KShs 100
Description
Phonology is the study of the sound system of a language. Every Language has phonology. The way you speak tells more about you than the way you dress. And, of course, changing one’s clothes is easier than altering one’s enunciation. But it is possible, with some effort, to train yourself to speak a language in a way that is not too divergent from the way native speakers do. This module is meant to help you to that end in learning the English language. One does not have to be a phonetician to be able to identify most Kenyans’ ethnic origins by their pronunciation of English. Why is this so? The answer is simple that ones’ mother-tongue (first language) pronunciation colours one’s spoken English (or any other learnt language). For some reason not quite clearly understood, most people cannot learn a foreign language after puberty, without retaining an accent. An interesting case is that of Henry Kissinger. He emigrated from Germany to the United States of America at the age of 14 (fourteen), became a Harvard professor and eventually Secretary of Sate. His English vocabulary and grammar were excellent but he still sounds German. Speaking with an accent then is no cause for embarrassment. However, some listeners may tend to pay so much attention to quaint pronunciation that they miss the message. Another reason why our pronunciation deviates from that of native speakers is that our teachers (and acquaintances) were not good models. This makes us copy incorrect speech habits. Yet another cause of aberrant pronunciation is spelling. Learners tend to make false analogies. For example, you often hear “café” being pronounced as “cave” with an “f”. English spelling is notorious for its inconsistency. There are arguments to explain these apparent vagaries but these are so complicated for beginners that they hinder rather than facilitate learning.