Pronunciation of Chunks: A Pilgrims Training Session by Marian Zamorski
Peter Clements, UK
Menu
Getting started
Interference in pronunciation
Examples in use
Misunderstandings and mondegreens
Some basic principles of the workshop
A song with a difference
Further research
‘So, we’re not going to beat about the bush, let’s get straight down to business and on with the subject at hand,’ began Marian and I just knew that this was going to be a really interesting session.
In advance of the workshop, I was intrigued about the topic of pronunciation chunks. The concept of ‘lexical chunks’ is widely known and I wondered how this workshop might develop this.
Given the common lament by learners that they can understand when listening to material in the classroom but then find authentic English so hard to understand, the main aim of this session was to explore ways that teachers can help reduce the frustration felt by students facing this dilemma.
As the workshop progressed, some of it felt nicely familiar, like putting on a comfortable pair of well- fitting shoes. I love the whole area of pronunciation and Marian’s demonstration of how we should not teach students to speak like robots by carefully but mistakenly pronouncing ‘e- ve -r-y syl-la-ble’, in a monotone voice, made me smile as this is a strategy I often do in class which learners understand and well illustrates the point.
The workshop dealt with the way the little features occurring in connected speech that ease the speaker’s fluency inevitably lead to problems in the listener’s interpretation rendering some natural speech almost unintelligible.
Marian had a nice analogy to explain in simple terms to learners as to why listening presents a challenge - how ‘English speakers are a bit lazy and don’t like going the long way round to get from A to B and will go by the shortest route whenever possible. Likewise their mouths don’t like to do lots of unnecessary work.’ How true!
Here are some that teachers take into account in raising awareness of pronunciation with learners:
- weak forms and the schwa eg: Have a look around the shops. > /hav ə lʊk əraʊn ðə ʃɒps/
- assimilation eg: good girl >goog girl >/gʊgɜ:l/ ; Saint Paul's Cathedral > Sem Paul’s cathedral > /səmpaʊlzkəθi:drəl/
- linkage, linking ‘r’ eg: fa(r) away > fa raway ie: > /fɑ:rəweɪ/
- Vowel to vowel linking eg: you’re too early > you’re twearly > /jɔ:twɜ:li:/
- Consonant to vowel link with schwa eat an apple > /i:tənæpəl/
- germination eg: want to do > wan to do> /wɒntədu:/ > /wɒnədu:/
- elision eg: just one more time > jus one more time > /dʒʌswʌmɔ:taɪm/
Taking the features into account, no wonder learners often seem daunted by the prospect of listening to real English in natural contexts!
The fact is that these follow patterns which can be anticipated and thus be used to the learners’ advantage. Indeed, the principle of the lexical approach and exploiting the above features ‘knowing what is likely to come next’ was at the heart of this session.
We were reminded by Marian to keep things simple when teaching pronunciation, to avoid ‘going under the bonnet of the car, not getting into how it works, but rather getting on with the driving’ in other words, not to go burdening the learners with lengthy explanations and technical terms but rather to put them in the ‘driving seat’ and to keep moving forward with recognizable chunks.
To get this straight, recognizing audible ‘pronunciation chunks’ can be likened to what often occurs when reading. Who hasn’t had the experience of being halfway through a sentence or phrase at the bottom of a page and instinctively known what the next word is going to be before even turning the page? If it’s a fixed phrase, a collocation or saying, then the chances are that our prediction will have been correct. As Paul Davis and Hania Kryszewska would put it, that word is ‘keeping company’ with its familiar friends so really this shouldn’t surprise us.
The fact this also occurs when listening can often be seen in conversation where one individual, to show agreement with the speaker or to try and show that they are listening, finishes the speaker’s sentence for them. This can be quite amusing at times - even annoying, but it does show that often the listener can predict what the next word or phrase is likely to be because what they are hearing contains familiar phrases or word partnerships. (For a great - and very funny - example of this, watch this sketch ‘The two Ronnies - You can say that again’ available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujFCUeQrM-s&feature=relmfu
So while this happens in texts and speech in a lexical sense, the difference in Marian’s workshop was that when these word partnerships, phases and chunks are welded together, the cue that helps with decoding is not so much lexical but pronunciation based.
Most people living in the UK, familiar with gift shops in the average High street would know how to complete this phrase, ‘Keep calm and…..’ because it is so well known and appears on a variety of merchandise in shops and on posters. When hearing the onset of the same phrase ‘Keepcaman….’ they would probably complete it with this common multi verb ending ‘…carry on’. (Keep calm and carry on is such a well known 1940s slogan re-popularized in modern day use that it is now embedded in British English as a fixed phrase.)
Notice that in this example, the phrase is divided according to its phonological structure rather than according to syntax. And here’s a key point that was conveyed in the workshop - the way we pause when presenting sentences in class can help learners more effectively if we split them phonologically into familiar units of sound.
Marian gave the practical example of when teaching conditionals. Traditionally the learners are presented with the ‘If clause’ and then expected to complete it with a suitable main clause to end it. By adjusting the place where the pause occurs, the effect is more likely to help the learners by introducing a chunk rather than a sentence half.
Conventional approach:
T) ‘If I were you (pause)’
Sts) ‘ …I would take her advice’
Chunking approach:
T) ‘If I were you I’d (pause)
Sts) ‘…take her advice.’
