A Contrastive Analysis of the English and the German Sound System

Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Grammar, Style, Working Technique, grade: 14, University of Marburg, course: Problems of English Grammar, language: English, abstract: This work is titled “A Contrastive Analysis of the English and the German Sound System. Problems and Suggestions for Teaching.” The features of sound in a language are systematically structured. They are divided into two main branches: (a) the branch of segmental features including consonants and vowels, and (b) the branch of supra-segmental features including stress, intonation, pause, juncture, and rhythm (Nasr 1997: 2). My paper refers to branch (a) and illustrates the differences between the English (RP) and German consonant and vowel systems. The resulting contrasts reveal the main difficulties German learners of English are confronted with, therefore, these need to be exposed in teaching (Kufner 1971: 36). After contrasting the sound systems, I will comment on the aim and importance of learning English pronunciation, and then I will explain the error degrees caused by the sound contrasts. Later, there is an overview of the most important qualifications of a phonetic teacher, and finally I will provide suggestions for teaching the pronunciation difficulties caused by the differences between the two languages.