María A.

Martín Díaz
(+34)922317655
mmartind@ull.es

UNIT 1 – GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1. Phonetics and Phonology: two branches of the Linguistic Sciences.

 Phonetics is the scientific study of speech sounds / phones / phonic substance (any
speech sound a person is able to produce).

 Phonetics deals with allophones, realizations or variants of the abstract units

called phonemes.

 Phonology is the scientific study of the selection, function and organization of

speech sounds into a given system.

 Phonology deals with phonemes “the smallest contrastive phonological unit

which can produce a difference in meaning”

1.1.1. Phonetics

 Phoneticians are only interested in sounds that are used in meaningful speech, and
in discovering the range and variety of sounds used in this way in all the known
languages of the world.

 The central concerns in phonetics are:

1. The discovery of how speech sounds are produced
2. How they are used in spoken language
3. How we can record speech sounds with written symbols
4. How we hear and recognise different sounds

 In 1, when we study the production of speech sounds, we can observe what

speakers do (articulatory observation) and we can try to feel what is going on
inside our vocal tract.

 In the second area, phonetics overlaps with phonology since in order to know how
sounds are used you need to understand how they function and how they can be
organized.

 Thirdly, phonetics needs agreed conventions for using phonetic symbols that
represent speech sounds.

 In 4, phonetics deals with the auditory aspect where it is shown that the ear is
capable of making fine discriminations between different sounds.
 María A. Martín Díaz
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mmartind@ull.es

 Phonetics looks at human speech as a speech-chain that starts in the speaker’s

brain (where a psychological activity drives the speaker to arrange his/her
thoughts into a linguistic form) and ends in the listener’s brain (where a
psychological activity stimulates the hearer to decodes the linguistic message in
order to recognize it).

 Within these two ends of the speech-chain, a physiological activity takes place. In
it, the speaker’s vocal tract, the transmission of sound through the air and the
listener’s ear will constitute stages of primary importance:

- The articulatory stage, where muscles are activated in order to produce the
sound.
- The acoustic stage, where the movement of these muscles produces sound
waves that must reach the listener’s ear.
- The auditory stage, where the vibration of these sound waves reaches the
listener’s ear muscles, whose movements must be interpreted by the
listener’s brain.

 Each of these stages constitute the domain of the three main branches of
phonetics:
- Articulatory phonetics  It studies speech production and tries to
understand the anatomy of speech and the airstream mechanisms.
- Acoustic phonetics  It studies the speech sound as a physical event in
which sounds are regarded as waves whose amplitude, intensity, duration
and pitch are investigated and interpreted.
- Auditory phonetics  It studies the way in which humans perceive speech
sounds. This hearing process involves the understanding of the human
hearing system and its three central components: the outer ear, the middle
ear and the inner ear.

1.1.2. Phonology

 Phonology studies how sounds interact as a system in a particular language, how

they combine and how they change in combination, as well as which sounds can
contrast to produce differences in meaning (phonemes).

 The first stage of phonological analysis simply involves an exhaustive phonetic

analysis.

 In a second stage, phonology is concerned with determining which sounds are

redundant and which phonemic (identification of minimal pairs).
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Figure taken from http://mcgregor.continuumbooks.net/chapter/2/4/

 The allophones of a phoneme can be:

- In complementary distribution  When they are mutually exclusive and
they can never occur in the place of another.
- In free variation  When they are not conditioned by the context and they
may occur in the same environment without being in contrast.

 One can go beyond the phoneme and look into the detailed characteristics of each
unit in terms of distinctive features; the way in which sounds can combine in a
language is studied in phonotactics and in the analysis of syllable structure.

 In suprasegmental phonology, the study of stress, rhythm and intonation has led to
new approaches to phonology.

 For some phonologists the most important area is the relationships between the
different phonemes – how they form groups, the nature of the oppositions
between them and how those oppositions may be neutralised (elimination of a
phonemic distinction in a particular phonological context).
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(+34)922317655
mmartind@ull.es

1.2. Articulatory phonetics

 Within Articulatory phonetics two basic segments of speech are differentiated:

- Consonants
- Vowels

 The production of consonants involves some sort of obstruction to the airstream in

the vocal tract.

 The classification of consonants is along 3 criteria:

1. The place of articulation  Where does the obstruction or closure
(stricture1) occur?
2. The manner of articulation  What type of obstruction or stricture
is involved?
3. The state of the glottis/voicing  Do the vocal cords vibrate or not?

