UNIVERSIDAD CENTRAL DEL ECUADOR-SEDE SANTO

DOMINGO

ENGLISH COMMUNICATION• ALEJANDRA BARBERAN

• DIANA BEDON

• DIANA MACIAS

• OMAR OCHOA

LANGUAGE

• Language is the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication.

• Is a conventional system of sound that the people use to expres their ideas or communicate with other people.

• The language are linked to each other by shared words or sound, or grammatical constructions.

COMMUNICATION

• Communication is the activity or change information through the exchange of ideas, feelings, intentions, attitudes, expectations, perceptions or commands.

• Communication requires a sender, a message, a channel or medium and recepient.

• We have two forms to communicate with other people, for example:

• Verbal communication. (system of symbols)

• Non-verbal communication. (gesture, body language or posture, facial expression)

• Improving Your Speaking

• Improving Your Listening

• Improving Your Writing

How to Improve English Communication Skills

Improving Your Speaking

•  Talking to actual native speakers is the most effective way to improve your English skills, speaking or otherwise.

• Skype Your progress will be faster this way than any other.

• English lesson with tourist

• Take a class and get buddy-buddy with your teacher.

• Offer a language exchange.

Find native English speakers.

 

• Watch people.

• Watch how their mouths form the words.

• Watch how emotion is communicated.

• Watch where the emphasis goes on certain sentences and how that provides context.

Listen to the music of English

•  Above all, if you want to be understood, slow down.

• Clarity is key -- for some native English speakers, too!They will be patient with you. You just gotta be patient with yourself.

• It's much less frustrating to speak to someone who you understand even though they're speaking slowly than to speak to someone you don't understand at all.

• Speaking quickly isn't impressive if your tongue gets all jumbly.

• Its important to know.. What are the weak and strong points you hear in your speech? you can concentrate on what you need to work on. A great idea is to get a book on tape, record yourself reading an excerpt from it (or mimicking the narrator), and comparing yourself to the recording. That way you can do it over and over until you get it right!

Record yourself. 

• A group class can be cheap, fun, and work on all your skills, but adding a one-on-one class, too? You'll get that individualized attention to your speech you've been craving. That's a double dose of improvement.

• There are specialized classes you can take, too. Accent reduction classes, business English classes, tourism classes, heck, sometimes even food classes.

Take different style classes. 

Speak English at home. • You're on the job working partly in English

• You go to your English class, but you go home and revert back to your native tongue. While you may be making slow improvements, you'll never get past that dreaded lingual plateau. Make a point to speak it at home, too.

• Have only English at the dinner table.

• Stick to English TV at home. Make it as 24/7 as possible.

• Talk to yourself in English.

• Narrate your actions. While you're washing the dishes, say what you're doing, thinking, or feeling.

Create opportunities. 

That's the lazy way of looking at it! English speakers are everywhere; sometimes they just have to be found and coaxed out of hiding. You have to come to them. Call a phone company and make small talk about phone plans. Start a blog. Get into English chat rooms. There are ALWAYS opportunities to be had.

• If your listening skills feel lacking, don't beat yourself up. It seems like the easiest skill, but it can be very, very taxing. The way you're taught English in school is practically the opposite of how native speakers actually speak. No wonder it's such a chore!So the next time someone says, "Do you want to pass me that bag?" and you hear, "Djuwanapassmethabag?" you're not going crazy. Between that and all the "like," "uhh," and "umm," you run into it could drive a person crazy. So when you get in the listening zone, remind yourself: it's slang time.

Know why it's difficult

•  Really. Passive listening is okay, but interacting is even better. If you want to get good at listening, you have to ask questions. And this way you have control of the conversation! If you ask someone what their favorite thing to do in summer is you know they're not going to go off on a confusing tangent on politics. At least, hopefully!And the more you hear a specific individual talk, the easier it is to understand them. English has so many accents you may find yourself not understanding someone and wondering why. Be patient! Your mind will get used to their accent in time. English-speaking people have to adjust for each other all the time.

Watch TV, movies, podcasts, and everything in between.

•  So while talking and listening proactively is best, passive learning is good, too. So throw on the telly and sit down for a spell. Try to keep the captions off! And if you can record it and watch it more than once, even better. That way you can see your progress.Even having the radio on in the background is helpful, just to keep your mind in the English zone. But the best case scenario is getting a movie and watching it over and over until your mind stops having to worry about understanding and instead can concentrate on the little things, like intonation and slang. And watching TV shows where you have the same characters over and over so you get used to their speech. In other words: repetition.

