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Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.

br Jan2015

Curso Especializao Ingls

Fonologia
do

Ingls
January 2015
FALE-UFMG

Thas Cristfaro-Silva
www.letras.ufmg.br/cristofaro

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Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

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O Ensino de Pronncia na Aula de Lngua Estrangeira


1. O ensino de pronncia: futuros professores e alunos

2. O papel da sonoridade na aquisio de lngua estrangeira

3. O sonho dourado de falar como nativo!

4. Escutando a prpria lngua

5. Exemplos:
1a. arte
2a. art

()

1b. artes
2b. arts

3a. tarde
4a. card

()

3b. tardes
4b. cards

6. Ensino de pronncia e smbolos fonticos: o uso de dicionrios!

7. Transcries fonticas (simbolizadas entre colchetes [xxx]) ou fonolgicas


(simbolizadas entre barras transversais /xxx/)?

8. Quantos e quais so os sons do ingls?

9. A gradualidade fontica e a particularidade de cada som em cada lngua

10. Aprendendo o diferente e aprendendo a categorizar o diferente

11. O papel do detalhe fontico na organizao do componente fonolgico (incluindo-se


aqui a lngua estrangeira).

O ensino de lngua estrangeira especfico de cada lngua e deve ser


gerenciado de maneira especfica e no globalizante!

Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

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Fontica e Fonologia
[] //
1. Leitura (letra-som) x Escrita (som-letra)
cassa caa
cela sela

2. Correspondncia letra-som:
cachorro 8L/6S
afta
4L/5S
advogando 9L/9S

3. graphemes: letra individual associada a um som


casa
three
allographs: seqncias diferentes de letras que representam o mesmo som
julho/Jlio; mgoa/gua.
mail, convey, hate, steak.
digraphs: seqncias de duas letras (iguais ou diferentes) geralmente representam um som
acha, carro, louco, cheiro.
book, issue, shoe.

4. Como identificar SONS. A relao entre fontica e fonologia

5. Leitura do texto transcrito foneticamente





]

6. Comparao de inventrios do portugus e ingls

7. O mecanismo de produo da fala: as consoantes e as vogais

8. O que uma consoante? O que diferencia as categorias C x V?

9. Explorando os limites do aparelho fonador

Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

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Parmetros Articulatrios

1. cavidade oral
2. cavidade nasal
3. cavidade nasofaringal
4. cavidade faringal
5. lbio superior
6. dentes superiores
7. alvolos
8. palato duro
9. palato mole (vu palatino)
10. vula
11. lbio inferior
12. dentes inferiores
13. pice da lngua
14. lmina da lngua
15. parte anterior da lngua
16. parte mdia da lngua
17. parte posterior da lngua
18. epiglote
19. laringe
20. esfago
21. glote

Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

anterior
arred

central

noarred

posterior

noarred

arred

alta
mdia-alta

mdia-baixa

baixa

arred

noarred

alta
mdia-alta

mdia-baixa

baixa

arred

noarred

arred

noarred

anterior

Nasais
central

posterior

noarred

arred

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Ditongos
Crescentes

Decrescentes

Nasais

Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

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Consoantes do Portugus
Smbolo

Classificao do Segmento Consonantal

Exemplo Ortogrfico

Oclusiva Bilabial Desvozeada

capa, prata, plana, aspas

Oclusiva Bilabial Vozeada

cabaa, brava, blasfemar, garbosa

Oclusiva Alveolar Desvozeada

ataca, trava, atlas, carta, gasta

Oclusiva Alveolar Vozeada

cada, ladra, rdua, esdrxula

Oclusiva Velar Desvozeada

acata, cravo, escama, arca, aclama

Oclusiva Velar Vozeada

agacha, grata, esgrima, larga, rasga

AfricadaAlveopalatal Desvozeada

Tiago, tpica, mrtir, ativista

Africada Alveopalatal Vozeada

tardia, diria, adiada, dica

Fricativa Labiodental Desvozeada

fraca, afaga, flama, esfola, arfar

Fricativa Labiodental Vozeada

rvore, livro, cavalo, esvair

Fricativa Alveolar Desvozeada

Fricativa Alveolar Vozeada

assanhada, cachaa, gara, salsicha, casca,


paz, esta
dezde, zero, exagera, rasa

Fricativa Alveopalatal Desvozeada

marcha, xadrs, chuva, Caxias

Fricativa Alveopalatal Vozeada


Fricativa Velar Desvozeada

maraj, argila, janela, general


r, carta, marra, Israel, amar

Fricativa Velar Vozeada

larga, corda, brbara

Fricativa Glotal Desvozeada

r, carta, marra, Israel, amar

Fricativa Glotal Vozeada

larga, corda, brbara

Nasal Bilabial Vozeada

me, arma, esmola, lama

Nasal Alveolar Vozeada

cana, Arnaldo, asno, nata

ou

Nasal Palatal Vozeada

assanha, cnhamo, lasanha

Tepe Alveolar Vozeado

praa, sarar, gravador, mar

Vibrante Alveolar Vozeada

r,, marra, Israel

Retroflexa Alveolar Vozeada

carta, amar

Lateral Alveolar Vozeada

plstica, lua, isl, orla

Lateral Alveolar Vozeada Velarizada

malvada, alar, anel, Brasil

Lateral Palatal Vozeada

galha, malharia, alho

ou w
ou

Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

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O Mtodo das Vogais Cardeais


Cristfaro-Silva. 1999. O Mtodo das Vogais Cardeais e as Vogais do Portugus Brasileiro
In: Revista de Estudos da Linguagem. 1999. Volume 8. Nmero 2. Belo Horizonte.
www.letras.ufmg.br/cristofaro (ir em publicaes)
[O artigo apresenta uma proposta de anlise do sistema voclico do portugus brasileiro baseada no Mtodo
das Vogais Cardeais (Abercrombie (1967, Jones (1980)). Inicialmente descrevemos em detalhes tal mtodo]

Figuras identificando a rea voclica no aparelho fonador

Encontra-se venda uma gravao dos sons adotados pelo Alfabeto Internacional de
Fontica. (http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA). Dentre estes sons temos a gravao das Vogais
Cardeais (e obviamente das consoantes tambm). Este material, elaborado pelo Professor
John Wells do University College London, pode ser obtido em fita cassete (U$12) ou em CD
(U$17) (http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/cassette.htm).

As Vogais Cardeais Primrias expressas em termos das principais caractersticas articulatrias:


(altobaixo); (anteriorposterior) e (arredondadono-arredondado)

Tomando como referncia os valores cardeais descritos acima, podemos identificar


qualquer segmento voclico de qualquer lngua. Podemos adotar um dos smbolos
apresentados para a vogal cardeal mais prxima vogal que pretendemos descrever ou
podemos utilizar um dos diacrticos abaixo para precisar a localizao de tal vogal na rea
voclica.
levantada qualidade mais alta
abaixada
qualidade mais baixa

retrada
qualidade mais posterior avanada
qualidade mais anterior

Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

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Diagrama das Vogais Cardeais Associao Internacional de Fontica

http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipa.html

Combinaes formam ditongos, que em portugues podem ser orais ou nasais

Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

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English Vowels
http://www.helsinki.fi/hum/hyfl/projektit/vokaalikartat_eng.html#italian_vowels

British English (monophthongs)


Each vowel type is exemplified with a keyword. Data from Deterding 1997, where the vowels
were obtained from a digital speech database consisting of the speech of five male speakers;
approximately 10 occurrences per vowel type.
Deterding, David (1997) The formants of monophthong vowels in Standard Southern British English
pronunciation. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 27, 47-55.

http://www.helsinki.fi/hum/hyfl/projektit/vokaalikartat_eng.html#italian_vowels

American English vowels: Mean formant values of 33 male speakers for ten American English vowels.
The test words were of the form /hVd/ and each speaker produced the testwords twice. The keywords
were not includedin the data. Vowel length is not shown in the figure.
Data from: G. E. Peterson & H.L.Barney (1952) Control methods used in a study of the vowels. Journal
of the Acoustical Society of America, 24, 175-184

Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

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Oclusivas

vozeadas
desvozeadas

Africadas

vozeadas
desvozeadas

Fricativas

vozeadas
desvozeadas

Nasais
Laterais
Rtico
Aproximante

12
VOGAIS
alta
mdia
baixa

vozeadas

vozeadas
vozeadas
vozeadas

glotal

velar

alveopalatal

alveolar

labiodental

interdental

24
CONSOANTES

bilabial

Consoantes e Vogais do Ingls

anterior

central

posterior

no-arredondada
longa
breve

No-arredondada
longa
breve

arredondada
longa
breve

8 DITONGOS
Ditongo crescente

Ditongo decrescente
terminado em

terminado em

Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

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Consoantes e Vogais do Ingls


Vogais

Vogais longas

curtas

Ditongos

Ditongos

Consoantes

decrescentes

crentralizados

desvozeadas

Consontes vozeadas (exceto )


ssw

12 vogais

8 ditongos

44 sons
Thas Cristfaro-Silva2004

24 consoantes

Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

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Informaes importantes
OUTROS SMBOLOS
Indica a vogal tnica: ''black'' k
Indica o limite silbico: ''practice'' .
Representa os casos em que ocorre em: posio tona
final - como em ''happy'' hp.; ou quando seguido de
outra vogal (i+vogal) - como em ''react'' r.; ou em
alguns prefixos como ''be-, re'' - como em ''believe''
.. Nestes casos uma vogal breve/tensa - -
pronunciada.
Representa os casos em que ocorre seguido de outra
vogal (u+vogal) - como em ''cruel'' .. Nestes casos
uma vogal breve/tensa - - pronunciada.
O t-d que se tornam um tepe ou ''flap'' e tpico da
pronncia norte-americana ''city'' .

O ''schwa'' indica que uma vogal pode ser pronunciada


muito brevemente ou pode ser omitida: ''bottle'' . ou
.

Regra de formao de plural e 3 pessoa singular presente


Se o substantivo ou verbo termina...

Plural e 3psp

em vogal, ditongo ou em consoante vozeada (exceto , , )

Adicione

em consoante desvozeada (exceto , , )

Adicione

em , , , , ou

Adiciona

Regra de formao de passado e particpio passado


Se o verbo termina ...
em vogal, ditongo ou em consoante vozeada (exceto )

Pass e Particpio
Pass
Adicione

em consoante desvozeada (exceto )

Adicione

em ou

Adicione

Thas Cristfaro-Silva 2004

Em ingls:
Vogais longas so tensas (tense) e vogais breves so frouxas (lax).
Vogais longas podem ocorrer em final de slaba e de palavra em ingls .
Vogais breves no ocorrem em slabas abertas em ingls (ou seja, em finald e slaba
incluindo final de palavra) que equivalente a dizer queVogais breves sempre
ocorrem em slabas travadas em ingls.
As vogais em ingls so tipicamente orais mesmo quandoseguidas de consoantes
nasais.

Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

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Weak and Strong forms


Exemplo Forma
forte
a

Forma
fraca
sobre as formas fracas
Observao
antes de consoantes

aps I (am)
nos outros casos
antes de vogais

am

an
and
are

as
at
be
but
can

antes de consoantes
antes de vogais

do

does
for

from

has

have

had

her
him
his

is

antes de consoantes

antes de vogais

aps

aps

nos demais casos

aps I, we, you, they. Somente quando verbo auxiliar.

nos outros casos


aps I, we, she, we, you, they. Somente quando verbo auxiliar.

nos outros casos

aps

must
of
shall
should
some
than
that
the
them
to
us
was
were

Will

Would

you
your

usado antes de consoantes. A forma usada antes de


vogais

aps vogais e consoantes vozeadas, exceto , , . Aps


a forma forte sempre usada

quando 'some' quer dizer 'uma certa quantidade' ocorre a forma forte.

quando indica, especificamente, algo usa-se a forma forte


antes de consoantes. Antes de vogais, tende ocorrer a forma forte

antes de consoantes. Antes de vogais, tende ocorrer a forma forte


somente em ''Lets''

aps I, he, she, we, you, they

aps consoantes exceto

aps vogais e
aps I, he, she, we, you, they

nos outros casos

Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

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Better English Pronunciation


OConnor (1980: 7)

Letters

are

written ,
sounds

are

spoken.

It

is
very
useful

to

have

written
letters
to

remind

us

but

this
is all

they
do;

they
cannot
make

sounds

which

we

do
not
already

of

corresponding
sounds,

us
pronounce

know; they
simply
remind us.


In
ordianry
English spelling is not
always

easy


to
know what sounds the letters stand for;
busy, women, pretty,
village
the letters


example, in

the

words

city,

for

i,
y,
u,
o,
e
and
a
all
stand
for
the
same
vowel
sound,
the
one which occurs
in
sit.

Especializao Ingls Fonologia L1 - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br Jan2015

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Exercises
Ex 01: Escreva o smbolo fontico inicial das palavras
1.
cheiro
2.
gato

4.
7.
10.

junto
couro
cinema

5.
8.
11.

cheque
tipo
girafa

3.
6.
9.
12.

Ex 02: Indique o nmero de sons que ocorrem em cada uma das palavras abaixo:
03
1. sal
6. liquidao
2. casa
7. dogma
3. carro
8. cinto
4. pasta
9. quadro
5. gueto
10. xcara

janela

chuva

dica

rato

11. impregna
12. tardes
13. quilo
14. tambm
15. goiaba

Ex 03: Classifique o som intervoclico nas palavras abaixo. Escreva o smbolo fontico correspondente. Siga o exemplo.
Palavra
Smbolo
Classificao
1. passa
Fricativa alveolar desvozeada

2. cara
3. gata
4. bala
5. palha
6. banha
7. garra
8. casa
9. caj
10. acha
Ex 04: Escreva o smbolo fontico correspondente ao segmento inicial das palavras abaixo:
Palavra
Smbolo
Palavra
Smbolo
1. chave
6. gato

2. tijolo
7. dia
3. jaca
8. lua
4. cama
9. xarope
5. gelo
10. rapaz
Ex 05: D um exemplo de palavra do portugus brasileiro que tenha o segmento classificado abaixo. Indique o
seu smbolo fontico
Segmento
Smbolo
Exemplo
1. Oclusiva bilabial desvozeada
capricho

2. Tepe alveolar vozeado


3. Fricativa alveolar desvozeada
4. Fricativa alveopalatal desvozeada
5. Fricativa alveopalatal vozeada
6. Nasal bilabial vozeada
7. Fricativa labiodental desvozeda
8. Africada alveopalatal desvozeada
9. Oclusiva alveolar vozeada
10. Africada alveopalatal vozeada
Ex 06: Marque as consoantes que tenham a propriedade articulatria listada esquerda (3 em cada grupo).
a. vozeado

f. fricativo

b. desvozeado

g. lateral

c. nasal

h. bilabial

d. oral

i. alveolar

e. oclusivo

j. velar

Apostila CEI 2014 Thas Cristfaro Silva FALE-UFMG thaiscristofaro@gmail.com

___________________________________________________________________________
Ex 07: Selecione uma das palavras abaixo cujo segmento inicial corresponda ao segmento listado abaixo.
lado cravo frio vaca tipo moa gado zero
a. Oclusiva velar vozeada
gado
b. Africada alveopalatal desvozeada
________________
c. Fricativa labiodental vozeada
________________
d. Nasal bilabial voeada
________________
e. Lateral alveolar vozeada
________________
f. Fricativa labiodental desvozeada
________________
g. Fricativa alveolar vozeada
________________
h. Oclusiva velar desvozeada
________________
Ex 08: Para cada um dos segmentos listados abaixo escreva o correspondente vozeado. Siga o exemplo.

Ex 09:

Ex 10:

lua
mala
cena
falha
lata

cinema
sol
tarde
chuva
mame

ala
canjica
dado
melo
car

pulga
doce
salsa
muda
sal

pano
droga
cassino
bola
tropa

traa
calota
carro
massa
selo

grade
soda
caneta
folha
lama

Ex 11: Classifique as vogais tnicas orais do portugus de acordo com as categorias listadas abaixo. As vogais a
serem classificadsa so: ,,,,,,
Anterior
Central
Posterior
Alta
Mdia-alta
Mdia-baixa
Baixa
Ex 12: Nas palavras abaixo indique o smbolo fontico da vogal tnica.
1.
bal
2.
piv

4.
7.
10.

pav
roa
pea

5.
8.
11.

mdico
pssaro
fossa

3.
6.
9.
12.

japons

poo

corda

medo

Apostila CEI 2014 Thas Cristfaro Silva FALE-UFMG thaiscristofaro@gmail.com

___________________________________________________________________________

Ex 13:

l
cem
sabo
sim
bombom

hora
rua
canto
mulher
surda

rum
pompom
atum
bem
tom

placa
moda
cabelo
anjo
flor

Ex 14: Circule as palavras que terminam em som consonantal


1. system
5. cabagge
9. vulture
2. fox
6. coffee
10. cheese
3. happy
7. ring
11. baby
4. gender
8. blame
12. drama

13. these
14. orange
15. cow
16. service

Ex 15: Em cada grupo de palavras abaixo circule aquelas que satisfaam a condio pedida:
a. Termina em som consonantal
lady
employee
laugh
drama
piece
house
b. Termina em som voclico
high
snow
assume
him
scene
spy
c. Termina em som consonantal
coffee
late
tough
home
niece
unique
d. Termina em som voclico
party
plane
star
edge
scene
fly
Ex 16: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo
1
niece
6
2
bead
7
3
heavy
8
4
is
9
5
meat
10

quite
law
one
sigh

piece
it
green
tree
English

Ex 17: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo


1
fase
6
please
2
basic
7
rice
3
beauty
8
cough
4
of
9
young
5
fantasy
10
crisis
Ex 18: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo

1
prices
6
hope
2
said
7
ready
3
says
8
trees
4
eggs
9
cars
5
sleeps
10
cups
Ex 19: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo

1
books
6
forks
2
door
7
true
3
good
8
bored
4
pot
9
God
5
boom
10
kisses

Apostila CEI 2014 Thas Cristfaro Silva FALE-UFMG thaiscristofaro@gmail.com

___________________________________________________________________________
Ex 20: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo

1
boys
6
this
2
they
7
cheap
3
stay
8
these
4
thought
9
shame
5
rouge
10
Jane
Ex 21: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo

1
love
6
bus
2
cow
7
water
3
ugly
8
does
4
bird
9
gold
5
just
10
cold
Ex 22: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo

1
kings
6
man
2
rooms
7
men
3
noses
8
hanged
4
women
9
beers
5
woman
10
bears
Ex 23: D um exemplo em forma ortogrfica e fontica de cada um dos sons consonantais do ingls listados
abaixo:
som
ortografia
fontica
som
ortografia
fontica

rouge

[ru:]

Apostila CEI 2014 Thas Cristfaro Silva FALE-UFMG thaiscristofaro@gmail.com

___________________________________________________________________________

Ex 24: Transcreva ortograficamente os seguintes enunciados:


1) ____________________________________________
2) ________________________________
3) ________________________________________________
4) _____________________________________________
Ex 25: Circule ou marque um X nas palavras que tm o som listado na coluna da esquerda:
people built key busy sea
1.
book shoe move pull soup would
2.
love duck flood bug double
3.
many ready says marry bye
4.
pleasure jam sugar vision regime
5.
boat house show know
doubt
6.
choice
cage
which
edge
nature
7.
pack ghost
orchestra come acquire
8.
chew wolf
too
move
look
9.
10. f
chef action social cause
shoe
laugh
Ex 26: Circule as palavras que tm a vogal listada na coluna da esquerda
1)
bin, reach, fill, see, sea, sin
2)
bet, dead, bed, fell, wet, led
3)
bat, dad, card, lack, bad, last
4)
duck, cup, nut, lost, luck, rum
5) last, tan, bat, card, ward, pass
6)
dock, box, cod, cord, Paul, lack
Ex 27: As duas sentenas abaixo representam transcries que apresentam desvio de pronncia padro do
ingls. Faa as correces adequadas.
a) _________________________________
b)

___________________________________

Ex 28: Escolha UMA das opes como a transcrio fontica da palavra em forma ortogrfica. Marque-a com
um X ou circule-a.
1. bird

2. walk

3. mail

4. middle

5. night

6. never

7. family

8. dream

9. woman

10. complete

Ex 29: Escolha a uma das opes como a transcrio fontica da palavra em forma ortogrfica:
1. rich

2. search

3. fetch

4. bridge

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___________________________________________________________________________
5. surge
6. catch

Ex 30: D um exemplo de palavra para cada um dos sons listados abaixo (em transcrio fontica e ortogrfica)
Som Fontica
Ortografia
Som
Fontica
Ortografia

Ex 31: Escreva a forma ortogrfica e a forma fontica de 3a. psp e do passado dos verbos listados na tabela
abaixo (indique todo o verbo e a terminao verbal):
Fontica
Ortografia
Presente
Passado

Ex 32: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo:


1. happy
3. science
5. English
7. house

2.
4.
6.
8.

small
thing
hat
fantasy

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___________________________________________________________________________
9.
11.
13.
15.
17.
19.

because
rice
niece
basic
was
street

10.
12.
14.
16.
18.
20.

never
ask
slow
these
study
money

Ex 33: Transcreva foneticamente as sentenas abaixo


a. He is just twelve years old.
b. They arrived very late for the meeting.
c. Ive been thinking about them in the past few days.

Ex 34: Em cada par de pronncia circule aquela que parece ser mais prxima a um enunciado de falante nativo.
Indique a forma ortogrfica que voc identificou.
Pronncia
Ortogrfica
1.

2.

3.

4.

Ex 35: Em cada par de pronncia marque com um (x) xis aquela que parece ser mais prxima a um enunciado
de falante nativo. Na forma que no foi selecionada circule o(s) desvio(s) da pronncia nativa.

Ex 36: Em cada par de pronncia circule aquela que parece ser mais prxima a um enunciado de falante nativo.
Indique a forma ortogrfica que voc identificou.
Pronncia
Ortogrfica
1.

2.

3.

4.

Apostila CEI 2014 Thas Cristfaro Silva FALE-UFMG thaiscristofaro@gmail.com

___________________________________________________________________________

Referncias
ABERCROMBIE, David. Elements of General Phonetics. Edinburgh University
Press. Edinburgh. 1967.fontica e fonologia do ingls
CRISTFARO-SILVA, Thas. O Ensino de Pronncia de Lngua Estrangeira. IN;
Em torno da Lingua(gem): questes e anlises. UESB. Vitria da Conquista.
CRISTFARO-SILVA, Thas. Pronncia do Ingls para Falantes do Portugus
Brasileiro. FALE. 2005.
CRISTFARO-SILVA, Thas. Fontica e Fonologia do Portugus.:roteiro de
estudos e guia de exerccios. Editora Contexto. 2001.
CRISTFARO-SILVA, Thas. (2000). O Mtodo das Vogais Cardeais e as Vogais
do Portugus Brasileiro. Revista de Estudos da Linguagem UFMG. Volume 8.
Nmero 2, jul-dez 1999.
LADEFOGED, Peter. A Course in Phonetics. 3rd. ed. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
1993.fontica e fonologia do ingls
O'CONNOR, J. D. Better English Pronunciation. 2nd ed. Cambridge Univesrity
Press. 1980.Excelente livro de pronncia do ingls
KREIDLER, Charles. The Pronunciation of English: A Course Book in Phonology.
Blackwell. 1989.Excelente livro de fonologia do ingls
WELL, J. Why phonetic transcription is important. Online. 2008.
Dicionrios
JONES, D. English Pronuncing Dictionary. Cambridge University Press. 1997 (1st ed
1917 by J. M.Dent &Sons Ltd.). 15th ed. Edited by Peter Roach and James Hartman.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS. CIDE (Cambridge International Dictionary of
English). 2000.
KENYON, J. S. & Knott. Pronouncing Dictionary of American English. G & C
Merrian & Co. 1953.
WELLS, John. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Longman. 1990.

Apostila CEI 2014 Thas Cristfaro Silva FALE-UFMG thaiscristofaro@gmail.com

___________________________________________________________________________
Instrues Praat
1) Para abrir o PRAAT: clicar no cone no seu explorer
Duas janelas:
Praat objects abre arquivos, faz gravaes, etc.
Praat picture imprime
Para gravar:
Na janela do praat objects, clique em new, record mono sound ou record stereo sound. Para salvar um som que voc
acabou de gravar clique em save to list, na caixa de gravao, depois selecione o som e v no menu Write, Write to
Wave file.
Para abrir um arquivo j existente:
Clique no menu read depois read from file.
Se for um som longo, clique no menu read, depois open long sound file.
Para editar:
Selecione o dado que voc quer editar na janela em branco, que aparece do lado esquerdo no praat objects. Clique em
edit. A aparece o som editado. Em cima o oscilograma, ou seja, a onda, e em baixo o espectrograma.
Espectrogramas:
Banda larga estrutura do formante
Banda estreita - harmnicos
Se o espectrograma no visvel no sound editor, clique em show spectrogram. O default o espectrograma visvel.
Voc pode ajustar os parmetros do espectrograma, clicando em Spectrogram settings ou Advanced spectrogram
settings. No spectrogram settings aparece uma janela com as opes:
View range
Window length define banda larga e banda estreita. Banda larga: 0,003 a 0,005 (depende do informante) Banda
estreita: 0,03
Dynamic range o default do praat 50 db. Se voc aumenta, as linhas escurecem, se diminui, clareiam. Se h um
sinal com muito rudo, a soluo diminuir (passar pra 30 ou 40 db).
- Voc pode pegar o valor da intensidade, do pitch ou dos formantes, clicando no menu correspondente a esses
parmetros. Se voc pedir show formants, vo aparecer pontos vermelhos indicando o lugar dos formantes.
Para editar
Para recortar uma palavra, primeiro voc seleciona a palavra. Depois voc salva. Para salvar, clique em file, write
selection to wav file, d um nome.wav, por exemplo, onda.wav e salve.
Para abrir novamente esse som. V ao praat objects, clique em open, depois em edit.
Para imprimir:
Para imprimir ou para inserir o espectrograma em algum documento do word, voc precisa transferi-lo para a janela
praat picture.
Para transferir a onda.
Selecione a onda. Clique em file, extract selection. O nome sound untitled aparece na janela do praat objects.
Selecione esse som. Clique em draw. Quando voc d ok, esse som aparece na janela do praat picture dentro da caixa
cor de rosa. O espao dessa caixa cor de rosa, ser o espao ocupado pela onda. A partir da voc pode imprimir,
clicando em print, ou criar um arquivo de figuras para inserir em qualquer documento do word.
Para criar um arquivo, clique em: Write to windows metafile. D um nome .emf, por exemplo, onda.emf.
Para transferir espectrograma.
No janela sound, onde est o espectrograma, v em spectrogram e extract visible spectrogram. No praat objects
aparece spectrogram untitled. Selecione, v janela do praat picture e defina o tamanho da caixa cor de rosa. Em
seguida, clique em paint. O espectrograma aparecer na janela do praat picture. Para imprimir clique em print. Para
salvar como uma figura do word, clique em file, write to windows meta file. D um nome .emf, por exemplo,
espectrograma.emf.

Apostila CEI 2014 Thas Cristfaro Silva FALE-UFMG thaiscristofaro@gmail.com

___________________________________________________________________________

Resposta dos Exerccios da Apostila CEI - Thas Cristfaro Silva - 2014


Ex 01: Escreva o smbolo fontico inicial das palavras

13. [ cheiro
16. junto
19. couro
22. cinema

14. gato
17. cheque
20. tipo
23. girafa

15. janela
18. chuva
21. dica
24. rato

Ex 02: Indique o nmero de sons que ocorre em cada uma das palavras abaixo:
03
1.sal
09 ou 10
6. liquidao
07 ou 08
04
2. casa
05 ou 06
7. dogma
05 ou 06
04
3. carro
04
8. cinto
04
05
4. pasta
06
9. quadro
05
04
5. gueto
06
10. xcara
06

11. impregna
12. tardes
13. quilo
14. tambm
15. goiaba

Ex 03: Classifique o som intervoclico nas palavras abaixo. Escreva o smbolo fontico correspondente. Siga o exemplo.
Palavra
Smbolo
Classificao
1. passa
Fricativa alveolar desvozeada

2. cara
Tepe alveolar vozeado

3. gata
Oclusiva
alveolar desvozeada

4. bala
Lateral alveolar vozeada

5. palha
6. banha
7. garra
8. casa

Lateral palatal vozeada


Nasal palatal vozeada
Fricativa glotal desvozeada
Fricativa alveolar vozeada

9. caj
10. acha

Fricativa alveopalatal vozeada


Fricativa alveopalatal desvozeada

Ex 04: Escreva o smbolo fontico correspondente ao segmento inicial das palavras abaixo
Palavra
Smbolo
Palavra
1. chave
6. gato

2. tijolo
7. dia

3. jaca
8. lua

4. cama
9. xarope

5. gelo
10. rapaz

Smbolo

Ex 05: D um exemplo de palavra do portugus brasileiro que tenha os egmento classificado abaixo. Indique o seu smbolo
fontico
Segmento
Smbolo
Exemplo
1. Oclusiva bilabial desvozeada
capricho

2. Tepe alveolar vozeado


cara

3. Fricativa alveolar desvozeada


seu

4. Fricativa alveopalatal desvozeada


5.Fricativa alveopalatal vozeada
6. Nasal bilabial vozeada
7. Fricativa labiodental desvozeda
8.Africada alveopalatal vozeada

chave
jogo
meu
foi
cappuccino

9.Oclusiva alveolar vozeada


10. Africada alveopalatal vozeada

dar
dia

Ex 06: Marque as consoantes que tenham a propriedade articulatria listada esquerda (3 em cada grupo)
a. vozeado

b. desvozeado

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___________________________________________________________________________
c. nasal
d. oral
e. oclusivo
f. fricativo
g. lateral
h. bilabial
i. alveolar
j. velar

Ex 07: Selecione uma das palavras abaixo cujo segmento inicial corresponda ao segmento listado abaixo.
lado cravo frio vaca tipo moa gado zero
a. Oclusiva velar vozeada
gado
b. Africada alveopalatal desvozeada
tipo
c. Fricativa labiodental vozeada
vaca
d. Nasal bilabial voeada
moa
e. Lateral alveolar vozeada
lado
f. Fricativa labiodental desvozeada
frio
g. Fricativa alveolar vozeada
zero
h. Oclusiva velar desvozeada
cravo
Ex 08: Para cada um dos segmentos listados abaixo escreva o correspondente vozeado. Siga o exemplo.
x

Ex 09:

-----

-----

Ex 10:

lua
cinema
ala
pulga
pano
traa
grade

mala
sol
canjica
doce
droga
calota
soda

cena
tarde
dado
salsa
cassino
carro
caneta

falha
chuva
melo
muda
bola
massa
folha

lata
mame
car
sal
tropa
selo
lama

Ex 11: Classifique as vogais tnicas orais do portugus de acordo com as categorias listadas abaixo. As vogais a serem
classificadsa so: ,,,,,,
anterior
Mdia-alta
,,
,
Central
Mdia-baixa

,
Posterior

,,

Alta

Baixa

Ex 12: Nas palavras abaixo indique o smbolo fontico da vogal tnica.

13. bal
16. pav

14. piv
17. mdico

15. japons
18. poo

Especializao Ingls Fonologia - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br

19. roa
22. pea

20. ] pssaro
23. fossa

21. corda
24. dedo

Ex 13:

l
cem
sabo
sim
bombom

hora

rum

placa

rua

canto

mulher

pompom

atum

bem

tom

moda

cabelo

anjo

flor

Ex 14: Circule as palavras que terminam em som consonantal


1. system
5. cabagge
2. fox
6. coffee
3. happy
7. ring
4. gender
8. blame

9. vulture
10. cheese
11. baby
12. drama

surda

13. these
14. orange
15. cow
16. service

Ex 15: Em cada grupo de palavras abaixo circule aquelas que satisfaam a condio pedida:
e. Termina em som consonantal
lady
employee laugh
drama
piece
house
quite
f. Termina em som voclico
high snow
assume
him
scene
spy
law
g. Termina em som consonantal
coffee late
tough
home
niece
unique
one
h. Termina em som voclico
party plane
star
edge
scene
fly
sigh

Ex 16: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo


1
niece
6

2
bead
7

3
heavy
8

4
is
9

5
meat
10

piece
it
green
tree
English

Ex 17: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo


1
phase
6
please

2
basic
7
rice

3
beauty
8
cough

4
of
9
young

5
fantasy
10
crisis

Ex 18: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo

1
prices
6
hope

2
said
7
ready

3
says
8
trees

4
eggs
9
cars

5
sleeps
10
cups

Ex 19: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo

1
books
6
forks

2
door
7
true

3
good
8
bored

4
pot
9
God

5
boom
10
kisses

30-26

Especializao Ingls Fonologia - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br

30-27

Ex 20: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo

1
2
3
4
5

boys
they
stay
thought
rouge

6
7
8
9
10

this
cheap
these
shame
Jane

Ex 21: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo

1
2
3
4
5

love
cow
ugly
bird
just

6
7
8
9
10

bus
water
does
gold
cold

Ex 22: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo

1
kings
6
man

2
rooms
7
men

3
noses
8
hanged

4
women
9
biers

5
woman
10
bears

Ex 23: D um exemplo em forma ortogrfica e fontica de cada um dos sons consonantais do ingls listados abaixo:
som
ortografia
fontica
som
ortografia
fontica

pot

this

bus

these

tea

shoe

dad

rouge

cow

home

ugly

shame

cheap

no

just

ring

thin

love

the

right

phone

yes

very

water

me

toy

Tom

book

you

men

busy

they

door

it

man

about

does

bird

beers

Especializao Ingls Fonologia - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br

30-28

now

tour

cold

bears

Ex 24: Transcreva ortograficamente os seguintes enunciados:


They came yesterday.
1.
Thank you very much for your advice.
2.
3. Yes, I mentioned it.
Whats her phone number.
4.
Ex 25: Circule ou marque um X nas palavras que tm o som listado na coluna da esquerda:
people built key busy sea
11.
book shoe move pull soup would
12.
love duck flood bug double
13.
many ready says marry bye
14.
pleasure jam sugar vision regime
15.
boat house show know doubt
16.
choice
cage
which
edge
nature
17.
pack
ghost
orchestra
come
acquire
18.
chew wolf
too move
look
19.
20. f
chef action social cause shoe
laugh
Ex 26: Circule as palavras que tm a vogal listada na coluna da esquerda
1)

bin, reach, fill, see, sea, sin


2)

bet, dead, bed, fell, wet, led


3)

bat, dad, card, lack, bad, last


4)

duck, cup, nut, lost, luck, rum


5)
last, tan, bat, card, ward, pass
6)

dock, box, cod, cord, Paul, lack


Ex 27: As duas sentenas abaixo representam transcries que apresentam desvio de pronncia padro do ingls. Faa as
correces adequadas.
a.

b.
Ex 28: Escolha UMA das opes como a transcrio fontica da palavra em forma ortogrfica. Marque-a com um X ou circule-a.
11. bird
12. walk

13. mail
14. middle

15. night
16. never

17. family
18. dream

19. woman
20. complete

Ex 29: Escolha a uma das opes como a transcrio fontica da palavra em forma ortogrfica:
1. rich

2. search

3. fetch

4. bridge

5. surge

6. catch

Especializao Ingls Fonologia - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br

30-29

Ex 30: D um exemplo de palavra para cada um dos sons listados abaixo (em transcrio fontica e ortogrfica)
Som Fontica
Ortografia
Som Fontica
Ortografia

thin

try

Mum

enjoy

light

now

joke

say

that

free

church

bed

write

bad

fact

word

wrong

is

home

dog

Ex 31: Escreva a forma ortogrfica e a forma fontica de 3a. psp e do passado dos verbos listados na tabela abaixo (indique todo
o verbo e a terminao verbal):
Fontica
Ortografia
Presente
Passado

snow

beg

please

decide

kiss

grab

aim

whistle

open

practice

help

depend

arrive

pick

push

taste

protect

enjoy

free

sniff

Ex 32: Transcreva foneticamente as palavras abaixo:


happy

science

English

house

because

rice

niece

basic

was

street

small
thing
hat
fantasy
never
ask
slow
these
study
money

Especializao Ingls Fonologia - CEI-FALE-UFMG Thas Cristfaro-Silva thaiscristofarosilva@ufmg.br

30-30

Ex 33: Transcreva foneticamente as sentenas abaixo


a. He is just twelve years old.

b. They arrived very late for the meeting.

c. Ive been thinking about them in the past few days.

Ex 34: Em cada par de pronncia circule aquela que parece ser mais prxima a um enunciado de falante nativo. Indique a forma
ortogrfica que voc identificou.
Pronncia
Ortogrfica
thank you
1.

very good
2.

Yes, Im well.
3.

Whats your name?


4.

Ex 35: Em cada par de pronncia marque com um (x) xis aquela que parece ser mais prxima a um enunciado de falante
nativo. Na forma que no foi selecionada circule o(s) desvio(s) da pronncia nativa.

I love cakes.

This is my favourite toy.

Who is that man?

Im very concerned.

Thats very nice of you. Thank you!

I like you very much, my dear friends.


Ex 36: Em cada par de pronncia circule aquela que parece ser mais prxima a um enunciado de falante nativo. Indique a forma
ortogrfica que voc identificou.
Pronncia
Ortogrfica
I was in London.
1.

It is a miracle.
2.

It is cold.
3.

Im going home.
4.

JOHN WELLS


Goals in teaching English pronunciation

1. Aims in language teaching


The current debate about the phonology of English as an international
language (EIL) should encourage us to think about our aims in
language teaching, and specifically in the teaching of English
pronunciation in the context of English for speakers of other
languages. Some of the questions we need to address are as follows.

Are we teaching EFL, ESL or EIL? that is, do we intend our


students to use English as a foreign language, as a second
language, or as an international language? Now the mere
formulation of this question exposes its absurdity. English in
Poland may not currently have any role as a second language
in the sense of a role such as it plays in India, Nigeria or
Singapore; but Polish learners of English will surely want to
be able to apply their learning of English both in an EFL
context and in an EIL context. They want to be able to apply
their acquired knowledge of English by participating
wherever English is used. It is not realistic to ask for a choice
between EFL and EIL: our students need both.
Do you and your students want to be able to interact with
native speakers? or only with non-native speakers? Will
they interact with the British, the Americans, the Australians,
the Irish, the English-speaking West Indians and the
Canadians? Or will they interact with those whose L1 is not
English, for example with the Japanese, the Scandinavians,

and the Arabs? Or indeed with those who will shortly be your
partners in the European Union the Italians, the Spanish, the
Austrians to the extent that they will be speaking English
with them rather than French, German or some other EU
language? Clearly, Polish learners will want to be able to
interact with both native speakers (NSs) and non-native
speakers (NNSs).
The teaching of English to speakers of other languages may
indeed have different aims in, for example, Britain, Nigeria,
and Japan respectively. In teaching English to immigrants in
Britain, the main aim is clearly to enable learners to interact
with British people, native speakers. In Nigerian primary
schools, it is to enable them to participate in the public life of
their country by interacting with other Nigerians. In Japan a
main focus might indeed be the use of English to
communicate with the Chinese or the Latin Americans.
What are the students personal aims and aspirations in
language learning? Different students in the same class of
school or university may well have rather different aims.
Some just want enough English to communicate at a basic
level, or indeed just enough to pass some examination. Others
aim to achieve the best they possibly can. We must cater for
both types and for those who fall somewhere between.
Speaking personally, I must say that my own aspiration in
learning languages is NS-like proficiency. I acknowledge that
I may be unlikely to attain it. But that doesnt stop me aiming
for it. I try to inspire my students with the same high ideal. If
it were suggested that I should not even aim so high, I should
feel short-changed.

2. English as an international language


What, then, are the characteristics of English as an International
Language? Arguably, it suffers from a number of design faults,
characteristics that make it unsuitable for this role newly imposed
upon it.
It has an elaborate and unwieldy vocabulary. Even among the
most basic and frequent words there are many sets of nearsynonyms such as ill vs. sick, big vs. large, small vs. little,
tricky to distinguish between. Where we have a single noun
king we have three related adjectives: kingly (of Germanic
origin), royal (French) and regal (Latin). They have subtly
different nuances, which may be fine for literature and literary
language, but are a superfluous burden for those who only
want to use the language for practical purposes. The verb
arrive has an associated noun arrival; but for depart the noun
is not *departal but departure. When the plan lands that is not
a *landal or a *landure but a landing; when it takes off again
that is not a *take-offal, *take-offure or *taking-off but a
simple take-off. This inconsistency in derivational
morphology (typical of English) is an unnecessary
complication for NNSs.
It has a complex syntax, although this is partly compensated
for by the simplicity of the inflectional morphology.
Its orthography is notoriously inconsistent and irregular. You
cannot safely predict the pronunciation from the spelling. Nor,
given the pronunciation, can you reliably infer the spelling.
Its phonetics is idiosyncratic, including various
characteristics that are unusual from the point of view of
universals: an large and elaborate vowel system, including
complex processses of length alternation and weakening
(compete-competitive-competition); a consonant system that
includes dental fricatives ([7, ']) and voiced sibilants ([z, =,

d=]), which are problematic for many learners; words stress


placement that is free, i.e. arbitrary and frequently
unpredictable; and an intonation system that seems to be more
complex and to have a much higher functional load than that
of most other languages.
It it because of such considerations that some (including me) have
argued that for international purposes we ought to use Esperanto,
rather than English. Given, however, that most people seem content
for English to play this role, what special provisions do we need to
make for EIL?
The Lingua Franca Core (LFC) approach can be represented
with oversimplification and rather unfairly as saying that we
should ignore the parts of English that NNSs tend to get wrong.
Jennifer Jenkins has made a number of proposals in The Phonology of
English as an International Language (Jenkins 2000). We shall
consider some of them in a moment. If we applied similar proposals
not to phonetics but to grammar, it would arguably mean ignoring
such difficult matters as the articles (coffeea coffeethe coffee), the
number system (singular vs. plural, dog vs. dogs), the distinction
between countable [C] and uncountable [U] (so that we could happily
talk of informations and furnitures), and the distinction in verbs
between progressive and non-progressive (are you smoking? vs. do
you smoke, which even fluent users of English in Scandinavia
typically ignore). In vocabulary we could stop worrying about false
friends such as actually and eventually, relatively international words
where the NS English meaning is out of line with the meaning in
other languages that have the word.
Many of the oddities of NNS pronunciation of English are due
to inappropriate inference from the spelling. The NS spoken form of
marvellous is [m$(r)v()ls]. NNSs who say [mavelus] or the like,
with [u] in the final syllable, are doing so purely on the basis of
(mis)interpreting the spelling. Native speakers pronounce climbing as
[kla,m,1] or [kla,m,n]. Nigerians who say [klaimbi1g], with [-b-],
do so because of spelling. For NSs, the past tense of look [l8k] is

looked [l8kt]. Nigerians typically treat the past tense as [d] and then
apply voicing assimilation, giving [lugd]. Arabs speaking English
often treat it as [,d], giving [l8k,d]. Arguably, both of these forms are
mispronunciations arising simply from defective teaching: no one has
ever taught such NNSs how the English regular past tense is
pronounced. There is no more reason to regard them as acceptable
than there is for *childs instead of children or *teached instead of
taught.
In cases where NSs make differences in pronunciation that are
not reflected in spelling, NNSs tend to ignore them. Although the
difference between the noun entrance [entrns] and the verb to
entrance [,ntr$ns] can be coped with, the difference between the verb
to separate [sepre,t] and the adjective separate [seprt, sep()r,t]
may be lost, as is that between the verb to document [-ment] and the
noun a document [-mnt]. South and southern have different vowels
for NSs ([sa87, s'()(r)n]), but often not for NNSs. There are many
other ways in which English spelling misleads NNSs, who unlike NSs
learn visually rather than auditorily. NSs pronounce front with the
STRUT vowel (RP [frnt]); NNSs often use the LOT vowel ([frcnt]),
purely because of the way it is written. There are two possible
remedies for this general problem (if it is indeed a problem): either we
must reform English spelling (and I might mention that I have just
become President of the Simplified Spelling Society) or teachers of
English to speakers of other languages must teach the pronunciation
of each word as well as its spelling. This implies teaching the use of
phonetic symbols, at least passively for reference.

3. Phonology of EIL?
Jenkinss proposals still require the mastery of a fair number of
difficult pronunciation points that are not in practice mastered by
many users of EIL.
The consonant [f], a major problem for Koreans, Filipinos and
others. Korean [ph] instead of [f] is likely to trigger a breakdown in
communication, as Jenkins shows; Korean [h] (their other L1
possibility) is hardly a better substitute. We have to teach the
articulatory difference between bilabial plosive [p] and labiodental
fricative [f]; we have to train the learner not only to produce the
difference but also to perceive it (the latter task being often
overlooked). There is no way to avoid drilling the learner with
minimal pairs such as porkfork, copycoffee.
Other consonantal differences that constitute serious problems
for some learners, but which Jenkins rightly insists must be mastered,
include [bv, rl, s6, sz, t6d=, jd=]. Failure to discriminate one or
two of these pairs can perhaps be condoned, given sufficient
redundancy in the context to disambiguate otherwise ambiguous
messages. We can readily cope with Swedish English in which every
/z/ becomes [s], provided that all the rest of the pronunciation is pretty
NS-like. But Japanese English in which [b-v] and [r-l] are confused,
together with various vowel confusions and phonotactic problems,
ends up unintelligible.
I am in favour of Jenkinss suggestion that l-vocalization
should be allowed, indeed encouraged for those learners for whom
dark /l/ constitutes a problem. There are millions of Londoners and
others who say [m,ok] for milk, [bob] for bulb, [bcto] or [bco] for
bottle, etc., and I see no reason why the French or the Cantonese
should not do likewise.
Allophonic reduction in vowel length (pre-fortis clipping, as
in right as compared with ride) helps intelligibility, but is difficult to

teach and learn. However phonemic vowel length differences,


perhaps better considered primarily as vowel quality differences, are
another matter. Jenkins is right to insist on mastery of the [i,]
distinction (leave vs. live, sheep vs. ship), which is made by all NSs.
Her wording also implies that the distinctions [u8] and [oc] are
equally required, and here I disagree. Millions of Scottish speakers of
English manage perfectly well without any difference between the
vowel of shoot and that of foot, and there are tens of millions of
Americans and Canadians for whom hawk and hock are
homophonous. These distinctions have a low functional load and are
not needed in EIL.
Jenkinss wording does not leave it entirely clear whether the
vowel oppositions /e-, -, o-8/ are required in the LFC, but I
assume that they are, despite constituting a considerable problem for
some NNSs. The difficulty with English // is that many languages
have only two vowels available for the three English vowels /e, , /
to be mapped onto. The consequence is that learners disregard either
the /e / distinction (Polish, Russian, German and Hungarian
learners, who tend to make bed and bad identical) or the / - /
distinction (Japanese and Spanish-speaking learners, who tend to
make bad and bud identical). In either case misunderstandings can
result.
It is to be emphasized that we are concerned here with the
vowel system rather than with the details of vowel realization. All
NSs distinguish bed bad bud, though the actual vowel qualities
used may vary widely. Listeners can tune in to such variability
without too much difficulty. There are six short vowels in most kinds
of English, representing the standard lexical sets KIT, DRESS, TRAP,
STRUT, LOT, FOOT (Wells 1982:ch. 2), as in bid, bed, bad, bud, cod,
good. There are NS accents that merge STRUT and FOOT (the north of
England, where cut and put rhyme) or TRAP and LOT (popular
Jamaican, where black and block sound identical). But no NS accent
merges DRESS and TRAP (/e - /, bedbad), a distinction that also
bears a high functional load. Nor is there any NS accent that merges

TRAP and STRUT (/ - /, badbud). These oppositions, difficult as

they may be for learners, are ones on which we must insist.


In teaching such vowel oppositions it is important not to
forget to teach the spelling-to-sound rules associated with them. For /e
/ there is a fairly reliable rule: if the spelling is e or ea, the sound
may be /e/ but never //; if the spelling is a, the sound may be //
but never /e/. Thus we have let, dress, when, very, never, dead, bread,
head, pleasure with /e/ and hat, cap, ran, stack, have, gather, tram,
dabble with //. The only exceptions are any and many, together with
ate if pronounced /et/ and the suffix ary if pronounced /-eri/. For / / the rule is 100% reliable: if the spelling is a, the sound may be //
but never /e/; if the spelling is u, o or ou the sound may be /
/ but
never //. Thus we have hat, cap etc. again with //, and hut, cup,
run, stuck, love, mother, come, touch, trouble with //.
While there are various NS accents of English that manage
without the opposition between LOT and THOUGHT (dondawn, RP
/c - o/), there are none that dispense with that between THOUGHT and
GOAT (lawlow, RP /o - 8/). So here again we must insist that this
distinction be learnt. Again what is important is the systemic contrast
rather than any particular realization: clearly in an EIL context [o] is
as acceptable for GOAT as [8] or [o8].
From a comparative and historical perspective, the accents of
England (including RP), Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa are
unusual in having lost the distinction between the lexical sets
THOUGHT and FORCE, merging them as /o/ in homophones such as
flawfloor, caughtcourt, saucesource (as in Gimsons joke about
good chefs who, like good journalists, refuse to reveal their /sos,z/).
The resultant homophonic clashes do not cause serious problems, even
though Jenkinss proposals remedy them by restoring historical r as
appropriate.

Jenkins also insists on the mastery of the [] of the NURSE set


(or rather of its rhotic equivalent []). Whichever variant we select,
however, we are dealing with a sound-type that is from the point of
view of language universals highly marked, being vary rare indeed
among the languages of the world though fortunately, perhaps, the
widely spoken Mandarin Chinese does have a sound similar to
American []. There are many EIL learners for whom this vowel
remains problematic, not least the Japanese, who typically confuse
star and stir.
Let us turn now to the question of phonotactics: cases in
which it is not so much individual sounds that constitute a problem as
their combinations in particular positions in the syllable. Although
Poles have no difficulties with English consonant clusters, there are
many learners who do Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans for example
as well as speakers of Spanish. Thus an English word such as strong
may come out most easily as [estron] (Spaniards) or [s8t8rc]
(Japanese), with the difficult initial consonant cluster /str-/ resolved by
the addition of epenthetic vowels. Rather than add vowels, speakers of
Cantonese tend to omit consonants that are in positions they find
difficult, which has an even worse effect on intelligibility. In wordinitial position the clusters in such everyday words such as pray,
bread, train, queen, splash may offer a problem; so in word-final
position may the clusters in milk, lamp, left, fox and wasp (not to
mention its plural wasps).
Voiced obstruents are not a problem for speakers of Polish,
German, or Russian, but producing them in word-final position is.
Hence they must learn to produce voiced (or at least lenis) obstruents
in such words as rub, bad, big, love, rose, rage. Whether bed is
pronounced as [bet] (German) or [be] (Cantonese), in each case the
NS opposition between final /d/ and /t/ is lost.
A particular problem with consonants is that the L1 may have
phonological processes allophonic or assimilatory that are
inappropriate in English. However learners of English will tend to
apply them in English unless taught not to. Thus Korean learners, for



example, need to be warned against the Korean assimilatory processes


that turn pop music into po[m] music or Rugrats into Ru[1n]ats. Poles
should be discouraged from applying Polish-style voicing assimilation
such as makes ice dancing sound like eyes dancing and pick them up
like pig them up.
When we turn to suprasegmental matters, Jenkins rightly
insists on the importance of not accenting function words. There must
be a difference between a big one (e.g. when we are talking about
waves, a big wave: one is a function word) and a big one (which
might be a large figure one: one is a form word). She rightly insists
also on the importance of deaccenting repeated lexical items, or of
lexical items with the same semantic referent. Although this principle
applies in many other languages more or less as in English, there are
differences of detail: as pointed out by Ortiz-Lira, 1995, where the
English reply to Were already late might be I dont care if we are
late, with the repeated word late deaccented, the Spanish equivalent
would be Pero si ya estamos atrasados No me importa si estamos
atrasados with no such change in accent pattern.
In summary, my prioritizing recommendations for the teaching of
English pronunciation in an EFL/EIL context would be:
to concentrate on the matters that most impede intelligibility;
while encouraging fluency and confidence;
not to neglect the need to interact with NSs; arguably, we also
need to educate the NSs;
to exploit the findings of contrastive analysis to help pinpoint
likely areas of difficulty.
While contrastive analysis does not provide all the answers, it
goes a good way towards pointing us in the right direction. This
means, for instance, that Polish learners of English must pay particular
attention to those consonants that are not found (or not found as
phonemes, or found with very different phonetic realization) in their
L1: /7, ', 1, r, h/; to final obstruent vocing, and to aspiration; among
English vowels, to /, , , 8, e/, to pre-fortis clipping, to vowel
duration and to weakening.



Thank you [71k ju], or as we might say in the LFC [te1k ju veri
mat6].

References
Jenkins, Jennifer, 2000. The Phonology of English as an International
Language. Oxford University Press.
Lewis, Jack Windsor (ed.), 1995. Studies in General and English
Phonetics. London: Routledge.
Ortiz-Lira, Hctor, 1995. Nucleus placement in English and Spanish:
a pilot study. In Lewis 1995. Wells, J.C., 1982. Accents of
English. Three volumes. Cambridge University Press.

1
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/whytranscription.htm

June 2008

Why phonetic transcription is important


John Wells, UCL
This document uses Unicode to encode IPA phonetic symbols. If you cannot see a schwa here [
] on your screen, Windows

95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP users please download Lucida Sans Unicode free of charge and install it on your system, and/or install a newer
browser.

This talk was given at Seoul National University, Korea, in 1996 and published in Malsori (Phonetics), the Journal of the Phonetic Society of
Korea, No. 31-32:239-242, December 1996.

1. Introduction
In this talk I want to discuss the usefulness and importance of phonetic
transcription for people studying languages. Since most of you here are
phoneticians, you are presumably already convinced of this; I may be preaching
to the converted. Nevertheless, there are many language teachers who appear to
be far from converted, and I believe that certain arguments do need to be
spelled out.
The principal reason for using phonetic transcription is easily stated. When
we transcribe a word or an utterance, we give a direct specification of its
pronunciation. If ordinary spelling reliably indicated actual pronunciation,
phonetic transcription might be unnecessary; but often it does not.

This is obvious when we consider a language such as English, whose


spelling is blatantly irregular; or a language such as Chinese, with a nonalphabetic orthography, whose written form generally does not give any direct
information about pronunciation (and of course this applies also to Chinese
characters used in writing Japanese or Korean). But even in languages with socalled phonetic orthography, such as Swahili, Finnish or Korean hangl, there
may be sporadic mismatches between the sound and the spelling of words,
while there are almost always phonetic characteristics of continuous speech that
are not reflected in the orthography.
For

the

language

learner,

passive

acquaintance

with

phonetic

transcription enables him or her to extract precise and explicit information on


pronunciation from a dictionary, bilingual or monolingual.

Without this information, a learner risks being misled either by an

inadequately trained ear or by the dazzling effect of the ordinary spelling.

Nowadays learners of foreign languages ought to have ample opportunities


of hearing the language spoken, and not just by their teacher and their fellowpupils. Television, video tapes, cassettes and CDs give todays learners an
advantage which earlier generations did not have. However, mere exposure to
authentic language material, while it will certainly improve a learners
comprehension ability, is not sufficient to ensure a good productive command of

2
the language or a good pronunciation. Almost everyone can benefit from explicit
pronunciation teaching, in which the use of phonetic transcription has an
important role.

In what follows I shall concentrate on the teaching and learning of English;

but many of the points apply to other languages too.

2. The dictionary entry


A good dictionary gives information on a whole range of matters. As well as
telling you what a word means (by translation or otherwise), it should at least
give

relevant

information

about

its

grammatical

status

and

about

its

pronunciation.
There are various ways of giving information about pronunciation:
respelling using orthographic conventions of the learners language, respelling
using orthographic conventions of the target language, or phonetic notation. All
of these can be regarded as types of phonetic transcription, though they may
well vary considerably in quality.

The easiest transcription system for the beginner is arguably a respelling


using the orthographic conventions of the first language: for example, showing
English pronunciation in a Korean-English bilingual dictionary by transcribing
English pronunciation into hangl, in a Japanese-English bilingual dictionary by
transcribing it into katakana, or in a Turkish-English bilingual dictionary by
writing it in Latin letters with Turkish spelling conventions. In its crudest form,
this has the major drawback of treating English as if its sound system were the
same as that of the learners first language. At the very least the transcription
system will need to be made more elaborate, and therefore more complicated,
by devising ways of symbolizing those sounds of English that are not found in
Korean, Japanese, or Turkish respectively. Obvious examples of such sounds are
the two th-sounds of English, the voiceless and voiced dental fricatives heard in

thin and this respectively; or the vowel sound of the word nurse (no matter
whether we take British RP or GenAm as our pronunciation model for English).

Respelling systems using English orthographic conventions are found


mainly in monolingual dictionaries aimed at native speakers. Such systems are
still generally in use in the United States, though I am gratified to say that in
Britain they have quite recently been displaced by transcriptions using the
International Phonetic Alphabet. They have to contend with various awkward
facts about traditional English spelling: for example, that there is no

unambiguous way of spelling the diphthong sound /a


a/ (as in mouth, now),
because both ou and ow, the obvious candidates, correspond to a different

diphthong in soul, own (not to mention still other possibilities for ou exemplified
in the words group, thought, could, cough, double, tourist, journey ). There is no

unambiguous way of showing the diphthongs of price, goat in traditional English

spelling; so respelling systems have to resort to special symbols involving the


letters i and o with a macron diacritic (, ). We can be proud that EFL

3
dictionaries have led the way in employing IPA notation, which is unambiguous
and systematic.

3. How is this word pronounced?


Every beginner needs to learn, for example, that the w in the English word

write has to be ignored. This word is pronounced identically with the much less
common word rite. We can show this by transcribing them: they are both

transcribed phonetically as /rrat/. Furthermore, there is yet another word


pronounced in the same way: right. All three words are homophones.

Strangely enough, there are many native speakers of English to whom facts
such as this are not self-evident. English people beginning the study of

phonetics sometimes imagine that words such as write and wrong begin with a
w-sound. Or they may believe that know ends with one (but not no). They are so

dazzled by their knowledge of the spelling that they hold quite mistaken views
about pronunciation. And there are learners of English as a foreign language
who get equally misled by the spelling.

Learners of English have to contend with the ambiguity inherent in many

spelling sequences. As you know, o plus consonant letter plus e usually

corresponds to BrE //, AmE /o/, as in home, nose, vote. But sometimes, as
in love, come the vowel is //; and in move it is /u/. Where the letter o denotes

a short vowel, the sound is usually BrE //, AmE //, as in lot, top. But in many

other cases it is //, as in front, monkey. In the case of the combination or the
sound is usually // (with or without a following r-sound depending on whether

we are taking non-rhotic RP or rhotic GenAm as our model), as in north, short,

core. But after the letter w we find a quite different vowel sound BrE //, AmE
// in work, word, world, and in BrE another one again, //, in worry. In
unstressed syllables the pronunciation is usually /, /), as in minor, tractor and
also in information, Oxford (even though many EFL learners wrongly believe

these words are pronounced with // in the second syllable).

There are various reading rules (spelling-to-sound rules) to help the


learner pass from the written form of an English word to the spoken form. (A
certain amount of information is available at each letter of the alphabet in my
LPD, Wells 1990/2000; for a very thorough survey, see Carney 1994). But these
rules are complicated and have many exceptions. In practice it is necessary to
learn the pronunciation of many words individually.

4. Ambiguous spelling
Some English spellings are entirely ambiguous. If you see the spelling

entrance, you will need the context to decide whether it denotes the way in,

pronounced /entrns/, or the verb meaning to fill with wonder and delight, to
/ntrns/. Other homographs (same spelling, different pronunciation and

meaning) include bass, bow, buffet, does, gill, lead, live, minute, putting, read,
resume, tear, tinged, wind, wound (Carney 1994: 397-399; Cruttenden 1994:
211-212). As soon as we transcribe them, we show the difference in
pronunciation.

4
There are also some tricky verb-noun and verb-adjective pairs. English has

nearly a hundred words of the type conduct, digest, incense, object, pervert ,
where the same spelling is used for a verb, with final stress, and for the related

noun, with initial stress. Associated with the stress difference there is often a
difference in vowel quality, because of the phenomenon of vowel reduction.

Tiresomely, there are many other English disyllabic verb-noun pairs where

both are pronounced alike, with no difference of stress: thus control, promise.

An important group of verb-adjective or verb-noun pairs are those ending

in -ate. The verb separate is pronounced /sepret/, as in the two friends

separated at the crossroads. Here, as you observe, the suffix has a strong vowel,

the diphthong /e/. But the corresponding adjective, spelt identically, is usually

pronounced /seprt/, as in we want separate bills, or (as an adverb) in they left

separately. Here the suffix has a weak vowel, in RP traditionally // but

nowadays more usually //. One consequence is that the structural description

for the process I call compression is now met, so that the basic three syllables
readily get reduced to two.

Similar considerations apply to many other words in -ate, including

advocate, appropriate, delegate, intimate, moderate, subordinate . Notice that


the main word stress remains in the same place in these cases. The same applies

to words in which -ment is attached to a bound form, including compliment,

document, increment, ornament: thus I


e/nted her on her excellent work.
complim/e

paid

her

complim//nt;

Relevant here is the whole question of strong and weak forms of function

words (see e.g. Cruttenden 1994: 228-229). Words such as of, can, them have a
strong form with a strong vowel, /v, kn, em/, used mainly when accented,

and a weak form with a weak vowel, /v, kn, m/, used otherwise. This
alternation is not shown in spelling, but anyone who fails to apply it in casual
speech sounds very un-native-like.

Facts of this kind are not revealed in ordinary spelling, but are immediately

evident once we use a phonetic transcription.

5. Transcribing from an orthographic text


Ideally, then, every learner should learn the correct pronunciation of a word
at the same time as he incorporates it into his active vocabulary. Experience
shows, however, that even advanced students often fail in this task. Fluent
speakers of EFL may have an inaccurate impression of what the native-speaker
pronunciation of a word is; the inevitable corollary is that their own oral
production of it is flawed.
A useful exercise for more advanced learners is doing transcription, i.e.
transcribing an orthographic text, a passage of ordinary English prose, into
phonetic symbols (normally, into a phonemic version, perhaps including
intonation). In our phonetics classes at University College London we regularly

5
make both our native-speaker and our EFL students of phonetics do this kind of
exercise.

For ordinary weekly coursework the student can consult a pronouncing


dictionary whenever needed. Under examination conditions, however, the
exercise is done unseen, and the student must rely on memory alone. It is both
revealing and depressing to see how many errors of transcription are made even
by some quite advanced students. I take the following examples from one of our
best Spanish-speaking MA Phonetics students, who speaks English fluently and
idiomatically, as well as having an excellent grasp of phonetic theory. These are
some of her errors in the transcription of English words in a recent examination:
weather

we

releasing

rliz

rlis

polluting

plt

plut

nuclear

nklj

njukli

chemicals

kemkls

kemklz

instead of

we

The first of these words, in the British Received Pronunciation we teach as


e/ must be a
standard, ought to be transcribed /we/. The students use of /e

false inference from the spelling. In fact, weather in RP is a homophone of


whether. The only position in which orthographic ea sometimes corresponds to
phonetic /e/ is when followed by r, as in bear, swear.
The distinction between /s
s/ and /z
z/ is difficult for learners who do not have

that phonemic contrast in their mother tongue. Unlike please, which does
contain /z
z/, release has /s
s/. In pollute and nuclear, the spelling suggests only
/u/, not //; perhaps the student was misled by familiarity with the spoken
form of these words, in which however the relatively short duration of the vowel
is caused by pre-fortis clipping (Wells: 1990: 136), not by inherent shortness.

Even advanced students sometimes forget the phonetic rules for regular

plural and past tense formation in English. Although spelt with s, the plural
z/ if the preceding segment is voiced and non-sibilant.
ending is pronounced /z

Clearly someone who thinks they are pronounced as transcribed above


(wrongly) is not going to pronounce them correctly, and will have a noticeable
foreign accent.

6. Types of transcription
For the last part of this talk I would like to consider phonetic transcription
from a more general point of view. Beginners in phonetics often imagine that in
transcription we can use one symbol for each sound, a separate phonetic
symbol for each sound-type our ears or our machines can detect.
However this approach is not practical. What might appear to be the same
sound in two different languages usually turns out, on closer inspection, to
exhibit certain differences. Even within a given language, the same sound

6
usually comprises a fair number of different variants associated with different
positions in the word or different phonetic environments. This is what lies
behind the development, over the course of the past hundred years, of the
notion of the phoneme (or of more sophisticated phonological units). It also
explains why all phonetic transcription depends for its interpretation upon two
things: the transcribed text itself, but also the conventions for its interpretation
(Abercrombie 1964: 16-24; Jones, 1956: App. A).
The phonemic principle allows us to use the same transcription symbol for
all the variants of a given phoneme. We can write the same /tt/ in English /tp,
stp, lt, rtn, btl/, despite the clear differences in aspiration and type of

release. We can write the same /a/ in now, louder, mouth, outing, despite
differences in the duration of the diphthong. These differences, though real, are

a matter of conditioned variation, determined by phonetic context. Every


language has its own phoneme system and its own rules for allophonic variation.
The simplicity principle tells us to use the simplest phonetic symbol
consistent with the avoidance of ambiguity. Although a few languages
distinguish between dental and alveolar plosives, most do not. Although a few
distinguish between aspirated and unaspirated plosives, most do not. This
means that it is acceptable to use the same symbol /tt/ for a range of soundtypes in different languages: in English for what is typically an aspirated alveolar,
in French for an unaspirated dental, in Swedish for an aspirated dental, and in
Dutch for an unaspirated alveolar. The alternative is an explosion of complicated
symbols and dictionary entries full of difficult diacritics.

Until we have determined the phonemic structure of a language, we can


produce only an impressionistic transcription depending on our familiarity with
general-phonetic sound-types. Once we have worked out the phonemics, we can
use a systematic transcription, which will be simpler. This is what is appropriate
for dictionaries and language textbooks. When considering connected speech,
however, we need to take account of the features of connected speech, of the
phrase-level and sentence-level phonology: we can produce a phonotypical
transcription of how we expect a given sentence to sound, or alternatively an
impressionistic transcription of what was actually uttered on a given occasion.
Each has its uses.

References
x

Abercrombie, D., 1964. English Phonetic Texts. London: Faber and Faber.

Carney, Edward, 1994. A Survey of English Spelling. London and New York:

Cruttenden, A. (ed.), 1994. Gimsons Pronunciation of English. London:

Routledge.

Edward Arnold.
x
x

Jones, D., 1956. Outline of English Phonetics, 8th edn. Cambridge: Heffer.

Wells, J.C., 1990, second edition 2000. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary.


Harlow: Longman.

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