Manual of American English Pronunciation for Adult Foreign Students

By Clifford H. Prator

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1951.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Nov 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520350038

Book preview

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles 1951

MANUAL OF AMERICAN ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION for adult foreign students

by

Clifford H. Prator. Jr.

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles California

Cambridge University Press London, England

Copyright, 1951. by The Regents of the University of California

Printed by Offset in the United States of America

Second Printing, 1953

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author is glad to express his deep gratitude to the following persons and organizations:

Professor Franklin P. Rolfe, Divisional Dean of Humanities and former Chairman of the Department of English at the University of California, Los Angeles, who gave every facility and encouragement for the development of this textbook project.

Miss Margaret L. Wotton, Principal Extension Representative, who first suggested that classes taught in University Extension might be used as a testing ground for the Manual, and offered help in financing preliminary printings.

Mr. Bernard M. Goldman, Mr. Reed Lawton, Mr. Morris

V. Jones, and Mrs. Merle McCrae, the teachers who tried out the materials in their classes and carefully reported the results.

Professor Albert H. Marckwardt of the University of Michigan, who was willing to help think through many of the problems of the text.

The U. S. Educational Foundation in the Philippines, which administered a Fulbright Grant because of which the work was finished much earlier than would otherwise have been possible.

C. H. P. Jr.

Manila, Republic of the Philippines February, 1950

CONTENTS 1

CONTENTS 1

INTRODUCTION TO THE TEACHER

LESSON

LESSON

LESSON

LESSON V

LESSON VI

LESSON

LESSON

LESSON IX

LESSON X

LESSON XI

LESSON XII

LESSON

LESSON XIV

LESSON XV

INTRODUCTION TO THE TEACHER

I. What the Manual Is.

As the international activities and responsibilities of the United States increase, so does the concern of our government and our educators for the teaching of English as a second language. Since World War II the number of students from abroad in American institutions of higher learning has risen from some 6,000 to nearly 25,000, enough to make up one of the worTd’s largest universities. Each year more institutions, even the smaller ones, find it advisable to set up special courses in English as a foreign language. The current influx of new citizens under the Displaced Persons Act is making it necessary for our city school systems to create new Americanization and language classes. In many countries the U. S. Department of State has opened cultural institutes and libraries to which students flock in great numbers to learn English; and more such centers are contemplated. Each effort of our government to give technological aid to backward regions means that a new group of foreign technicians must be trained, either in this country or abroad, in the language that will make the exchange of information possible. Owingto the increased prestige of the United States as a center of scientific, industrial, and even cultural progress, educational institutions throughout much of the world are showing an unaccustomed interest in American English.

Unfortunately, the production of adequate teaching materials for use in this type of instruction has fallen far behind the demand. Anyone who has talked to teachers of English as a second language in recent years knows how continuous and generally unsuccessful has been their search for textbooks prepared to meet their special needs. All sorts of make-shifts are being usede improvised lesson sheets, Americanization texts from the days when there were no immigration quotas, books intended for native-born speakers of English.

Materials for teaching pronunciation are no exception to the general rule. Some instructors have been forced to adopt the very fine British texts