Have an English exchange.

• If you have a friend who speaks English that is trying to learn a language you speak, start an English exchange! Half the time you speak your language and the other half you speak English. And you get to spend time drinking coffee and relaxing, too!If that's not a possibility, find some friends who all want to practice their English. Though practicing this language with non-native speakers isn't ideal, it's definitely way better than nothing. You'll be less nervous speaking it in front of them and you can learn from each others' strengths.

Listen to English music. 

• Even just learning a song a day can widen your vocabulary extensively. And it's fun and energizing, too. You can grow your musical repertoire, learn new words, and expand your knowledge without even realizing it. And then you can go hit the karaoke bar!Stick to songs that are slow and clear. The Beatles and Elvis are two great places to start, though modern music is good, too -- just aim for the ballads; they're usually the easiest to understand. Rap can wait till later.

Write•  It's as simple as that. To get good at something,

you have to do it. You have to do it over and over and over. So write. Every day. It can be a diary entry, it could be your next bestseller; it doesn't really matter. Just put that pen to paper and get going.Keep it all in one place. Having a notebook or binder dedicated to your English work will keep you organized and motivated. The better you get, the easier it will be to see your progress. You can look back and marvel at how bad you used to be and how awesome you are now.

Get it checked. • However, it's kinda pointless if you

don't ever get it checked or corrected. You want to get better at the entire language, not just the language you're capable of right now. You have two options here:The Internet. It's amazing; it really is. Sites like italki.com and lang-8 can correct your work for free! Don't get off wikiHow just yet, but do keep those sites in mind.

• A friend. Obviously. But the great thing about writing is that you can email your friend and wherever they are, they can get it, correct it, and get it back to you. So whether they're a mile away or in the middle of Canada, progress can be had.

Add phrases to your vocabulary. 

• If you write like a six-year-old, regardless of how correct your writing is, it still is going to sound like a six-year-old. The only difference between a six-year-old with good grammar and a 20-year-old with good grammar is their vocabulary. So whenever you run into a phrase you want to start incorporating into your writing (or speech), write it down. And then make a point to use it.A good idea is to start learning collocations. That's a fancy term for words that go together. "Get married" is useful, but "get married to someone" is even better -- that way you know not to say "get married with." If you said you "received a cold," you'd receive some funny looks -- but not if you said you "caught a cold." See how that works?

Don't forget the small stuff! 

• While knowing a lot of words is all well and good, ifu type like this,your writing isnt going 2 look very good u know? Painful. Make sure you have your spaces right, your punctuation right, and use capital letters when appropriate. That stuff matters too.Unless you are a 15-year-old girl texting her friends, text speak is not okay. "You" is "you," not "u." "For" is not "4." "2" means something very different than "to" or "too." You won't be winning any medals for writing like that.

Utilize the Internet

• It has practically everything you've ever wanted. Practically. There are websites that have English games, easy-to-read English articles, and exercises to improve your skills in every domain. Here's just a few neat ones to whet your appetite:[1]Anki is flashcard software. Similar things can be found on websites like Memrise, too. You can basically quiz yourself.

• OneLook is a type of dictionary that can find words for you, define them, andtranslate. You only need the, cough cough, one look. It also has a reverse dictionary where you can type in the concept instead!

• Visualwords creates word map visualizations, connecting the word you search with similar, associated words or words that collocate with it. Great way to expand your vocabulary!

• Similar to Visuwords, Merriam Webster has a "visual dictionary." If you type in "tire," it will show you a tire, with words pointing to every little detail of it from "tread" to "bead wire."

• Englishforums is a great place to pose questions and talk to speakers. It's basically message board after message board of English-related questions.

• Always correct your writing. And by that, we don't mean "get it checked," like stated above. We mean get it checked and then rewrite it. You want a beautiful, finished draft of perfect English created by you. If you just write it and get it corrected, you won't truly ingest what mistakes you made and how to fix them. And this way your notebook is a whole heck of a lot prettier.Once you've corrected a piece, try to write something the next day that builds upon the mistakes you've corrected. This way you can prove to yourself that you've improved and actually notice the mistakes you're not making anymore. You'll get better and build your confidence. Bonus.

