English Phonetics and Phonology

Students learn about the basics of general phonetics (speech organs, articulation, auditory perception, acoustic phonetics and instrumental analysis of speech) and phonology (understanding of the concepts ‘allophone’ and ‘phoneme’; distinctive features, syllable structure). This is followed by a detailed presentation and discussion of the English sound system in terms of articulatory features and auditory perception. Students become familiar with phonemic and phonetic transcription. The main features of English pronunciation dictionaries are presented, as well as the importance of these dictionaries in learning and checking pronunciation and accentuation of individual lexical units. Analysis of individual English vowels and consonants (with explanation of the main differences between standard British and American pronunciation and differences between the English and Slovene sound systems) is followed by an overview of interactions between individual sounds (voicing, assimilation, elision) and of phonotactics (combinations of sounds in the syllable, consonantal clusters).
Tutorials:
Seminars are carried out in a language laboratory; the main focus is on the evaluation and improvement of English pronunciation by making the students aware of their pronunciation problems. Special attention/emphasis is given to a consistent usage of a pronunciation variant which is most familiar to the students (standard British or standard American pronunciation), as well as to the analysis of the influence of the mother tongue on English pronunciation. The students become familiar in practice with the main pronunciation rules (and exceptions) and, by using dictionaries, check their pronunciation of dictionary entries. They become acquainted with the phonemic transcription by using pronunciation dictionaries, reading phonemically transcribed texts and transcribing lexical items.