Abstract:

The pronunciation of English is typical for its richness in distinctive features not only on the level of individual segments, but also on the suprasegmental level. Suprasegmentals, primarily word stress and intonation, are relatively difficult to learn for the Slovak learners of English, as they function very differently from the suprasegmentals of the learners' mother tongue (primarily Slovak, in addition to other Slavonic languages), and, moreover, can significantly impact the meaning of the speakers' utterance. The presented study focuses on the analysis of the written and spoken texts of the first-year university students of English collected after the completion of the pronunciation course. The tasks concentrated on the communicative aspect of the analysed suprasegmentals. The analysis will be supported by the ideas how to introduce these features into pronunciation teaching and will specify the aspects the learners should focus on.

Acknowledgements:
The paper presents partial results of the project KEGA 055-UKF-4-2016.

Keywords:

ELT, pronunciation, suprasegmental features.