Dialects of English

Bri

tish

En

glish

Southern• Southern English engages in r-dropping, that is, r's are not pronounced after vowels, unless

followed by another vowel.  Instead, vowels are lengthened or have an /'/ off-glide, so fire becomes /fai'/, far becomes /fa:/, and so on.regular use of "broad a" (/a:/), where GA (General American) would use /æ/.

• "long o" is pronounced /'u/, where GA uses /ou/.

• final unstressed i is pronounced /i/, where GA uses /i:).

• t between vowels retained as /t/ (or a glottal stop, in its variants), where GA changes it to /d/.

• The English of well-bred Londoners, especially graduates of the public schools (e.g. Eton and Harrow) and "Oxbridge" universities, was the origin of "the Queen's English," also known as Received Pronunciation (RP), BBC, or "posh."

CockneyOriginally the dialect of the working class of East End London. initial h is dropped, so house becomes /aus/ (or even /a:s/).

• /th/ and /dh/ become /f/ and /v/ respectively: think > /fingk/, brother > /brœv'/.

• t between vowels becomes a glottal stop: water > /wo?'/.

• diphthongs change, sometimes dramatically: time > /toim/, brave > /braiv/, etc.

• Estuary English

From London down the Thames and into Essex, Sussex, and even Kent, a new working and middle class dialect has evolved and is rapidly become "the" southern dialect.  It combines some of the characteristics of Cockney with RP, but makes much less use of Cockney slang.

•Estuary English

From London down the Thames and into Essex, Sussex, and even Kent, a new working and middle class dialect has evolved and is rapidly become "the" southern dialect.  It combines some of the characteristics of Cockney with RP, but makes much less use of Cockney slang.

East Anglian

This dialect is similar to the Southern, but keeps its h's:t between vowels usually becomes a glottal stop.

• /ai/ becomes /oi/: time > /toim/.

• RP yu becomes u: after n, t, d... as in American English.

• the -s in the third person singular is usually dropped [e.g. he goes > he go, he didn't do it > he don't do it]

East Midlands

The dialect of the East Midlands, once filled with interesting variations from county to county, is now predominantly RP.  R's are dropped, but h's are pronounced.  The only signs that differentiate it from RP:ou > u: (so go becomes /gu:/).

• RP yu; becomes u: after n, t, d...  as in American English.

The West Country

•r's are not dropped.

• initial s often becomes z (singer > zinger).

• initial f often becomes v (finger > vinger).

• vowels are lengthened.

West Midlands

This is the dialect of Ozzie Osbourne!  While pronunciation is not that different from RP, some of the vocabulary is:are > am

• am, are (with a continuous sense) > bin

• is not > ay

• are not > bay

Lancashire

This dialect, spoken north and east of Liverpool, has the southern habit of dropping r's.  Other features:

•/œ/ > /u/, as in luck (/luk/).•/ou/ > /oi/, as in hole (/hoil/)Scouse is the very distinctive Liverpool accent, a version of the Lancashire dialect, that the Beatles made famous.

•the tongue is drawn back.•/th/ and /dh/ > /t/ and /d/ respectively.•final k sounds like the Arabic q.•for is pronounced to rhyme with fur.

Yorkshire

The Yorkshire dialect is known for its sing-song quality, a little like Swedish./œ/ > /u/, as in luck (/luk/).

• the is reduced to t'.

• initial h is dropped.

• was > were.

• still use thou (pronounced /tha/) and thee.

• aught and naught (pronounced /aut/ or /out/ and /naut/ or /nout/) are used for anything and nothing.

NorthernThe Northern dialect closely resembles the southern-most Scottish dialects.  It retains many old Scandinavian words, such as bairn for child, and not only keeps its r's, but often rolls them.  The most outstanding version is Geordie, the dialect of the Newcastle area.-er > /æ/, so father > /fædhæ/.

• /ou/ > /o:'/, so that boat sounds like each letter is pronounced.

• talk > /ta:k/

• work > /work/

• book > /bu:k/

• my > me

• me > us

• our > wor

• you plural > youse

Wales

• Welsh English is characterized by a sing-song quality and lightly rolled r's.  It has been strongly influenced by the Welsh language, although it is increasingly influenced today by standard English, due to the large number of English people vacationing and retiring there.

ScotlandScotland actually has more variation in dialects than England! "pure" vowels (/e:/ rather than /ei/, /o:/ rather than /ou/)

• /u:/ is often fronted to /ö/ or /ü/, e.g. boot, good, muin (moon), poor...

