LCD720

1
LCD720 03/11/09

• Review
• Looking at sound

2
Announcements

• Midterm assignment will be available on
  Blackboard after class
• Submit on Blackboard or hand in in class
• Due Wednesday, March 18, 630pm
• 30 of the final grade
• Next week Lab session in PH 212 at 645pm
• Today
• Finishing intonation patterns homework
• Review
• Looking at sound

3
From last week

• Remember
• Intonation units and prominence
• Common intonation patterns
• Declarative statements and wh-questions
• Yes/no questions
• Closed or open choice (e.g., coffee or tea)
• Tag questions eliciting agreement or signalling
  uncertainty (e.g., doesnt he)
• Your suggestions for
• Pedagogical priorities
• Types of activities

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Teaching intonation patterns Pedagogical
priorities

• Intonation patterns that can change the meaning
  of a sentence
• Declarative pattern when a question is intended
• Shes gone vs. Shes gone?
• Open-choice intonation for closed-choice question
• Do you want coffee or tea?
• Intonation signaling uncertainty when agreement
  was requested
• He usually arrives around noon, doesnt he?
• Intonation patterns that can make sentences
  difficult to understand, e.g.,
• Using rising pattern for wh-questions (instead of
  rising-falling)

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Teaching intonation patterns (1)

• Consciousness raising
• Illustrate the four pitch levels
• Explain the link between punctuation and
  intonation (although not always very clear)
• Especially . and ? and !
• Listening discrimination exercises
• Add . or ? or ! based on intonation
• Classify tag questions or choice questions

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Teaching intonation patterns (2)

• Controlled practice and feedback
• Reading dialogues indicate intonation contour in
  written text and/or use hand movements
• Mirroring / shadowing (with or without
  transcript)
• Guided practice and feedback
• Follow-ups on dialogues or shadowing
• Communicative practice and feedback
• Twenty questions (yes/no questions)

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Practice

• Draw the intonation contours for these two
  sentences
• Where are you going?
• Im going to the store.
• Write 3 pairs of open-choice and closed-choice
  questions. Draw their intonation contours.
• Write 2 sentences with tag questions that elicit
  agreement, and 2 that express uncertainty. Draw
  their intonation contours.

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• Intonation and meaning

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Intonation and meaning

• Intonation can signal whether a speaker is done
  speaking, or wants to hold the floor a little
  longer
• Perception when to start speaking
• Production how to hold the floor

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Focus

• The intonation rises on the word that is in focus
• John cooked DINner vs. JOHN cooked dinner
• Did John cook DINner? vs. Did JOHN cook dinner?
• In unmarked cases, the word in focus is the last
  content word
• This is often the new information

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Additional intonation patterns

• Remember yes/no questions
• Did John cook dinner?
• To signal an expectation of an affirmation, or
  impatience (like declarative pattern)
• Did John cook dinner?

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Additional intonation patterns

• Remember question intonation on regular
  sentences
• Shes gone?
• To signal surprise or disbelief exaggerated
  intonation
• Shes gone?

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Additional intonation patterns

• Remember wh-questions
• Who will help?
• To ask someone to repeat part of the information
• Who will help?
• To signal surprise or disbelief
• Who will help?
• Display questions (often used by teachers)
• Two plus two is what?

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Intonation and meaningPedagogical priorities

• Aim mostly for comprehension of
• The different intonation patterns, e.g.,
• Open/closed choice questions
• Words in focus
• I bought a new SWEAter vs. I bought a NEW sweater

15
Homework

• Practice homework intonation
• Select an intonation pattern and construct a
  listening discrimination exercise.

16
Overview

• History and background of teaching L2
  pronunciation
• Consonants, vowels, and IPA
• Word stress, rhythm, and adjustments in connected
  speech
• Sentence intonation

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History and background of pronunciation teaching

• Age and exposure
• Aptitude and motivation
• L1, L2, and language universals
• Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis
• Interlanguage

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Consonants, vowels, and IPA

• Phonemes and allophones
• Consonants
• Place, manner, and voicing
• Positional variation
• Aspiration vs. release (tea vs. eat)
• Syllabic consonants
• Clusters

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Consonants, vowels, and IPA

• Vowels
• Tense vowels are often diphthongized ( get a
  glide)
• Vowel lengthening before voiced consonants, and
  in stressed syllables
• Nasalization
• Vowel reduction
• Unstressed syllables
• Unstressed (function) words

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Word stress, rhythm, and connected speech

• Stress patterns are related to positional
  variation
• Flapping, aspiration, vowel reduction
• Connected speech
• Linking, assimilation, deletion

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Sentence intonation

• Prominence and intonation units
• Four pitch levels
• Rising-falling vs. rising intonation

