LECTURE A 2 ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY ITS

LECTURE A 2 ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

IT’S TIME TO LEARN SOME KEY TERMS. • The following vocabulary is essential for understanding and talking about English phonetics and phonology.

PHONETICS? PHONOLOGY? • Study of sound in human language (Phonetics). • The study of the selection and patterns of sounds in a single language (Phonology).

LET’S REVIEW… • How do we make sounds? • Moving the tongue, lips and other speech organs… = articulations • Maybe you’ve heard this term before… – When someone tests your speaking, they check for: • Proficiency (you can communicate content) • Fluency (smoothness, comfort with the language) • Articulation (ability to correctly make sounds) – We use this with “native speakers” also – “The CEO is very intelligent and he saved the business. However, he isn’t very articulate when he speaks on TV. ”

DIFFERENT TYPES OF PHONETICS. • Linguistics is a large subject… • And so is phonetics. • Three main areas: – Articulatory phonetics (using speech organs) – Auditory phonetics (how we hear sounds) – Psycholinguistics (how the brain interprets sounds)

OUR COURSE… • …will survey all three branches of phonetics… • …but focus mainly on articulatory phonetics and auditory phonetics • Articulatory Textbook • Auditory Extra exercises

LOOK AT YOUR PARTNER • One person speaks, the other listens (then switch). Read the follow words: – Mother – Mate – Moose – Mild – Morning – March

“M” • Sound is made with… – Lips (bilabial) – Air escaping the nose (nasal) – Voice is used (voiced) – The opposite of voiced is ______. – When we talk about making sounds we will use these (***) terms used in parenthesis. Be sure to memorize them!

“T” • What do we need to do to make a “T” sound? • Is it short or long?

“T” • Tongue-tip against the teeth ridge (alveolar) • Air escapes from mouth (NOT the nose) (oral) • Without voice (voiceless)

TYPES OF SYMBOLS • In the study of sound we use two types of symbols: – Phonetics symbols (from the IPA) – Orthographic symbols (regular spelling)

PHONETIC SYMBOLS

ORTHOGRAPHIC SYMBOLS

ENGLISH SPELLING • Is there a close connection between English pronunciation and spelling? • Why or why not? • How do you say these words: – Hospital – Knee – Fish

FISH

POTATO

CLICKS, LIP TRILLS… • https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=JZ 6 oe 2 U 7 AOA

NO LANGUAGE… • …can produce or represent all the possible sounds the human speech apparatus can make. • Wow!

OTHER EXAMPLES: • Standard English does not… – Make the Spanish [j] as in “jefe” – Or the French [fw] sound as in “foi” (faith)

PHONEMES • To analyze speech, we must segment it. • This is also called segmentation. • To segment speech means to divide into smaller parts. • This is different from syllables (don’t confuse them!)

HOW MANY SEGMENTS…? • Segments are smaller sounds of a word. • Man • Pan • Fan • What is the difference between these words?

MINIMAL PAIRS • A minimal pair is when words differ by one sound. • Man, Pan and Fan are minimal pairs. • They differ by one sound…

WITH YOUR PARTNERS… • Make minimal pairs by changing the first sound in the following words: – Hate – Pen – Kick – Sea – Down – Lane – Feet

WHEN YOU HAVE MANY MINIMAL PAIRS… • Ban, tan, ran, pan… (different first sound) • We called this a minimal set. • Why? • Because these similar sounding words can change in other ways… – Bat, tat, rat, pat (different ending sound) – Bun, ton, run, pun (different middle sound)

WHY DO THIS? WHY ANALYZE THIS? • This kind of ‘sound experimentation’ helps us understand which sound are most significant in a language. • Phonemes, then, are contrastive units of sound • Example: Man – How many phonemes?

WHEN WE LABEL SOUNDS (PHONEMES)… • Use / / • Man has three phonemes • /M/ae/n/ • In Standard English there are typically 20 vowel phonemes and 24 consonant phonemes.

WHAT? • 20 vowel sounds… • 24 consonant sounds… • How many letters in the English alphabet? • This is what gives English its range of sounds and variation between accents. • T: pronounce [tea] and then [button] – Are these [T] sounds the same of different? – Why?

TEA & BUTTON • Hopefully… • …you pronounce these [T] sounds differently. • Tea (tongue-tip T) • Button (Glottal stop T)

TRY THESE WORDS WITH A PARTNER. • Kitten • Cotton Group 1 • Britain • Bottle • Rattle Group 2 • Brittle • Do you notice anything similar or different between word group 1 and 2?

HOW CAN I POSSIBLY LEARN PRONUNCIATION BY ANALYZING PHONEMES? ? ? • Phonemes are good to identify… • …But are very abstract. • You cannot produce a “phoneme”

ALLOPHONES • Allophones are the different sounds that represent a single phoneme. • Example: the aspirated k in kit and the unaspirated k in skit, which are allophones of the phoneme k.

PHONEME / ALLOPHONE • Phonemes are abstract • Allophones are the sounds that represent the phoneme. • We can write a phoneme, but can’t really pronounce it. • We can speak an allophone. Allophones are different ways to speak a written phoneme.

SPEAK THESE PHRASES TO A PARTNER. • John told Mary to stop the car • Stop and go • When you come to the sign, stop • Is the word stop spoken differently? • What are the phonemes? /s/t/ah/p – As a phoneme, /p/ is always the same • But when spoken the “p” sound… – Varies

IN SUM… • Phonemes are ABSTRACT sound units in a language. • Allophones are REAL sound units based on the phonemes in a language.

PRONUNCIATION… ENERGY? • When we make sounds, we use different amounts of energy. • Sometimes this energy is strong, other times this energy is weak. • Strong and weak energy consonants • /p/ & /b/ are good examples. • Both sounds are articulated the same way, but use different amounts of energy.

ENERGY (STRONG AND WEAK) • Is /p/ strong? Or /b/ ?

VOWELS! • Three groups of English vowels:

IN OTHER WORDS… • Short • Long (using lip and/or tongue) • You will see different symbols to write these in dictionaries (more on this later!)

SHORT LONG /

SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT! • But wait! There is more! • Phonemes… • Allophones… • Consonants… • Vowels…

SYLLABLES! • How many syllables in this expression? • An elephant never forgets.

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE…

SYLLABLES? WHY ARE THEY DIFFICULT? • Different languages ‘build’ syllables differently from their phonemes. • Syllable as a “unit” of sound is difficult to define. • A native speaker knows how many… but can have difficulty knowing where the syllables start and end. – Extract

SYLLABLE: • “Unit larger than the phoneme but smaller than the word. ” • So… a phoneme is the most basic sound element. • A syllable is the next level • Phoneme Syllable Word Phrase Sentence

WHAT’S IN A SYLLABLE?

WHAT’S IN A SYLLABLE? • Nucleus – Contains a vowel – Maybe one or more consonants on either side – Example: cat • 1 syllable • The /a/ is the vowel holding the syllable together

BUT SOMETIMES… • A consonant can be the nucleus of the syllable… • …/m, n, ng, l/ – Rhythm (2) – Subtle (2) – This happens because /m, n, ng, l/ sounds are longer than other consonants

HOMOPHONES • …words that sound the same, but are written differently. • …homo… = same • …phones… = sound • Bear, bare • Meat, meet • Some, sum • Sent, scent • Homophones are a major cause of spelling errors.

FIND THE ‘WRONG’ WORD AND REPLACE WITH ITS HOMOPHONE.