FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND LANGUAGES

HBET 1203: ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

SEMESTER: SEPTEMBER 2010

COURSE ASSIGNMENT (30%)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. The assignment will be evaluated on the basis of the accuracy of the answers given
and the credibility of the supporting arguments, data and references.

2. Type your assignment using “Times New Roman”, font size 12 with 1.5 line spacing
on A4 size paper.

3. Your assignment must be submitted to your tutor before or by the 4th tutorial.

4. This assignment is worth 30 % of your final course grade.

5. Plagiarism in any form is prohibited. Plagiarised materials will not be accepted and
no marks would be awarded for the work.
ASSIGNMENT

This assignment requires you to make an audio recording of your friends having a
conversation and to subsequently analyse it.

TASK 1

a) Identify two or three friends who will agree to speak in English for at least 10 minutes.
b) Ask their permission to allow you to record their conversation.
c) Record the conversation.
d) Using the recording, identify FIVE problems any of them have with the consonants
and/or vowels of English. State how they differ from standard British English vowels and
consonants.
(20 marks)

TASK 2

Using the recording you made in Task 1, comment on the rhythm used by one of the
speakers during the conversation. You might want to comment on whether there is “linking”,
“assimilation” or “elision” in the speaker’s utterances in the recording. You might also want
to comment on word stress and sentence stress.
(10 marks)

[Total: 30 marks]

GUIDELINES

1. You are required to submit the audio recording in MP3 format on a CD-R, and your
write-up for the two tasks directly to your tutor by Tutorial 4.

2. Submission of plagiarized work will result in your assignment receiving zero mark and
potential further disciplinary action.