Topic 7

SUMMARY
Plantilla resumenes.dot
ENGLISH
TOPIC 7. Phonological system

of the English language:
vowels. Phonetic symbols.
Strong and weak forms. The
diphthongs phonetic symbols.
Comparison with the
DOCUMENTO3
phonological system of the

languages of the
corresponding autonomous
SUMMARY TOPIC 7
INDEX
INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 5
1. THE NATURE OF SPEECH ............................................................................. 7
1.1 PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY ................................................... 7
1.2 PHONEMES............................................................................... 8
2. THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF ENGLISH.......................................................... 9
2.1. THE ENGLISH VOWEL SYSTEM ................................................... 9
2.2. A DESCRIPTION OF ENGLISH VOWELS ....................................... 10
2.2 THE ENGLISH DIPHTHONGS ..................................................... 18
2.3 A DESCRIPTION OF ENGLISH DIPHTHONGS ................................ 19
CONCLUSIONES .........................................................................................21
1
SUMMARY TOPIC 7
3
SUMMARY TOPIC 7
INTRODUCTION
Teaching pronunciation is a fundamental feature of successful communi-
cation (Eva Roid, 2016). When we study English is important to study its
vocalic system in order to understand the differences between English
and Spanish as well as the organ involved in its production, in order to
facilitate its realization. In fact, the Common European Framework rec-
ommends teaching pronunciation from the very beginning.
For that purpose, a revision of concepts such as phonetics and phonology
will be carried out. After that we will focus on the vocalic sounds: short
and long vowels together with diphthongs.
5
OPOSICIONES SECUNDARIA INGLÉS
6
SUMMARY TOPIC 7
1. THE NATURE OF SPEECH

Speech is the ability of expressing thoughts, perceptions and feelings by
articulating word through oral and nasal sounds (Webster’s College Dic-
tionary). Speech sounds can be classified into: individual sounds, glides
(incidental transitory sounds) and prosodies (suprasegmental features).
The notion of speech involves not just individual sounds (phones, lineal
features…) but also connected sounds, whose variations go from ellipsis
(/r/ in hose) to a long degree. Semantically, length is a distinctive feature.
1.1 PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

Phonetics is the study of sounds and their production transmission and
reception, their analysis and classification and transcription (The Diction-
ary.com).
Phonetics studies speech sounds according to their production in the
vocal organs, their physical properties or their effect on the ear (auditory
7
phonetics). Phonetics deals with phonemes as semantic entities, the evo-
lution of sounds and the range of ways to articulate sound.
Phonology focuses on the study of the distribution and patterning of
speech sounds in a language and the rules governing language pronun-
ciation (The Dictionary.com). It attempts to account for how speech
sounds are combined and organised to convey meaning. It deals with
physiology of sounds, the speaking and the selection and patterns of
sounds.
1.2 PHONEMES
Phonemes are units of significant sound in a given language (The Oxford
English Dictionary). The phoneme is a part of a morpheme where it has
a distinctive function when occurs in a strong position and a contrastive
function when in a weak position. In weak position, where sound varia-
tions do not indicate a change in meaning, they are called allophones.
8
SUMMARY TOPIC 7
2. THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF ENGLISH

From a phonetic point of view vowels and consonants are distinguished
by articulation and the acoustic energy. From a phonological point of
view vowels and consonants are used to structure and articulate the lan-
guage.
Vowels are articulated with open vocal tract and no audible friction while
consonants involve friction and they can be voiced (vibration of the vocal
cords) or voiceless (no vibration of the vocal cords).
There are 20 vocalic sounds and 22 consonant sounds, plus two semi-
vowels in British Standard English (Bre). Most varieties of English have
syllabic consonants in some vowels: bottle or rhythm.
2.1. THE ENGLISH VOWEL SYSTEM

There are 12 vowel phonemes and 8 vowel glides or diphthongs. All of
them are voiced. They can be described attending to the following fea-
turs:
a) Lip position: spread/neutral/open or close rounded.
b) Tongue position: the highest point of the tongue from front to
back.
9
c) Height: tongue is raised or lowered from close to open.
d) Tenseness: tongue muscular tension from tense to lax.
e) The opening between the jaws form wide to narrow.
f) Nasalization: the position of the soft palate can be raised or low-
ered.
Quantity is important. 5 o the 12 pure vowel phonemes are relatively
long in duration while the other 7 are relatively short.
2.2. A DESCRIPTION OF ENGLISH VOWELS

