PTLC2005 Barreiro, Estebas & Soto Teaching Phonetics through Singing and Reciting 1
Teaching Phonetics through Singing and Reciting1
Silvia C. Barreiro, Eva Estebas-Vilaplana, Isabel Soto, UNED
1 Introduction Traditional ways of teaching phonetics to non-native speakers of English
have usually followed a more or less established approach as far as the presentation of
items is concerned (Gimson, 2001, Roach, 2001). First, the segmental level of phonetic
description is introduced, then suprasegmental features such as stress, rhythm and
intonation are presented. In most pronunciation courses, a lot of time and practise is
devoted to the first part of the program, i.e. to the study of consonants and vowels.
However, this approach leaves little time for suprasegmentals and they are usually
treated with less depth and exhaustiveness than the segmental features. The immediate
implications of this approach are that students know how to produce and distinguish the
vocalic and consonantal contrasts of English, yet when they speak the language, they
still have a very strong foreign accent which sometimes affects intelligibility.
In this paper we present the results of a study that is part of a project that examines the
role of singing and reciting in the teaching and learning of English phonetics to nonnative speakers. Our objective is to propose a different approach to the teaching of
English phonetics which consists of adopting a top-down perspective, that is, from a
suprasegmental to a segmental level. Such an approach would involve a greater focus
on rhythmic and stress patterns as a means to achieve a more natural production of
speech. This approach is in line with the acquisition of phonetics by native speakers of a
language. Studies on first language acquisition (Kehoe & Stoel-Gammon, 1997, among
others) have shown that the acquisition of the prosodic features of a language is prior to
the acquisition of the sounds. In this study we suggest that this fact might also be
incorporated into the learning of second-language pronunciation. Furthermore, we
believe that in a language with a stress-timed rhythm such as English where most of the
vocalic and consonantal alterations such as weakening and reductions are triggered by
rhythmic patterns, prosodic features play a crucial role in producing a natural, native-like
speech.
In order to prove the hypothesis that the mastering of prosodic features and, in
particular, the mastering of rhythmic patterns, help to achieve a more natural English
pronunciation, a perception test was designed so as to evaluate the degrees of
accentedness by non-native speakers of English in three voice conditions: spontaneous
speech, reciting and singing. The expectations were that in singing and/or reciting the
speakers would sound more native-like (with less of a foreign accent) than in
spontaneous speech due to the well-established rhythmic patterns of the verse and song
conditions. If this proves to be true, the standard approach of teaching phonetics to nonnative speakers from a segmental to a suprasegmental level should be reconsidered in
favour of a top-down approach.
2 Method The perception test aimed at evaluating the degree of foreign accentedness in
the pronunciation of English by five non-native speakers in spontaneous speech, reciting
and singing.
1
This paper forms part of a research project financed by the Madrid regional government (ref. no. 06/HSE/0123/2004).
PTLC2005 Barreiro, Estebas & Soto Teaching Phonetics through Singing and Reciting 2
2.1 Subjects: Five non-native English speakers (three females and two males)
participated in the experiment. All of them had Spanish as their first language and had
later learned English as a foreign language at school. The speakers were selected on
the basis of their proficiency in English according to the information gathered in a
questionnaire as well as to our own impressionistic judgement. Speaker 1 (HG) had a
low level of English, with poor pronunciation; Speaker 2 (AM) had a lower-intermediate
level, with poor to fair pronunciation; Speaker 3 (RP) had an upper-intermediate level of
English, with fair pronunciation; Speaker 4 (PT) had an advanced level of English, with a
good pronunciation; and Speaker 5 (IS) had a near-native level of English, with a very
good pronunciation of English.
2.2 Stimuli: The subjects were recorded individually in an anechoic room of the UNED
Phonetics laboratory. They were asked to perform four tasks as follows: 1. Spontaneous
Speech: They were encouraged to speak about their family for about a minute; 2.
Reciting: They were asked to recite two traditional songs (Clementine and Oh Susanna);
3. Singing: They were asked to sing the songs mentioned above. The speakers were
instructed to speak at their normal rate and were allowed to look over the printed
materials for the second and third tasks. Before the recording they all had received three
hours of training divided into three sessions to make sure they all knew how to recite and
sing properly the material provided. After the recording, three samples of speech
(spontaneous, reciting and singing) were selected for each non-native speaker and
presented in random order to the listeners. Overall 15 stimuli were used.
2.3 Listeners: 26 native English speakers were included in this study. They were all
native speakers of Standard English and had frequent contact with speakers of foreign
languages. In line with Anderson-Hsieh & Koehler (1988) and Thompson (1991), they
were asked to rate the recorded material for degree of foreign accent on a five-point
scale as follows: 1 = heavy foreign accent, 2 = heavy to moderate foreign accent, 3 =
moderate foreign accent, 4 = slight foreign accent and 5 = no foreign accent. They were
asked to judge the samples in terms of pronunciation and to ignore grammatical aspects
or fluency.
3. Results The results of the perception test are displayed in Table 1 which exhibits the
mean values of accentedness and the standard deviation in the three voice conditions
for all speakers. The values given to each degree of accentedness were as follows: 1 =
heavy foreign accent (FA), 2 = heavy to moderate FA, 3 = moderate FA, 4 = slight FA,
and 5 = no FA. Thus, for example a 3,21 mean value indicates a moderate to slight FA.
Voice Condition
Spontanéismes
Reciting
Singing
Mean Value
2,89
3,21
3,26
Standard Deviation
0,66
0,7
0,59
Table 1. Mean values of degree of accentedness and the standard deviation for all
speakers.
