ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a clear understanding of the global spread of English and its multilingual and multicultural users through examining theoretical paradigms such as World Englishes (WE), English as an international language (EIL) and English as a lingua franca (ELF). The acoustic aspects of English speech sounds provides an additional way to understand and describes pronunciation from the perceptual point of view. Vowels are an important component of EIL pronunciation teaching and learning because considerable variation exists in the vowel systems of different varieties of English, particularly EIL varieties. Rhythm is considered to be one of the pervasive attributes of speech as it helps at least native speakers to process speech based on rhythmic patterning. In order to facilitate EIL pronunciation teaching, there is at times a need for teachers of EIL pronunciation to be use speech recording and analysis tools.
