Joining/ Linking

If you have ever listened to people speaking a foreign language that was unknown to you, you may have noticed that it was impossible to pick out individual words from the string of sounds that you heard. This is because, in real connected speech, words are linked to one another. This is an especially important phenomena in RP where the phoneme /r/ does not occur in syllable-final position unless the word with a final 'r' is followed by a word beginning with a vowel. Furthermore, when two vowels meet over a word boundary, an extra letter is frequently added in order to help the transition. While /r/ is the most common linking sound, /w/ and /j/ can also be activated between two vowels.

Examples of Linking

• One example of linking is to re-activate an /r/ sound

• Another example of linking is to insert an /r/ between two vowels.

• Linking is not limited to the /r/ sound it can also be used by /j/ and /w/.

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