Competence

To Identify some of the characteristics that sounds provide the language with and the elements of the language system taking part in pronunciation.

Presentation

In this unit, we will explore a little bit of the world of sounds: what they are, how they are produced, and some of their features. Keep in mind that the intention, for this and all units, is not to throw you loads of information about the topic, but just deal with the most significant issues to hopefully make you more aware of the elements of the language system, in this case, the ones regarding pronunciation.
To be assessed in this unit, you will have to send on due time the portfolio activities, participate in the forum discussions, and include your insights on the unit topic in a short essay.

Introduction

Asound can be defined as “the particular auditory effect produced by a given cause” (wordreference.com). Evidently, there are different kinds of sounds as there are different causes that produce them. As language teachers, and for the purposes of this course, it is the sounds that we produce with our speech organs that we are interested in. The minimal unit of utterances in a language system is the phoneme. When we put them or string them together, we can produce utterances that express meanings and communicate, and which have what is called suprasegmental features, that is, stress and intonation.

Now, we’re ready to get started, aren’t we?

Getting started