Suggestions for In-Class Activities


  1. What is meant by degree of rhoticity? Explain the term and provide at least three different varieties of English as examples.

  2. Mark those segmental phonological aspects in the following passage where RP and NAE are different and comment on them:

    Funny, how quickly the value of a word can change! When I was a youngster, if I let the word bloody slip out, my Grandmother would be terribly upset and shocked. Nowadays, young people don't bat an eyelid at no end of wicked words.

  3. Consider the vowel phonemes in the following English words. What pronunciation difficulties may arise for non-native speakers of English?

    nought, bad vs. bed, skirt, late, London, lady, here, poor, there, go

  4. Without consulting your notes or the RP vowel chart, write down the phonetic symbols representing the vowel phonemes in the following words:

    WordClassification (RP)Symbol
    seat  
    coin  
    bad  
    god  
    foot  
    hard  
    sit  
    law  
    hut  
    her