CAE 331 Phonetics and Phonology

Description

This course builds on the ground covered in English phonetics and phonology in previous years. New topics introduced in this course are phonological theory and the instrumental measurement of speech, particularly Singapore English pronunciation. All topics relate to specifically English pronunciation.

Objectives

On completion of this course, students will:

Topics

  1. advanced segmental and suprasegmental phonetics of English
  2. phoneme theory, and basic generative phonology
  3. the acoustics of speech
  4. the description of Singapore pronunciation using computer-based spectrograms

Reading

Brown, A, Deterding, D & Low E L (eds 2000) The English Language in Singapore: Research on Pronunciation, Singapore:SAAL

Carr, P (1993) Phonology, London: MacMillan. (Chapter 3).

Deterding, D (1997) 'The formants of monophthong vowels in Standard Southern British English Pronunciation', Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 27, pages 47-55

Deterding, D (2003) 'An instrumental study of the monophthong vowels of Singapore English', English World-Wide, 24(1), 1-16.

Deterding, D (2005) 'Emergent patterns in the vowels of Singapore English', English World-Wide, 26(2), 179-198.

Deterding, D, Brown, A & Low E L (2005) English in Singapore: Phonetic Research on a Corpus, Singapore: McGraw-Hill.

Ladefoged, P (2001). A Course in Phonetics (4th edition), Fort Worth: Harcourt (Ch. 8)

Teaching format

The course comprises two one-hour lectures, and one one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

There is one assignment (30%) in which students report on measurements of their own vowels based on a 5-minute recording, one presentation (10%) in which students describe the suprasegmental features of their speech, and an examination (60%).

Coordinator

David Deterding, office 3-03-164, tel 6790 3432, email: david.deterding@nie.edu.sg