English Phonetics and Phonology Lecture A2 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=JZ6oe2U7AOA

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

Short / Long / 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: Phoneme  Syllable  Word Phrase Sentence “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.