Objectives of this chapter:

 to define the purposes of communication

 to understand the categories of vowel sounds
 to discuss phonetics as the branch dealing with the medium of speech
 to elaborate the description of vowels

INTRODUCTION

Language is an organization of sounds, of vocal symbols-the sounds produced from the

mouth with the help of various organs of speech to convey some meaningful message. Language
has a very important social purpose, because it is mainly used for linguistic communication. It is
the most powerful, convenient and permanent means and form of communication.

A language can be used in two ways for the purposes of communication. It can be spoken
or written but the medium of speech is more important than writing. This is because speech comes
first in the history of any language community – in fact, it came centuries before writing in the
history of any language community. Secondly, speech comes first in the history of any individual.
We started speaking long before we started writing. Speech as a medium of communication is used
much more than the medium of writing. I n every language, a letter of the alphabet represents a
particular sound.

Lastly, modern technology has contributed tremendously to the importance of speech-

modern inventions like the telephone, the radio, the tape recorder and several such devices have
raised problems of communication primarily concerned with speech.

English has fifteen vowel sounds represented by the letters a, e, i, o, and u. The
letters y, w and gh are also commonly used in vowel sound spellings. Vowel sounds are
produced with a relatively open vocal tract.

CATEGORIES OF VOWEL SOUNDS

Vowel sounds are divided into the following three categories:

  Long vowels (vowels that sound like the letter name)
 Short vowels (the most common sound for a single vowel spelling)
 Other vowels (the remaining vowel sounds)

THE BRANCH DEALING WITH THE MEDIUM OF SPEECH

Linguistics is a systematic study of language. Phonetics is a branch of linguistics and it is

the branch dealing with the medium of speech. It deals with the production, transmission and
reception of the sounds of human speech. For the production of speech sounds, we need an air-
stream mechanism. There are three main air-stream mechanisms, such as, pulmonic, glottalic and
velaric air-stream mechanisms. When the air-stream mechanism is used to push out, it is called
egressive and when it is used to draw air in, it is called ingressive. Most sounds of most languages
in the world are produced with a pulmonic egressive air-stream mechanism. The author described
in detail the various organs that are responsible for converting the lung-air into speech sounds
before it escapes into the outer atmosphere. For instance, if we say a prolonged ssss, a prolonged
zzzz, a prolonged ffff and a prolonged vvvv, we see at once two things. We recognize these as
speech sounds because these sounds occur in the various words we use in our English speech. The
other thing we notice is that each one of these sounds is different from the others.

Speech sounds are very broadly divided into two categories, namely, Vowels and
Consonants. If we say the English word shoe, we realize that this word is made up of two sounds,
one represented by the letters sh and the other represented by the letters oe. When we produce the
sound represented by the letters sh slowly, we realize that during the production of this sound, the
air escapes through the mouth with friction. On the other hand, when we produce the sound
represented by the letters oe, the air escapes through the mouth freely and we do not hear any
friction. The sound is represented by the letters sh in the word shoe is a consonant and the sound
represented by the letters oe in the word shoe is a vowel. All sounds during the production of which
we hear friction are consonants, but not all consonants are produced with friction.

If we say the words, she, shoe, shy, show, ship and shout, we will realize that when we
produce the sounds represented by the letters e, oe, y, ow, i and ou in these words, the air escapes
through the mouth freely without any friction. All these sounds are therefore vowels but each one
of them sounds different from the others. These sounds should therefore be sub-classified.
Similarly, if we say the words shoe, see, zoo and who, we will hear friction during the production
of the sounds represented by the letters sh, s, z and wh. All these sounds are therefore consonants.
But once again, we will see that each of them sounds different from the others. The sounds that
are called consonants also need to be sub-classified.

DESCRIPTION OF VOWELS

Vowels may be defined with an open approximation without any obstruction, partial or
complete, in the air passage. They are referred to as vocoids in phonetics. They can be described
in terms of three variables:

Height of tongue.

Part of the tongue which is raised or lowered.

Lip-rounding.

So vocoids are normally classified according to these three criteria: tongue-height (high,
mid, low, or close, half-close, half-open and open), tongue-advancement (front, central, back) and
lip-rounding (rounded and unrounded).

In order to describe the vowels, we usually draw three points in the horizontal axes: front,
central and back, referring to the part of the tongue which is the highest.

So, we have :

Front vowels, during the production of which the front of the tongue is raised towards the
hard palate. For example; / i, i: , e: , a / in Hindi, and / i, i: , e , æ / in English as in sit, seat, set, and
sat respectively.

Back vowels, during the production of which the back of the tongue is raised towards the
soft palate. For example; / o: , u , u: ,/ in Hindi, and / a: , ɔ , ɔ˕ , u , u: / in English as in cart,
cot, caught, book and tool respectively.

Central vowels, during the production of which the central part of the tongue ( the part
between the front and the back) is raised. For example; / ə / in Hindi, and / ə , ə: , ʌ / in
English as in about, earth and but respectively.

On the vertical axis, we usually draw four points: close, half-close, half-open, and open.
They are also referred to as high, high mid, mid (middle), low mid, and low by some phoneticians,
especially the American phoneticians. On the basis of the vertical axes, we have the following
types of vowels.

A close vowel is one for which the tongue is as close to the roof of mouth as possible. For
example; / i: / in sea and / u: / in zoo.

An open vowel is one which is produced with the tongue as low as possible and the jaws
are wide open. For example, / a: / in card and / É” / in hot.
 We can describe a vowel by using a three – term label, indicating the height, the direction
(advancement) of the tongue, and the position of the lips. For example;

/ a: / in the English word, arm, back, open, unrounded vowel.

/ É” / in the English word, hot, back, open, rounded vowel.

/ i: / in the English word, need, front, close, unrounded vowel.

/ u / in the English word, tooth, back, close, rounded vowel.

To describe the vowel sound, we mention whether it is open or close, half-close or half-
open, front or back or central, long or short, whether the tongue is tense or lax while the vowel is
being pronounced, and whether lips are spread, neutral, open rounded, or close rounded. All
English vowels are voiced. So, for every vowel, we must state that it is voiced.

CONCLUSION

Hence, to sum up, the main point of a language is to convey information. Nowadays,
language can take various forms. It can be spoken or written. Peter Ladefoged also talked in his
book that speech is the common way of using language. Another aspect of speech that is not part
of language is the way speech conveys information about the speaker’s attitude to life, the subject
under discussion and the person spoken to. The final kind of non-linguistic information conveyed
by speech is the identity of the speaker.

You can often tell the identity of the person who is speaking without looking at them. But
then again, we may be wrong. Whenever we speak, we create a disturbance in the air around us, a
sound wave, which is a small but rapid variation in air pressure spreading through the air. Speech
sounds such as vowels can differ in pitch, loudness and quality. We can say the vowel a as in father
on any pitch within the range of our voice. We can also say it softly or loudly without altering the
pitch. And we can say as many different vowels as we can, without altering either the pitch or the
loudness.
 The pitch of the sound depends on the rate of repetition of the changes in air pressure. The
loudness of the sound depends on the size of the variations in air pressure. The third way in which
sounds can differ is in quality, sometimes called timbre. The vowel in see differs in quality from
the first vowel in father., irrespective of whether it also differs in pitch or loudness.

Thus, Peter Ladefoged in his book has discussed the principal constraints on the evolution
of the sounds of the world’s languages, which are ease of articulation, auditory distinctiveness,
and gestural economy. He also discussed the differences between speech and language, and has
also outlined some of the main acoustic distinctions among sounds; and how one of the acoustic
distinctions, that corresponding to pitch, is used in the world’s languages.

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