1. Pronunciation Change: Past, Present & Future
The Final Lecture:
Pronunciation Change: Past, Present & Future

2. Pronunciation.
Geographical (places)
Examples?
Chronological (times)

3. The young and the old…

4. Old English…
English before the Norman Conquest (1066) looks and sounds QUITE different.

5. Understanding pronunciation from the past…

6. Middle English

7. 1600… Shakespeare Shakespeare (today performed using NRP)
But the original sound of Shakespeare was quite different.
“R” sound in American English and in Shakespeare’s time?

8. Early Modern Period of English

9. Dr. Samuel Johnson
As we can see in the previous slide, English—by the 1750’s—looks very much like the English of today.
What helped this?

10. Change in recent times and in progress (now)
The story of English pronunciation is that 1) The words, spelling and pronunciation have changed significantly over time…
2) English is more consistent than in the past (thanks to the dictionary)
3) English continues to change.
What are the ways English is changing now? Discuss.

11. Old versus young generations.

12. Consonants?

13. T-voicing >

14. Changing vowels…

15. Changing Stress and Intonation
(Aussie Upspeak)

16. Stress

17. Try it!

18. Compounds

19. Spelling

20. Those Americans!!!

21. American Influences…

22. Place names Worcester / Woosta Leicester / lesta
Often place names in English are pronounced differently than they are spelled.
This is changing—especially in the case of smaller towns and suburbs.

23. Foreign Place Names

24. So… English is changing…
English continues to change…
Why?
Why is this important for language learners?

25. What do all of these changes have in common?
Usage.
We learn language to use it (hopefully!) as therefore language is alive. Anything that is alive changes.
Otherwise, our language learning is _______.

26. In sum…
Throughout the semester we learned to understand pronunciation we must…
Focus on sounds, not letters
Listening skills strongly impact our ability to create, correct and understand sounds
Practice saying the sounds, not just reading them on the page
This—like everything with language begins and ends with usage. To understand the always changing ways of English—use it!