Each 2-hour session will divided into a more theoretical seminar and more practical work. You will normally be asked to prepare reading for the first hour, and practical exercises for the second hour.

Set reading is usually both from Modern German pronunciation by Hall (the set text) and from at least one other text-book. It would be sensible to copy the relevant chapters from Russ, Johnson, Boase-Beier & Lodge at the start of the semester, as we will be dipping into them throughout the module. (See bibliography for full references.)

Week 1

Orientation week, no teaching

Week 2 

• Introduction: what is linguistics? How can we study language? The levels of linguistic analysis: syntax, morphology, semantics, phonetics and phonology.
• Phonetics and phonology: the disciplines that look systematically at the sounds of language
• Introducing the phoneme; the notion of minimal pairs
• Practical session The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) and principles of transcription: p, t, k, b, d, g: < >, / / , [ ]

Reading for next week: Hall, chapter 2, and sections of chapter 3 (Consonants): up to end of 3.2, and sections of chapter 4 (Vowels) up to end of 4.3.11

Week 3

• How are sounds produced? The articulatory organs; manner and place of articulation; voicing; the vowel quadrilateral; vowel quantity and quality; Auslautverhärtung and basic phonological rules
• Practical session:Practice in transcribing stops and vowels, schwa, glottal stop,contrasting German and English vowels

Reading for next week:  Russ 1994, 122-143, Hall section 3.3, 4.3.12 to start of 4.4, and 3.7

Week 4 

• Phonological features
• Practical session: Fricatives and affricates; the “Umlauts” and contrasts with French and English

Reading for next week: Boase-Beier & Lodge 110-120 on syllable structure (you may find it tough in places but do your best ....)
Hall 3.4 and 4.4 to end of chapter 4

Week 5

• Phonotactics, sonorance and the structure of the syllable
• Practical class: Approximants; Nasals; Diphthongs

Reading for week 6: Hall 3.5 and 3.6 on l and r; Read all the (d) sections (which deal with regional variation) in Hall’s account of the vowels and consonants – pp.38, 40, 42, 47, 54, 65-66, 79, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88, , 89, 91, 92, 94, 96, 98, 100, 101, 104, 105, 106

Week 6 

• Allophones; social and geographical variation; Phonological integration of loan words in German (such as Journalist, Restaurant, Computer) – peripheral phonemes; problems for German speakers
• Practical session: The liquids /l/ and /r/; transcribing loan words in German

Reading for next week: Boase-Beier & Lodge 133-140; Hall 138-146 (both on assimilation / dissimilation); Russ 144-148

Week 7 

• Reading Week

Week 8 

• Connected speech: co-articulation and assimilation; Phonological rules
• Practical session: Transcribing co-articulation and assimilation

Reading for next week: Hall, chapter 5

Week 9 

•  Intonation and stress
• Practical class: Transcribing intonation patterns and marking stress

Preparation for next week: practise transcription using the given passage

Week 10 

• Bringing it all together: practising transcribing, syllable structure, stress, intonation and the effects of connected speech

Preparation for next week: revision reading: Johnson 1998, chapters 4 and 5

Week 11 

• Practice transcription test; formative exercise due in class

Preparation for next week: revise for transcription in class; do practice exam.

Week 12

• Transcription practice; revision for exam.