The advantage I could see in this was that in the chunking approach learners are being steered away from the unnaturally clipped written form response of I would + pres simple
and are being given a much more natural sounding chunk by including the contracted ‘I’d’ as part of the spoken ‘ if clause’.
So according to this principle, where we place the pause when eliciting phrases can be quite helpful because it builds in all those linking phenomena that occur in connected speech. I hope to illustrate this with a few further examples, first unnaturally clipped into their individual units followed by a more natural division according to their chunked together units.
/dəʊnt / / a:sk/ / mi:/ /aɪ/ / hævnt / /gɒt/ / ə / /klu:/
(Don’t ask me, I haven’t got a clue)
/dəʊnɑ:skmiaɪ/ pause /ængɒdəklu:/
/gəʊ/ /ɒn/ /lets/ /hæv/ /ə/ /lʊk/
(Go on, let’s have a look!)
/gəʊn/ pause /lesævəluk/
/weɪt/ /fɔ:/ /mi:/ /aɪl/ /əʊnli/ /bi:/ /ə/ /məʊmənt/
(Wait for me I’ll only be a moment.}
/weɪtfɔ:mi:aɪl / pause/əʊnlibijəməʊmənt/
In these examples, there is more scope for learners to recognise other chunked phrases being tagged on by authentic speakers. So, in the case of ‘Don’t ask me’ as a chunk, other common chunks may be recognised such as ‘I’m new here’ ‘I’m lost too’ or ‘ask ‘im over there.’ etc
As well as the type of humour that can be seen in the video of the Two Ronnies sketch, many jokes exist in English based on misinterpreted chunks as well as minimal pairs. The term ‘mondegreen’ refers to this category of phrases, often found in verse and songs which are easily misunderstood. Mark Hancock’s Pronunciation games exploits these in an activity called ‘Dictation Computer’ where a ‘computer’ has recorded utterances just as they sound eg:
A.) Alaska if she…>. /æaɪlæskə/
B.) You’ll ask her what? (which clearly shows the listener has interpreted the chunk correctly)
Here are a few typical corny one-liners based on this principle and I have transcribed the ‘punchline’ in phonemic script so that it isn’t too much of a giveaway.
A) My wife has gone on holiday to the Caribbean.
B) /dʒəmeɪkə/ ?
A) No, she went because she wanted to.
Jamaica / D’you make her?
A) Where are you taking your holiday this year?
B) /rəmeɪnɪə/
A) What - near Bulgaria?
B) No, I’m going to /rəmeɪnɪə/ in England.
Romania / Remain here
Q) Why aren’t there any headache tablets in the jungle?
A) Because the /pærətsetəmɒl/.
Paracetamol / parrots ate ‘em all
(Not the most sophisticated of jokes - apologies!)
- Start teaching with chunks of authentic pronunciation as early as possible even with beginners.
- Do not separate chunks by splitting them with inappropriate pauses.
Instead, pause between chunks to allow students to continue from a natural intersection.
- To achieve maximum teaching speaking and listening we don’t need to ‘lift the bonnet’ and start explaining all the complexities of how a car works’ but rather get on with the act of driving
- Native speakers have a compensatory mechanism to deal with ellipsis and this can be developed with learners.
Example:
Q: Seen Fred?
A: No, I haven’t.
(Listener compensates for omission of ‘Have you’ by automatically responding with appropriate answer form.)
Towards the end of the session, Marian dictated a seemingly incomprehensible passage to illustrate the problems learners have in interpreting connected speech. This was dictated and we all attempted to write it out and make sense of it. It aptly illustrated the problem - especially as he sang it to the original tune which fortunately, being a native English speaker, I recognised and was familiar with the very funny words.
I’m not going to ‘steal Marian’s thunder’ by writing those words here but rather the phonemic rendition which readers can work out for themselves or else ask Marian for help!
/ ˈmeəzi:dəʊtsndeʊsi:dəʊts / /ənˈlɪdlæmzi:daɪvi:/ /əˈkɪdli:daɪvi:tu:/
/wʊdntu:/
This was a really fine session, both thought provoking and stimulating, and I went away thinking this over a lot. The impression it made on me was large and I thought it would be easy to recap and get the ideas down in writing yet it has actually been the most difficult in not knowing what to include or leave out. I hope I have conveyed the basic ideas correctly but I can only leave the readers to imagine the atmosphere in class, the rapt attention of colleagues and Marian’s kindly and captivating input. Leaving the session afterwards and cycling home, my mind was full of the ideas and the unforgettable memory of Marian singing that song to us while everyone write down their interpretation. A wonderful evening session!
>*The tern ‘mondegreen’ refers to ‘misheard lyric’ and originates in the mishearing of a poem which contained the line "Oh, they have slain the Earl of Moray and laid him on the green" Many modern song lyrics contain easily confused lines such as 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy. (‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky from Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze)
From the home of Karaoke originates another craze called Soramimi kashi, that of comparing songs in English that have lines or phrases that sound like the listener’s native tongue and have an amusing meaning. In German for example, this is known as an ‘Agathe Bauer’ which is what the lyric ‘I’ve got the power’ by sounds like to the German ear.
Please check the Pronunciation course at Pilgrims website
Please check the Methodology and Language for Secondary Teachers course at Pilgrims website
Please check the Teaching Advanced Students course at Pilgrims website
Please check the Methodology for Teaching Spoken Grammar and English course at Pilgrims website
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