• . First, the phonetics:/oi/, /ai/, and final /ei/ > /'i/, e.g. oil, wife, tide...

• final /ai/ > /i/, e.g. ee (eye), dee (die), lee (lie)...

• /ou/ > /ei/, e.g. ake (oak), bate (boat), hame (home), stane (stone), gae (go)...

• /au/ > /u:/, e.g. about, house, cow, now... (often spelled oo or u)

• /o/ > /a:/, e.g. saut (salt), law, aw (all)...

• /ou/ > /a:/, e.g. auld (old), cauld (cold), snaw (snow)...

• /æ/ > /a/, e.g. man, lad, sat...

• also:  pronounce the ch's and gh's that are silent in standard English as /kh/: nicht, licht, loch...

Present tense:  often, all forms follow the third person singular (they wis, instead of they were).

Past tense (weak verbs):  -it after plosives (big > biggit); -t after n, l, r, and all other unvoiced consonants (ken > kent); -ed after vowels and all other voiced consonants (luv > luved).

Past tense (strong verbs): come > cam, gang > gaed and many more.

On the other hand, many verbs that are strong in standard English are weak in Scottish English:  sell > sellt, tell > tellt, mak > makkit, see > seed, etc.

Past participle is usually the same as the past (except for many strong verbs, as in standard English)

Present participle: -in (ken > kennin)

The negative of many auxiliary verbs is formed with -na:  am > amna, hae (have) > hinna, dae (do) > dinna, can > canna, etc.

Irregular plurals:  ee > een (eyes), shae > shuin (shoes), coo > kye (cows).

Common diminutives in -ie:  lass > lassie, hoose > hoosie...

Common adjective ending: -lik (= -ish)

Demonstratives come in four pairs (singular/plural):  this/thir, that/thae, thon/thon, yon/yon

Relative pronouns:  tha or at.

Interrogative pronouns: hoo, wha, whan, whase, whaur, whatna, whit.

Numbers: ane, twa, three, fower, five, sax, seeven, aucht, nine, ten, aleeven, twal..

And finally, the many unique words: 

• lass, bairn (child),

• kirk (church)

• big (build),

• greet (weep),

• ingle (household fire),

• aye (yes),

• hame (home)... 

Ireland

• English was imposed upon the Irish, but they have made it their own and have contributed some of our finest literature.  Irish English is strongly influenced by Irish Gaelic:r after vowels is retained

• "pure" vowels (/e:/ rather than /ei/, /o:/ rather than /ou/)

• /th/ and /dh/ > /t/ and /d/ respectively.

Use of be or do in place of usually:I do write... (I usually write) 

Use of after for the progressive perfect and pluperfect:

I was after getting married (I had just gotten married)

Use of progressive beyond what is possible in standard English:

I was thinking it was in the drawer

Use of the present or past for perfect and pluperfect:

She’s dead these ten years (she has been dead...)

Use of let you be and don’t be as the imperative:

Don’t be troubling yourself

Use of it is and it was at the beginning of a sentence:

it was John has the good looks in the familyIs it marrying her you want?

Substitute and for when or as:It only struck me and you going out of the door

Substitute the infinitive verb for that or if:

Imagine such a thing to be seen here!

Drop if, that, or whether:Tell me did you see them

Statements phrased as rhetorical questions:

Isn’t he the fine-looking fellow?

Extra uses of the definite article:He was sick with the jaundice

Unusual use of prepositions:Sure there’s no daylight in it at all now

• Australian English is predominantly British English, and especially from the London area.  R’s are dropped after vowels, but are often inserted between two words ending and beginning with vowels.

The vowels reflect a strong “Cockney” influence: 

• The long a (/ei/) tends towards a long i (/ai/), so pay sounds like pie to an American ear.

• The long i (/ai/), in turn, tends towards oi, so cry sounds like croy.  Ow sounds like it starts with a short a (/æ/).  Other vowels are less dramatically shifted.

Even some rhyming slang has survived into Australlian English:  Butcher’s means look (butcher’s hook); hit and miss means piss; loaf means head (loaf of bread); Noah’s ark means shark; Richard the third means turd, and so on.

