I

Preface

English has been one of the most studied and researched

languages in Vietnam. When studying English, students are
expected to master the most important features of a word, e.g.
phonology, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics, in order to be
able to use the word appropriately linguistically. After years of
teaching English in general and linguistics in particular, I have
found that students need simple and clear instructions in the field
of phonetics and phonology, the field that many find confusing
'and hard to master. This small book is an attempt to present key
notions in phonetics and phonology in a fundamental and clear
way. Each notion is illustrated with explanation and examples so
that students are able to grasp the idea quickly and thoroughly.

It is a privilege and pleasure to acknowledge the contribution of

my students and colleagues to my understanding of the area of
linguistics. I am also grateful to the support I have received from
my family members, friends, and my university.

It is inevitable that this book would be inadequate in some way. I

Clearly structured and written in a highly accessible fashion, An would be grateful to receive feedback from readers so that the
lntroduction to English Linguistics: Phonetics ond Phonology provides perfection for this book could be added in the next version of
a practical coverage of the fundamentals of English phonetics and this work.
phonology, and can be used as a textbook for students of English
NGTJYEN TAT TIIANG
. Professor NGUYEN HOA (PhD)
DAI,AT TJNIVF]RST|Y
Chairman
Council of Science and Education, APRII, 20I7
University of Languages and International Studies
Vietnam National University, Hanoi