2.1.1 English vowel 1 /i:/
- Description:
o Lips: unrounded.
o Tongue: front.
o Height: nearly close.
o Tension: tense.
o Jaws: narrow to medium.
o Palate: raised.
o Quality: Spanish i in vino.
o Quantity: long.
10
SUMMARY TOPIC 7
o Spelling: ee, ea, as in tree, meat. But also in eve, machine,
field, key, people, receive, Caesar…
2.2.2. English vowel 2 /i/
- Description:
a) Lips: unrounded.
b) Tongue: front.
c) Height: half-close.
d) Tension: lax.
e) Jaws: narrow to medium.
f) Palate: raised.
- Quality: short.
- Spelling: i (internal), y (final): bit, heavy…But also in foreign, cof-
fee, women, build, sieve…
2.2. 3 English vowel 3 /e/
- Description:
a) Lips: unrounded.
b) Tongue: front.
c) Height: between half-open and half-close.
d) Tension: tense.
11
e) Jaws: medium.
f) Palate: raised.
- Quality: Spanish /e/ (not so open). Intermediate between French
ê in même.
- Quantity: short.
- Spelling: e: met, bed… But also in dead, said, friend…
2.2.4. English vowel 4 /ae/
- Description:
a) Lips: unrounded.
b) Tongue: front.
c) Height: between half-open and open.
d) Tension: tense.
e) Jaws: medium to wide.
f) Palate: raised.
- Quality: intermediate between an open variety of /e/ and a closer
sound of French in a in la.
- Quantity: short.
- Spelling: a: man, bad…But also ai as in plaid
2.2.5. English 5 /a:/
12
SUMMARY TOPIC 7
- Description:
a) Lips: neutral.
b) Tongue: nearer the back.
c) Height: fully open.
d) Tension: tense.
f) Palate: raised.
- Quality: Parisian â in pâte.
- Quantity: long.
- Spelling: a+l: palm; a+f/s/th: staff; also aunt, heart, clerk…
2.2.6. English vowel 6 /o/
- Description:
a) Lips: open lip-rounding.
b) Tongue: back.
c) Height: fully open.
d) Tension: lax
f) Palate: raised.
- Quality: opener than French o in note.
- Quantity: short.
13
- Spelling: o in hot; w+a : what; au: cauliflower; also yacht,
Gloucester, gone…
2.2.7. English vowel 7 /o:/
- Description:
a) Lips: between open and close lip-rounding.
b) Tongue: back.
c) Height: between open and half-open.
d) Tension: tense.
e) Jaws: medium to fairly wide.
f) Palate: raised.
- Quality: English /o/ pronounced with lips in the position of
French and German o in wohl.
- Quantity: long.
- Spelling: au/aw: author; or: nor, short, our: pour; ought: bought;
ore: more; and also broad, water, wrath…
2.2.8. English vowel 8 /u/
-Decription:
a) Lips: fairly close lip-rounding.
b) Tongue: back.
14
SUMMARY TOPIC 7
c) Height: half-close.
d) Tension: lax.
e) Jaws: medium.
f) Palate: raised.
- Quality: more lax than Spanish u in duro.
- Quantity: short.
- Spelling: u in put, ook in book; oot in boot, ood in good, ould
in would; also wolf, woman, Worcester…
2.2.9. English vowel 9 /u:/
- Description:
a) Lips: close lip-rounding.
b) Tongue: back.
c) Height: nearly close.
d) Tension: tense.
e) Jaws: narrow to medium.
f) Palate: raised.
- Quality: French our in rouge.
- Quantity: long.
- Spelling: oo in food; o in do; ou in soup; u in rule, ew in blew;
also in beauty, shoe…
15
2.2.10 English vowel 10 /˄/
- Description:
a) Lips: spread.
b) Tongue: back.
c) Height: half-open.
d) Tension: tense.
e) Jaws: wide.
f) Palate: raised.
- Quality: unrounded French o in bonne.
- Quantity: short.
- Spelling: u as in cup; o as in son; ou as in rough, oo as in flood;
also does.
2.2.11. English vowel 11 / :/ ᵊ

-Description:
a) Lips: spread.
b) Tongue: central.
c) Height: mid-way between open and close.
d) Tension: tense.
16
SUMMARY TOPIC 7
e) Jaws: narrow.
f) Palate: raised.
- Quality: neutral sound similar to German e in bite but longer.
- Quantity: long.
- Spelling: er, ir, ur as in her, girl, fur; ear as in pearl, wor as in
world; our as in journey; also amateur, colonel (French origin).
2.2.12 English vowel 12 / / ᵊ

-Description:
a) Lips: neutral.
b) Tongue: central.
c) Height: mid-way.
d) Tension: extremely lax.
e) Jaws: narrow.
f) Palate: raised.
- Quality: neutral sound similar to German e in bite.
- Quantity: extremely short.
- Spelling: it is subjected to variation due to speaker an adjoining
sound. Very short and vague: the, a, lemon…; raised higher next to
k and g: condemn, final position in china, picture…
17
2.2 THE ENGLISH DIPHTHONGS

