Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (2004) 24, 109B125 Printed in the USA.

Copyright 8 2004 Cambridge University Press 0267-1905/04 $12.00

DOI: 10.1017/S0267190504000054

5. RESEARCH IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION AND INTONATION

Jennifer Jenkins

For several decades of the 20th century, the main interest of pronunciation teaching
research was in applying contrastive analysis techniques to the sound segments of
the L1 and L2 to identify differences between them and so, it was assumed, to
highlight areas where L1 transfer errors were likely to occur. Later in the century,
pronunciation teaching research began to move on both by embracing more
sophisticated approaches to interlanguage phonology, taking universal,
developmental, and other processes into account as well as transfer (see, e.g., the
range of research interests documented in Ioup & Weinberger, 1987), and by
focusing increasingly on suprasegmental features along with segmental. Still more
recently and radically, a number of researchers have ceased treating pronunciation as
a somewhat isolated, self-contained linguistic and pedagogic phenomenon, but are
forging links with research into other aspects of language and language teaching and
also maximizing the opportunities offered by technological advances. This chapter
will outline these latest developments in pronunciation research and explore the
extent of their influence on pedagogy.

Depending on the second language in question, pronunciation teaching

typically covers any or all of the following: consonant and vowel sounds, changes to
these sounds in the stream of connected speech, word stress patterns, rhythm, and
intonation—what might be described as the nuts and bolts of pronunciation. Some
published pronunciation courses and teachers’ handbooks still focus exclusively on
some or all of these items, often in this order. Others such as Celce-Murcia, Brinton,
and Goodwin (1996), Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994), and Morley (1994)—all books
intended for pronunciation teacher education—have taken recent research into
consideration and aim, in addition, to promote an awareness of the larger roles
pronunciation plays in communication: its influence on speakers’ success (or
otherwise) in conveying their meaning in specific contexts, its links with their sense
of identity, its signaling of their group memberships, the pronunciation choices
available to learners, and the like. Of the recent findings of pronunciation research,
the most influential in terms of pedagogic developments fall into two main
groupings: those concerned with issues of context and those that relate to

109
110 JENNIFER JENKINS

technological advances. The first group comprises both discourse and sociolinguistic
context (the latter including related sociopsychological factors), and the second
comprises both new pedagogic possibilities and the potential to challenge earlier
claims that had not been supported by empirical evidence. The rest of this chapter is
accordingly organized into the following thematic sections:

• The role of pronunciation, and particularly intonation, in discourse

• The relevance to pronunciation teaching of the future social context(s)

of L2 use, including sociopsychological factors (identity, attitude,
motivation)

• New uses for technology in teaching pronunciation and challenging

previous research claims

While some of the research findings have had more influence on pedagogy
than others, they have all impinged at least to some extent on the consciousness of
pronunciation teachers and materials writers, particularly in the teaching of English.
Research into certain other aspects of pronunciation such as Optimality Theory
(Prince & Smolensky, 1993), however, has not filtered through to teaching materials
or methodology, and so is not discussed in this chapter.

Discourse Approaches

Research into intonation from a discourse perspective (mainly in relation to

English, but see, e.g., Moyer, 1999, regarding L2 German) has been ongoing since
the pioneering work of David Brazil at Birmingham University from the 1970s until
his death in 1995. Brazil’s own research into discourse intonation, developed from
the work of Halliday and the Prague School (see Halliday, 1970), culminated in the
posthumous publication of his 1997 book, which had been published several years
earlier in 1985 as a Birmingham University monograph after being rejected by
external publishers. At that time, the publishing houses had not considered Brazil’s
work to contribute usefully to the debate on the relationship between grammar and
intonation on the one hand, and intonation and the expression of attitudinal meaning
on the other (Hewings & Cauldwell, Foreword to Brazil, 1997, p. vi). Opinions, it
seems, are rather less flexible and pedagogy rather slower to adapt with respect to
innovations relating to pronunciation than those relating to other linguistic levels,
something that will again become evident in the discussion of pronunciation and
sociolinguistic context below. More recently, and helped by other research in
phonology such as the finding that questions do not have set intonation structure (see
the section on technology below), in psycholinguistics (e.g., work on prosodic
bootstrapping), and the availability of acoustic analysis techniques for both pedagogy
and research (also discussed in the section on technology below), there has been a
major reevaluation of discourse intonation. As Pickering (personal communication,
June, 2003) puts it: “Essentially, the field seems to have caught up, and with
pedagogy just a little bit behind, calls for a discourse approach to intonation seem to
be resonating more loudly.”
 RESEARCH IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION AND INTONATION 111