DIPIi'IHONGS AND'TRIPHI'HONGS .......... 40
Unit l. INTRODUCTION
Leamers of English as a foreign or a second language often find
it hard to master the sounds oi the Bnglish language. Just by
elancing at the word. leamers are not able to realize the
ironunciation of a word if they are not provided with certain
inowledge of phonetic or phonological disciplines, or if they are
not provided with the way how to pronounce the words by
certain fundamental sources. l'ake for example. the words bad,
bade, bead, and baud. These words difler from each other in the
vowel between the sound lbl and ldl even though they all contain
the letter a.
This difhculty does not confine itself in recognition of the
sounds but also in the production of sounds. Failure tn
recognition will result in improper or intelligible pronunciation
or at least in failure in understanding native speakers' ideas.
Take lor example, if a leamer is not able to realize the
application of the flapping rule in the phrase 'right away'
[raiDewei], he or she will not be able to understand the speaker's
intention.
It is like a rule of thumb that basic perception ol phonetic and
phonological comprehension will greatly benefit English
leamers. This is, therefore, the major goal of this book, i.e. to
provide learners of English with fundamental knowledge of
English phonetics and phonology for their better understanding
ofthe sounds ofthe language they are leaming.
l.l. What is linguistics?
It is a common idea that linguistics is the study of language.
Language is complicated. It is arbitrary. The origin of language is
probably one of the most complex topics in the human being's
 search for evidence, which \{'as once considcred as unsuitablelbr
serious studies. Peoples living below lif'e slandard bar could use
as subtle languages as those in civilized world. Moreover, the
relationship between language and its rel'erents. i.e. entities in
the world, is not close, i.e. arbitriuy. The place people lake
shelter could be called 'nhd' in Vietnamese, 'house' in Lnelish.
'maison' in F rench, and so on in dill'erent Ianguagcs.
Linguistics includes phonetics, phonology, morphology,
lexicology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics,
and so on. 1'he study of linguistics of one language is to help
leamers approach the goal of mastering that language. In this
book, the main lbcus is to present a general idea about basic
knowledge of English phonetics and phonology, the two most
fundamental aspects necessary lor a language leamer in studying
lJnglish.
1.2. What is phonetics?
When we speak a language, we combine words into phrases
and/or sentences 1tl convey the infbrmation we would like to
communicate. At the first sight, we may think that words are the
smallest units of language; however, when we come to the study
of'language, or more particularly linguistics, we know that words
consist of snaller segments, called sounds. 'fake the word pen lbr
example. Lelters p, e. and n represcnt the sounds of lpl, lcl and
/n/, and together, they combine into the pronunciation of /pen/.
The study ofhow sounds are produced and how to dcscribe rnese
sounds are called phonetics.
11is clear that human beings are able to produoe diflerent types of
-llhey
sounds. may make sounds of birds, of horses, or else.
However, phonetics is concerned with the sounds that constitute
6
meaningful signals. ollen'I rele'ned to as languages or spccch
in
is
human communication. hus. we can say that phonetics the
study of sPeech sounds'
of phonetics (and phonolog.v) is vital to linglish
The stud1,
leamers. especially thosc majoring in this language. since one
may master the grammar. own a wide range of vocabulary. bu1
may possibly fail to achicve an acccptable pronunciation, which
indicates his success in mastering the language.
In general, phonetics covcrs a broader scope of sound properties.
It consists of three sub-domains. i.e articulatory phonetics.
acoustic phonetics, and auditory phonetics. Acoustic phonetics is
concemed with the acoustic elements of speech sounds. e.g.
waveform, sound spectrum. etc. Audilory phonetics. as the name
indicates. is concemed with the factors relating to the hearing
and the perception of the sound. which could be fbund in the
design of a theater. for example.
This book confines itself in the study of articulatory phonetics,
which is concemed with how sounds are produced. Arliculalory
phonetics is significant in leaming a language since it helps
leamers figure out the way to produce a sound in that language.
which is vital in resulting in intelligible pronunciation in
communication.
1.3. The relation between sounds and spelling
In English. there is no onc-lo-one relationship between
writing/letters and pronunciation/sounds. Bnglish spelling system is
quite challenging. One letter may be pronounced differently in
different contexts, i.e. in different words. Take for examplc. lettcr a
may be pronounced [s] in an,lel in hat.lo:l in./ather. [eil in
mate, fcal in share. Or the combination of two letters t, is
pronounced as [0] in thank, thin,buL as [6] in thl.r, lhat, these.
Moreover, one sound may be represented by different letters.
This could be seen in the sound /k/ which is represented by letter
c in comb, and k in ftey. Another example could be the sound /i:/
which is spelled as ce in meet. eu in seu. or t, in sc'cne.
Regarding the number of sounds and letters, one letter does not
necessarily mean that it will be represented by one sound. In
contrast, one sound may be demonstrated by more than one
letter. Take for example, the words tea, hctt, and lctugh. The first
two words, i.e. tea and hat, both consist of 3 letters, but
regarding sounds, there are only 2 sounds in tea, ltil.l while there
are 3 sounds in the word hat fttatl. The last word, laugh lla:fl,
includes 5 letters, but when we pronounce it, we have only 3
sounds. Also, in some cases, one letter may be illustrated by two
sounds, e.g. letter x is pronounced as /ks/ in excuse or sex.
While some letters represented in words are not pronounce!, e.g.
b in lamb, h in hour, w in write, some sounds are inserted in the
pronunciation of a word eventhough there are no letters
corresponding to the sounds prcsented in writing, e.g. l1l in
university or cute.
Due to the above mentioned loosen relationship belween written
lbrm and spoken lbrm of the English words, leamers of English
must try to bvoid the confusion of this phenomenon. The reasons
for this phenomenon could be diverse. It could come lrom the
origins of the words, the change of the pronunciation as time
goes by, the different dialects in difl'erent regions, etc.
we could rcly on a system of sound
English sounds.
representation. i.e. the International Phonetic Alphabet.
1.4. The International Phonetic Alphabet - IPA
Initiated by French linguist Paul Passy in late l9'h cenlury, the
IPA is now a significant and effective system of coding human
language sounds (phones or phonemes). The main principle of the
IPA is to use one symbol to represent one single sound in the
human language regardless of how many letters that sound is
demonstrated. Although the name of this system includes the
d,ord "intemational", there is a slight difference between different
versions used in different languages, and even in English in
different nations such as British English, American English, etc.
One of the best ways to learn how to pronounce English correctly
is to learn each individual sound first. The English sounds are
represented by different symbols. There are 26 different letters in
English, but there are more than 40 sounds in English. The IPA
uses symbols to represent sounds. Some symbols are similar to the
letters they represent, e.g. lbl, ltl, /d/. liowever, some symbols are
totally different from the letter they represent, e.g. lrl, lal, lt/.
In English, the sounds are categorized into three groups:
consonants, vowels, and diphthongs. The following table will
demonstrate all the symbols representing sounds in English.

