Scott,

Don't punch too hard in response, but although I wouldn't personally go
along with all the statements you quote, I'd go along with:

""Acceptable pronunciation is the foundation of communication" - perhaps I


even wrote it. Edited I'd write: " Acceptable pronunciation is the
foundation of spoken communication ", and I'd agree that stress and
intonation are crucial, too, but does that statement really need the


citation of evidence? If you cannot understand what a person is saving
because their pronunciation is way off norm what need is there for research
into why you cannot understand?

And even on a list comprising  teacher trainers/educators, surely, the  kind


of evidence to be called for is a matter of discussion. What is particularly
useful to future teachers, I would have thought, is the evidence of
effective teaching and learning, not necessarily the evidence of rigorous,


scientific academic research,

Dennis

Charles,

I get the impression  there is some misunderstanding in this discussion and
not because of anyone's pronunciation.

When drills are recommended as part of (note 'part of' not 'all of') working


on pronunciation, I don't see that that implies no explanation, nor does it
deny how much  learning can come from immersion in the language on the
streets of the country where the target language is spoken, ideally, or


otherwise listening to radio , watching TV and listening to recordings.

I wouldn't, personalty, go along with the statement about kids unless the
learners are kids.

All comparisons are dodgy, but I do think there are useful comparisons to be


made between learning to make the sounds of a language and learning to play
a musical instrument. There is no denying that making sounds requires
physical acts - controlling breath, controlling the ejection of air through


the nose, the assuming of certain positions of the tongue and lips. Physical
acts, acts that have to be repeated constantly, can be usefully exercised -
or 'drilled' to use the politically dreadful word.



I acknowledge gladly that what I know about pronunciation is based on
research going back over 100 years at least. But what,  from what I've
written above, needs supporting evidence?

As I mentioned, I'm trying to help a private pupil with her pronunciation at


the moment - and enable her to learn some English.

If this is of passing interest go to:

http://englshfromzerotake2.blogspot.com/


(The misspelling of English is a typing error, but it is now part of the

URL)



Dennis

Dennis, (how could I possibly punch such a valued colleague and luncheon
companion!)

Yes, indeed, it was you who said "Acceptable pronunciation is the foundation
of communication". Adding "spoken" doesn't lessen the assumptions (and hence


the questions needing answers) that underly the choice of words "acceptable"
and "foundation".

"Acceptable" - to whom, by whose standards? Many people feel that certain
native speaker accents, such as cockney, are unacceptable. Are they


justified?  Even if "acceptable" is re-cast as "intelligible", the same
questions apply. How do you measure intelligibility? What does it consist
of? If I find you, Dennis, unintelligible, is the problem mine or yours?


Jenny Jenkins, who has spent years researching the issue of intelligibility,
concludes that intelligibility is a moving target:  "Even at the level of
pronunciaiton, intelligibility is dynamically negotiable between speaker and


listener, rather than statically inherent in a speaker's linguistic forms"
(The Phonology of English as an Internaitonal Language, OUP, 2000, p. 79).

"Foundation" : does this mean "foundation" as the starting point to


effective communication?  i.e. teach the sounds first, then the words, then
the grammar? At that rate ( to paraphrase Newmark), students would be dead
on arrival. Or, do you mean "foundation" as the "basis without which the


whole structure collapses", as in a "foundation garment",  with the
implication that you target accuracy in pronunciation at all costs, on the
grounds that, as Prof. Henry Higgins says, of the French, "It doesn't matter


what they say as long as they pronounce it properly!".

Not to mention your use of the term "pronunciation" itself, where I assume
(from the rest of your post) you refer to the accurate (read,

native-speaker-like) articulation of individual phonemes. What role do

suprasegmental factors have in intelligibility? Are they more or less
important than individual sounds?  Given that native speakers show more

variation in the pronunciation of individual vowel sounds than they do in,

say, assigning word or sentence stress, do individual vowel sounds actually
matter? The way you and I pronounce "bin" or "beer" are radically different,

phoneme-wise, yet I suspect that you'd never offer me a "bean" or a "bear"

in lieu of a "bin" or a "beer", simply because language is not the sum total
of its phonemes. It might be, if all we said to each other was isolated

de-contextualised words.  (Again, Jenkins as a lot to say on these

questions, but I don't have time to rehearse her arguments here).

Finally, the reason why the (I would say obssessive) teaching of
pronunciation went out of fashion in the communicative era  was nothing to


do with drills, it was the realisation that pronunciation (of the accurate,
native-speaker variety) plays a relatively minor role in successful
communication. And, moreover, that native-like pronunciation is late- (if


ever) acquired. I have lived in Spain for 20 years and my pronunciation of
Spanish is way off-target. I accept I'll never "be" Spanish nor eevn "sound"
Spanish, but I function on a daily basis (complaining to the neighbour about


the dog, negotiating a mortgage, blessing someone when they sneeze, etc)
without too much grief. (If my Spanish needs anything, it's more words, not
accurate phonemes).

Was that a punch, Dennis, or a gentle slap? ;-)


Scott