These are glide sounds beginning as one vowel and ending as an-
other. They are defined as two vowels pronounced in quick, unbroken
succession within a syllable, and connected by a gliding series of re-
lated sounds (Wise, 1958). They arose from the conjunction of long
or short vowels with a following /u/ and of /a/ or /o/ with a following
/i/. They can be classified into:
a) Length: they behave like long vowels.
b) Height: closing diphthongs move from an open vowel to a close
one while in opening diphthongs the second element is more
open than the first.
c) Narrowness: narrow diphthongs en with a close vowel while wide
diphthongs are the opposite.
2.2.1 The English closing diphthongs
There is movement towards a closer position of the tongue.
- Narrow: /ei/ grey; /ou/ slow.
- Wide: /ai/ high; /au/ house; /oi/ boy.
18
SUMMARY TOPIC 7
2.2.2 The English centring diphthongs
They begin with a more peripheral phoneme and end with a ore cen-
tral one.
- ᵊ
/i / beer, hear…
- /eᵊ/ fair, where…
- /oᵊ/ pour, your…
- /uᵊ/ sure, cure…
2.3 A DESCRIPTION OF ENGLISH

DIPHTHONGS
2.4.1 English diphthong 13 /ei/
a) Description: it starts at vowel 3/e/ and move to vowel 2/i/. It is closing
and narrow with a falling tone.
b) Spelling: letter a pus final e: safe, late…, ay: day, play…; ei/ea: weight,
great…; also: bass, ballet.
2.4.2. English diphthong 14 /ᵊu/
19
ᵊ
a) Description: the starting point in vowel 12 / / with the front of the
tongue nearer the half-close position. The jaws have medium opening
and medium round lips. Then the vowel moves to 8 /u/: closing and
narrow with a falling tune.
b) Spelling: o as in so, no; ore as in roe, toe; oa as in road, ow/our as in
know, grow; also home, hope…
2.4.3 English diphthong 15 /ai/
a) Description: it starts at a sound between vowels 14 /ae/ and 5 /a:/.
The tongue is low and the front is raised. The lips are spread to neutral.
It moves to vowe 2/i/.
20
SUMMARY TOPIC 7
CONCLUSIONES
As seen English phonological systems differs pretty much from the Spanish one
so that make it accessible to our learners is the main issue. For that purpose,
we should offer opportunities and exposure to the English language whereby
receiving input and producing output. We have to design contextualize activities
and tasks which permit out students to become as closer as native-speakers
are. We should encourage our student to speak since the lowest level and
courses so that fear vanishes and avoid English language acquisition and pro-
duction.
21

Topic 7

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Topic 7

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Topic 7

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

SUMMARY

TOPIC 7. Phonological system

phonological system of the

Teaching pronunciation is a fundamental feature of successful communi-

vocalic system in order to understand the differences between English

and Spanish as well as the organ involved in its production, in order to

facilitate its realization. In fact, the Common European Framework rec-

ommends teaching pronunciation from the very beginning.

For that purpose, a revision of concepts such as phonetics and phonology

and long vowels together with diphthongs.

1. THE NATURE OF SPEECH

tionary). Speech sounds can be classified into: individual sounds, glides

(incidental transitory sounds) and prosodies (suprasegmental features).

features…) but also connected sounds, whose variations go from ellipsis

(/r/ in hose) to a long degree. Semantically, length is a distinctive feature.

1.1 PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

reception, their analysis and classification and transcription (The Diction-

Phonetics studies speech sounds according to their production in the

phonetics). Phonetics deals with phonemes as semantic entities, the evo-

lution of sounds and the range of ways to articulate sound.

Phonology focuses on the study of the distribution and patterning of

speech sounds in a language and the rules governing language pronun-

ciation (The Dictionary.com). It attempts to account for how speech

sounds are combined and organised to convey meaning. It deals with

physiology of sounds, the speaking and the selection and patterns of

English Dictionary). The phoneme is a part of a morpheme where it has

a distinctive function when occurs in a strong position and a contrastive

function when in a weak position. In weak position, where sound varia-

tions do not indicate a change in meaning, they are called allophones.

2. THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF ENGLISH

by articulation and the acoustic energy. From a phonological point of

cords) or voiceless (no vibration of the vocal cords).

vowels in British Standard English (Bre). Most varieties of English have

syllabic consonants in some vowels: bottle or rhythm.

2.1. THE ENGLISH VOWEL SYSTEM

a) Lip position: spread/neutral/open or close rounded.

b) Tongue position: the highest point of the tongue from front to

c) Height: tongue is raised or lowered from close to open.

d) Tenseness: tongue muscular tension from tense to lax.

e) The opening between the jaws form wide to narrow.

f) Nasalization: the position of the soft palate can be raised or low-

Quantity is important. 5 o the 12 pure vowel phonemes are relatively

long in duration while the other 7 are relatively short.

2.2. A DESCRIPTION OF ENGLISH VOWELS

o Height: nearly close.

o Jaws: narrow to medium.

o Quality: Spanish i in vino.

o Spelling: ee, ea, as in tree, meat. But also in eve, machine,

field, key, people, receive, Caesar…

2.2.2. English vowel 2 /i/

e) Jaws: narrow to medium.

- Spelling: i (internal), y (final): bit, heavy…But also in foreign, cof-

fee, women, build, sieve…

2.2. 3 English vowel 3 /e/

c) Height: between half-open and half-close.

- Quality: Spanish /e/ (not so open). Intermediate between French

- Spelling: e: met, bed… But also in dead, said, friend…

2.2.4. English vowel 4 /ae/

c) Height: between half-open and open.