Speech contains vast variability, more than we often expect based on phonetics courses. Spontaneous, conversational speech in particular is frequently realized with deletions and alterations to many of the expected sounds. We refer to this as reduced speech. Reduced speech in context is quite perceptible to native listeners, but less so to non-native learners. Since L2 learners will encounter reduced speech when they leave the language classroom, spontaneous speech presents an opportunity for teaching perception of more natural speech to L2 learners. Furthermore, spontaneous speech can be quite intriguing for phonetics and linguistics students, so it also presents an opportunity for engaging students at all levels with language and phonetics.
Cite as: Warner, N., Park, S. (2018) Spontaneous speech in the teaching of phonetics and speech perception. Proc. International Symposium on Applied Phonetics (ISAPh 2018), 32-38, doi: 10.21437/ISAPh.2018-6
@inproceedings{warner18_isaph,
author={Natasha Warner and Seongjin Park},
title={{Spontaneous speech in the teaching of phonetics and speech perception}},
year=2018,
booktitle={Proc. International Symposium on Applied Phonetics (ISAPh 2018)},
pages={32--38},
doi={10.21437/ISAPh.2018-6}
}