{"id":50919,"date":"2018-05-09T10:22:19","date_gmt":"2018-05-09T14:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=50919"},"modified":"2018-12-20T11:41:57","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T16:41:57","slug":"new-book-sheds-light-on-the-politics-of-pronunciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2018\/05\/new-book-sheds-light-on-the-politics-of-pronunciation\/","title":{"rendered":"New book sheds light on the politics of pronunciation"},"content":{"rendered":"

You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to, but which one is correct?<\/span><\/p>\n

In his latest book, Professor Ron Thomson of the Department of Applied Linguistics explores the many challenges and techniques associated with teaching second-language learners how to speak English.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary English Pronunciation<\/span><\/em>, co-edited with Okim Kang and John M. Murphy, addresses what Thomson describes as \u201cthe new but growing field of inquiry\u201d around pronunciation instruction.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTeaching pronunciation to adult learners of a new language is difficult because among language skills, it is the least amenable to change,\u201d Thomson explains. \u201cIt can\u2019t be learned in the same way that, for example, grammatical descriptions and vocabulary can. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMost scholars also agree that while an adult can become native-like in listening, speaking, reading and writing in a new language, it is all but impossible to learn to speak a new language without any hint of a foreign accent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the difficulties associated with pronunciation come from the widely varying ways in which English speakers approach grammatical functions like the past tense. Thomson points out that, for example, \u201cwalked sounds like walkt, loaded sounds like load\u2013ed and flowed sounds like flowd,\u201d and notes that \u201csimilar patterns surface in English plurals \u2014 cats versus dogz versus dishes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPronunciation is primarily perceptual phenomena, which means it can be changed in a listening classroom,\u201d Thomson says. This is part of why the new book, which looks at the many issues surrounding pronunciation and its teaching, is so important.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have provided a one-stop resource that includes not only topics directly related to second-language English pronunciation, but also more theoretical content, written for a non-expert audience,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the hottest of these topics is technology \u2014 something that Thomson, as the creator of several different pronunciation apps, understands well. His most recent program,<\/span> English Accent Coach<\/span><\/a>, offers gamified phonetic training for thousands of English learners worldwide.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe use of technology allows for individualized training, whereas given limited resources, teachers have previously taught groups of learners,\u201d says Thomson. \u201cTechnology also has the potential to provide certain types of feedback to learners.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The book also provides key insights on World Englishes, another complex and sometimes controversial topic when it comes to learning pronunciation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cApplied linguists recognize that there are different Englishes around the world,\u201d Thomson says. \u201cFor example, traditional English-speaking countries settled by English speakers \u2014 Canada, the U.S., Australia and England itself \u2014 all have different pronunciations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut other countries, such as India, Pakistan, Singapore, Nigeria and Ghana, also have distinct varieties of English spoken as a native language, and other Englishes are spoken as a foreign language, such as in Japan, Korea and Mexico. Since each of these has their own way of pronouncing English, debate rages about what model should be taught by English language teachers.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary English Pronunciation<\/span><\/em> is now available in bookstores and online.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to, but which one is correct?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":50920,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,1,4,38],"tags":[72,933,522,6610,5522],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50921,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50919\/revisions\/50921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}