Introdungcing English language part 43: 'In this exciting new textbook, Louise Mullany and Peter Stockwell have provided a fresh and imaginative set of alternatives for teaching and learning a huge amount about the English language. The book allows tor creative and lateral approaches to developing an understanding of important linguistic concepts and, together with the thought-provoking activities, and accessible readings, guarantees there is something to stimulate every learner. | D7 238 EXTENSION LINGUISTIC READINGS John Field removal of the d from the first word is likely to be accompanied by a lengthening of the diphthong so that it sounds to all intents and purposes like the open syllable may. Secondly there is cliticization an effect which results from the way in which natural English speech tends towards a regular stressed-unstressed pattern. The preference of English speakers for the basic SW strong-weak foot means that they often attach two words for no reason other than a rhythmic one. This can happen in defiance of syntactic structure Example 1 go to bed . It can even lead to prefixes getting dislodged and being produced as if they were suffixes Example 2 got excited . Example 1 S W S W S W gou to bed pause gouto bed Example 2 S W S W S W gut ik so it id gotik soitid How to handle these effects They do not really lend themselves like other segmentation problems to short 5-minute dictation slots. The best advice is simply to be aware that they exist - and when you encounter them in a listening text to play and replay the relevant section to see if learners can puzzle out for themselves the correct distribution of phonemes and or syllables. Indeed that is the message for all the perceptual difficulties described here. The important thing is to be aware of them and to be prepared to practise them intensively if there are signs that they are preventing learners from identifying familiar words because of the special conditions of connected speech. The value of a signal-based approach of the kind described is that it draws our attention to problems of both perception and comprehension that would otherwise pass unnoticed. Issues to consider Compare Field s psycholinguistic perspective with the perspective from morphology and lexicology across strand 2 of this book. In particular how does a psycholinguistic definition of what a word is differ from a lexicological definition Can you think of other examples that further confirm Field s .