Discourse intonation is, in essence, a model that prioritizes the

communicative function of intonation over traditional models based on ascribing
attitudinal and grammatical functions to pitch movement (although discourse
intonation could be said to embrace these latter functions). It involves both
conversational control (turn-taking, introducing and ending topics, etc.), and the
establishing of social meanings and roles, by means of the assigning of prominence,
key, and tone choice: proclaiming tone (fall) for unshared information and referring
tone (fall–rise) for information that the speaker considers part of the shared common
ground. As such, it provides both teachers and researchers with “a manageable tool
for analysing and interpreting the intonation choices made by speakers in naturally
occurring speech” (Hewings & Cauldwell, 1997, p. vi.). A discourse intonation
approach is able, for example, to account for the use of HRT (high rising terminal, or
upspeak) whereby a rising tone is used in places where a falling tone would be
expected. This phenomenon has become increasingly prevalent over the past decade,
especially but not exclusively in the United Kingdom. A discourse-based
interpretation explains it both as “a bonding technique which upspeakers use to
promote a sense of solidarity between themselves and their interlocutors” (Bradford,
1996, p. 23) and as serving a participatory function by encouraging the hearer’s
continued involvement in the exchange.

The few earlier language teaching materials which took account of discourse
intonation, such as Brazil, Coulthard, and Johns (1980) and Bradford (1988), applied
the model wholesale for productive use. Although learners seemed to benefit from
the opportunity to analyze communicative contextualized intonation patterns after the
event, it proved difficult to teach some aspects of discourse intonation for production.
Particularly problematic, because of the subconscious level of the operation, was the
assessment of new or given status and corresponding assignment of tone. Some
more recent classroom activities and teacher education materials (e.g., Bowler &
Cunningham, 1999; Gilbert, 2001; Hancock, 1995, 2003; Levis, 2001) have therefore
tended to focus for production more on prominence, where the “rules” can be applied
at a conscious level, and to treat the subtleties of discourse-based tone assignment in
interpretation and analyzing activities, or to restrict them mainly to matters of
conversation management (turn-taking, etc.) where, again, it is easier to articulate
“rules.” Pickering and Levis (in press), in addition to these latter phenomena, focus
on the use of pitch concord to indicate agreement between interlocutors. This, again,
is a feature that may prove to be easier to bring to conscious attention for productive
use.

Wennerstrom (2003) employs authentic data as a tool to enable learners to

become discourse analysts working on native and (their own) nonnative data as a
prelude to developing their productive skills. In those cases where the teaching of
discourse tone choice for productive use is advocated, discourse intonation experts
have recently been demonstrating how the process may be facilitated by an emphasis
on the use of native and nonnative speaker authentic data (see Wennerstrom, 2001),
and a concentration on specific contexts of use, often academic. Clennell (1997), for
example, focuses on the teaching of discourse-based intonation features in EAP
(English for academic purposes) courses to equip international students to
112 JENNIFER JENKINS

communicate effectively in native-English-speaking universities. In a similar vein,

Pickering (2001) investigates the extent to which tone choice by international
teaching assistants (ITAs) promotes or obstructs their meaning in university
classrooms. Pickering (in press) reports further research on the teaching of discourse
intonation and includes a section on application to ITA program instruction that is
relevant to any ESL situation where nonnative speakers are involved in the academy,
recommending a focus on discourse level contexts in order to work with the notion of
paragraphing and to improve pitch range.

