Speech in Action

One of the delights of self-publishing is (of course) to see one’s own words in print, to get one’s work ‘out there’. The biggest non-delight is to discover (the inevitable) errors. I feel tempted to blame all those I acknowledge and thank in the prelims of the book - but of course it can only be my fault. You can download a small pdf of errata (as of 04 November 2013) here. And they are shown below. If you spot any more, please let me know!

The errors are as follows:

• page iv - penultimate paragraph should read:

While every attempt has been made to do so, it has not always been possible to identify the sources of all the recordings used, or to contact the rights holders. If any omissions are brought to our notice, we will be happy to include appropriate acknowledgements in future editions.

• page 3 - penultimate paragraph, first sentence should read:

In Chapter 16 we will read comments of another (former) learner, Anna from Finland, whose memories of listening comprehension classes make her angry.

• page 56 - This table is numbered 4.5 (wrongly, but that’s how it will stay for a while). There is no table 4.4.

• (I goofed on the symbols) page 121 - Paragraph under extract 9.7, the first three sentences should read:

The citation form of descriptive has stress on the second syllable | dɪˈskrɪpt.ɪv |, but in unit 03 Geoff makes the first syllable prominent, changes the vowel quality in that syllable
| ˈdiː.skrɪpt.ɪv | and demotes the primary stress to non-prominence. Why does Geoff do this? He does so because, in this context, he needs to distinguish clearly between two words (descriptive and prescriptive) which are differentiated solely by their weak, unstressed first syllables | prɪ | and | dɪ |. They have otherwise identical middle and final syllables | ˈskrɪptɪv |, with primary stress on | ˈskrɪpt |.

• page 197 - The note under extract 13.14 should read

These two units are from different parts of Ashley’s recording. The last two lines show (in order) the GenAm citation form of seventies and twenty side-by-side with Ashley’s versions.

• page 210 The first paragraph should read:

You make some important words non-prominent and difficult to hear – for example bad in 02 seems important to your meaning, but it is non-prominent, so you would need to make it prominent for international intelligibility.