Overall, English for Primary Teachers o¤ers a widerange of information and ideas for teachers, traineeteachers, and teacher educators from a broadvariety of backgrounds, both native and non-native.The authors have successfully provided the readerswith an optimum balance and coverage of theoryand practice, and with a clear demonstration ofhow to apply the former to the latter.

I would highly recommend this book for use inmany di¤erent situations, but especially for use bythose who wish to add quality to their teaching, and who are particularly eager to use e¤ectiveEnglish in class, but do not yet feel confident. It can also add considerably to the repertoire ofactivities, materials, and training strategies ofthose of us who train and work with primaryteachers of English.

The reviewerSimonetta Di Prima is a teacher and teacher trainerfor the Italian Ministry of Education who hasoccasionally taught courses for Primary teachers ofEnglish at NILE in Norwich, England.She holds a Master’s degree in Education andProfessional Development-ELT from the Universityof East Anglia, in Norwich, UK, as well as an Italiandegree in English.Her special interests are in pronunciation andteacher development.Email: diprimas@hotmail.com

Gimson’s Pronunciation of English (6th edn.)

A. Cruttenden

Arnold 2001. xix + 339pp. £18.99

isbn 0–340–75972–0

In English pronunciation teaching few names cancompete in authority and influence with that of A. C. Gimson. As Professor of Phonetics atUniversity College London from 1966 to 1983, hewas well-known throughout the world for his workson English pronunciation, especially hisIntroduction to the Pronunciation of English (IPE),and his editorship of the 13th and 14th editions ofthe English Pronouncing Dictionary (EPD).

Unlike some other phoneticians, Gimson showed aconstant interest in the teaching of Englishpronunciation, which is present in all his researchwork. His main area of research, the descriptionand changing nature of Received Pronunciation(RP), is thus largely motivated by pedagogic

concerns, since ‘it would clearly be absurd to teacha pronunciation regarded by native speakers as old-fashioned or even comic’ (Gimson 1981: 255). Hetherefore found it necessary to continually updatethe description of RP by incorporating changessuch as the shift from /ou/ to /əu/ (first indicatedin IPE 1962 and EPD 1967, 13th edn.) and thereplacement of /i/ by /ə/ in weak syllables such asin blanket and quantity (first noted in IPE 1980 andEPD 1977). While retaining the traditional term RP,Gimson also made a deliberate e¤ort to widen itsapplication (cf. e.g. EPD 1977: vii). He rejects adefinition of RP speakers in the strict social termsused by Daniel Jones, and allows for a number oflocal variants to be included, which results in ‘acertain dilution of the original concept of RP’ (EPD14th edn.: x).

RP was not the only EFL teaching model forGimson. He was one of the first to promote theidea of an international or ‘nuclear’ pronunciationof English (cf. Gimson 1978). In his view, such asimplified model could be established by reducingthe RP phoneme inventory (of 24 consonants and20 vowels) to 14 consonants and 15 vowels, whichwhile still producing results intelligible to mostnative speakers of English, would considerablyreduce the learning burden for the EFL student.

Accessibility for the EFL learner was also a mainconcern for Gimson’s editions of the EnglishPronouncing Dictionary (EPD), which saw a numberof notational simplifications under his editorship,such as the controversial decision to replace thesymbol /εə/ in pair by /eə/ (in EPD 1977, 14thedn.). The most significant change in transcriptionbrought about by Gimson, however, was theintroduction of new phonemic symbols in the 14thedition of the EPD (1977) (and IPE 1962), viz. /ɒ/,/i/, and /υ/. The aim was to make explicit not onlythe quantitative but also the qualitative di¤erencein pairs such as bead /bi�d/–bid /bid/, caught/kɔ�t/–cot /kɒt/ and fool /fu�l/–full /fυl/, whichbefore had only been distinguished by length marks(/�ι:� �ι�/, /kɔ�t kɔt/, /fu�l ful/). Although theretention of the length mark (:) in addition to thequalitative di¤erence was now strictly speakingredundant, Gimson felt this was justified by thegreater explicitness it achieved (cf. Gimson 1981:257, EPD 1977: xiii). He was clearly not the only oneto think so: the EFL world quickly accepted thisnotational innovation as the new standard practice.

Gimson’s interest in the teaching of pronunciationis, of course, best documented by hispronunciation practice books, such as A Practical

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Course of English Pronunciation (1975) and AnEnglish Pronunciation Companion to the OxfordAdvanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English(1982, with S. Ramsaran). His approach in these ismainly perceptual, in that they rely heavily ondiscrimination drills for ear-training as aprerequisite to production. However, it is for hisIntroduction to the Pronunciation of English (IPE)that Gimson is best remembered in the EFLcommunity. First published in 1962, IPE wasimmediately accepted as the standard descriptionof RP (cf. Wells 1992) and saw two further editionsin Gimson’s lifetime. After Gimson’s death in 1985,the book was further revised and updated first bySusan Ramsaran (4th edn., 1989) and then AlanCruttenden (5th edn., 1994), which secured itsstatus as a standard reference work on Englishpronunciation.

Gimson’s Pronunciation of English, as the book wasrenamed for the 5th edition, is now available in its6th edition. It has been extensively revised, andagain updated by Alan Cruttenden, who managedto incorporate new findings and developmentswhile preserving the original spirit of the book.Apart from a general update of all references, majorrevisions concern the chapters on the syllable (5.5),phonotactics (10.10), word accent (10.3.), and the‘Advice to Foreigners’ sections, which are nowsomewhat less prescriptive in tone. Cruttenden hasalso added a brief description of Estuary English(7.6.3) and expanded the section on currentchanges in RP (7.4). The overall structure of thebook, however, remains unchanged: Part I gives ageneral introduction to the production of speech,acoustics, and the classification of sounds, Part IIprovides a detailed description of the consonantsand vowels of RP, and Part III deals with intonation,connected speech, and the teaching ofpronunciation.

Part I subsumes five chapters, some of which havesurvived the di¤erent editions largely unaltered,owing to their concern with physiological facts, andwith other issues of a more general nature: Theseare Chapter 1, which o¤ers a brief introduction tothe nature of communication, Chapter 2, on thespeech mechanism, Chapter 3 on the acoustic andauditory aspects of sounds, and Chapter 4 on thedescription and classification of speech sounds.Significant changes have already been introducedin the 5th edition, and Chapter 5 on phonemes andthe syllable. The same chapter now contains a moredetailed description of the syllable as well,especially with regard to its internal structure(onset, peak, coda). In Chapter 3, readers with an

EFL background will be surprised to learn that theterm ‘stress’ has been disposed of altogether‘because this word has been used in di¤erent andambiguous ways in phonetics and linguistics’ (p.24). Instead, Cruttenden uses ‘prominence’ as ageneral term for syllables marked by any of fourpossible factors (pitch, loudness, quality, andquantity) and ‘accent’ for syllables specificallymarked by pitch change only (cf. pp. 24, 222). Intranscription, accented syllables are indicated by afalling accent (/ə ̀ raiv/), rather than the traditionalvertical mark (/ə |raiv/). This attempt at clarifying,and indeed simplifying the terminologicalconfusion in this area, is certainly most welcome,especially since it brings the notation andterminology used for single words (formerly ‘wordstress’) into line with that of longer utterances—the latter being Cruttenden’s particular area ofexpertise (cf. Cruttenden 1997). However, such aprofound change would have deserved a moredetailed discussion, all the more so in view of thefact that this new convention runs counter to thegeneral practice in pronouncing dictionaries (e.g.Jones 1997; Wells 2000) and the EFL literature.Moreover, the notational convention of using afalling accent (`) for word stress may be misleading,in that this symbol is associated with a falling tone,while word accentuation can be achieved by anykind of nuclear tone. This criticism, incidentally,was voiced by Gimson (1981: 258) himself, whoemphasizes that ‘[t]he traditional vertical markshave a greater generality of application in the sensethat the high vertical | can imply any nuclear tone orpitch change’.

Part II, which deals more specifically with ‘TheSounds of English’, constitutes the core of thebook. After a brief history of phonetic studies inBritain and an overview of the major soundchanges of English in Chapter 6, Chapter 7 focuseson the status of RP and other standards. For thenew edition, the section on current changes withinRP (7.4) has been completely rewritten, and nowdistinguishes between ‘changes almost complete’,‘changes well-established’, ‘recent innovations’,and ‘innovations on the verge of RP’. It provides acomprehensive list of ongoing changes, whichincludes such well-established features as thereplacement of /υə/ by /ɔ�/ in sure, poor etc., andso-called ‘happy-tensing’ (i.e. final /i/ instead of /i/in happy, city), but also discusses more recentinnovations, such as the unrounding and frontingof /υ, u�/ in good and soon, and the frequent use ofhigh-rising tones on declaratives taken over,presumably from Australian and New Zealand

432 Reviews

English. Interestingly, the lowering of /�/ to [a] isnot included in the list, although mentioned byRamsaran in the 4th edition (p. 89), and byCruttenden himself in his description of the vowel/�/ (p. 111). Cruttenden’s classification of themonophthongal realization of /eə/ (as /ε�/) in fareand tear as ‘change almost complete’ (p. 82), i.e.typical of the large majority of speakers of GeneralRP, may also come as something of a surprise.

RR has changed not only phonetically, but also interms of its status. While it is still the standardpronunciation model for many learners, otheraccents have clearly gained in prestige. This isreflected in the book by the inclusion of brief butsystematic treatments of other standards, viz.General American, Scottish English, LondonEnglish, Northern English, and AustralianEnglish—a major innovation of the 5th edition. Inthe new edition, this section has been partlyrewritten, and now includes a brief discussion of‘Estuary English’ (as part of the section on LondonEnglish, 7.6.3), which highlights its hybrid statusbetween Cockney and General RP.

Chapters 8 and 9 are probably the ones teachers ofEnglish are most familiar with. They containdetailed descriptions of the RP vowel (Chapter 8)and consonant phonemes (Chapter 9). Thetreatment of the vowels follows a clear andsystematic pattern, which considerably enhancesits accessibility: (1) illustrations of spellings andmain allophones, (2) articulatory description, (3)chief variants in RP and regionally, (4) principalhistorical sources, and (5) advice to foreignlearners. For the 6th edition Cruttenden has addedspectrograms of the RP vowels (p. 100–1) andrecent data on the formant frequencies for RP purevowels (p. 102). The description of the consonants(Chapter 9) now also contains spectrograms toillustrate obstruents (p. 157) and sonorants (p.194), in addition to the highly useful palatograms(indicating tongue contact with the palate) whichwere already introduced in the 5th edition.

Part III, ‘Words and Connected Speech’, focuses onsuprasegmentals. Chapter 10 elaborates thecomplex question of word accent as well asphonotactics, i.e. possible combinations ofphonemes in a word or syllable. Especially in thediscussion of word accentual patterns (10.3), whichwas substantially revised for the 5th and 6theditions, Cruttenden succeeds in presenting aninherently diªcult area in an accessible andsystematic way. However, in the subsection oncompounds (10.3.5) the accent pattern for such

frequently occurring compounds as |apple cake,|orange juice, |mineral water is not accounted for bythe rules given. As ‘man-made items’ (p. 229) theywould have to be interpreted as taking the mainaccent on the second element, while this is clearlynot the case. Junk food (p. 230), on the other hand,is listed with the main accent on the secondelement, although most native speakers place theaccent on the first element (cf. Wells 2000: 413). Itis also interesting to note that the most commonaccent pattern for hospitable is given as/|hɒspitəbl/, while Wells (2000: 369) still gives/hɒ|spitəbl/ as most frequent (with a ratio of 81%).Similarly, the main variant of Caribbean is,according to Cruttenden (p. 232) /kə |ribiən/, incontrast to Wells (2000: 120), who quotes a 91%preference for /k�rə|bi�ən/.

Chapter 11, on ‘Connected Speech’ discusses theconcepts of accent, rhythm, weak forms, andintonation. The section on intonation (11.6), whichwas almost completely rewritten for the 5th edition,follows the notational system of O’Connor andArnold (1973) and provides a clear introduction tothe forms of intonation (11.6.1) as well as itsfunction (11.6.2). The latter is largely restricted to adiscussion of nucleus placement as well asgrammatical and attitudinal meanings of nucleartones. It does not cover the discourse function ofintonation (as discussed by Brazil 1997), but thiswould probably be asking too much from a generalintroduction to English phonetics.

Chapter 12, finally, deals with ‘Words in Connected Speech’, giving a comprehensive andvery detailed overview of such phenomena asassimilation, elision, liaison, and allophonicvariations.