 According to the place of articulation, consonants can be classified into:

- Labial
- Bilabial
- Labiodental
- Coronal
- Dental
- Interdental
- Alveolar
- Retroflex
- Palato-alveolar
- Palatal
- Dorsal
- Velar
- Glottal

 According to the manner of articulation, consonants can be classified as:

- Plosives: Characterized by the closure, the hold, the release and the
post-release phases.
- Fricatives: The air stream is pushed out through a narrowing (light
contact) of the two articulatory organs or articulators and a friction
may be heard.
- Affricates: Complex phonemes in which there is a sequence of a
stop followed by a homorganic fricative.
- Nasals: Characterized by a complete closure in the oral cavity.
- Approximants: Characterized by an approximation of the
articulating organs with no production of friction or turbulent
airstream.
- Laterals: Characterised by the way in which the air escapes through
one or both sides of the tongue.
- Taps: An active articulator taps against a passive one (i.e. Sp. faro).
- Rolls: It is produced by a rapid succession of taps where intermittent
closures are technically occur (i.e. Sp. perro).
1
Term introduced by K.L. Pike in Phonetics: A Critical Analysis of Phonetic Theory and a
Technic for the Practical Description of Sounds (1943) to indicate the partial or complete closure
of an air passage.
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(+34)922317655
mmartind@ull.es

 According to the state of the glottis/voicing, consonants are regarded as:

- Voiced
- Voiceless

 The production of vowels involves less obstruction than that of consonants as the
flow of air passes from the larynx to the lips.

 In order to be able to express graphically the different vocalic phonemes we can

use a quadrilateral (usually referred to as Hellwag’s triangle since it started being
an isosceles triangle designed by this author) representing the space that the
tongue occupies in the mouth when we produce vowels (vowel diagram).

 The diagram below represents D. Jones’s Cardinal Vowel Chart, which relates to:
ii. The manner of articulation (according to which we can classify
vowels into close, half-close or close-mid, half-open or open-mid,
and open)
iii. The point of articulation (according to which we can classify vowels
into front, central and back)
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 Cardinal vowels are abstractions, that is, they do not belong to any particular
language, and therefore their quality is invariable. For example the sound [i] (CV-
1) is produced by raising the tongue as close as possible to the palate without
causing friction.

 They are situated on the limits of the vowel diagram and are used as reference
points. The vowel sounds of any language can be identified by comparing them
with the system of cardinal vowels.

 Consonants and vowels as the basic segments of speech form syllables, then
larger units such as words, and later complete utterances.

 Superimposed on these segments are a number of additional features known as

suprasegmental features, which will be developed later in this course.

 Applications of phonetics include:

- Forensic phonetics  A branch of phonetics concerned with research and
analysis of aspects of speech relevant for the legal system.
- Speech Recognition  The translation of spoken words into text.

1.3. The organs of speech

 All the sounds we make when we speak are the result of muscles contracting.

 It all starts in the chest where the muscles that we use for breathing produce the
flow of air that is needed for almost all speech sounds.

 From the lungs to the mouth, this flow of air is differently modified by the
muscles in the larynx.

 After passing through the larynx, the air goes through the vocal tract, which ends
at the mouth and nostrils, where the articulators give a definite shape to the
different speech sounds.

 In English, all speech sounds are initiated by a pulmonic egressive airstream

which is then pushed through the larynx, and then proceeds through the glottis
into the vocal tract.

 The larynx is a box made of cartilage across which two strips of muscles lie, the
vocal cords/folds. They produce audible vibration as the result of air being forced
through a narrow opening between the vocal cords: the glottis.
 María A. Martín Díaz
(+34)922317655
mmartind@ull.es

 The quality of an existing sound also depends on the cavities or resonators

(hollow spaces containing air) in the speech chain.

 The human speech mechanism has three resonators:

- The pharynx
- The nasal cavity
- The oral cavity

 The oral cavity is the most important resonator, due to the great mobility of its
organs (changes of size and shape)

 In the vocal tract (the long tubular structure formed by these cavities), the
airstream is modified by means of several organs called articulators:

- Active articulators: They can actively affect the airstream.

- Passive articulators: They serve as contact positions for the active
articulators.
 María A. Martín Díaz
(+34)922317655
mmartind@ull.es

1.4. The phonemic symbols

 Since the orthography of the languages is only imperfectly phonetic and since the
number of speech sounds exceeds the number of characters in the Roman
alphabet, the IPA alphabet was designed as a separate system to represent the
actual sounds of the human language.

 This alphabet has a distinctive symbol for every sound in human speech and is
applicable to all languages.

