
‘Pronunciation’ in the centre.
The author’s main message in this chapter is
‘what is more important in the speech of learners That said, however, there were some very
is that contrasts are maintained rather than the valuable chapters in Section 2. For example in
precise allophonic realization of those contrasting Chapter 30, we have some interesting detail
phonemes’ (p. 77). In other words, an accent’s on the functional load of sound distinctions,
intelligibility is more important than the way it introducing the idea that not all minimal pairs
sounds. Also important in this chapter is that no are of equal importance. Functional load is an
distinction is made between native and non- important topic the author has dealt with in
native accents; the four categories of variation detail before (see Brown 1991). Meanwhile in
mentioned above cross-cut this distinction. Chapters 31 and 32, there is some very useful
material on focusing on spelling in relation to
In Chapters 20 and 21, on intonation, I was
pronunciation.
surprised to see that Brazil’s (1997) model of
discourse intonation was not highlighted more. The third and final section of the book is the
For instance, the author provides a grammatical shortest and consists of sample material for
explanation for how speech is divided up into tone practising the various aspects of pronunciation
units, rather than using a discourse-driven one. outlined in Section 1. The materials generally take
Perhaps the reason for this is purely pragmatic: an imaginative, fun approach, ranging from drama
it can be fiendishly difficult to teach discourse activities for suprasegmental features, rhymes
intonation, even with good classroom material for rhythm, jokes for homophone awareness, and
such as Bradford (1988). It may be more practical puzzles for word stress and sounds, many of the
in the end just to work with rules of thumb like, latter being very similar to the games in Hancock
‘Make sure you pronounce the punctuation’. The (1995), and also the author’s own book, Brown
author’s comment ending this section implies this (2005). Most of the activities dealing with individual
pragmatic stance: ‘Claims have been made that all sounds depend on the learners having a working
intonation is discourse intonation ... . However, command of the phonemic alphabet, which limit
this does not necessarily mean that a discourse their utility. I would rather have seen some activities
analysis is the most useful one for language focusing on producing and perceiving sound
teaching purposes’ (p. 143). distinctions, based on minimal pairs perhaps,
which would rely less on phonemic symbols.
The second section of the book, ‘Pronunciation
teaching’, was less successful than the first, in my
opinion, for two reasons. Firstly, I felt that it was
too ambitious in scope. For instance, in Chapter
25, we have a brief history of ELT methodology,
while in Chapter 27 we have a distillation of the
topic of motivation. The purpose of including
these chapters here was not clear, since one
would imagine that a trainee teacher using this figure 1 Topic areas covered
Page 2 of 3 Review
To sum up, in spite of my reservations regarding Brown, A. 2005. Sounds, Symbols and Spellings.
the second half of the book, I would certainly Singapore: McGraw-Hill.
recommend it on the strength of the first part, Hancock, M. 1995. Pronunciation Games.
which is one of the most useful and accessible Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
introductions to the topic available. I would Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as an
certainly consider using it as a class text in a International Language. Oxford: Oxford University
teacher training module on pronunciation, Press.
perhaps with a little supplementation in the area of Underhill, A. 2005. Sound Foundations: Learning
intonation. and Teaching Pronunciation. Oxford: Macmillan.
References The reviewer
Bradford, B. 1988. Intonation in Context: Mark Hancock is a freelance ELT teacher and
Intonation Practice for Upper-Intermediate materials writer. He has taught in Sudan, Turkey,
and Advanced Learners of English. Cambridge: Brazil, Spain, and the United Kingdom. He is author
Cambridge University Press. of a number of books including Pronunciation
Downloaded from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/ at New York University on October 8, 2014
Brazil, D. 1997. The Communicative Value of Games (1995) and English Pronunciation in Use
Intonation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge Intermediate (2012). He is co-founder of the ELT
University Press. resources website hancockmcdonald.com.
Brown, A. 1991. Teaching English Pronunciation: Email: mark@hancockmcdonald.com
A Book of Readings. London: Routledge. doi:10.1093/elt/ccu052
Review Page 3 of 3
