Intonation and connected speech

Intonation refers to pitch changes in speech that affect meaning. One phrase can have many meanings depending on how it is said. A popular way of approaching teaching intonation is by grammatical function. For example, statements generally have a downward pitch (falling intonation). However, statements can be turned into questions with only upward pitch (rising intonation) at the end. Question tags that expect agreement such as ‘It’s good weather today, isn’t it?’ tend to have falling intonation, while question tags that are not as certain such as, ‘You love me, don’t you?’ tend to have rising intonation. This kind of information about intonation can be introduced easily into classes early on. It is widely believed, however, that studying real discourse is the most useful way for students to become familiar with the nuances of English intonation. 

Accuracy is clearly important in pronunciation. However, so is fluency. Fluency is affected by, among other things, a student’s ability to use connected speech. In regular speech, the sounds produced become connected, and a variety of changes to the sound naturally occurs. In connected speech, such changes include assimilation, elision, liaison, and juncture (Underhill, 2005, p. 60). Highlighting these connections for students can be helpful for students and can lead to improved fluency.

Assimilation is where a sound at the end of one word becomes more like, or even turns into, the sound at the start of the next. For example, ‘ten men’ / ten men / becomes / tem men /, or ‘this shirt’ / ðɪs ʃɜ:t / becomes / ðɪʃ ʃɜ:t /.

Elision is when sounds are deleted. This tends to happen to / t / and / d / sounds. For example, ‘next please’ / nekst pli:z / becomes / neks pli:z / or ‘old man’ / ɒld mæn / becomes / ɒl mæn /.

Liaison is using sounds to create smoother links between words where there was no sound before. Specifically, the / r, w, j / sounds are inserted between two vowel sounds as in ‘Australia and America’ / ɒstreɪlɪə ænd ʌmerɪkʌ / becomes / ɒstreɪlɪə rænd ʌmerɪkʌ /.

Juncture  describes the situation when the sounds at word boundaries can sound similar even though they are different word sets. For example, ‘I scream’ and ‘ice cream’ are both / aɪskri:m / when used in a connected way. In such cases slight differences to the way these are pronounced can distinguish the two.