 For the purpose of accuracy in phonetic detail, phoneticians have developed

systems of transcriptions which are:

- Narrow: It makes use of allophones. Here details are taken account, and the
symbols are enclosed between [square brackets].
- Broad: It makes use of phonemes. Here details are not taken account and the
symbols are enclosed between /slant bars/.

 Names of English symbols

- Vowels:
- No. 1  Lower-case i /i:/
- No. 2  Small capital i /I/
- No. 3  Lower-case e /e/
- No. 4  Ash /æ/
ᵅ
- No. 5  Script a / :/
- No. 6  Turned script a / /
- No. 7 Open o /ᴐ:/
ᶛ
- No. 8  Upsilon /Ʊ/
- No. 9  Lower-case u /u:/
- No. 10 Turned v /Ʌ/
- No. 11  Reversed epsilon /3:/
- No. 12  Schwa /ə/

- Consonants:
- Lower-case p /p/
- Lower-case b /b/
- Lower-case t /t/
- Lower-case d /d/
- Lower-case k /k/
- Lower-case g /g/
- Lower-case f /f/
- Lower-case v /v/
- Theta /θ/
- Eth /ð/
- Lower-case s /s/
- Lower-case z /z/
- Esh/Long s /ʃ/ or Wedge s /š/
- Yogh/Long z /Ʒ/ or Wedge z /ž/
- Lower-case h /h/
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(+34)922317655
mmartind@ull.es

- T-Esh ligature /ʧ/ or T-Wedge s ligature /tš/

- D-Yogh liature/ʤ/ or D-Wedge z ligature /dž/
- Lower-case m /m/
- Lower-case n /n/
- Eng / Angma /ŋ/
- Lower-case l /l/
- Lower-case r /r/
- Lower-case j /j/
- Lower-case w /w/

 We will see IPA suprasegmentals in detail in unit 5.

1.5. English Accents: RP and GenAm as International Languages

 There are two main accents used as reference accents for the teaching of English
pronunciation: “RP” (Received Pronunciation) and “General American”
(GenAm).

 Broadly, you can say that RP is a standard form of British pronunciation accepted
as reference in England and Wales. GenAm is the standard pronunciation in the
USA.

 Especially in the British Isles, there is a huge variety of accents, and a vast
majority of speakers speak some type of a local accent; currently, these can be
heard from the broadcast media, and are widely accepted. Speakers of RP are a
minority.

 In the US, there is more prejudice towards non-standard accents (especially towards
Southern or North-Eastern accents), but a smaller proportion of the population speak those.

 You need to be aware of the differences between the two standards at least
passively to be able to understand spoken native English more comfortably.

 It is also a good idea to try to aim for one of the two standards in your own
pronunciation, and to be generally consistent about it. Mixing the two standards in
an unpredictable way tends to cause problems to listeners, and may be highly
confusing.

 Any two English accents can differ from each other in four ways:

- Systemic: differences in the number (presence/absence) of specific sounds

(phonemic inventory):
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mmartind@ull.es

 GenAm has /ɑː/ where RP has /ɒ/, thus God /ɡɑːd/ vs. /ɡɒd/, stop.
 GenAm has /æ/ where RP has “broad a” /ɑː/, thus dance /dæns/ vs.
/dɑːns/.

- Distributional: which sounds are used in which words:

 Most of England, including RP, is non-rhotic, while GenAm, and
most of North America is rhotic.
 GenAm generally avoids /tj dj sj nj/ at the beginnings of words,
thus dune /duːn/, tune /tuːn/vs. RP /djuːn/, /tjuːn/.

- Lexical: some words have, incidentally, different pronunciations

GenAm RP

progress ’pra:gres ’prƏƱgres

z zi: zed
neither ’ni:đƏr ’naIđƏ
lieutenant lu:’tenƏnt lef’tenƏnt
tomato tƏ’meItoƱ tƏ’ma:tƏƱ
schedule ’skedƷu:l ’ʃedju:l

- Phonetic: essentially the same phonemes are realized in different ways.

 /æ/ is “higher” in GenAm.
 /ɔː/ much “higher” and quite rounded in modern RP.
 In the RP goat diphthong, there is no initial lip rounding, thus
/ɡəʊt/.
 The tapping of /t/ is practically obligatory in GenAm.
 There is a distinct clear-dark distribution for /l/ in RP.
 Glottalization of /t, tʃ/ and (less often) /p, k/ is much more common
in all accents of British English

1.6. Practice

- Match Phonemes with Pictures

- Articulation Description Exercise
- Speech Animator
- Fill-in-the-gap exercises
- Exercise on cardinal vowels
- Dictations
- Dialogues
- English accents