Fun with phonetics
In this lecture I draw on a number of examples of humour used in the service of English pronunciation teaching and learning. Laughable slips and errors, speech- and word-play, metaphonetic manipulations, phonetically-based jokes can all be used to serve as a vehicle for practising pronunciation. Examples are taken from Nadstoga & Sobkowiak's The lighter side of English (Wiedza Powszechna, 1997), the multimedia computer package for English learners
pop-english, and a few other sources.In the example of xerox-lore below, the punning impersonation of Italglish (the Italian-English interlanguage) is made to lightheartedly comment on the notorious phonetic difficulties of English for learners: the contrast between the tense and long /i/ and the lax and short /I/ as well as the differentiation of vowels in the low-back region of vowel space.
The Italian Who Went To Detroit
(from xerox-lore)
Wonna day I'ma go to Detroit to a bigga hotel. I go downa to eata breakfast. I tella the waitress I wanna two pisa's toast. She bringa me only one piss. I tella her I wanna two piss. She say: "go to the toilet". I say: "You no understand". I wanna two piss ona my plate. She say: "you betta no piss ona the plate, you sonna ma bitch". I don't even knowa the lady, and she calls me a sonna ma bitch.
Later I go to eata luncha ata Drake Restrant. The waitress bringa me a spoon ana knife, but no fock. I tella her I wanna fock. She tellsa me: "Everybody wanna fock". I tella her: "No, you no understand. I wanna fock on the table". She say: "You betta no fock on the table, you sonna ma bitch".
So, I go back to my room inna hotel and theresa na shit on ona my bed, so I call the manager ana tell him I wanna shit. He tells me to go to the toilet. So I say: "No, you no understand, I wanna shit onna the bed". He say: "You betta no shit onna the bed, you sonna ma bitch". I go to check out, ana the man ata the desk, he say, "Peace on you". I say: "Piss ona you, too, you sonna ma bitch", and I go back to Italy.