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2. Course Code: EL English Phonetics and Linguistics Lecture 2 Unit 2: Phonetics I English Sounds and Letters Unit 3: Phonetics II English Consonants

3. English Letters
English has 26 letters/alphabets, each can be written either as Small letters / lower case and Capital letters/upper case.
Each letter may sound differently in different words, eg, letter ‘C’ is pronounced as /k/ in college, cat, crop etc. Also it is pronounced as /s/ in city, cinema, centre etc.
The first letter in many English words must be a capital letter. Some of them are
* names of days and months
* names of countries, cities, seas, oceans, rivers, lakes, mountains
*names of people (proper names)
*names of institutions
*first word in a sentence
English Sounds and Letters
In writing, a word consists of letters, whereas in speech a word is made up of sounds. Eg, word ‘laugh’ is made up of 5 letters l; a; u; g; h.
In speech, it is made up of three sounds only /l/ /a:/ /f/
Symbols b/w slant lines or slashes [ / / ] are referred to as sounds. Sometimes square brackets [ ] are used.
English language has more sounds than letters; English has 44 sounds and 26 letters.
Consonant sounds (opposite vowel sounds) in English , see page 23-24

4. Some letters commonly stand for a certain sound; eg. k, b, l and m.
Some letters may be pronounced in more than one way; eg. ‘s’
There are certain consonant sounds in English that have no single letter to stand for them. They are represented by a combination of two consonants eg. ‘th’
There is no one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds in English
Same letter having different pronunciations
See page 25
Same sound represented by different letters
See page 26-27
In English alphabet, there are 5 vowels and 21 consonants.
Phonetics – the fundamental branch of linguistics, is the study of sounds made by human voice
Linguistics – the scientific study of language
Phonetics has 3 main branches: Articulatory, Acoustic, Auditory
Letters have no meaning of their own, when they combine with each other, they make words that have meanings. Eg. r+ a + t= rat
If we replace the first letter in this word by another letter, the meaning of the word changes, eg, cat, fat, hat.

5. Organs of Speech
Speech sounds are produced by air coming from the lungs and passing through the mouth or through the nose.
Speech sounds are made by modifying the air flow ( airstream) passing through the mouth or nose by moving the tongue and other organs (eg. Lips) in and around the mouth. The muscles and organs that take part in producing sounds are called Organs of Speech.
Vocal Tract : refers to the cavities in the head and neck associated with the production of speech. These are the oral cavity, nasal cavity and the Pharynx.
1. Windpipe [Trachea] : The tube which carries air out from the lungs to the larynx and the vocal tract.
2. The Larynx: It is known as ‘Adam’s apple’ or ‘voice box’. It is a box like organ placed at the top of the windpipe. The importance of Larynx in speech is that it contains vocal cords.
3. Vocal cords: a pair of folds (muscles) placed inside Adam’s apple. Their edges move quickly backwards and forwards and produce sound when air from the lungs moves over them. Sounds produced when the vocal cords are vibrating are called voiced sounds, as opposed to those in which vocal cords are apart are said to be unvoiced or voiceless sounds.

6. 4. The Pharynx: It’s a soft part at the top of the throat which connects the mouth and nose to the Larynx.
5. Oral Cavity (Mouth): It contains following organs that play an important role in modifying the passage of the air flow coming from the lungs.
The Tongue:
-most important organ of speech
-very flexible, can be raised or lowered at diff points:
front, center, back
-For the purpose of describing sounds, the tongue is divided into five points/parts: tip, blade, front, back, root
The Roof of the Mouth
It is divided into the alveolar ridge, the hard palate, the velum or soft palate, the uvula.
The Lips
It plays an important role in modifying and controlling the air flow. They can be closed, spread or rounded.
6. The Nasal Cavity: It extends from the upper part of pharynx to the nostrils. When the velum is lowered , the air stream pass through the nose producing nasal sounds like /m/ and /n/.

7. Two major classes of sounds: Consonants and Vowels
Consonants are produced by stopping the air from flowing freely through the mouth, eg, by closing the lips or touching the teeth with the tongue. (/b/, /p/, /m/)
Vowels are produced when the air flows out through the mouth without being blocked by teeth, tongue or lips. Eg, the middle sounds in the following words ‘teach’, ‘books’, ‘sun’ etc.
The 24 English consonants are divided into 7 classes
Stop/Plosives: Sound is produced when the air stream is completely blocked at certain points in the vocal tract. eg, /p/, /b/
Fricatives: In the production of fricatives, there is no complete closure of the air passage, it is rather narrowed so the air rubs against the organs of speech. eg, /f/ and /v/.
Affricates: In the production of these sounds, there is first a total closure of the air stream and then it is allowed to pass out through a narrow passage but it does so slowly, not suddenly as in the case of plosives.eg, the first and last sounds of ‘church’, and ‘judge’. (p. 37)
Nasal: In nasal sounds, the soft palate is lowered so that air stream flows out through the nose. Eg,/m/, /n/,and last sound in ‘sing’ (p.37)

8. 5. Approximants [glide]
In the production of these sounds, the active articulator(A certain part of
tongue is raised towards the roof of the mouth) moves close to the
passive articulator(the roof of the mouth) but with out a point of contact. Eg, /j/, /w/
6. Laterals
The term relates to the sides of the tongue and the air flows through the
two sides of the tongue.eg, the word ‘lull’.
7. Trill
It consists of a series of rapid closures b/w two articulators, eg. the
alveolar /r/ in ‘trill’.
See the table in page 38
According to the place of articulation, the consonants are labelled as
1. Bilabial 2. Labiodental 3. Labio-velar 4. Dental 5. Alveolar 6. Post-
alveolar 7. Palatal 8. Velar 9. Glottal
( See the details on page 39)

9.
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