As is generally the rule in L2 pronunciation, nevertheless, production will

follow perception at a later stage (if at all) only when there is sufficient exposure to
the feature in question (cf. Celce-Murcia et al., 1996, p. 36, who provide a
hierarchical framework moving from analysis and consciousness raising to listening
discrimination, and finally to production). In the case of discourse tone choice, the
amount of exposure is likely to be rather more than that required for the acquisition
of “easier” aspects of pronunciation such as consonant sounds. However,
technological approaches to the problem of teaching discourse tone choice
productively, such as that of Cauldwell (2002a, 2002b, 2002c), may offer a solution.
The pioneering use of CD-ROMs, eminently suitable for self-access, enables large
amounts of contextualized native-speaker data to be provided for learners, along with
the facility to listen to short extracts and repeat specific features over and over.
Although it is too early to make definitive claims, it is possible that the more direct
and learner-oriented character of technological approaches may accelerate the
process of tone acquisition both by providing a greater amount of exposure to tone in
context with the opportunity to mimic repeatedly, and by their appeal to the
subconscious as well as the cognitive level.

One final area that merits discussion in relation to discourse intonation is

that of the link between tone units and lexical phrases. The lexical approach was first
enumerated in detail by Nattinger and DeCarrico (1992) following research such as
that of Pawley and Syder (1983), and swiftly popularized by Lewis (1993). It has
subsequently become a regular feature in English language teaching, often known as
“chunking.” Its links with intonation contours were discussed in detail by Seidlhofer
and Dalton-Puffer (1995). Since then, a number of intonation teaching materials
have taken up the idea of teaching lexical phrases along with their intonation patterns
and/or introducing the concept of the tone unit by means of the lexical phrase, along
with the idea of teaching “intonational idioms” (Dalton & Seidlhofer, 1994;
Wennerstrom, 2001).

The Role of Context of Use

In terms of context of use, we need at once to make a distinction between

that second language learning that is undertaken in order to facilitate communication
with native speakers of a language, and that undertaken to facilitate international
communication (see Widdowson, 2003, Chap. 5). In the first case—the learning of a
foreign language—the context of use is most likely to be the L2 country and the
learner’s goal to be the lingua-culture of its native speakers. Although, for various
 RESEARCH IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION AND INTONATION 113

reasons including that of a “critical period” (see Scovel, 1998), adult learners are
unlikely to acquire accents identical to those of native speakers (NSs), they may wish
to attempt to do so, and some will achieve a fair degree of success. These learners
will—or will wish to—acquire not only the phonemic distinctions of the L2 but also
near-nativelike realizations of individual phonemes according to the phonetic
environment, along with many of the suprasegmental features of the foreign
language.

Second and Foreign Language Contexts of Use

Recent research has continued to add to the body of work already existing on
the pronunciation needs of L2 speakers to prepare them for interaction with L1
speakers of the language (i.e., for native/nonnative communication). The most recent
studies have refined and extended the area of inquiry, moving away from an
emphasis on nativelike goals to one that gives greater priority to the listener
perspective (both the native’s and the nonnative’s), with a focus on issues such as the
factors involved in the intelligibility or comprehensibility of nonnative speech to
native listeners, nonnative listeners’ preferred speech rates, and the like (cf. Derwing
& Munro, 2001; Derwing, Rossiter, & Munro, 2002). Other recent research in this
domain has been investigating the effects of different approaches to pronunciation
teaching on learners’ accents, including learners’ own perspectives, rather than
taking the beneficial effects of all pronunciation teaching as a given (cf. Derwing &
Rossiter, 2002a, 2002b). Both of these general research directions are already having
an effect on second/foreign language pronunciation teaching. Listening activities are
becoming more prominent in pronunciation materials, particularly those that help
learners deal with the problems of connected speech (in which regard Shockey, 2003,
is an important contribution to teacher education). Production activities are moving
away from mimicking toward the greater prioritizing of specific pronunciation
features, with more priority generally being accorded to suprasegmental than to
segmental aspects of the language for this type of communication context.

