EXERCISES

1) Listen. You will hear speakers from Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia and South Africa talking about what they enjoy doing in their spare time. (A4)

Which of these accents are you most familiar with? Is there one you find easier to understand than the others?

2) Here is a text read aloud first by a British English speaker and then an American English speaker.

Listen as many times as you need and note differences in pronunciation that you observe, focusing on the underlined words. A few are done for you. (It is not necessary to use phonemic symbols in this exercise)

(A5)

3) You will hear four more people talking about what they enjoy doing in their spare time. They are from Northern England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Listen as many times as you need and write brief notes about what they say (A6).

Northern England:

Scotland:

Wales:

Northern Ireland:

Now read the transcripts. Are there particular features of their pronunciation that you had problems understanding? In what ways is their pronunciation different from BBC English - that is, British English spoken without a regional accent?

Home task:

Go to http://www.bbc.co.u k/voices/. Follow links to 'Voices Recordings'. Here you can listen to voices from many parts of the UK. Choose one of the recordings by clicking on a dot on the map, and then do the following:

1. Click on the name of one of the speakers under 'More clips from this interview'.

2. Read 'About the interviewee'.

3. Read the transcript. Check in a dictionary any words you don't understand.

4. Listen to the recording and follow the transcript.

5. Some clips have a section on 'More about the speech in this clip'. Read this, focusing in particular on information about pronunciation. Some dialect words, which you may not find in the dictionary, are explained here.

6. Do the same with any other 'More clips from this interview'.

7. Go back and listen to the 'Voice clip(s)'. These don't have transcripts. How much of them do you understand? Do you notice features of pronunciation you observed and read about earlier?

8. Do the same with accents from other parts of the UK by clicking on other dots on the map.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 1294