1. Linguistic Anthropology
The Sounds of Language
Linguistic Anthropology

2. /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ Some English Phonemes Bilabial Stop Alveolar Stop
(“pot”)
/b/
(“bot”)
/t/
(“tot”)
/d/
(“dot”)
voiceless
voiced

3. /k/ /Ɂ/ /g/ Some English Phonemes Velar Stop Glottal Stop voiceless
(“kill”)
/g/
(“gill”)
/Ɂ/
(“uh-oh,” “Hawai’i”)
voiceless
voiced

4. /f/ /v/ /ɵ/ /ð/ Some English Phonemes Labiodental Fricative
Interdental Fricative
/f/
(“fine”)
/v/
(“vine”)
/ɵ/
(“thing,” “with”)
/ð/
(“that,” “smooth”)
voiceless
voiced

5. Alveopalatal Fricative
Some English Phonemes
Alveolar Fricative
Alveopalatal Fricative
/s/
(“sue”)
/z/
(“zoo”)
/ʃ/
(“shoe,” “wish”)
/ʒ/
(“vision,” “beige”)
voiceless
voiced

6. Alveopalatal Affricate
Some English Phonemes
Glottal Fricative
Alveopalatal Affricate
/ʧ/
(“chop,” “watch”)
/ʤ/
(“job,” “cage”)
/h/
(“happy”)
voiceless
voiced

7. /n/ /m/ Some English Phonemes Bilabial Nasal Alveolar Nasal (“mother”)
(“nope”)

8. (“ring-a-ding-ding”)
Some English Phonemes
Velar Nasal
/ŋ/
(“ring-a-ding-ding”)

9. /l/ /r/ Some English Phonemes Retroflex Liquid Lateral Liquid
(“really”)
/l/
(“later”)

10. /ʍ/ /w/ /j/ Some English Phonemes Bilabial Glide Alveolar Glide
(“wheel,” “which”)
/w/
(“wish”)
/j/
(“yellow,” “opinion”)
voiceless
voiced

11. Phonetics Acoustic Auditory Articulatory
physical properties of sound, sound waves
Auditory
perception of sounds, psychological “reality”
Articulatory
pronunciation of sounds, articulation
aka “descriptive phonetics”

12. Doing Phonological Research
Descriptive v prescriptive approaches
Transcription vs. spelling
Avoid using your own categories
Find out how the system operates on its own terms
Describe the patterns you find
Identify the units
Identify relationships between the units

13. Phonetic Charting Mapping the sounds of a language
Helps you to analyze and pronounce sounds
Helps you to analyze sound systems and to see patterns
Guides you in understanding accents

14. Consonants
different languages may use different sounds

15. Vowels

16. Diphthongs to back to center [uu] sue [ou] hoe [au] how [i] beer
to front
[ii] seen
[ai] sign
[i] boid
to back
[uu] sue
[ou] hoe
[au] how
to center
[i] beer
[e] bear
[a] bar
[] bore

17. ghoti gh, pronounced /f/ as in tough /tʌf/
o, pronounced /ɪ/ as in women /ˈwɪmɪn/
ti, pronounced /ʃ/ as in nation /ˈne͡ɪʃən/
/ˈfɪʃ/

18. Ghoughpteighbteau /poʊˈteɪtoʊ/
gh, pronounced /p/ as in hiccough /ˈhɪkʌp/
ough, pronounced /oʊ/ as in though /ðoʊ/
pt, pronounced /t/ as in ptomaine /ˈtoʊmeɪn/
eigh, pronounced /eɪ/ as in neigh /neɪ/
bt, pronounced /t/ as in debt /dɛt/
eau, pronounced /oʊ/ as in bureau /ˈbjʊəroʊ/
/poʊˈteɪtoʊ/

19. Phonology Sounds and their arrangements Phonetics & Phonemics
identify & describe sounds in detail (phones)
Phonemics
analyze arrangements of sounds
identify groupings of sounds (phonemes)
Examples:
English “pill” vs “spill -- [ph] + [p] = /p/
Hindi “phl” (fruit) vs “pl” (minute) -- [ph] + [p] = /ph / + /p/

20. Phones and Phonemes phone phoneme
smallest identifiable unit of sound in a language
more easily identified by outsiders
phoneme
smallest contrastive unit of sound in a language
heard as a single sound by insiders
Contrasts are not predictable

21. Variations a phoneme can be a single sound/phone
or it can be a group of sounds/phones
members of a group are usually similar
they are close on the phonetic chart
they sound like ‘variations’ of one another
members of a group are non-contrastive
they don’t mark differences in meaning
when such variations exist, they are called Allophones

22. Allophones are heard as ‘the same sound’ by native speakers
are usually ‘complementary’ to one another
we say they are in ‘complementary distribution’
because the variation is usually ‘conditioned’ by neighboring sounds,
we can also call this ‘conditioned variation.’

23. Phonemes vs. Allophones
non-contrastive
predictable distribution
[pn] and [spn]
phonemes
contrastive
non-predictable distribution
[pn] vs [tn].

24. Etics vs. Emics Ken Pike, 1950s Core concepts in anthropology Etics
outside, cross-cultural /comparative
absolute, objective
a step to emic analysis
Emics
inside, culture-specific
relative, subjective
a goal of emic analysis