Meanwhile, contrastive analysis-based research continues in part at least

because of the current emphasis in L2 pedagogy on individual learner needs. It
would, in any case, have been a serious mistake to throw out the modern contrastive
analysis baby with the old contrastive analysis bathwater. Teachers have always
continued to believe in the important influence of the mother tongue on L2
pronunciation acquisition, even during periods when researchers were emphatically
arguing that L1 transfer was trivial (most notably during the 1970s and 1980s in the
United States). Furthermore, the interest in contrastive analytical research itself has
never disappeared entirely, even though it is nowadays complemented by an equally
robust interest in other approaches to interlanguage phonology, as is evidenced by
the range of research papers in Major (1998) and Leather (1999).

Within the current contrastive analysis tradition, there is a growing body of

research-based publications for teachers of students from L1s that earlier research
had tended to overlook and/or treat superficially, by ignoring, where relevant, the
role of local L1-L2 contact. Brown, Deterding, and Low (2000), for example,
114 JENNIFER JENKINS

examine a range of differences between Singaporean and British English, including

discourse intonation, pitch range, and lexical stress. Hung (2000, 2002a) uses a
contrastive methodology in determining his phonology of Hong Kong English.
Deterding and Poedjosoedarmo (1998) is a research-based reference work for
teachers, providing both details of the segmental and suprasegmental features of a
wide range of different Southeast Asian languages and English, along with practice
activities for teachers to use in the classroom. Taking further the current move away
from nativelike accents as the goal of pronunciation teaching, the authors question
whether learners in countries where the L2 is an official second language should be
taught an accent other than their own, a point also raised by Hung (2002b). Further
evidence of the continuing pedagogic influence of this type of research is the second
edition of Swan and Smith (2002), providing contrastive information for teachers of
English of students from a large number L1s, Brown (1997), a book of pronunciation
teaching materials for the Singaporean classroom, and Weinberger’s (2002) Web site
(http://classweb.gmu.edu/accent/), which provides an English passage read by L2
speakers from a comprehensive range of L1 backgrounds.

International Contexts of Use

However, some languages are learned primarily for use in international

contexts. In this second case, much of the interaction typically takes place between
nonnative speakers (NNSs) from different first language backgrounds, often with no
native speakers involved at all. Here, then, we are speaking of an international
language, of which English in the expanding circle (Kachru, 1992) is currently the
example par excellence, although other languages such as Spanish may, too, be
learned for this purpose. Because of the acknowledged position of English at present
as the world’s principal international language, or lingua franca, the discussion that
follows will focus exclusively on the role of international context in the teaching of
pronunciation for English as an International Language (EIL). The principles and
issues discussed nevertheless apply to the acquisition of the pronunciation of any
international language and involve, possibly, the most radical changes of all to L2
pronunciation pedagogy (see also Seidlhofer, this volume).

Essentially research into EIL has demonstrated the importance in EIL

communication of pronunciation in general, and of certain pronunciation features in
particular. Pronunciation had been marginalized by communicative approaches to
language teaching in vogue since the 1980s, in the belief that it was peripheral to
successful communication. The EIL research found, on the contrary, both that in
interaction between L2 speakers from different L1s, pronunciation plays a critical
role in preventing communication breakdowns and that—in line with the distinction
between foreign and international languages—the phonological and phonetic factors
involved are not necessarily the same as those involved in communication between a
native and nonnative speaker of the language.

The main focus of EIL research to date has been the role of pronunciation in
promoting intelligibility in NNS–NNS communication, including the part played by
accommodation skills. Jenkins (2000, 2002) builds on earlier research in which
 RESEARCH IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION AND INTONATION 115

listeners rated the intelligibility of the pronunciation of speakers from different L1s,
such as Smith and Rafiqzad (1979), Smith and Bisazza (1982), Smith and Nelson
(1985), and Smith (1992). Her Lingua Franca Core targets those features found in
her research to be crucial in promoting intelligible pronunciation for an interlocutor
from a different L1: most consonant sounds, vowel quantity, initial and medial
consonant clusters, and tonic stress (see Seidlhofer, this volume, for details).
Drawing also on Speech/Communication Accommodation Theory (cf. Beebe &
Giles, 1984; Giles, Coupland, & Coupland, 1991), Jenkins’s research also
demonstrates that intelligible pronunciation between speakers from different L1s is
not a monolithic phenomenon, but one that requires negotiation and adjustment in
accordance with the specific context of the discourse and, above all, in relation to
addressor/addressee factors (see Jenkins, 2003, for further discussion and examples
of accommodation in EIL communication).

