1^st Year, 1^st Term

2011-2012

Phonetic auditory test 1

FOR INDEPENDENT STUDENTS’ WORK

Section I

(The Intonation of Non-Final Parts of Utterances.)

Listen to the texts and do the tasks indicated in the instructions. The number of listenings is unlimited. After you have done the texts, check yourself against your teacher’s key. The tapes are available at A – 317.

I. a) Mark the pauses where you hear them. Note that all the punctuation marks within a sentence have been removed from these texts so while listening you must rely on features of intonation (prosody). Try to restore the punctuation marks and compare their number to the number of intonation-groups. b). Mark the nuclear tones in each group. c) Mark the missing pre-nuclear stresses. d)Identify the case where loss of plosion is not observed by the speaker. Note that this variant of pronunciation is infrequent in the speech of native speakers with a standard pronunciation. e)After you have done all the above tasks, write the texts in phonetic transcription.

a) Her name was Missis Smith. She was a tall lady and was ^very old ^or ^so it seemed. But she was a ^\\very ¦ good teacher and she was very kind to us.

b) There was a large ¦ map of the world on the walls of the classroom on one side of the board and on the other there was a chart to show us ¦ ^how to ^write the alphabet.

II. Insert the missing sounds and words. Try to formulate the rule for the pronunciation of the conjunction “and”, the articles “a” and “the” and the preposition “of” in the middle of an utterance. Don’t forget that the pronunciation of the definite article “the” and the particle “to” varies depending on the type of following sound while the pronunciation of the ending –s depends on the preceding sound.

^\_\||^\︴^\︴

_\|^^\︴_\||

_/_/︴_\||^\︴^\︴ 

^\/

PHONETIC AUDITORY TEST 2

FOR INDEPENDENT STUDENTS’ WORK

Section II

(Intonation of Parentheses)

Listen to the texts and do the tasks indicated in the instructions. The number of listenings is unlimited. After you have done the texts, check yourself against your teacher’s key.

I. Listen to the texts. a) Mark the pauses where you hear them. The punctuation marks have been removed from the texts and you may restore them and compare their number to the number of intonation groups. b) Mark the tones on the underlined parenthetical words and phrases and define the attitude expressed by the speaker. c) Mark the missing nuclear tones and the pre-nuclear stresses of the utterances.

a) A Did you see the match last night?

B No I missed it but apparently it was a good game. We won, didn’t we?

A Actually it was a draw but it was ^really ex^\\citing.

b) A What do you think of Claire’s ¦ new boyfriend?

B Personally ^I can’t stand him. I think she’ll be let down by him. ¯However that’s her problem ^not mine.

c) A Obviously I don’t want to hurt anyone but basically I’m fed up with pop music. I’d like to do something else. ¯Ideally I’d like to get into films.

B >Well we >wish you ¦ all the best.