Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T16:31:36.310Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The fossilization of non-current English pronunciation in German EFL teaching1

Why does the use of obsolete vowels persist among German speakers of English?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2015

John E. Booth
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The German term Handy is a neat and singular creation, referring to the ‘mobile phone’ (British English) or ‘cell phone’ (American English), in itself a unique and most useful invention – handy, indeed! What is even more remarkable is the pronunciation of this term: /hεndi:/. While the second vowel mirrors the pronunciation of word-final ‘i’ sounds in German (cf. Gabi, Salami, Müsli), the ‘a’ does not. Instead, it appears to reflect a socially generalized view of what a short ‘a’ in English is supposed to sound like. And this is not the front, near-open ‘ash’ vowel [æ], the ‘standard lexical set TRAP’, as defined by Wells (1982: 129), but rather a cardinal [ε], the ‘standard lexical set DRESS’ (128), as found in German in other English borrowings: Jetlag or Jet-Lag /jεtlεg/, Gag /gεg/, relaxen /relεksn/, scannen /skεnǝn/, etc.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Today , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , December 2015 , pp. 15 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

I am extremely grateful to Prof. Martin Durrell for his kind comments and helpful advice with regard to earlier drafts of this paper.

References

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 2000. 4th edn.Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.Google Scholar
Barber, C., Beal, J. C & Shaw, P. A. 2009. The English Language: A Historical Introduction. 2nd edn.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barbour, S. 2005. ‘Standardvariation im Deutschen und im Englischen: Auswirkungen auf die Kommunikation zwischen Sprechern beider Sprachen’. In Eichinger, L. M. & Kallmeyer, W. (eds.): Standardvariation. Wie viel Variation verträgt die deutsche Sprache? Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, pp. 324–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins German Dictionary. 2013. Glasgow: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Crystal, D. 1985. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. 2dn edn.Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Crystal, D. 2010. The Cambridge Encylopedia of Language. 3rd edn.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cruttenden, A. 2014. Gimson's Pronunciation of English: 8th Edition. London & New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durrell, M. 1995. ‘Sprachliche Variation als Kommunikationsbarriere’. In Popp, H. (ed.) Deutsch als Fremdsprache. An den Quellen eines Faches: Festschrift für Gerhard Helbig zum 65. Geburtstag. Munich: iudicium, pp. 417–428.Google Scholar
Hunter, J. 2010. English Filming, English Writing. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. 1994. A Communicative Grammar of English. 2nd edn.London & New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Lodge, A. 1998. ‘French is a Logical Language’. In Bauer, L. & Trudgill, P. (eds.) Language Myths. London: Penguin, pp. 23–31.Google Scholar
Lenneberg, E. 1967. Biological Foundations of Language. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olaussen, L. & Sangster, C. 2006. Oxford ABC Guide to Pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Oxford-Duden German Dictionary. 2005. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Roach, P. 2004. ‘British English: Received Pronunciation’. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (2), 239–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Connor, J. D. 1973. Phonetics. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Schneider, E. W., Burridge, K., Kortmann, B., Mesthrie, R., & Upton, C. (eds.) 2004. A Handbook of Varieties of English. A Multimedia Reference Tool. Volume 1: Phonology. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Upton, C., Kretzschmar, W. A. Jr & Konopka, R. 2003. Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. 1982. Accents of English. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar