D6

Glossary
accent An accent is the way the people of a place pronounce their language. For example,
people in London and Sydney both speak English, but they have different accents.
auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb is a verb which does not have a meaning by itself; it helps the
grammar of the sentence. For example, in Do you like music?, do is an auxiliary verb.
C In this book, the symbol C means consonant sound.
careful speech / fast speech People pronounce sentences differently when they speak carefully.
For example, you may use careful speech when you are talking in public or reading aloud. But in
normal conversation you would use fast speech.
consonant sound A consonant sound is a sound we make by obstructing the flow of air from
the mouth.
contraction A contraction is a short form of an auxiliary verb in writing. For example, are is
contracted to re in theyre.
emphasising Emphasising in speech is like underlining in writing; we use it to make one word
stand out as more important than the others. We can emphasise words by pronouncing them
louder, longer and/or higher.
minimal pair If two words are pronounced nearly the same, but they have just one sound
different, they are a minimal pair. For example, in the pair ship /SIp/ and sheep /Si:p/, only the
second sound is different.
native speaker If you are a native speaker of a language, that language is your first language,
the language which you learnt as a young child.
phonemic symbol A phonemic symbol is a letter which represents a sound. For example, the
first sound in shoe is represented by the phonemic symbol /S/.
rhyme Two words rhyme if they have the same final vowel or vowel and consonant sounds.
For example, go rhymes with show and hat rhymes with cat.
sentence stress Sentence stress is the pattern of strong and weak syllables in a sentence. For
example, the sentence How do you do? is normally said with this sentence stress pattern: OooO
(the first and last syllables strong, the second and third syllables weak).
sound A sound is the minimum segment of the pronunciation of a word. For example, the
word this has three sounds: /T/, /I/ and /s/.
stress pattern The pattern of strong and weak syllables in a word or sentence is its stress
pattern. In this book, stress patterns are represented by big and small circles. For example, the
stress pattern of the word pronunciation is oooOo.
syllable A syllable is a word or part of a word that has one vowel sound. It may also have one
or more consonant sounds. For example, ago has two syllables. The first syllable is just one
vowel sound. The second syllable is a consonant sound followed by a vowel sound.

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tone A tone is the way your voice goes up or down when you say a sentence. This can change
the meaning of the sentence.
unstressed An unstressed syllable is one which is not pronounced strongly.
V In this book, the symbol V means vowel sound.
voice Many pairs of consonant sounds are similar, but one of them is voiced and the other is
not. For example, /d/ is similar to /t/, but /d/ is voiced and /t/ is not. A consonant is voiced when
there is vibration in the throat.
vowel sound A vowel sound is a sound we make when we dont obstruct the air flow from the
mouth in speaking.
weak vowels Unstressed syllables often contain a weak vowel. The most common weak vowel
is /@/. This is the first vowel sound in about, for example. The vowel /I/ is also sometimes weak,
in the second syllable of orange, for example.
word stress Word stress is the pattern of strong and weak syllables in a word. For example, the
word decided has three syllables and the second one is pronounced more strongly. So decided
has this word stress pattern: oOo.

nose

tooth ridge

top of mouth

top teeth
back of mouth
top lip
tongue
front of tongue
end of tongue

back of tongue
bottom teeth

bottom lip

jaw

throat

English Pronunciation in Use

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