Phonetics

1. Introduction
to
Phonetics
Gokhale Education Society’s
S.M.R.K. B.K. A.K Mahila Mahavidyalaya, Nasik-5.
CC English (LL)
F.Y.B.Com. Sem I
Unit 1
Ms.Geetanjali Gitay
Assistant Professor
Dept. of English

2. Introduction
• The word “phone” means sounds. e.g. telephone – “tele” means distant and “phone” means
“ sound”, so” telephone” means an instrument that helps us to listen to distant sounds.
• In English , there are 26 alphabets from A to Z. However, the pronunciation of these alphabets
is not uniform for all words. e.g. “c” – cook, cycle, check.
“s” – sell , sugar.
• So we can observe that a single alphabet is pronounced differently.
• The study and classifications of these speech sounds is called “ Phonetics”.
•Phonetics is part of linguistics, which is the scientific study of language.
• Phonetics helps us learn pronunciation, accent and intonation of sounds in English.

3. Speech Event
• Pronunciation of each sound requires a complex procedure to take place.
•First, a concept or idea is formulated in the speaker’ brain and then its linguistic codification
is transmitted by the nerves to speech organs, which are set in motion.
• The movement of these organs set up disturbance in the air, and these sound waves are
received by the listener’s ears.
• His nervous system carries the message to brain, where it is interpreted in linguistic terms.
• The speaker and the listener must share the same linguistic code in order to communicate
effectively. It means they both should know the language they are communicating in.
• The energy for the production of speech is generally provided by the air- stream coming out
of the lungs.
• The sounds are passed through air. So air acts as a medium to carry sounds.
• Thus pronouncing a sound involves a complex physical process.

4. Organs of Speech
tongue

5. Phoneme
• Phoneme is the smallest unit of phonetics.
• Each individual sound is represented by a ‘phoneme’.
• There are 26 alphabets in English but 44 phonemes.
• These 44 phonemes are further divided into two categories : 1. Vowels and 2. Consonants
• There are 20 vowel sounds which are divided into Pure Vowels (12) and Diphthongs (08).
• There are 24 consonant sounds in English.
• Each of the phonemes is represented by a different symbol.
• We are going to study RP system that is British Received Pronunciation.

6. Phonemic Chart

7. Vowels
• Vowel are necessary to form words. A word cannot be formed without vowels.
• Vowel sound can be pronounced continually as there is no closure of speech organs while
pronouncing it.
• There are only 5 letters to represent vowel sounds (a, i, e, o, u) in English but 20 phonemes to
represent their pronunciation.
• They are further divided into Pure Vowels(12) and Diphthongs (08).
• Pure vowels are single vowel sounds and are classified into Short Vowels and Long Vowels.
•Diphthongs are sounds created by combining two vowel sounds.

8. Vowels: Pure Vowels (12) Diphthongs (08)
Pure Vowels (Short and Long) Diphthongs

9. Vowels in Transcription

10. Conclusion
In this presentation, we discussed :
1. What is Phonetics?
2. What are Phonemes?
3. Speech Event
4. Organs of Speech
5. Phonemes
6. Vowels (20): Pure Vowels(12) and Diphthongs (08)
7. Vowels in Transcription

11. Text Content Source :
1. Spoken English : A Manual of Speech and Phonetics, Bansal R.K. and Harrison J.B., Orient Longman , (Second
Edition)(1991)
Image Source :
1. www.google.com