 Hello to all of you. This is the last video in 2012. So let me first of all say thank you to you all for supporting this video channel. We are not perfect but we try our very best to produce high quality e-lectures, screencasts, class descriptions and video based suggestions for in-class activities. Without our two main sponsors Promethean and TechSmith this would not have been possible. So thank you once more. And last but not least we thank our students and colleagues from all over the world who have been watching these videos and delivered wonderful and encouraging comments. So thank you for your support. We will continue our work in 2013 as well as we can. So since this is the last video in 2012, we first of all wish you a Merry Christmas. And of course a Happy New Year. So let us now focus on linguistics again. The in-class meeting Connected Speech is a continuation of its predecessors, the transcription of received pronunciation and the transcription of North American English and has the following major goals. Phonetic transcription. That is the elaboration of the students capability to transcribe RP in North American English and this time, for the first time, the integration of aspects of connected speech. Prior to this in-class meeting students must have worked through the unit and the e-lecture, phonology, present-day English connected speech. And of course they must be familiar with the transcription of received pronunciation in North American English. So make sure they have consulted the respective e-lectures. Maybe if you do not have the formative e-assessment facilities we have on the Virtual Linguistics Campus, control the students' capabilities with a number of questions before you start practicing. Normally I would simulate this with a student of mine but today they're all gone. It's the last day before the Christmas holiday break. So I have to simulate this on my own. So let us start with some control questions in order to make sure that the students have really understood all aspects of the subject matter. Here they are. The first control question concerns the e-lectures. Now our e-lectures and the VLC content is structured often in such a way that the e-lecture says a little bit more about the content of something and also on the other hand the VLC contains aspects that are not mentioned in the e-lecture. So this combination guarantees that students have to access both. So here's the e-lecture question. Name four examples of liaison in present-day English and of course students should come up with the answer. Well, there are two types of R's, the linking R, the intrusive R and then you can use the labial vela approximate and the palatal approximate as sort of linking elements in connected speech in English. We will look at it later. Well, and here are some Virtual Linguistics Campus questions that are not mentioned in the e-lecture. What is similitude for example? And here the answer should be it is the use of particular allophones of a phoneme in connected speech. For example the dental plosive in let them, where you don't say let them but let them, let them. Another question could be which tells you whether your students have already accessed the content or not. It could be the question about a weak form that exists in RP but not in North American English. This is a very tricky question. The answer is of course the form saint. The form saint can be weakened in RP, St. Paul's Cathedral for example but in American English, in North American English it would remain saint in the saint or St. Paul's. So this is a tricky but very useful question. And last but not least I suggest that we repeat the central terms RP, North American English, British English etc. Let us see how we can define these terms. Well first of all I would start with languages and would inform the students about the fact that languages consist of varieties of well theoretically an unlimited number of varieties. The language we are talking about is of course PDE present day English. The varieties of a language can be defined on the basis of linguistic or non-linguistic for example social parameters. In our class we are doing it on the basis of linguistic parameters. So what are the main varieties of present day English? I would ask the audience. Well you would come up probably with British English, American English, Canadian English, Australian English and so on and so forth. And that's right. Now these varieties can be subdivided into dialects and accents. Do you know the difference between them? Well dialects are varieties of a language that differ from the standard in terms of phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary, all sorts of aspects. Here are some examples. We have for example in British English Cockney and Jordy. Jordy, Newcastle dialect, Cockney, the London dialect. And many more. And in American English just to name two, Cajun English in the south, Southern English it's a wider dialect which encompasses many southern states. Well and what is an accent? Well an accent is a variety that differs from the standard in terms of phonology only. Some people even use the term phonological dialect instead. So here are the central accents. Receive pronunciation and North American English. And that's in fact our focus in this class. Okay are you now ready to practice? Okay let's do some practical stuff now. The first is the usual reading practice. So we will take the solution of the transcription I gave the students last week. And here is the model solution. The first thing is that students have to read this. So our four-lettered friends. Funny how quickly the value of a word can change. You know when I was a youngster if I let the word bloody slip out my dear old grandmother, God bless her, would be terribly shocked and upset. Let's stop here. So students should be able to do that by now. Let us now select a few lines from the solution and outline the main differences between receive pronunciation. That's the RP solution and North American English. Here we are. This is the RP solution. Now perhaps we should start with the pure symbolic differences first. So the question the first question should be where do we use a different symbol in North American English? And that's of course the O in words like don't or here we have no anything else known and I think that's it. So this is a mere symbolic difference where in American English the LPD notation which we are presenting here uses a different symbol. Well and then we have the context where we have a post-vocalic R for example in words. So here we would use this particular symbol with the rotacity diacritic words. And then we have something like sure where in American English you will get sure and the R itself the R in never occurs in American English because there's a post-vocalic R never. Now I'm sure she never even knew of the existence and here we have a final vowel that is different. It's not of but it's slightly longer of. So I hope I've got them all. That's the basic differences between British between RP and North American English in terms of the LPD