SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This study analyses the interference of Turkish first language speech properties in the production of utterances in English as a second language and shows how experimental phonetics can be used in language teaching. A contrastive analysis of Turkish and English phonetic features is presented using palatography and in particular spectrography. A visual representation of some of the acoustic features as they change between Turkish and English is given through the sound spectrographs included in the book. The phonetic properties of Turkish vowel sounds and the effect lengthening has on these vowels is also presented. As the articulatory positions are subject to modification during continuous speech due to the movements of the articulatory organs preceding and succeeding the current point of articulation, it is particularly important that connected speech as well as utterances in isolation should be examined. Accordingly, this study also shows the importance of looking at connected speech, particularly in Turkish, rather than analysing single lexical items.