Also on the research agenda, though less extensively explored hitherto, is the
link between accent and identity in EIL speech contexts. The prevailing concept of
“accent reduction,” with its tendency to regard learners as subjects for speech
pathology and to exhort them to lose all traces of their L1 accent in their L2 has been
questioned by those working from an EIL perspective. Instead, the concept of
“accent addition” is being promoted in accordance with the goals of additive
bilingualism and in tune with the current emphasis on learner choice (see, in
particular, Pakir, 1999). Based on research into pronunciation attitudes, both that of
other scholars (see below on sociopsychological issues) and her own EIL research,
Jenkins (2000, pp. 209–210) proposes five stages of pronunciation learning:

• Addition of core [i.e., Lingua Franca Core] items to the learner’s productive and
receptive repertoire

• Addition of a range of L2 English accents to the learner’s receptive repertoire

• Addition of accommodation skills

• Addition of non-core items to the learner’s receptive repertoire

• Addition of a range of L1 English accents to the learner’s receptive repertoire

Learners who have elected to acquire an accent that enables them both to
preserve their L1 identity in their L2 English and to be (pronunciation-wise)
intelligible to other NNSs will probably aim for the first three stages. However, they
may also wish to be able to understand the pronunciation of NSs, certain features of
whose speech can, without prior familiarizing, present particular difficulties for NNS
listeners (Bent & Bradlow, 2003). In this case, they will probably aim for all five
stages. The critical point, though, is that there is no suggestion of losing their L1
repertoire and, by definition, their L1 identity. This change in emphasis has already
filtered through to pronunciation materials, which are tending to incorporate a greater
degree of learner choice of target than hitherto, and to move away from nativelike
targets for learners whose goal is international intelligibility.
116 JENNIFER JENKINS

Pronunciation materials are responding to the EIL research in other ways.

The most noticeable phenomenon is the large increase in the number of NNSs used
in listening activities, thus providing exposure to a range of L2 English accents.
Things are moving rather less slowly in relation to production, though the first
courses to offer learners the choice of an NS or a local (but internationally
intelligible) NNS model are appearing (e.g., Cunningham & Moor, 2003; Sato,
Kanechiku, Matsumoto, & Miyata, 2003). Otherwise, it is still a case of adapting
existing published pronunciation materials. Jenkins (2003), for example, provides
suggestions for adapting minimal pair activities from Brown (1997) and Hancock
(1995) to promote production of respectively core sounds and tonic stress, and from
Gilbert (2001) to develop EIL accommodation skills.

However, at this stage, the emphasis is more on raising awareness of EIL

contextual factors in manuals and materials for teacher education than on providing
classroom pronunciation courses. Pennington (1996), though described as “an
international approach,” largely restricts the NNS element to description while
providing production activities that promote NS norms. McKay’s (2002) handbook
for teachers, on the other hand, raises awareness of the possibility of teaching
productive pronunciation for EIL by focusing on the Lingua Franca Core items,
although she concludes, in line with Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994), that it may still be
valuable to maintain an NS accent as a point of reference in the classroom, thus
“preventing speakers of English from moving too far apart in their pronunciation”
(p.72). Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994) is itself a handbook for teachers and an early
example of a teacher education book taking EIL into consideration in its concern
with identity and intelligibility. More recently, Walker (2001) is the first attempt to
provide teachers within a specific L2 context, in this case Spain, with a taxonomy of
core features that their learners should focus on for EIL purposes. And still more
recently, Hung (2002b) has addressed the issue of dictionary transcripts, arguing that
these should reflect local (in his case Hong Kong) pronunciations of English rather
than elite British or American accents. Although this shift has begun to take place
with respect to the indigenized varieties of English of the outer circle, however, more
data will be needed before the same approach can be applied systematically to
expanding circle Englishes. Finally, Keys and Walker (2002) address the inevitable
concern of teachers that a move away from exonormative British or American accent
norms and models will be accompanied by a decline in pronunciation standards.

