Universidad de Los Andes
Facultad de Humanidades y Educación
Escuela de Idiomas Modernos
Departamento de Lengua y Literatura Inglesa
Fonética y Fonología Inglés II
Semestre A-2008
Features of Connected Speech class practice paragraphs
1.
Text with dialogue
Langdon went across the room, found a large art book, and brought it back,
setting it down on the table between them. Twisting the book to face Sophie,
Teabing flipped open the heavy cover and pointed inside the rear cover to a series of
quotations. “From Da Vinci’s notebook on polemics and speculation,” Teabing
said, indicating one quote in particular. “I think you’ll find this relevant to our
discussion.”
Sophie read the words.
Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles,
deceiving the stupid multitude.
-
(LEONARDO DA VINCI)
“Here’s another,” Teabing said, pointing to a different quote.
Blinding ignorance does mislead us.
O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!
-(LEONARDO DA VINCI)
Sophie felt a little chill. “Da Vinci is talking about the Bible?”
Teabing nodded. “Leonardo’s feelings about the Bible relate directly to the Holly
Grail. In fact, Da Vinci painted the true Grail, which I will show you in a moment,
but first we must speak about the Bible.” Teabing smiled. “And everything you
need to know about the Bible can be summed up by the great canon doctor Martin
Percy.” Teabing cleared his throat and declared, “The Bible did not arrive by fax
from heaven.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The Bible is a product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall
magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous
times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions and revisions.
History has never had a definite version of the book.”
(from: Brown, Dan, 2003, The Da
Vinci Code, pp. 311-313)
2.
Poem
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, -and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings
(Sonnet XXIX, Shakespeare)
3. Expository text
It can be claimed that speech, like writing, constitutes no more than
the transmission phase of language, providing a signalling system for
the language’s more essential store of items defined in the lexicon
and of syntactic rules contained in the grammar. However, the
teaching
of
pronunciation
presents
particular
difficulties.
Grammatical structures can be ordered and taught in sequence; a
vocabulary compiled on the basis of frequency of occurrence can be
utilized for the presentation of early grammatical structures, with
the addition of special sets of lexical items as situations or special
purposes require. Pronunciation, on the other hand, does not permit
such
progressive
treatment,
since
all
phonetic/phonological
features are potentially present from the very first lesson, unless
vocabulary items are artificially introduced.
(Gi ms on’s P ron unci ation of Englis h,
pp. 296 )
4.
Narrative text
Nazneen walked. She walked to the end of Brick Lane and turned right. Four
blocks down she crossed the road (she waited next to a woman and stepped
out with her, like a calf with its mother) and took a side street. She turned
down the first right, and then went left. From there she took every second
right and every second left until she realized she was leaving herself a trail.
Then she turned off at random, began to run, limped for a while to save her
ankle, and thought she had come in a circle. The buildings seemed familiar.
She sensed rather than she saw, because she had taken care not to notice. But
now she slowed down and looked around her. She looked up at a building as
she passed. It was constructed almost entirely of glass, with a few thin rivets
of steel holding it together. The entrance was like a glass fan, rotating slowly,
sucking people in, wafting others out. Inside, on a raised dais, a woman
behind a glass desk, crossed and uncrossed her thin legs. She wedged a
telephone receiver between her ear and shoulder and chewed on a fingernail.
(From: Ali, Monica, 2003, Brick Lane, pp. 44)