notation. A linguistically more adequate system is the Atlas of North American English system. So if your class is part of a BA or MA program I suggest to use this notation instead of the LPD notation which is in many ways inaccurate however it is used in German school books and thus has to be introduced to future German teachers of English. So here is the Atlas of North American English solution. And now again we would first of all point out the differences. No, then do we have other O symbols of course. Where else was it up here. Then the O is represented like this. The I is represented like this. And so on and so forth. So you would now outline the differences between the various types of transcriptions in class. You can very well do this using the active auditorium that is two students come to the front. One is moving the items on the board or on a traditional chalkboard would write down the solutions. The other student is triggering the answers from the audience. Let us now concentrate on aspects of connected speech. Or by the way I should have given this label here. Perhaps we put this over here. So now we have the two types of transcriptions side by side. And here is another element that is of course different. So let's leave it with that. You know the differences. I don't have to go into detail here. Let us now concentrate on the main aspects of connected speech. And the first question I would ask is of course can you please define the central aspects of connected speech. And of course students would come up with something like liaison. That is the linking of words within connected speech. They would hopefully mention weakening. A set of weak forms monosyllabic function words which where the central vowel is weakened under the influence of stress. In fact if they are unstressed they are weakened. When they are stressed they are strong. Hopefully they would mention illusion. The loss of elements particularly the loss of consonants in three consonant contexts. And last but not least assimilation. The change of phonemes under the influence of their context. And maybe even similitude the choice of particular allophones under the influence of the phonetic context. So in this unit I suggest to select one of them. Postpone the next type of connected speech effect to the next unit. So I chose liaison for this unit. Now the question you have to solve first is what is liaison precisely even though it was discussed in the e-lecture. It is the insertion of sound segments between words in connected speech. And then I would immediately ask in all contexts no. There are particular contexts and the context is that one word ends with a vowel. Then there's a gap and the next starts with a vowel and we do something about this gap. In German for example we use a glottal stop. A particular allophone that is used between these two words between two vowels across word boundaries. In present day English by contrast we either use an R so we insert a phoneme. Or we can insert even approximants such as the palatal or the labiovila approximate. So let's illustrate this on the basis of an example. Let's first of all identify the positions where we have vowels. So the first is the and then aroma then off. Then we have you and entered and our and office. So these are potential positions for liaison effects. In German we would insert a glottal stop in each case. The aroma of tea greeted you as you entered our office. This would be a Germanized version. Let's now use an English version where in fact we have first of all a year in this position the aroma. Here we could have an R the aroma of tea greeted you as you entered our office. Now quite interestingly we have two Rs in the first case. Here we have an intrusive R intrusion. Whereas in the second case we have a linking R and the difference. Students will see that is that the linking R is represented in orthography whereas the intrusive R is not. Now taking this RP version you can now discuss with your students the differences between the RP version and the North American English version. Well and that's quite simple in North American English. They would hopefully come up with the answer that the intrusive R will disappear because it is not used in North American English. And that the linking R, well the linking R is not an additional phoneme. It occurs there automatically because you have a high degree of roticity and what like R already contains an R in isolation. So it would not be surprising if you use it in connected speech too. Now here's the final exercise I would perform in class with my students. I would give them a text. Here is a long text. In fact this text is used in our final examination. Not all the time it was used last term. And the task was that students have to underline and discuss the effects of connected speech in this text. So again you could apply the active auditorium. You could have students come to the front do this. Or you could dedicate particular tasks. For example you could say to some students well please mark all aspects of weakening. And then they would possibly come up with the fact that the is weakened in their faces a dozen. So A is weakened, V is weakened. Here you have another weak form. There is one and so on and so forth. Another student could try and identify aspects of liaison. And hopefully he or she would find out that there is a linking R in door opened. Or take another example, a lesion. Here you have the well-known case of three consonants occurring on the trot. And there is this three consonant rule across word boundaries where the internal one is likely to disappear. So instead of saying crumped smells you would say crumped smells. Very important keep emphasizing that connected speech effects except weakening are optional. And do not have to be marked in transcription to be on the safe side. Well and here you could go on depending on how much time you have in your in-class meeting. Here is of course the solution with many aspects of connected speech underlined. The weak forms are marked in green. So if you deliver this solution to your students at the end that would be a great idea. After this in-class meeting and the e-learning unit present the English connected speech prior to it. Everyone should be able to transcribe receive pronunciation in North American English now. Not in perfection but relatively well. The transcription of connected speech might still be a problem but we are getting better. My advice and I've said this before. Since all aspects of connected speech except weakening are optional. Do not transcribe them at all to achieve good results in your transcription exercises. In your own speech however I would apply them as often as possible. Perhaps exaggerate a bit to get used to effects of linking or assimilation. Okay let us stop here but not without reminding the students to finish the final task. The completion of the transcription you would normally hand out at the end of such a class. So thank you once more for your patience. Thank you even more so since I didn't have any student support today. That's it for now. Bye bye.