Towards an integrated corpus stylistics

Over recent years, the use of corpora in stylistic analysis has grown in popularity. However, questions still remain over the remit of corpus stylistics, its distinction from corpus linguistics generally and its capacity to explain complex stylistic effects. This article argues in favour of an integrated corpus stylistics; that is, an approach to corpus stylistics that integrates it with other stylistic methods and analytical frameworks. I suggest that this approach is needed for two main reasons: (i) it is analytically necessary in order to fully explain stylistic effects in texts, and (ii) integrating corpus methods with other stylistic tools is what will distinguish corpus stylistics from corpus linguistics. My argument is supported by reference to examples from Mark Haddon’s no vel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and the HBO TV series Deadwood. Both these examples rely for their explanation on a combination of corpus stylistic analytical techniques and other stylistic methods of analysis

How should we counter challenges in teaching pronunciation for EIL?

English as an international language (EIL) deals with the use of English in wider communication both global and local contexts. In an EIL context, people with different mother tongue (L1) use English to share ideas and culture. That is why intelligible English which should be no longer norm-bound is needed. Teaching pronunciation for EIL, especially should provide variety of English accents. English teachers should be flexible to the modification needed and fully informed of what, why, and how to teach and assess comprehensible English. Unfortunately, teaching English pronunciation has always been challenging for non-native English speaker teachers. In this retrospective essay, I discussed the challenges of teaching English pronunciation: the differences between English and students’ L1 phonological system, teachers’ strong and long-standing belief about unnecessary pronunciation, teachers’ excessive workload and insufficient teaching materials, and teachers’ lack of confidence due to native speaker preference model. Ideas to think about and a simple lesson plan to teach English pronunciation that is suitable for EIL context are provided

PROBLEMATIC ENGLISH SEGMENTAL SOUNDS: EVIDENCE FROM INDONESIAN LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

Difficulty in producing natural English sounds by Indonesian learners of English is due to the divergence in manner of producing the sounds in English and Indonesia and resulted in unnatural pronunciation of the English sounds. This research addresses the issue of English sound production with special attention to segmental sounds produced by Indonesian learners of English. Descriptive method was used to explain the data collected from picture description task and interview. The study was divided into two: 1) an in-depth phonetic analysis of the students’ sounds production in terms of place of articulation, manner of articulation and distinctive features for the production of English consonant sounds, and openness of mouth, tongue elevation, position of tongue elevation, lips’ shapes, and length of vocalization for the production of the English vowel sounds and 2) detailed explanation about the contributory factors to the production of segmental sounds quality in terms of unnatural performance and unnatural competence. The findings of this research denoted that the most to least frequent problematic sounds produced by the student occur in [ð] voiced dental fricative (38.15%) for consonant sound and [ӕ] Lax Low Front Unrounded (38.46%) for vowel sound. The most potential influential factors to the problematic English sounds production are the learners’ mother language interference and the less practice of speaking English. Both are indicators of unnatural performance

An exploratory study of foreign accent and phonological awareness in Korean learners of English

Communication in a second or multiple languages has become essential in the globalized world. However, acquiring a second language (L2) after a critical period is universally acknowledged to be challenging (Lenneberg, 1967). Late learners hardly reach a nativelike level in L2, particularly in its pronunciation, and their incomplete phonological acquisition is manifested by a foreign accent—a common and persistent feature of otherwise fluent L2 speech. Although foreign-accented speech is widespread, it has been a target of social constraints in L2-speaking communities, causing many learners and instructors to seek out ways to reduce foreign accents. Accordingly, research in L2 speech has unceasingly examined various learner-external and learner-internal factors of the occurrence of foreign accents as well as nonnative speech characteristics underlying the judgment of the degree of foreign accents. The current study aimed to expand the understanding of the characteristics and judgments of foreign accents by investigating phonological awareness, a construct pertinent to learners’ phonological knowledge, which has received little attention in research on foreign accents. The current study was exploratory and non-experimental research that targeted 40 adults with Korean-accented English living in the United States. The study first examined how 23 raters speaking American English as their native language detect, perceive, describe, and rate Korean-accented English. Through qualitative and quantitative analyses of the accent perception data, the study identified various phonological and phonetic deviations from the nativelike sounds, which largely result from the influence of first language (Korean) on L2 (English). The study then probed the relationship between foreign accents and learners’ awareness of the phonological system of L2, which was measured using production, perception, and verbalization tasks that tapped into the knowledge of L2 phonology. The study found a significant inverse relationship between the degree of a foreign accent and phonological awareness, particularly implicit knowledge of L2 segmentals. Further in-depth analyses revealed that explicit knowledge of L2 phonology alone was not sufficient for targetlike pronunciation. Findings suggest that L2 speakers experience varying degrees of difficulty in perceiving and producing different L2 segmentals, possibly resulting in foreign-accented speech