This document provides an introduction to phonetics and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). It discusses the objectives of studying phonetics, which include understanding the relationship between sound and spelling and learning how speech sounds are produced in the vocal tract. The key topics covered are the branches of phonetics, articulatory phonetics and describing language sounds. It also outlines the characteristics of a good phonetic alphabet, describes the categories of consonants and vowels, and provides examples of phonetic transcription and the English consonant and vowel systems using IPA symbols.

1. PhoneticsIntroduction to Language2011 FallRyan1

2. Objectives:Explore the relationship between sound and spelling

3. Become familiar with International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA )

4. Understand the nature of consonants and vowels

5. Learn where particular sounds occur (physical aspects of the human vocal tract)

6. How sounds change when different sounds surround them

7. Yule: Chapter 3, The Sounds of Language2

8. PhoneticsAcoustic phonetics – the physical properties of speech as sound waves in the airAuditory phonetics – the study of the perception of speech sounds, via the earArticulatory phonetics – the study of how speech sounds are made, or ‘articulated’3

9. Articulatory PhoneticsDeals with the way in which speech sounds are produced, what parts of the mouth and in what sorts of configurationsPhoneticians’ techniques – x-ray photography, palatography (to observe contact btwn the tongue and the roof of the mouth)Most basic tool – impressionistic phonetic transcription: e.g. tomato Webster’s: tə-mā-tōtə-mä-tō Gershwin: tomato tomahto4

10. SEAGH5Imagine a word spelled asCHEF?But pronounced asHow would one come to this spelling?sure dead laugh

11. Describing Language SoundsThe sounds of spoken English often do not match up with the letters of written English.

12. One solution to describe the sounds of a language is to produce a separate alphabet with symbols that represent sound  phonetic alphabet

13. These symbols represent both the consonant and vowel sounds of language6

14. A “Good” Phonetic Alphabet: Characteristics1. Each symbol should represent only one sound (phone)e.g. <c>: [k] in cat and [s] in cymbal2. If 2 sounds can distinguish one word from another, they should be represented by different symbolse.g. <th>: they vs. thighGood phonetic transcription  unambiguously convey the important aspects of the pronunciation of a given set of sounds, using a written system of symbols.7

15. A “Good” Phonetic Alphabet: Characteristics3. If 2 sounds are very similar and their differences arise only from the context they’re in, those similarities should be represented[k]sounds in keep and cool (place where they’re articulated are dependent on the following vowel)8

16. The English AlphabetThe English alphabet has 26 letters but there are over 40 different speech sounds:5 vowel and 21 consonant letters of the alphabetAbout 20 vowel sounds and 24 consonant sounds (depending on dialect)9

17. A “Good” Phonetic Alphabet: Not EnglishSame sound spelled using different letters: sea, see, scene, receive, thief, amoeba, machineSame letters can stand for different sounds: - sign, pleasure, resign - dough, through, rough, cough, fought, drought10

18. A “Good” Phonetic Alphabet: Not EnglishSingle sound spelled by a combination of letters: lock, that, bookSingle letter represents a combination of sounds: exit, useSometimes letters stand for no sound at all: know, doubt, though11

19. Transcriptionthe conversion of spoken words into written wordsthe process of matching the sounds of human speech to special written symbolsusing a set of exact rules, so that these sounds can be reproduced later.12

20. TranscriptionThere are two kinds of transcription

21. Narrow transcription:

22. seeks to document every possible detail of the segment

23. very often, these details are not discernible to the native speaker

24. Broad transcription:

25. specifies the segments that are contrastive in the language

26. far fewer sounds are documented13

27. TranscriptionA transcription system for these purposes must be different from traditional writing systems

28. Some features of a good phonetic transcription system:

29. Universal: no preference given to any existing spelling system

30. Interpretable: other linguists should be able to interpret it

31. Transparent: one-to-one correspondence between sounds and symbols

32. Comprehensive: symbols for all the sounds in human language

33. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is the best attempt so far (chart uploaded in Bb)14

34. The Organs of Speech (Yule, page 27)15

35. English Sounds16All English words are made from combinations of consonants and vowels