Exercise 7.4
Sentences taken from: Smakman, (2014)
The rule you should have discovered in the previous exercise is the following one: the sounds /p/, /t/, and /k/ are always aspirated at the start of a word or at the start of a syllable, unless they are preceded by an /s/ or /ᶴ/ sound. This means that the /t/ in station is not aspirated because of the s that comes before it, whereas the /t/ in train is aspirated because it occurs at the start of a word. Knowing this, practise reading the phrases below a few times and then make a recording of yourself in which you pay special attention to when you should use aspiration and when you should not use it. Listen back to your recording for improvements.
1. train station 5. pull up stakes
2. keep starting 6. cast the first stone
3. pie in the sky 7. keep a stiff upper lip.
4. panic stations 8. put a spanner in the works.
Exercise 7.5
Adapted from: Hermans, (2018)
Text from: www.poetryfoundation.org , Rebecca Hazelton, (2017).
Copy-paste the text below into your Pronunciation Portfolio. Decide which /p/, /t/, and /k/ sounds in the extract from an article below are supposed to be pronounced with aspiration and which one should have no aspiration. Highlight all aspirated sounds. If you are done, discuss your findings with a classmate. If the two of you disagree, try to come to the right conclusions together by explaining to one another why aspiration should be used or why it should not be used. Make any necessary changes in your Pronunciation Portfolio.
The Choice of Constraint
How not getting to do everything leads to doing what you want.
BY REBECCA HAZELTON
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Perhaps you, like me, have had the bewildering experience of shopping for yogurt. At my local Target, an entire cold case is devoted to it: Dannon in various flavors; Stonyfield, promising cows free of bovine growth hormones; yogurt made from the milk of grass-fed cows; dairy-free yogurt alternatives. And those are just the American varieties. My store also stocks Australian yogurt, Icelandic yogurt …
This list is not exhaustive, but it is exhausting. I don’t have the time or energy to read every label; I don’t know what the best choice is. If in that moment, someone were to appear and tell me that I should buy the 2 percent organic Banilla, I would be eternally grateful.
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My yogurt struggles are not dissimilar to my writing ones. As a writer, I don’t always feel confident my poetry matters, though I’m always certain poetry in general does, both as a cultural product and an individual practice. I wrestle with my subject matter, as I suspect many writers, new and experienced, must. On some days, the blank page in front of me is a field of white I can’t traverse. I’m snow-blind, lost, and afraid.
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I need someone to tell me what to do. Constraints tell me what to do, and I don’t mind. I just need to choose a yogurt, after all. I just need to know how to begin.