Changing Contexts and Shifting Paradigms in Pronunciation Teaching

Abstract

■ Pronunciation is perhaps the linguistic feature most open to judgment.As a surface structure phenomenon that is most noticeable, one's accent easily evokes people's biases.For the same reason, pronunciation has been the most prescriptively taught aspect of language instruction.Pedagogies for accent reduction have bordered on the pathological.The articles in this special topic issue bring a much needed research focus on social and communicative considerations in pronunciation that can lead pedagogy in constructive new directions.Relating pronunciation to issues of identity, group membership, interpersonal negotiation, and the plurality of World Englishes, they treat the topic with great intellectual rigor.John Levis's editorial introduction and the article by Tracey M. Derwing and Murray J. Munro in the opening section discuss the importance of developing a research-based approach to pronunciation and chart the paradigm shift taking place in the field.In the next section, John Field and David Deterding shift the focus from the speaker to the listener as they explore the ramifications of negotiating intelligibility.The reality of World Englishes raises new questions for pronunciation in the third section, where the authors argue that "deviant" accents should be treated as legitimized in other speech communities.This does not mean, however, that speakers of various institutionalized local Englishes do not experience conflicts over which accent is preferable.