However, there are also sociopsychological factors to be taken into account,

particularly those relating to language attitudes, motivation, and identity. Dörnyei
and Csizér argue on the basis of empirical evidence that traditional orientations to
motivation are being challenged by current developments: “World English is turning
into an increasingly international language and it is therefore rapidly losing its
national cultural base while becoming associated with a global culture,” which, they
contend, “undermines the traditional definition of integrativeness as it is not clear
any more who the ‘L2 speakers’ or the members of the ‘L2 community’ are” (2002,
p. 453). In this respect, the sociopsychological situation is not only unclear, but is
also sending out contradictory signals. Bamgbose (1998) describes L2 attitudes to
English accents as “a love–hate relationship” and goes on to claim that in the outer
 RESEARCH IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION AND INTONATION 117

circle “one does not wish to sound like a native speaker, but still finds the accent
fascinating” (p. 7), but his claim would receive a very ambivalent response in the
expanding circle. For, as the research of Dalton, Kaltenboeck, and Smit (1997), Grau
(in press), Smit and Dalton-Puffer (2000), Timmis (2002) and others demonstrates,
despite recent EIL developments, many teachers and learners still prefer to aim for an
approximation of a nativelike rather than a local or internationally acceptable accent.
This seems, paradoxically, to be the case even when, as Grau finds in her study, they
simultaneously believe that the objective should be international intelligibility and
that an L2 accent is acceptable.

Meanwhile, Smit (2002) finds that orientation to the target accent and L1
speaker group as well as self-efficacy and anxiety (that is, “how (in)adequate they
feel in their pronunciation,” p. 95) play important roles in the acquisition (or not) of a
near-native accent. She concludes that her study “supports the so often invoked
character of pronunciation as being that aspect of a language which is closest to its
speakers’ feelings of identity” (p. 102). Her findings resonate in some respects with
Lippi-Green’s (1997) account of L2 accents in an inner circle context, the United
States. Accent is seen both to arouse in L2 speakers feelings of linguistic insecurity,
and to relate in critical ways to social identity and the construction of self and other.
This takes us back to the problem highlighted by Dörnyei and Csizér: the difficulty
of establishing the social identity of the L2 community in an international context
and the implications for EIL pronunciation. While teachers and learners are
becoming aware to some extent of the complex sociopsychological issues involved,
there has as yet been no attempt to address them at the wider level through
pronunciation teaching methodologies and materials, although more enlightened
teacher education courses are beginning to grapple with them.

This is, nevertheless, still early in the day for EIL phonology, and it is likely
to be some time before large numbers of teachers elect to offer their students a
selection of context-based pronunciation goals—or for students to wish to take
advantage of the offer. The EIL perspective is also beset by misinterpretations and
misconceptions, particularly by those from regions where there is a strong tradition
of educational investment in and attachment to the RP accent, such as Central
Europe. For a typical example, see Sobkowiak (2003), who fails to grasp the
essential difference between EIL and EFL and the implications for pronunciation
norms and goals. The best, then, that may be said about pronunciation in EIL
contexts at present is that those who support an EIL approach to pronunciation
teaching alongside an ESL/EFL approach can be cautiously optimistic. Some
learners are at least beginning to be offered a small element of choice in their
pronunciation goals, and with further researching into and refining of the Lingua
Franca Core and greater publicizing of the sociolinguistic, sociopsychological, and
intelligibility imperatives, the process is likely to gather momentum in pronunciation
as in the other linguistic levels (Seidlhofer, 2001; Seidlhofer, this volume).
118 JENNIFER JENKINS

