1 What is a Good Pronunciation？ 1
2 The Model of English Pronunciation 8
2.1 The choice of model 8
2.2 Why should we choose British General RP as our model？ 9
2.3 Main differences between the Gimson Transcription and the Jones Transcription 11
3 Two Stages in Learning English Phonemes 15
3.1 Phonemes and their allophones 15
3.2 Two stages in learning English phonemes 17
3.3 Clipping 19
4 Pronouncing Written Words 21
4.1 Letters and sounds 21
4.2 Pronouncing consonant letters c and g 23
4.3 Pronouncing sh,ch and gh 24
4.4 Pronouncing th 24
4.5 Pronunciation,spelling and word stress 25
4.6 Pronouncing single vowel letters 26
4.7 Pronouncing vowel pairs 27
4.8 Silent letters 28
5 The Lungs and the Larynx 30
5.1 The human speech mechanism 30
5.2 The respiratory system 32
5.3 The phonatory system 33
5.4 Learning to control consciously the action of the vocal folds 35
5.5 Identifying the voiced and voiceless sounds 35
5.6 The linguistic uses of pitch 36
6 The Vocal Tract 39
6.1 Articulators in the vocal tract 39
6.2 Places of articulation 42
6.3 Manners of articulation 45
7 Syllables,Stresses and Tonic Syllables 49
7.1 Syllables,vowels and consonants 49
7.2 Levels of stress 52
7.3 Tonic syllables 53
7.3.1 Information words and English communication 54
7.3.2 Structure words and English communication 54
7.3.3 Tone-units and tonic stress 55
7.4 Summary 56
8 Front Vowels 57
8.1 The cardinal vowels 57
8.2 The English vowel system 61
8.3 Front vowels 62
9 Central Vowels and Back Vowels 72
9.1 Central vowels 72
9.2 Back vowels 78
10 Diphthongs 90
10.1 Closing diphthongs 90
10.2 Centring diphthongs 102
11 Obstruents（1） 109
11.1 The English consonant system 109
11.2 Plosives 111
11.2.1 Bilabial plosives /p,b/ 112
11.2.2 Alveolar plosives /t,d/ 113
11.2.3 Velar plosives /k,g/ 113
11.3 Affricates 116
11.3.1 Palato-alveolar affricates /t∫,d？/ 117
12 Obstruents（2） 119
12.1 Fricatives 119
12.2 Labio-dental fricatives /f,v/ 119
12.3 Dental fricatives /θ,？/ 121
12.4 Alveolar fricatives /s,z/ 124
12.5 Palato-alveolar fricatives /∫,？/ 127
12.6 Glottal fricative /h/ 129
13 Sonorants 131
13.1 Nasals 131
13.1.1 Bilabial nasal /m/ 131
13.1.2 Alveolar nasal /n/ 132
13.1.3 Velar nasal /？/ 134
13.2 Alveolar lateral approximant /l/ 136
13.3 Approximants 138
13.3.1 Post-alveolar approximant /r/ 139
13.3.2 Palatal approximant /j/ 142
13.3.3 Labial-velar approximant /w/ 144
14 The English Syllable 148
14.1 The structure of the English syllable 148
14.1.1 Syllable onsets 148
14.1.2 Syllable codas 152
14.2 The-s inflectional ending 153
14.3 The-ed inflectional ending 154
14.4 Syllabification 155
15 Word Stress Patterns 159
15.1 Stress and prominence 159
15.2 Primary and secondary stress 160
15.3 Word stress patterns 161
15.4 Compound words 162
15.5 Word-class pairs 164
16 Weak Forms and Rhythm 166
16.1 Weak forms 166
16.1.1 Conjunctions 166
16.1.2 Pronouns 167
16.1.3 Verbs 167
16.1.4 Determiners 169
16.1.5 Prepositions 169
16.1.6 There 170
16.2 Contracted forms 170
16.3 The use of strong forms 170
16.4 Rhythm and stress 172
17 The Intonation Mark System 176
17.1 A transcribed text 176
17.2 What is intonation？ 179
17.3 Tone-unit components 181
17.4 Reading the intonation marks 183
17.4.1 Nuclear tone marks 183
17.4.2 Stress marks in the tail 184
17.4.3 Stress marks in the head 185
18 Functions of Intonation 189
18.1 The organization of information 189
18.2 The realization of communicative functions 190
18.3 The demonstration of syntactic structures 192
18.4 The expression of attitude 195
18.4.1 Major declaratives 195
18.4.2 Minor declaratives 197
18.4.3 Wh-interrogatives 197
18.4.4 Yes/No interrogatives 198
18.4.5 Tag interrogatives 198
18.4.6 Imperatives 199
18.4.7 Exclamatives 199
19 Consonant Clusters 201
19.1 Clusters in the onset 201
19.1.1 CC consonant clusters 201
19.1.2 CCC consonant clusters 204
19.2 Clusters in the coda 205
19.2.1 Stop+stop 205
19.2.2 Plosive+nasal 207
19.2.3 /t/or/d/+/l/ 208
19.2.4 Consonant+/s,z,t,d/ 209
19.2.5 Consonant+/θ/or/？/ 210
19.2.6 /l/+consonant 211
19.2.7 Nasal+consonant 211
19.3 Longer consonant clusters at word boundaries 212
20 Natural Processes 214
20.1 Assimilation 214
20.2 Elision 218
20.3 Liaison 220
20.4 Juncture 223
21 English Prosody（1） 226
21.1 Chinese prosody 226
21.2 English prosody 227
21.3 Iambic verse 229
21.4 Anapaestic verse 231
21.5 Trochaic verse 232
21.6 Dactylic verse 233
21.7 Variation in rhythm 234
21.8 Truncation 235
21.9 Mixed substitution 236
21.10 Less commonly used feet 237
21.11 Run-on verse 239
21.12 Caesura 240
22 English Prosody（2） 242
22.1 Rhyme 242
22.2 Definition of rhyme 242
22.3 Masculine rhyme 243
22.4 Feminine rhyme 244
22.5 Internal rhyme 245
22.6 The leonine rhyme 245
22.7 Assonance 246
22.8 Consonance 246
22.9 Alliteration 247
22.10 Rhyme scheme 249
22.10.1 Stanzaic verse 249
22.10.2 The septet 250
22.10.3 Triplet 251
22.10.4 The quintet 253
22.10.5 The sestet 254
22.10.6 The octave 254
22.10.7 The Spenserian stanza 256
22.10.8 The sonnet 257
23 Teaching Methods 264
23.1 Vowels 264
23.2 Consonants 265
23.3 Syllables 268
23.4 Word stress 269
23.5 Intonation 270
23.6 Adjustments in connected speech 271
23.7 Using the pronouncing dictionaries 273
Appendix Ⅰ American English Pronunciation 276
Appendix Ⅱ American English Intonation 285
Appendix Ⅲ Answers Section 292
References 318
Glossary and Index 322