The results displayed in Table 1 show that there is a slight tendency for all speakers to
improve their English pronunciation in reciting and singing conditions as opposed to
spontaneous speech. However, t-tests comparing reciting versus spontaneous speech
and singing versus spontaneous speech, indicate these differences are not significant
(p>0.05). Since the initial findings of the perception test did not fully support the original
PTLC2005 Barreiro, Estebas & Soto Teaching Phonetics through Singing and Reciting 3
hypothesis, the data for each speaker was analysed individually. The results for each
speaker are displayed in Figure 1 and Table 2.
Speaker HG
Speaker AM
60
45
40
50
Percentage of Responses
Percentage of Responses
35
30
25
Spontaneous
Reciting
Singing
20
15
40
Spontaneous
Reciting
Singing
30
20
10
10
5
0
0
Heavy FA
Heavy to Moderate FA
Moderate FA
Slight FA
Heavy FA
No FA
Heavy to Moderate FA
Moderate FA
Slight FA
No FA
Degree of Accentedness
Degree of Accentedness
Speaker RP
Speaker PT
45
12
40
10
Percentage of Responses
Pecentage of Responses
35
30
25
Spontaneous
Reciting
Singing
20
15
8
Spontaneous
Reciting
Singing
6
4
10
2
5
0
Heavy FA
Heavy to Moderate FA
Moderate FA
Slight FA
0
No FA
Heavy FA
Heavy to Moderate FA
Degree of Accentedness
Moderate FA
Slight FA
No FA
Degree of Accentedness
Speaker IS
18
16
Percentage of Responses
14
12
Spontaneous
Reciting
Singing
10
8
6
4
2
0
Heavy FA
Heavy to Moderate FA
Moderate FA
Slight FA
No FA
Degree of Accentedness
Figure 1. Percentage of responses in relation to the five degrees of accentedness in the
three voice conditions for speakers HG (elementary level), AM (lower intermediate), RP
(upper intermediate), PT (advanced), and IS (near-native).
Voice
condition
Spont.
Reciting
Singing
Speaker HG
Mean SD
2,23
0,93
2,46
1,00
2,58
1,18
Speaker AM
Mean SD
2,62
1,07
2,65
0,78
2,85
1,06
Speaker RP
Mean SD
2,37
0,98
3,22
1,06
3,3
0,76
Speaker PT
Mean SD
2,9
0,89
3,45
0,72
3,54
0,82
Speaker IS
Mean SD
4,12
0,83
4,52
0,58
4,60
0,57
Table 2. Mean values of degree of accentedness and the standard deviation for each in
speaker individually in the three voice conditions.
PTLC2005 Barreiro, Estebas & Soto Teaching Phonetics through Singing and Reciting 4
Figure 1 shows the percentage of responses in relation to the five degrees of
accentedness in the three voice conditions for each speaker. Table 2 exhibits the mean
values of degree of accentedness and the standard deviation for each speaker.
The results displayed in Figure 1 show a great deal of both inter- and intra-speaker
variability. For the speakers with a lower level of English (i.e. speakers HG and AM)
there seems to be no effect of the singing and reciting conditions on the degrees of their
accentedness. Most of the listeners rated their degree of accentedness between heavy
to moderate and moderate in all voice conditions. Although the mean values show a
slightly better performance on reciting and singing as opposed to spontaneous speech
for both speakers, the results of a t-test indicate that these differences are not significant
(p>0,05). Thus, according to these data, the hypothesis that the pronunciation of English
improves in reciting and singing is not true for speakers with a low level of English.
Alternatively, the results of the speakers with a higher level of English (RP, PT and IS)
do show the expected tendency, that is, their pronunciation is judged to be better in
singing and/or reciting than in spontaneous speech. Speaker RP shows a progressive
improvement over the three conditions, that is, her pronunciation improves in reciting
and even more so in singing. These differences are significant at 0,01. Speaker PT is
judged as having a moderate to slight pronunciation in all voice conditions with a
significant improvement (p<0,05) in reciting and singing. Finally, the results of speaker IS
indicate that whereas in spontaneous speech she is perceived as having a slight foreign
accent, in reciting and singing she is judged as having no foreign accent in most cases.
This is significant at 0,05. Overall, the results of the perception test show that whereas
speakers with a high level of English improve their pronunciation in reciting and singing,
these conditions have no effect on the pronunciation of speakers with a low level of
English.
4 Discussion and Conclusions The results presented in this paper show that the
hypothesis that non-native speakers of English improve their pronunciation in
circumstances with a well-established rhythmic pattern such as in verse and song
conditions seems to be true only for speakers with a high level of English. Thus,
speakers whose level of English is lower show little or no difference in their degree of
accentedness in spontaneous speech, reciting and singing. One possible explanation for
these findings is that the speakers with a low English level may need to be exposed to a
longer training session to overcome a possibly greater degree of inhibition.
Since the results of the perception test did show improvements in some cases, we think
that a top-down approach should be considered for the learning of English
pronunciation. However, for an appropriate application of this method, a further study
should be carried out with more students from different levels and with specific training
sessions appropriately tailored to each specific level.
5 References
Anderson-Hsieh, J. & Kenneth, K. (1988) The Effect of Foreign Accent and Speaking
Rate on Native Speaker Comprehension. Language Learning, vol. 38 (4), pp. 561-613.
Cruttenden, A. (2001) Gimson’s Pronunciation of English. London: Arnold.
Kehoe, M. & Stoel-Gammon, C. (1997) The acquisition of prosodic structure: an
investigation of current accounts of children’s prosodic development. Language, vol. 73,
pp. 113-144.
Roach, P. (2001) English Phonetics and Phonology. Cambridge: CUP.
Thompson, I. (1991) Foreign Accents Revisited: The English Pronunciation of Russian
Immigrants. Language Learning, vol. 41(2), pp. 177-204.