Computer Technology in Pronunciation Teaching and Research

Earlier uses of computers in pronunciation teaching focused entirely on the

identification (often referred to as “speech/voice recognition”) and production of
individual phonemes. Segmental approaches continue to be developed. For
example, the SPECO Project, a new system using advanced speech technology in the
clinical remediation of children’s speech pathology, is being investigated for its
potential in L2 pronunciation teaching (see Roach, 2002). Boersma and Weenink
have developed the PRAAT Programme to teach vowel and diphthong production by
means of formant plotting; it is available free of charge on www.praat.org (see Brett,
2002). However, Derwing, Munro, and Carbonaro (2000) find in their research into
popular automatic software recognition (ASR) packages for ESL speech that these
sorts of packages are still not able to perform as well as human listeners listening to
nonnative speech. They conclude that possibilities for using ASR software in the L2
classroom are “intriguing,” but that it must be carefully evaluated to ensure that it
recognizes nonnative speech and reasonable accuracy levels (to avoid unnecessary
correction and frustration) as well as humans do.

Most recently there has been a surge of interest in harnessing computers for
teaching the suprasegmentals. Kaltenboeck, for example, has developed a CD-ROM
for the teaching of intonation (see Kaltenboeck, 2002). Protea Textware (2001) has
published two CD-ROMs, one focusing on connected speech in American English,
the other in British English. Cauldwell (2002a, 2002b) has published a CD-ROM,
Streaming Speech, which deals with a range of aspects of British English
pronunciation. In each case, the material on the CD-ROM is underpinned by
extensive research, either Cauldwell’s own or that of colleagues. For example, the
section that deals with connected speech processes is informed by Shockey (2003),
the section dealing with units of speech is based on the research of Brazil (1997) and
Halliday (1994), and that on the functions of level tone again links with Brazil
(1997). One further point about these suprasegmental materials is that they have
been designed with an emphasis on promoting learner autonomy, a phenomenon
that—as Kaltenboeck (2002) points out—is particularly relevant to the acquisition of
pronunciation. In fact, they have probably been able to achieve this goal more
successfully than the segmental speech recognition packages because of the
shortcomings of the latter identified by Derwing et al. (2002). The suprasegmental
materials, though still in their infancy, point to an important teaching tool for the
future, one that complements rather than supersedes written materials and classroom
teachers by, for example, enabling learners to pin down fleeting and subconsciously
processed features such as pitch movement.

One further use of technology in pronunciation teaching is in the field of

dictionaries. Many of the major publishers have recently begun issuing CD-ROMs
with their dictionaries. Like the other technological advances outlined above, these,
too, promote learner autonomy in the acquisition of pronunciation. For example,
they offer learners a range of features such as the opportunity to hear words in
isolation and, in some cases, in connected speech, and the possibility of recording
and listening to themselves to compare their own pronunciation with the dictionary
 RESEARCH IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION AND INTONATION 119

version. Even more useful in terms of self-access pronunciation is the latest edition
of Daniel Jones’s English Pronouncing Dictionary (Roach, Hartman, & Setter, 2003)
with CD-ROM, which also provides copious details of both North American and
British English pronunciation.

The other way in which technology is proving useful in pronunciation

teaching is by enabling researchers to collect corpora with which they can test out
and, if necessary, debunk earlier claims that had been based on intuition rather than
empirical evidence. So far the challenge to the status quo has involved two main
phenomena: final pitch and stress timing. Both Levis (1999a, 1999b), for American
English, and Cauldwell (1999), for British English, have arrived at similar
conclusions about final pitch. Following in the footsteps of Fries (1964)—probably
the first corpus-based study of question intonation (Roach, personal communication,
June, 2001)—both collected empirical data from native speakers of the respective
varieties of English (as opposed to the invented examples favored by earlier
pronunciation researchers) and analyzed them for final pitch direction in yes/no
questions. In neither case did the long-held belief that the pitch has a rising tone
(strictly speaking, a fall–rise) rather than a falling tone stand up to examination,
though as yet few teachers or materials writers have responded to the finding.

Cauldwell also investigated so-called stress- and syllable-timed rhythm;

extending the earlier discoveries of Dauer (1983) and Roach (1982), he found that
the theory fell down when tested empirically. Cauldwell (1996) is an early version
of his resulting article, published in a Hungarian journal. He subsequently tried in
vain to place a revised version with an international journal. (The problem, it would
seem, was the potential damage it might have inflicted on the publications of certain
established authors.) Eventually, he published a second revision of his article on the
Web (Cauldwell, 2002a). Here he concludes that

the continued presence of the refuted hypothesis, that has become

hard-wired into our thinking, is an obstacle to progress in
understanding the nature of spontaneous speech: long-refuted, it
should be now discarded. Life without the stress- and syllable-
timing hypothesis will be more difficult, but it should make possible
real advances in the understanding of spontaneous speech.

(See also list of Cauldwell’s publications, Cauldwell, 2003.) Although most

pronunciation teachers and materials still retain at least a vestige of the belief in
stress timing, the influence of the research is growing, so that many teachers and
especially teacher educators now qualify the claim by referring to stress timing as
only a tendency and as occurring mainly in more formal speech. Marks (1999)
argues, meanwhile, that the use of rhymes in the classroom is valid in so far as it
“provides a convenient framework for the perception and production of a number of
characteristic features of English pronunciation which are often found to be
problematic for learners: stress/unstress (and therefore the basis for intonation),
vowel length, vowel reduction, elision, compression, pause (between adjacent
stresses)” (p. 198). This is a sensible recommendation that is likely to continue
120 JENNIFER JENKINS

finding favor with teachers long after they have abandoned any belief in the
existence of stress timing.

Conclusion: Current Progress—Future Trends

The research agendas discussed in this chapter have undoubtedly led to a

renewed interest in pronunciation as an important skill in second language teaching
and learning. Pronunciation, it seems, has regained much of the standing it held in
the days of the Reform Movement early in the last century. The research has enabled
it to reemerge, though, as a more flexible and more relevant language phenomenon,
able to adapt to its context of use and to relate in both teaching and research to other
linguistic areas, most notably (but not exclusively) discourse and sociolinguistics.
The fact that two pronunciation works were shortlisted for the prestigious BAAL
(British Association of Applied Linguistics) Book Prize in the past three years, and
that TESOL Quarterly will soon publish an issue dedicated to pronunciation, is
evidence, if such was needed, that pronunciation has come of age and is unlikely to
remain on the margins of language teaching in the 21st century as it did for much of
the final part of the twentieth.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D., & Goodwin, J. (1996). Teaching pronunciation.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

A particularly comprehensive reference work for the teaching of

American English pronunciation, which draws heavily on second language
acquisition research findings, discusses methodological issues, and offers
specific guidance for both classroom practice and pronunciation diagnosis
and testing. It takes a more modern and inclusive approach than many of its
predecessors in the detailed attention it gives to suprasegmentals.

Dalton, C., & Seidlhofer, B. (1994). Pronunciation [volume in the Scheme for
Teacher Education]. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

In some respects the British-English counterpart of Celce-Murcia et

al. (1996), this book also draws extensively on research as well as being
ahead of its time in focusing on issues such as identity and intelligibility,
which have come to the fore since its publication. A classic in its task-based
approach to presenting the research-based issues and evaluating of
pronunciation teaching materials, it has subsequently been widely imitated.

Jenkins, J. (2000). The phonology of English as an international language. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.
 RESEARCH IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION AND INTONATION 121

The first volume to investigate the implications for pronunciation

teaching and use with regard to developments in EIL. Based on empirical
research, it proposes a completely new alternative goal for pronunciation
teaching in the expanding circle: intelligibility between nonnative speakers
instead of the approximation of native-speaker accents.

Lippi-Green, R. (1997). English with an accent. London: Routledge.

To my knowledge, this is the only volume dealing specifically with

the links between accent and identity, and the role played by accent attitudes
on both sides of the “accent bar.” Although not specifically concerned with
research into the teaching of pronunciation, it provides important insights
into issues such as linguistic insecurity, which are of immense relevance to
pronunciation pedagogy.

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