Pragmatics and Prosody in English Language Teaching

Download or read book Pragmatics and Prosody in English Language Teaching written by Jesús Romero-Trillo and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-03-08 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the elusive subject of English prosody—the stress, rhythm and intonation of the language—, and its relevance for English language teaching. Its sharp focus will be especially welcomed by teachers of English to non-native speakers, but also by scholars and researchers interested in Applied Linguistics. The book examines key issues in the development of prosody and delves into the role of intonation in the construction of meaning. The contributions tackle difficult areas of intonation for language learners, providing a theoretical analysis of each stumbling block as well as a practical explanation for teachers and teacher trainers. The numerous issues dealt with in the book include stress and rhythm; tone units and information structure; intonation and pragmatic meaning; tonicity and markedness, etc... The authors have deployed speech analysis software to illustrate their examples as well as to encourage readers to carry out their own computerized prosodic analyses.