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Comparative Project

After having watched a film in English, select one scene translated and

dubbed into BP for comparisons such as register, grammar, language transfer

or cross linguistic influence, connected speech, pitch range and intonation

contours in order to feel basic differences and similarities between both

languages.

What does not sound right in the film? What is wrong and why?

Is there any language transfer or cross linguistic influence?

Are there phonemic and distributional patterns that diverge from those found in L1

(E.g. comfortable)?

Can you find features of connected speech?

Connected SpeechWords are not always pronounced the same! In normal fluent speech the sounds can change when words

bump into each other. The changes usually happen at the word boundaries, particularly at the end of words.

Consonant to vowel linking

When one word ends with a consonant sound and the next word begins with a vowel sound there is a smooth

link between the two. In these examples the link is shown in red joining the linked words. These examples

also show where the weak form schwa would be pronounced.

Vowel to vowel linkingWhen one word ends with a vowel sound and the next word begins with a vowel, another sound, a /w/ or /j/

can be added depending on the particular sounds to make a smooth transition. In these examples the link is

shown in red along with the phonemic symbol for the sound which is added to make the link smooth.

Sounds twinning (gemination)

When a word ends in a consonant sound and the following word begins with the same consonant sound, we

don't pronounce two sounds - both sounds are pronounced together as one.

I'm a bit tiredWe have a lot to do

Tell me what to say

She's slept for three hours

I've finished

Sounds disappear (elision)

When the sounds /t/ or /d/ occur between two consonant sounds, they will often disappear completely fromthe pronunciation.

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I'm going nex(t) week

That was the wors(t) job I ever had!

Jus(t) one person came to the party!

I can'(t) swim

Sounds change (assimilation)

When a sound at the end of a word takes on the quality of the sound at the beginning of the next word.

Good girl. She's a good girl. (goog girl)

Good boy. He's a good boy. (goob boy)

White paper. I only use white paper. (whipe paper)

Speed boat. I've never been in speed boat. (speeb boat)

Can you give examples of stress (E.g. weak forms: the occurrence of the schwa inall positions, content words are usually stressed and function words are usually

unstressed), rhythm and intonation (the rising pitch used when showing surprise and

in question tags) that are different from Portuguese?

Weak form - schwa

This is a very common feature of spoken English which is often found in grammar words such as prepositions

and articles and also in many words with more than one syllable. It is never stressed.

In the example sentence below the weak form schwa is shown by its phonemic symbol, which looks like anupside down 'e'.

CONTENT WORDS such as

Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter

(most) principal verbs e.g. visit, construct

Adjectives e.g. beautiful, interesting

Adverbs e.g. often, carefully

Non-stressed words are considered FUNCTION WORDS such as

Determiners e.g. the, a, some, a few

Auxiliary verbs e.g. don't, am, can, were

Prepositions e.g. before, next to, opposite

Conjunctions e.g. but, while, as

Pronouns e.g. they, she, us