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    Connected Speech

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    Tayyab Ijaz
    Connected speech refers to how words are pronounced when spoken together in fluent speech. There are several aspects of connected speech that help speech flow smoothly: Weak forms cause function words like prepositions and auxiliaries to be reduced and sometimes indistinct when not stressed. Elision omits certain sounds like alveolar consonants when between other consonants. Assimilation changes sounds at the end of one word to make transition to the next word easier, like "ten boys" becoming "tem boys". Understanding connected speech helps explain why native speakers can understand fast speech better than learners. Activities focusing on aspects of connected speech can improve learners' comprehension and fluency.

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    Connected Speech

    Uploaded by

    Tayyab Ijaz
    1K views45 pages
    Connected speech refers to how words are pronounced when spoken together in fluent speech. There are several aspects of connected speech that help speech flow smoothly: Weak forms cause function words like prepositions and auxiliaries to be reduced and sometimes indistinct when not stressed. Elision omits certain sounds like alveolar consonants when between other consonants. Assimilation changes sounds at the end of one word to make transition to the next word easier, like "ten boys" becoming "tem boys". Understanding connected speech helps explain why native speakers can understand fast speech better than learners. Activities focusing on aspects of connected speech can improve learners' comprehension and fluency.

    Original Description:

    introduction to connected speech

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    Connected speech refers to how words are pronounced when spoken together in fluent speech. There are several aspects of connected speech that help speech flow smoothly: Weak forms cause function words like prepositions and auxiliaries to be reduced and sometimes indistinct when not stressed. Elision omits certain sounds like alveolar consonants when between other consonants. Assimilation changes sounds at the end of one word to make transition to the next word easier, like "ten boys" becoming "tem boys". Understanding connected speech helps explain why native speakers can understand fast speech better than learners. Activities focusing on aspects of connected speech can improve learners' comprehension and fluency.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    1K views45 pages

    Connected Speech

    Uploaded by

    Tayyab Ijaz
    Connected speech refers to how words are pronounced when spoken together in fluent speech. There are several aspects of connected speech that help speech flow smoothly: Weak forms cause function words like prepositions and auxiliaries to be reduced and sometimes indistinct when not stressed. Elision omits certain sounds like alveolar consonants when between other consonants. Assimilation changes sounds at the end of one word to make transition to the next word easier, like "ten boys" becoming "tem boys". Understanding connected speech helps explain why native speakers can understand fast speech better than learners. Activities focusing on aspects of connected speech can improve learners' comprehension and fluency.

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    At a glance
    Powered by AI
    Connected speech refers to the changes that occur in pronunciation and sound when words are strung together in fluent speech. Features include weak forms, elision, assimilation, linking, etc.

    Connected speech is when words are pronounced together in a continuous stream without clear boundaries between each word. Certain sounds and words may be altered or lost to aid fluency.

    Native speakers can rely on context to understand connected speech more easily, while non-natives depend more on individual sounds. Lack of awareness of connected speech can hinder non-native comprehension.

    CONNECTED SPEECH

    Overview
    What

    is connected speech?
    Aspects of connected speech
    Weak Forms
    Elision
    Assimilation
    Linking

    What is connected speech


    ?
    "English

    people speak so fast" is a complaint I often hear


    from my students, and often from those at an advanced
    level, where ignorance of the vocabulary used is not the
    reason for their lack of comprehension.
    When students see a spoken sentence in its written form,
    they have no trouble comprehending. Why is this?
    The reason, it seems, is that speech is a continuous
    stream of sounds, without clear-cut borderlines between
    each word. In spoken discourse, we adapt our
    pronunciation to our audience and articulate with
    maximal
    economy of movement rather than maximal clarity. Thus,
    certain words are lost, and certain phonemes linked
    together as we attempt to get our message across.

    What is connected speech?


    When

    we speak naturally we do not pronounce a


    word, stop, then say the next word in the
    sentence. Fluent speech flows with a rhythm and
    the words bump into each other. To make speech
    flow smoothly the way we pronounce the end
    and beginning of some words can change
    depending on the sounds at the beginning and
    end of those words.

    These

    changes are described as features of


    connected speech.

    How this affects native and nonnative speakers


    As

    native speakers, we have various devices for dealing with


    indistinct utterances caused by connected speech. We take
    account of the context, we assume we hear words with which we
    are familiar within that context.
    In real-life interaction, phonetically ambiguous pairs like " a new
    display" / " a nudist play", are rarely a problem as we are actively
    making predictions about which syntactic forms and lexical items
    are likely to occur in a given situation.
    Non-native speakers, however, are rarely able to predict which
    lexical item may or may not appear in a particular situation. They
    tend to depend almost solely on the sounds which they hear.
    Learners whose instruction has focused heavily on accuracy
    suffer a "devastating diminuation of phonetic information at the
    segmental level when they encounter normal speech." (Brown
    1990.)

