Speech Sounds What speech sounds do humans make and how do we make them? Kuiper and Allan Chapter 4

Phonetics the study of –production –perception –analysis of speech sounds

Sounds and spelling Written English is represented by graphic symbols called letters. Spoken English comes out of our mouths as sound. English spelling does not accurately represent English sounds. –English spelling was standardised a long time ago.

Exercise How many sounds are there in the following words? –(a)fill –(b)feel –(c)tree –(d)bitter –(e)thesis –(f)sing –(g)drunk –(h)single

Exercise How many different ways can you find to spell the sound represented by the ee of keep? How many different pronunciations can you find for the spelling...ough?

Exercise What silent letter can you find in the words sword, knight, mortgage, doubt, align, would, psychology, honest, who? What ‘extra’ sound can you find in the pronunciation of the words use, cute, and one?

Conclusions Speech is heard as sequences of sound segments. Spelling does not accurately represent the sequences of sound we hear. We need a system of symbols for representing the sounds we hear if we are to study speech sounds.

The IPA The International Phonetic Alphabet –aims to provide symbols for every speech sound used in all languages. No language uses all of the sounds which the IPA can represent. We will look at the symbols which are useful for English.