Australian English

• Like American English has absorbed numerous American Indian words, Australian English has absorbed many Aboriginal words:billibong -- watering hole

• coolabah -- a type of tree

• corroboree -- a ceremony

• nulla-nulla -- a club

• wallaby -- small kangaroo

• wombat -- a small marsupial

• woomera -- a weapon

• wurley -- a simple shelter

Another characteristic of Australian English is abbreviated words, often

ending in -y, -ie, or -o:aussie -- Australian chalky -- teacher

chockie -- chocoloate coldie -- a cold beer

footy -- football (Australian rules, of course)

sammie -- sandwich

mossie -- mosquito sunnies -- sunglasses

New Zealand

• New Zealand English is heard by Americans as "Ozzie Light.“

• The characteristics of Australian English are there to some degree, but not as intensely. 

• The effect for Americans is uncertainty as to whether the person is from England or Australia.

•   One clue is that New Zealand English sounds "flatter" (less modulated) than either Australian or British English and more like western American English.

South Africa

• i - as in bit is pronounced 'uh'

• long /a:/ in words like 'past', 'dance'

• t in middle of words pronounced as d's ('pretty' becomes '/pridi:/')

• donga - ditch, from Xhosa

• dagga - marijuana, from Xhoixhoi (?)

• kak - bullshit, from Afrikaans

• fundi - expert, from Xhosa and Zulu umfundi (student).

Canada

• Canadian English is generally similar to northern and western American English. 

• The one outstanding characteristic is called Canadian rising:/ai/ and /au/ become /œi/ and /œu/, respectively. 

• One unusual characteristic found in much Canadian casual speech is the use of sentence final "eh?" even in declarative sentences.

• Most Canadians retain r's after vowels, but in the Maritimes, they drop their r's, just like their New England neighbors to the south.

• Newfoundland has a very different dialect, called Newfie, that seems to be strongly influenced by Irish immigrants:/th/ and /dh/ > /t/ and /d/ respectively.

• am, is, are > be's

• I like, we like, etc. > I likes, we likes, etc.

American English

American English derives from 17th century British English

There are three dialect areas -- northern, southern, and midland.

Northern• Northern New England (Maine and New Hampshire)

• Boston area (eastern Massachussets, Rhode Island)

• Northeastern (Connecticut, western Massachusetts, Vermont, upstate New York, lower Michigan, northern Illinois)

• New York City area (including most of Long Island and northern New Jersey)

• North central (upper Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas)

Northern midland

• Philadelphia area (inc. eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, Delaware, and the Baltimore area)

• Pittsburgh area (western Pennsylvania)

• Ohio-Plains (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas...)

Southern midland

• Appalachia (western Virginia, West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee)

• Arkansas-Oklahoma

•Southern• Virginia (eastern)

• North Carolina (eastern)

• South Carolina

• Georgia-Florida

• Mississippi-Gulf (including Alabama, Louisiana, eastern Texas, western Tennessee, western Kentucky)

• West Texas

•Western 

• (Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California)

Southern and south midland

• "drawl" [lengthening, fronting, and raising vowels]

• /ai/ > /æ:/  in find, mind

• /oi/ > /o/ in boil, oil

• /u:/ > /yu:/ in due, tuesday

• au/ > /æu/ in out, doubt

• /e/ > /ei/ in bed, head

• /e/ > /i/ in pen, ten

• greasy > greazy

• carry > tote

• dragged > drug

• you > you all, y’all

• Southern:

• help, bulb, wolf > /hep/, /bœb/, /wuf/

Southern vs south midland:drop r’s -- strong, sometimes retroflex, r’s

• wash: /wa:sh/ -- /wosh/, /worsh/

• think: /thingk/ -- /theingk/

• egg: /eg/ -- /eig/

• moon: /mu:n/ -- /mü:n/

• snake doctor -- snake feeder

• snap beans -- green beans

• goobers -- peanuts

Northern vs north midland:• fog, hog: /fag/, /hag/ -- /fog/, /hog/

• roof: /ruf/, /huf/ -- /ru:f/, /hu:f/

• cow, house: /kau/, /haus/ -- /kæu/, /hæus/

• wash: /wa:sh/ -- /wosh/, /worsh/

• darning needle -- snake feeder

• pail -- bucket

• teeter-totter -- see-saw

• fire-fly -- lightning-bug

Eastern New England, Boston area, Virginia area/æ/ frequently becomes /a/, e.g. in aunt, dance, glass

• Mary-marry-merry (/eir/-/ær/-/er/) distinctions preserved only in r-less areas, rapidly disappearing from American speech.

NYC and north midland, • and spreading rapidly

loss of voiceless w: which > /wic/

• loss of voiceless y: human > /yum'n/