    Importance of Studying
    Connected Speech
    There

    is a huge difference between


    what our students see printed on a page
    and what we actually say in everyday
    speech. Research shows that teaching
    learners about connected speech can
    really make a difference in terms of how
    well they understand native speakers.
    Equally, some ability to use these
    features in their own speech will also be
    likely to make students more confident
    and fluent speakers.

    So what is it that we do when stringing words


    together that causes so many problems for
    students?

    ASPECTS OF
    CONNECTED SPEECH

    Features of connected
    speech
    As

    a brief overview, there is a


    strong tendency in English to
    simplify and link words together
    in the stream of speech, in order
    to help the language flow
    rhythmically. Some of the most
    common features:

    Weak forms
    There

    are a large number of words in English which can have a "full" form and
    a "weak" form. This is because English is a stressed timed language, and in
    trying to make the intervals between stressed syllables equal, to give the
    phrase rhythm, we tend to swallow non-essential words. Thus, conjunctions,
    pronouns, prepositions, auxiliaries and articles are often lost, causing
    comprehension problems for students, particularly for those whose language
    is syllable timed. Some examples of words which have weak forms are;
    And
    fish and chips (fishn chips)
    a chair and a table (a chair n a table)
    Can
    She can speak Spanish better than I can (The first "can" is the weak form, the
    second the full form.)
    Of
    A pint of beer
    Thats the last of the wine!
    Have
    Have you finished? (weak)
    Yes, I have. (full)
    Should
    Well, you should have told me. (Both "should" and "have" are weak here)

    Weak forms
    When we talk about weak forms in the
    phonetics of English this regards a series
    of words which have one pronunciation
    (strong) when isolated, and another
    (weak) when not stressed within a phrase.
    a car
    /e k:/
    I bought a car
    /a b:t k:/

    Weak form are commonly used


    words
    Prepositions
    Auxiliary

    verbs
    Conjunctions

    Strong form
    Prepositio
    ns
    to
    for
    from
    into
    of
    as
    at

    Weak form

    Auxiliary
    verbs

    are
    was
    were
    would
    could
    should
    can
    must

    Others
    and
    but
    than
    that
    you
    your
    her
    a
    an
    the

    Weak=unstressed
    In the following sentences the underlined
    words are stressed and so would be
    pronounced using the strong form:
    I do like chocolate.

    She drove to Las Vegas, not from Las


    Vegas.

    We were surprised when she told us her


    secret. (stress on were for emphasis)

    EXAMPLES
    1-

    Betcha for
    ( I ) bet you as in Betcha cant
    catch me.
    2-

    Gotcha for
    ( I ve ) got you as in Gotcha at
    last

    Look at this phrase:


    I went to the hotel and
    booked a room for two
    nights for my father and
    his best friend.

    What are the most important


    words?

    I went to the hotel and


    booked a room for two
    nights for my father and his
    best friend.

    If we eliminate the other words can


    we still understand the message?

    went
    room
    father

    hotel
    booked
    two nights
    best friend.

    Lets look at the phrase transcribed:

    /a

    went t h tel n bkt

    ru:m

    f tu: nats f ma f:r

    n
    hz

    best frend/

    Learners

    must come to not only recognise and


    cope with the weak forms they hear,
    but also to use them themselves when
    speaking English. If they do not their language
    will sound unnatural and over formalised, with
    too many stressed forms making it difficult for
    the listener to identify the points of focus.
    This, the degree to which connected speech
    contributes towards "naturalness" or
    "intelligibility", is a useful starting point from
    which to measure the value to students of the
    different features of connected speech.

    Working on weak forms


    Here

    are some ways in which we can attempt


    to help our students with weak forms.
    How many words do you hear?
    Play a short dialogue, or a group of
    sentences, and ask students to listen and
    write down the number of words they hear.
    Go over each phrase to check whether they
    could identify all the words and then to see if
    they can accurately produce what they
    heard. Contrast the weak or natural version
    with the full version, pointing out that the full
    version is often more difficult to pronounce.

    nnatural

    speech
    Activities built around "unnatural speech" are an enjoyable
    way of working on weak forms and rhythm. To obtain
    "unnatural speech", record someone reading a sentence as
    if it were just a list of words. A good way of doing this is to
    put the words onto flash cards, and to reveal one at a time,
    so the reader gives each word its full pronunciation.
    When you have a few sentences, play them several times
    to the students, who should then work in pairs to try to
    make the speech more natural sounding. They can then
    either use graphics to show the points they would change,
    or take turns reading out their different versions, or record
    themselves using a more natural pronunciation. Conduct a
    general feedback session at the end of the activity,
    discussing reasons for the changes the groups have made.

