It's good to word hard...

This class will be entirely devoted to tonicity practice. No extra theory will be
included, but we'll pay full attention to how context determines tonic syllable
placement.

Our rule of thumb will be the following (for the time being)...

One of the aspects we have to work hard on is the fact that context plays a crucial
role in identifying given information (which doesn't need to be highlighted) and
determines tonicity decisions.

GIVEN INFORMATION

Given information is information which is already known by the

listener, so it's not necessary to place the tonic there.

We'll read some notes where we'll find useful guidelines as to the
identification of given information in a text. In the notes, there are
some two-line conversations and some sentences we should use
for practice on tonicity decisions.

To access and download the handout on Given Information,

please click here.

I hope you find the notes helpful and that you can apply those concepts in your
transcriptions in the future. We´ll keep working hard on tonicity... This time, from a
listener's point of view.

WE ARE ALL EARS

In our Phonetics and Phonology classes, listening is a fundamental skill. Learning

another language (with its conventions) involves paying attention to how things are
said. Also, being a teacher involves being able to listen to your students and
identify/correct pronunciation/intonation mistakes.
 In this section of the class, we'll work on the
identification of tonic syllables:

● on the Last Lexical Item

● on non-final lexical items
● on grammatical items

We'll also try to understand why the speaker decided

to move the tonic to an earlier position in he tone
group.

1. In the activity below, we have to:

● listen to the audio and decide which answer matches which question,
according to the highlighted word (in the answer),
● practise reading questions and answers.
2. In this activity, we have:

● read the dialogue and see if the words highlighted in bold are likely to get the
tonic syllable or not,
● then listen and confirm your predictions. Try to find explanations for the
tonicity decisions.

You can download the Word file with the previous activities here.

3. Dictation practice

We'll do a dictation practice to start training our ear to

this kind of phonological task.

Click here to access the dictation to create context and get you familiar with the
text.

● Click here to access the dictation for sounds.

● Click here to access the key for self correction.
For prominences and tonic syllables, you can use the first dictation again.

I hope you find this practice challenging but motivating.

Have a great weekend and a very Happy Student's Day on Monday!