In order to simplily the process of pronunciation lor leamers of

English, thus enhancing the process ofrecognizing and producing

8
 pleasure, vision,

Sounds/ Commonly Examples

Symbols represented by
p p pen, happen, stop

b b bid, baby, job need, knife, funny, fan

t t te4 turtle, hot
d d day, deduce, need
k car, key, concur, cookie,
k, c, ch cook. mechanic. chemical
c good, bigger, bag
s
d ch, ture chair. nature. church
ds j, age, dg iuice, aging, iudge
five, coffee, physics, laugll
f f, ph, gh tough, cough

v van, vivid, love she, see, meet, seed, me,

e se4 tea
th think, healthy, smooth yield, receive
6 th this, other, with
s u
s,c see, gas, city, nicest, advice rude, June, do, move, room,
o, oo
z ew
tool, kook, crew, chew,
s,z zebra. music. rose flew, jewel, blue, true, fruit,
ue, ui
I sh, tion short, sure, nation, wish ou
juice, group, through, route
 oo look, book, lbot, good, (br your discovcry' wc
To simplify the issue, basic foundation
Fr u
ou
put, push, pull, full, sugar,
would, could, should
aooly ihe long /i:/ as in ,redl and short /r/ as in hil. It is
to see that when thc lelter'y' is in thc final position.
u "ornrnon
but, encumber, crush, it is pronounced as lil. e.g. difliculty I'df]lKaltil.
o
above, encourage
ou
o Sometimes. it is a little confusing since different sources (i'e'
a(r) father, amr, bam, half, books, publishers, and linguists) present slightly difi-erent
dance, class symbols lor some sounds:
correlate, correspond,
or
,o: o
conidor Sounds /ei and ltl - In Oxford dictionary. the word &ed is
dot, dog, hot transcribed as /bed/, but in Cambridge dictionary, it is ,ibedl.
or port, mo(al, long,
f: o lawyer Sounds /r/ and lel are in some words used interchangeably.
aw, au F'or example. the word policy is transcribed as /'pohsi/ in
about, brutal, an, taken, Oxford Dictionary, but as /'polesi/ in Longman and
a violent, Cambridge Dictionaries.
o,i
memory, family
serve, herb, bum, hurt, girl, Sounds /a/. la:l and lz.l - On online Oxford dictionary, the
er! ur, lr sir, bird word bird is transcribed as /ba:d/, but in online Longman and
or, ear work, word, heard, eam, Cambridge dictionaries, it is /b::d/.
eamest, earth
1.7. Diphthongs
set, sell, press
e bread,
dead, weather, leather Commonly Examples
Sounds/
hat, bad, land, cat, man Symbols represented by
(class, last, ... Ame. English) near. hear, beard
IE beer, steer, engineer
Notes
Sounds /i:/, li/ and /l - You may possibly find in some sources ua u sure. pure, lure, cure
that the author may present the long vowel /i:/ as in 6eal. short
al hair, stair,
vowel /r/ as in sl'i, and the symbol /i/ at times in final positions eal care, bare,
as in busy lbrzi/, city /'srti/, plic.y I'pohsit, dreumily /dri:mrli/. are
However, the distinctiveness between /i:l and lil is not clear
enough to consider them as two separate vowels.

l3
-

DESCRIBING CONSONANTS
ice, find, ride, smile, tie,
lie, die, vocd trrct
tr l, le
Y, uY
ire
my, cry, cycle, style,
apply, buy
fire, hire, wire, expire,
that human sounds come from our mouth.
. all relaled parts in our mouth and neck that function
empire of language sounds are called the vocal tract
voice, join, noise, coin, below). It is important for leamers of language in
oi
FI oy
point, toil, boy, toy,
loyal, royal, destroy
and English in particular to rmderstand the vocal tract,
is an important aspect that help them accurately produce
a
late, make, race, able, The diagmm below will illustrate the major parts of the
stable, lips, tongue, and jaw. These are the parts that are
ai, ay aim, rain, wait, play, say, the easiest to control voluntarily.
FT ei, ey
day,
eight, weight, they, hey,
ea prey
break, great, steak
go, note, open, old, most, olar ridge
palate
o phone, solar, low, know,
L

palate

m ow
snow, blown, grow
road, boat, low, own,
bowl
cords
tmgue

ig ou
ow
out, about, house, mouse,
now, brown, cow, owl,
Powder
oftongue
oftongue

Exercises
Voc al Tr ac t Il lus tr at ion
l. What is the relationship between sounds and spelling in
English? Give examples to support your answer.
2. Why do we need the IPA?
3. How many consonants/vowelVdiphthongs are there idea to start the description of major parts of the
English? Find words that have those sounds. (your own from the lips and inwards.
not the words listed above).

t4 l5