UNIT I – Lesson 5
UNIT 1: Overview of Pronunciation elements
➢ Pronunciation, accent and dialect
➢ Overview of sounds
➢ Units of speech: Sounds and phonemes
➢ Spelling and Pronunciation: Sounds and letters
➢ Pronunciation and spelling
➢ Phonemes and allophones
➢ Classification of sounds
➢ Homophones and homographs
➢ Content and function words in the spoken message.
➢ Use of the English Pronunciation Dictionary
Topics:
• Letter-sound association
• Letter combinations: digraphs
• Commons patterns
• Homophones
• Homographs
Some features of English pronunciation and spelling
▪ Single letters and sound association
In English, there are 21 consonant letters, making 24 sounds, and 5 vowel
letters, making 20 sounds. In the light of this, it is clear that vowels will be the most
likely cause of pronunciation or spelling difficulties. Many consonant letters have one
main sound associated with them, such as <b, d, f, h, n>. They are pronounced /b, d, f,
h, n/. Other letters that are related to a number of different sounds tend to have primary
associations, and other less common ones. For example, <s> has the primary sound
value of /s/ as in sun /sʌn/, but will have the secondary pronunciation of /z/ as in noise
/nɔɪz/.
▪ Letter combinations or Digraphs and sounds:
Some pairs of letters are associated with a particular sound, as in the link
between <ph> and the sound /f/, as in photo. Such letter pairs are known as Digraphs.
In certain cases, a digraph can have two or three different sound associations,
depending on the word in question: <ch>, for example, can be pronounced as /tʃ/ (chip,
change), /k/ (character, technique) or /ʃ/ (machine).
With vowel digraphs, it is possible to identify primary and secondary values for
particular parings. For example, in the majority of words containing <ea>, the pair will
be pronounced as /iː/ (as in eat, heat and cheap) which is, therefore, the primary value,
while secondary values include the less frequent /eɪ/ (great, break) and /e/ (dead,
weather, breakfast).
▪ Common patterns of pronunciation
There are a number of common sound/spelling patterns which can be
considered as reliable. Here are some useful ones:
/ə/ occurs only in unstressed syllables, and also in a high number of them. It is useful to
take into account its use in prefixes and suffixes, as these are usually unstressed:
technical, production, explanatory, bigger, etc.
Common suffixes are usually consistent in their pronunciations, for example: <-tion> is
pronounced /ʃən/ as in explanation, pronunciation, promotion; <-cial> is /ʃəl/ as in
special, official; <-cious> is /ʃəs/ as in precious, suspicious.
Certain vowels are usually elided in particular words: secretary /ˈsekrɪtəri/ or /ˈsekrɪtri /,
vegetable /ˈvedʒɪtəbl̩ / or /vedʒtəbl̩ /.
▪ Pairs of words
Homophones
Homophones are pairs of words that sound the same, but have distinctly different
meanings and different spellings. Understanding homophones is an essential part of
mastering the English language, both for vocabulary building and spelling.
Examples:
• brake/break: When teaching my daughter how to drive, I told her if she didn't hit
the brake in time, she would break the car's side mirror.
• cell/sell: If you sell drugs, you will get arrested and end up in a prison cell.
• cent/scent: I won't spend one cent on a bottle of perfume until I know that I love
the scent.
• die/dye: If you accidentally drank a bottle of fabric dye, you might die.
• flour/flower: To bake a flower-shaped cake, you'll need some flour.
Homogaphs
A homograph is a group (usually a pair) of words that are spelled the same way, and
may or may not be pronounced the same way, although the difference in pronunciation
is often just a shift in the accented syllable.
bat - a piece of sporting equipment used in baseball/a winged animal associated with
vampires
fine - very good/sharp or keen/delicate or subtle/a sum of money paid to settle a matter
Online practice
https://www.englishclub.com/esl-games/pronunciation/matching-homophones.htm