22
Sentence intonation

• Common intonation contours
• Declarative statements
• Questions
• Yes/no
• Wh
• Open/closed alternative questions
• Tag questions
• Contrastive stress
• Signaling impatience or surprise

23
Transcribe

• Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and
  stupid
• Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate and
  brilliant
• Together theyre powerful beyond imagination
• (Einstein)

24
ESL speakers
the topic is shopping for food in your coun my
country the same as in USA my country food
usually spicy food but USA food is usually
swee(t) is sweet usually sweet and also USA
an(d) my country country's food are usually eat
eaten vegetable I think vegetable is same
thing my my country's food food food is rice some
side dishes but USA food is usually vegetable
an(d) spaghetti our best food ah I think so I I
like I like USA's USA US food but US ah food is
ah unhealthy I think ah but so healthy m my
country's food an(d)

• Example of an ESL speaker
• L1 Korean
• What do you notice about her pronunciation?
• What would you do to help these students improve
  their pronunciation?

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Indicate intonation groups, prominence and
intonation contours

• A Excuse me I was wondering if you could
  help me?B Sure. Whats up?A I need to
  find this office. Do you know where it
  is?B Oh yeah. Youre going to want to
  go up this street and make a right.A
  Ill turn right at the light on the
  corner?B Right. Go down that street and
  its in the middle of the block.A Thats
  where the building is?B Yeah the office
  is on the first floor so go down the
  stairs and its right there.A Got it.
  Thank you!B No problem!

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• Looking at sound(preparation for PRAAT lab next
  week)

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Looking at sound

• Sound can be made visible by waveforms and
  spectrograms
• Speech sounds are created by vibrations of the
  vocal cords, which produce a wave
• Variation in air pressure
• The air pressure can
• be plotted into a graph
• to produce a waveform
• How did we get this
• wave?

Pressure ?
Time ?
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Production of sound waves by a loudspeaker

• Sound waves are like waves in a coil (like a
  Slinky)

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The red line is like your vocal cords
The individual air molecules only vibrate back
and forth locally, they do not travel from the
source to the receiver
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Measuring the wave (pressure)
Loudness depends primarily on the amplitude
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The sound wave of articulated
Pressure ?
Time ?
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Complex waves

• The sound wave of speech is much more complex
  than the waves weve seen so far
• The wave of a speech sound is always a
  combination of multiple other waves with
  different frequencies and different loudness
• These waves are added up

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Adding waves
34
Adding waves
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This is how a synthesizer works
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Frequencies

• To see which sound is produced, we cant just
  look at the waveform itself
• We need to find the different waves in the
  waveform
• More specifically, we need the frequencies of
  those waves
• Frequency is the number of times one wavelength
  comes by in one second
• If it comes by 10 times per second, its frequency
  is 10 Hertz (Hz)
• Humans can hear 20 to 20,000 Hz.
• Most phonetic information is below 8,000 Hz.

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• Which wave has a higher frequency?

0 sec
1 sec
2 sec
3 sec
4 sec
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Spectrograms

• The waveform can be analyzed into its frequencies
• Frequencies can be made visible with spectrograms

Frequency ?
articulated
Time ?
39
?
d
?r
th
?
k
?
yu l
ey
Voiced sounds have three or four major frequencies
Dark areas indicate louder frequencies
F3
Frequency ?
F2
F1
F0
Time ?
articulated
40
?
d
?r
th
?
k
?
yu l
ey
Frequency ?
Time ?
You can recognize vowels
articulated
41
?
d
?r
th
?
k
?
yu l
ey
Frequency ?
You can recognize stops /p, t, k, b, d, g, ?/
Time ?
articulated
42
d
?
?r
th
?
k
?
yu l
ey
Little puff of air
Big puff of air
Frequency ?
You can recognize aspiration
Time ?
articulated
43
?
d
?r
th
?
k
yu ley
?
yu l
ey
Frequency ?
You can recognize pitch
Time ?
articulated
44

• Which word is this?
• whose
• pseudonym
• judgment
• dessert

How did you know?
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What would you do?

• Your students consistently pronounce this as
  /d?s/.
• Your students consistently pronounce back as
  /b?k/.
• Your students have a tendency to insert /?/
  between words in phrases like cold, drink, wet
  towel, and gas station.
• A student asks you for advice, saying People
  cant tell whether Im saying thirteen or thirty.
  What should I do?
• One of your ESL students has many young American
  peers who regularly use rising intonation with
  statements. This student asks you about the
  conflict between this observation and what has
  been taught in the class.

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Next week

• Submit or hand in midterm assignment
• On BB or in class
• March 18, at beginning of class
• Lab session in PH212 at 645pm