Correlation between Listening and Pronunciation

PRONUNCIATION
I. DEFINITIONS
1. Pronunciation is an essential ingredient of oral communication, which also includes
grammar, vocabulary choice, cultural considerations and so on (Fraser, 2001: 6).
2. Pronunciation is an essential skill to use this language as a means of communication
(Yuzawa ,2007: 95).
3. Pronunciation is a cognitive skill for which some people may have more natural aptitude
and or interest and motivation than others (Gilakjani and Ahmadi, 2011: 75).
4. Pronunciation is transforming that noise into discernible and distinguishable sounds with
meaning (Bennet, 2007: 5).
5. Pronunciation is a set of habits of producing sounds (Gilakjani, 2012: 96).

II. CONSTRUCT
Pronunciation is a cognitive skill as a means of communication.

III. ELEMENTS
1. Schaetzel (2009) says that teaching and learning of pronunciation have focused on the
following issues: the importance of accent, stress, intonation, and rhythm in the
comprehensibility of the speech of nonnative speakers; and the intelligibility of speech
among speakers of different English varieties.

2. (AMEP Research Center, 2002) defines that pronunciation refers to the production of
sounds that we use to make meaning. It includes attention to the particular sounds of a
language (segments), aspects of speech beyond the level of the individual sound, such
as intonation, phrasing, stress, timing, rhythm (suprasegmental aspects), how the voice
is projected (voice quality) and, in its broadest definition, attention to gestures and
expressions that are closely related to the way we speak a language
 3. Romova et al (2008) define that the following are pronunciation features: accuracy of
word stress, the use of the schwa in weak forms, word linking (or resyllabification),
pauses at appropriate grammatical junctures and differences in phoneme articulation.

4. Gilbert (2008: 8) conveys that the focus of English pronunciation instruction, therefore,
should be to give learners the prosodic framework within which the sounds are
organized. Instruction should concentrate on the way English speakers depend on
rhythm and melody to organize thoughts, highlight important words, and otherwise
guide their listener.

5. Lei Chen et al (2009: 443) state that the widely used features for measuring
pronunciation are (1) likelihood (posterior probability) of a phoneme being spoken given
the observed audio sample that is computed in a Viterbi decoding process, and (2)
phoneme length measurements that are compared to standard references based on
native speech.

6. Dimitrova (2010) says that accent is the term which linguists use when they refer to the
pronunciation features typical of people who belong to the same geographical region or
social class; speakers’ accents may also reflect their age, sex, level of education, etc.

7. Crystal (2003: 3) defines that an accent is “the cumulative auditory effect of those
features of pronunciation that identify where a person is from, regionally or socially”.

8. Levis (2005) outlines the differing ideologies current in the teaching of pronunciation,
such as the competing principles of nativeness and intelligibility.

Schaetzel AMEP Romova Gilbert Lei Chen et Dimitrova Crystal Levis

Research et al al
Center
accent individual accent accent nativeness
 sound
stress stress stress
intonation intonation melody
rhythm rhythm rhythm
intelligibility intelligibility
segments
phrasing
timing pauses
voice quality
definition
the use of
the schwa
in weak
forms
word
linking
phoneme phoneme
articulati articulatio
on n

IV. CONSTRUCT 2
Pronunciation is a cognitive skill as a means of communication which includes accent, stress,
intonation, intelligibility, and phoneme articulation.