English phonetics redouane boulguid ensa_safi_morocco

ENGLISH PHONETICS
& PHONOLOGY I
A course prepared for students of
Engineering & Conception of
Information Systems
National School of Applied Sciences – Safi
School-Year 2014/15
- By Redouane BOULGUID

Redouane Boulguid Safi_Morocco 229/01/15
General Context
[Theory-Practice]

English Phonetics & Phonology
 The four core areas of Linguistics:
 The system or structure of a language
(langue or competence) can be described
at four different levels, which form the core
areas of Linguistics, sometimes called
Microlinguistics:

 ( 1 ) Phonetics and phonology deal with pronunciation,
or, more precisely, with speech sounds and the sound
system.
 (2) Morphology covers the structure of words.
 (3) Syntax explains sentence patterns. (Morphology and
syntax, often combined into morphosyntax, have
traditionally been referred to as grammar.)
 (4) Lexicology and semantics describe the vocabulary,
or lexicon, and explore different aspects of meaning.

 Other branches of Linguistics:
 Utilising the core areas are various other
branches of Linguistics, sometimes referred to
as Macrolinguistics. Most of these are
interdisciplinary fields because they overlap with
other sciences.
 The first four branches are concerned with
language variation, and are therefore often
subsumed under the label variational Linguistics:

 (1) