Abstract
What sounds are there in English, how do we produce them, and how do we teach them? These are the key questions which this chapter sets out to answer. The formation of individual sounds is examined in relation to English language learners’ possible challenges, the causes of those challenges, and classroom techniques for helping learners towards building comprehensibility in English. The debate around different accents is revisited in the context of current thinking in the fields of Global Englishes and English as a lingua franca. The relationship between sounds and spelling is explored, and arguments about simplifying that relationship are outlined. Tasks to challenge readers’ own thinking around the issues are included, as are classroom activities to teach individual sounds.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
British Council. (n.d.). Phonemic chart. Available at https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/phonemic-chart.
Brozbă, G. (2011). On some features of consonants in Indian English. Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics, 13(2), 99–111.
Burridge, K., & Stebbins, T. (2016). For the love of language: An introduction to linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Culpeper, J., & Archer, D. (2009). Spelling. In J. Culpeper, F. Katamba, P. Kerswill, R. Wodak, & T. McEnery (Eds.), English language: Description, variation and context. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019). Middle English literature: reading from “The Canterbury Tales”. Available at https://www.britannica.com/video/73102/dramatization-Middle-English-lines-Geoffrey-Chaucer-The.
English, F., & Marr, T. (2015). Why do linguistics? London: Bloomsbury.
English Spelling Society. (2019). Economic and social costs of English spelling. Available at http://spellingsociety.org/economic-and-social-costs-of-english-spelling.
Goddard, A., Henry, A., Mondor, M., & van der Laaken, M. (2013). Have you ever been to England? You know they speak really weird English there. Some implications of the growth of English as a global language for the teaching of English in the UK. Education, 47(1), 79–95.
Gut, M. (2008). Nigerian English: Phonology. In R. Mesthrie (Ed.), Varieties of English volume 4: Africa, South and Southeast Asia (pp. 55–66). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Hall, C., & Hastings, C. (2017). Phonetics, phonology and pronunciation for the language classroom. London: Palgrave.
Hancock, M. (2018). Pronunciation teaching post-ELF Hancock McDonald. Available at http://hancockmcdonald.com/ideas/pronunciation-teaching-post-elf.
Hughes, A., Trudgill, P., & Watt, D. (2012). English accents and dialects (5th ed.). London: Routledge.
International Phonetics Association. (2018). IPA chart in several languages. Available at https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/news/201806/ipa-chart-several-languages.
Jenkins, J. (2000). The phonology of English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jenkins, J. (2007). English as a lingua franca: Attitude and identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jenkins, J. (2015). Global Englishes (3rd ed.). Abingdon: Routledge.
Meyer, C. (2009). Introducing English linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Oxford English Dictionary. (2018). Pronunciations for world Englishes. Available at https://public.oed.com/how-to-use-the-oed/key-to-pronunciation/pronunciations-for-world-englishes/.
Roach, P. (2009). English phonetics and phonology: A practical course (4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schneider, E. (2009). English in North America. In B. Kachru, Y. Kachru, & C. Nelson (Eds.), The handbook of world Englishes. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer. (2016) Public understanding of language planning and linguistic rights: The debate on the current Portuguese orthographic reform. Language in Society 45 (3):423–443.
Sousa, D. (2017). How the brain learns (5th ed.). London: SAGE.
Svartvik, J., & Leech, G. (2016). English: One tongue, many voices (2nd ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Underhill, A. (2005). Sound foundations (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan.
Underhill, A. (2008). ‘The original phonemic chart’ Macmillan English. Available at http://www.macmillanenglish.com/pronunciation/phonemic-chart-in-american-english/.
Walker, R. (2010). Teaching the pronunciation of English as a lingua franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Widdowson, H. (1994). The ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 28(2), 377–389.
Wong, C. (2016). Teaching pronunciation to learners of English as a lingua franca. In W. Renandya & H. P. Widodo (Eds.), English language teaching today: Linking theory and practice. Basel: Springer.
Woods, N. (2006). Describing discourse: A practical guide to discourse analysis. London: Hodder Arnold.
Zúquete, J. (2008). Beyond reform: The orthographic accord and the future of the Portuguese language. South European Society and Politics, 13(4), 495–506.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Valenzuela, H. (2020). Phonemes. In: Linguistics for TESOL. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40932-6_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40932-6_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-40931-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-40932-6
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)