Of all the areas in English pronunciation, perhaps the most challenging for learners is the way in which words are connected together in fluent speech. When we speak, we don’t leave spaces or silences between the words that we say, and words run into each other to maintain the rhythm and pace of an utterance. Different languages, and even different accents of English, connect words differently, and this can have an impact on how spoken English is understood and produced by learners.
The way that words flow together is known as ‘connected speech’, and as with most areas of pronunciation, there are some clear rules about how this happens. Connected speech is affected by word and sentence stress, and the features of the first (initial) and last (final) sounds in words when they meet at word boundaries.
These rules are known as the features of connected speech, and can be broken down into 5 main types: vowel reduction, deletion, insertion, assimilation and catenation. Each of these can be the subject of specific teaching and learning activity, and by using designed sentences to help students practice these features, fluency can be increased through work with rhythm and pace in their speaking.
What are the features of connected speech?
Vowel reduction
English vowels are often produced in two forms: a ‘full’ form and a ‘reduced’ or ‘weak’ form. In stressed syllables in a word or sentence, the vowel will be produced in it’s full form, However, in an unstressed syllable, vowels can reduce or weaken, making them shorter and less effortful to produce, and making it easier to keep the rhythm of the sentence when spoken at speed.
Examples of full and reduced vowels:
To find examples of strong and weak vowels, it is useful to look at word families where the noun, verb, adjective, etc. forms are stressed differently, for example:
Biology (n - second syllable stressed)
Biological (adj - third syllable stressed)
In the noun form ‘biology’, the first ‘o’ (in the second syllable) is stressed, and therefore is sounded in its full form /ɒ/ (as in ‘clock’). The ‘o’ in the third syllable is unstressed, and so is sounded in the weak form /ə/ (known as ‘schwa’.
However, in the adjective ‘biological’, the same ‘o’ in the second syllable is unstressed, so is sounded as a schwa /ə/, and the ‘o’ in the third syllable carries the stress of the word, so takes on its full form /ɒ/.
Schwa /ə/ is the most common form of many vowels in their reduced form, and is known as a ‘weak form’. In fact, because there are more unstressed syllables that stressed ones in English overall, and as schwa is a common weak form, schwa is actually the most common sound of English, especially British English. This explains why natural speed English speech often sounds ‘lazy’ or mumbled - speakers are using weak forms to reduce the effort of their speech and to enable them to communicate more ideas more efficiently.
Deletion (or elision)
Deletion is where sounds are removed completely from the boundaries of words or syllables, again to reduce effort without the meaning of the word breaking down. For example, in the phrase ‘fish and chips’, the ‘d’ in ‘and’ is not usually pronounced, as it does not affect the meaning of the phrase (we would never process ‘fish an chips’ as containing the article ‘an’, as it does not make grammatical sense - ‘chips’ is plural, so would never take ‘an’ before it, and an article would never come directly after a noun. Our listening brains therefore process the sound ‘an’ as the linker ‘and’, which often comes between singular or plural nouns.
Vowels can also be deleted (or elided) without affecting rhythm or understanding. For example, the ‘e’ spelt in the second syllables of ‘interesting’ and ‘literature’ are often not produced when these words are spoken quickly.
Insertion
When one word ends with a vowel, and another word begins with a vowel, it is difficult to join the words together comfortably. The only time when two vowels are naturally joined is in a diphthong (two vowels which work together to produce one vowel sound, as in ‘hose’, ‘rice’, ‘tune’ or ‘late’). Other sequences of vowels don’t sit happily next to each other, so another sound is produced between them to help one word flow into the next.
For example, say the following phrases quickly - which sound can you hear between the words, even though it is not spelt in either word?
Two and a half (which sound can you hear at the joining of ‘two + and’?)
Three and a half (which sound can you hear at the joining of ‘three + and’?)
Depending on your accent, you will hear a /w/ and a /j/ sound here (where the phoneme /j/ represents the sound associated with the letter ‘y’).
In languages where vowels do not link together in this way (for example German or Arabic), it can take a lot of effort to speak out vowels when they appear next to each other, which slows down speech and can interrupt fluency.
Catenation
Catenation is another way of maintaining rhythm and pace in spoken English by joining syllables together. Catenation happens when the final sound of one syllable attaches itself to the beginning of the following syllable. For example, try saying the following phrase to hear which sounds catenate onto following syllables:
The end of the road is over there
Now say the same sentence slowly, and clap your hands on every syllable. You will probably hear yourself saying the syllables as:
The en dof the roa di sover there
In this case, the ‘d’ of end, the ‘d’ of road and the ’s’ of ‘is’ jump onto the following syllable, and contribute to the rhythm of the phrase.
Again, many languages do not join syllables in this way, so a lack of catenation in learner language can make it feel a little disjointed or over-stressed. A good activity to practise this is to present students with cards containing individual syllables (broken down as in the example above). Students have to build the sentence form these chunks, and work out the message as it is spoken. This raises awareness of the importance of linking syllables and words to maintain a fluent rhythm.
Assimilation
Perhaps the strangest feature of connected speech is assimilation, where sounds change to ‘blend’ into each other, again reducing the effort it takes to produce them together. Final sounds in words often change into other sounds to meet the following sound, beginning the next word. The word-final sounds change to take on some feature of the following sound, in order to reduce effort in speakers.
For example, say the following phrases quickly, and notice what happens to the underlined sound:
Ten blueberries
Pick me an apple
A big pumpkin
Nine green apples
In each case (again, depending on how fast or carefully you say these phrases), when these are spoken at natural speed, you will probably hear the underlined sounds as something different:
Ten /n/ becomes /m/
Pick /k/ becomes /p/
big /g/ becomes /b/
Nine /n/ becomes /ŋ/ (the -ng sound)
Again, this pattern of pronunciation exists to reduce the effort of moving your tongue and mouth further than is necessary to communicate the message that is being spoken, raising fluency and enabling more effort to go into other areas of pronunciation such as intonation and emphasis, which can add to the communication of the message.
The above features of connected speech may seem insignificant when taken alone, though each is a small way that students can reduce the effort in their own speech in English, and raise their fluency bit by bit. By studying all of these features, and applying those which they feel comfortable with, a bigger jump in fluency and confidence can be felt. Integrating these valuable aspects of pronunciation into learning can bring great results over time.
Language Point Teacher Education Ltd. delivers the internationally recognised RQF level 5 Trinity CertTESOL over 12 weeks, part-time in an entirely online mode of study, and level 6 Trinity College Certificate for Practising Teachers, a contextually-informed teacher development qualification with specific courses which focus on online language education or online methodology, and can be used to develop your awareness of strategies for working with exam-focused classes.
If you are interested to know more about these qualifications, or you want take your teaching to a new level with our teacher development courses, contact us or see our course dates and fees for details.
Upcoming course dates:
Level 5 Trinity CertTESOL (12 weeks online): November 4th, 2024 - Feb 7th, 2025
Level 5 Trinity CertTESOL (12 weeks online): December 9th, 2024 - March 14th 2025
Level 6 Trinity CertPT (10 weeks online): November 4, 2024 - January 24th, 2025
Comentarios