The last chapter of the book (Chapter 13) homes inon ‘Teaching the Pronunciation of English’.Although it seems at first that this topic would havemerited a separate fourth part, instead of being‘added on’ somewhat incoherently to Part III onconnected speech, a closer look makes it clear whythis should be the case: originally conceived of byGimson as an appendix to the 3rd edition (only 20pages in length), it lacks suªcient substance tomake up an entire fourth part of the book. This isnot to say that it does not include usefulinformation. It discusses issues such as the choiceof a pronunciation model (13.2), levels ofperformance to be aimed at (13.3–13.6) and generalprinciples underlying the teaching of pronunciation(13.7). For the new edition Cruttenden has added ashort subsection on pronouncing dictionaries

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(13.8). However, the advice for teaching is of a verygeneral nature, emphasizing the use ofdiscrimination drills for ‘ear training’, and givingtips for ‘approaching’ individual sounds. Withregard to the pronunciation model, the bookrecommends General RP as the most regionallyneutral standard, albeit allowing for considerabledilution of the original concept (p. 298). It issomewhat regrettable in this context that nomention is made of the recent discussion ofEnglish as a Lingua Franca (e.g. Jenkins 2000),especially in view of Gimson’s own interest in thismatter (see above).

All in all, this latest edition of Gimson’sPronunciation of English does an excellent job inbringing this classic up to date. Given the amountof revision and rewriting that has gone into thelatest two editions it is, however, very surprisingthat this should have left untouched the datedpractice of using male pronouns to refer to bothmale and female referents throughout the book,such as ‘the learner ... he …’ etc. (pp. 297, 313, etc.).Such usage is clearly inappropriate for a modernstandard reference text, and can certainly not bejustified by the overall aim of preserving the spiritof the original edition. The book also contains aconsiderable number of errors. Most of these areminor ones, such as the addition of length marks in[��d] for good (on p. 83), typographicallyinconsistent headings for the sections in Chapter 5,or missing references in the bibliography (e.g.Lecumberri and Maidment 2000 on p. 309).Others are somewhat more confusing: e.g. thedescription of a recent RP innovation, [�], as‘realisation of /r/ without a tongue tip contact’ (p.83), when normally no tongue tip contact isinvolved in the production of /r/, the misalignedthird row of Table 9 ( p. 151), which suggests thatbigger has a medial /k/ and bitter a medial /b/, aswell as the assertion in one place (p. 82) that suit isnowadays pronounced as /su�t/ when elsewhere(p. 190) it is still transcribed as /sju�t/. Althougherrors are perhaps inevitable in a book of thisscope, what is surprising is that many of themshould only have been introduced in the mostrecent edition.

Despite these minor shortcomings, Cruttenden’snew edition will ensure that Gimson’s Pronunciationof English will maintain its position as the mostcomprehensive and authoritative introduction toEnglish phonetics for years to come. It thusremains an indispensable reference book foranyone involved in studying or teaching thepronunciation of English.

ReferencesBrazil, D. 1997. The Communicative Value ofIntonation in English. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.Cruttenden, A. 1997. Intonation (2nd edn.).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Gimson, A. C. 1975. A Practical Course of EnglishPronunciation: a perceptual approach. London:Edward Arnold.Gimson, A. C. 1978. ‘Towards an internationalpronunciation of English’ in P. Strevens (ed.). Inhonour of A. S. Hornby. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 45–53.Gimson, A. C. 1981. ‘Pronunciation in EFLdictionaries’. Applied Linguistics 2: 250–62.Gimson, A. C. 1984. ‘The RP accent’ in P. Trudgill(ed.). Language in the British Isles. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 45–54.Gimson, A. C. and S. M. Ramsaran 1982. An EnglishPronunciation Companion to the Oxford AdvancedLearner’s Dictionary of Current English. Oxford:Oxford University Press.Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as anInternational Language. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.Jones, D. 1997. English Pronouncing Dictionary (15thedn., edited by P. Roach and J. Hartman).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.O’Connor, J. D, and G. F. Arnold 1973. Intonation ofColloquial English (2nd edn.). London: Longman.Wells, J. C. 1992. ‘Alfred Charles Gimson: anobituary.’http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/gim-obit.htmWells, J. C. 2000. Longman Pronouncing Dictionary(2nd edn.) Harlow: Longman.

The reviewerGunther Kaltenböck is a lecturer at the EnglishDepartment of the University of Vienna. He hasbeen involved in ELT for over 10 years in Austriaand Britain, and holds an MA in Modern EnglishLanguage from the University of London and a PhDin Linguistics from the University of Vienna. Hismain research interests are phonetics, syntax, andlanguage teaching.Email: gunther.kaltenboeck@univie.ac.at

434 Reviews