Oldal 104 [104]
HUNGARIAN-ENGLISH LINGUISTIC CONTRASTS. A PRACTICAL APPROACH
7.3 CONTRASTS IN WORD FORM
7.3.1 Pronunciation
We have discussed phonological and suprasegmental contrasts between Eng¬
lish and Hungarian in Chapter 3, noting that a good English pronunciation is
partly a matter of lexical knowledge: we have to know how a particular word
is pronounced. Here we shall look at the pronunciation of certain types of
words.
Some English words and proper names are known and used in Hungarian,
too, with a naturalised pronunciation. This Hungarian pronunciation may
influence learners even when they are speaking English: they may pronounce
doctor (‘dok.ta') like Hungarian doktor or names like London (‘lan.don) or Los
Angeles (ns ‘æn.d3o.li:z, ,la:s ‘æn.d39.los) as naturalised Hungarian words.
Hungarian pronunciation may influence learners especially strongly in the
case of cognates, i.e. words of common origin with similar meanings.
Scientific words of Latin or Greek origin represent by far the largest groups
among cognates. Consider the pronunciation of these words:
« photosynthesis
+ diameter
+ economic
+ academy
+ sado-masochistic
Unknown words and proper names will be pronounced by most learners ac¬
cording to spelling. Here the influence of the mother tongue is indirect: not
knowing the place of stress and the actual pronunciation, learners will try to
apply a Hungarian spelling pronunciation. Consider, how you would pronounce
these relatively less frequent names:
+ Durham
Gloucester
Portsmouth
s Bournemouth
« Derbyshire
« Salford
s Moses
s Jeremiah
« Nehemiah
.
.
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