    Integrating

    Integrate pronunciation into vocabulary work,


    practising, for example, the weak form in phrases with
    "of" (a loaf of bread, a cup of coffee, a can of coke).
    Integrate weak forms into grammar work. If practising
    "going to" for example, the teacher can write on the
    board examples such as:
    Go on holiday
    Earn more money
    Buy a car
    Ask

    different students to read these phrases as a


    sentence with "going to". Listen for and highlight the
    weak form of "to" before the consonant sounds, and
    the "full" form of "to" with the linking "w" sound before
    the vowel.

    Elision

    Elision is very simply the omission of certain sounds in certain


    contexts. The most important occurrences of this phenomenon
    regard:

    1 Alveolar consonants /t/ and /d/ when sandwiched between two


    consonants

    The next day.

    / neks de/

    The last car

    / l:s k:/

    Hold the dog!

    /hl dg/

    Send Frank a card.

    /sen frk k:d/

    Africates / t / & / d /

    This can also take place within affricates /t/


    and /d/ when preceded by a consonant, e.g.

    lunchtime
    /lnttam/
    becomes
    /
    lntam/

    strange days /strenddez/


    dez/

    /stren

    Elision of not

    The phoneme /t/ is a fundamental part of the


    negative particle not, the possibility of it being
    elided makes the foreign students life more
    difficult. Consider the negative of can if followed
    by a consonant the /t/ may easily disappear and
    the only difference between the positive and the
    negative is a different, longer vowel sound in the
    second:

    + I can speak./a kn spi:k/


    /

    - I cant speak /a k:n(t) spi:k/ /


    /

    There is a tendency for vowels in unstressed


    syllables to shift towards the schwa (central
    position)

    Assimilation

    This

    is when the sound at the end of one


    word changes to make it easier to say
    the next word. For example:
    ten boys sounds like tem boys (the
    /n/ sound changes to the bilabial /m/ to
    make it easier to transition to the also
    bilabial /b/)
    Incidentally bilabial just means two lips
    together, which is a good example of the
    kind of jargon that puts people off!

    Regressive

    assimilation:
    The phoneme that comes first is affected by
    the one that comes after it.
    Example:
    This year / ij ji /,
    bright color /braik kal/
    light blue /laip blu/.

    Progressive

    assimilation:
    The phoneme that comes first affects the one
    that comes after it.
    Example:
    those year / ji

    Assimilation of place of
    articulation

    Assimilation of place of
    articulation

    Assimilation of place of
    articulation

    Assimilation of place of
    articulation

    Assimilation of manner
    Only regressive assimilation of alveolar
    consonant

    Note: // follow a plosive or nasal at the end of a


    preceding word
    Eg: get them /get m/ /gettm/
    in the
    /in /
    /inn/

    Assimilation of voice
    Only regressive assimilation of voice

    eg: I like that black dog


    / ai laik t blk dg/

    / ai laig d blg dg/

    Catenation
    This

    is when the last consonant


    of the first word is joined to the
    first vowel of the next word. This
    is very very common in English,
    and can be very confusing for
    students. For example:
    an apple sounds like a napple
    (Teacher, what is a napple?)

    Elision
    Elision means that you lose a
    sound in the middle of a
    consonant cluster, sometimes
    from the middle of a word. E.g.
    sandwich becomes sanwich.
    Or from the end of a word. For
    example:
    fish and chips fishnchips

    Rules of elision

    Rules of elision
    c. Avoidance of complex
    consonant cluster:

    d. Loss of /v/ in of before


    consonant
    Example:

    Intrusion
    This

    is when an extra sound intrudes. There are


    three sounds that often do this /r/ /j/ and /w/
    E.g. go on sounds like gowon
    I agree sounds like aiyagree
    Law and order sounds like lawrunorder
    [I probably should have used a phonemic
    keyboard!]
    If you want to discover more about features of
    connected speech- and I think its fascinating
    stuff, theres a list of useful books at the end of
    the post, but now lets look at some activities to
    help raise awareness and encourage more
    natural sounding speech.

    4. Linking
    Linking is the phenomenon where words or sounds are linked
    together. There are 5 basic rules of linking.
    Rules of linking:

    Rules of linking

    4. Linking
    * Note: Sometimes listeners have
    ambiguity in meaning with other
    words.
    Example:
    /maitrein/:
    might rain

    my train

    or

    /aiskri:m/:
    scream

    Ice cream

    or

    Further reading
    Further

    reading
    Sound Foundations by Adrian
    Underhill
    Pronunciation by Dalton and
    Seidlholfer
    How to Teach Pronunciation by
    Gerald Kelly
    Teaching English Pronunciation
    by Joanne Kenworthy

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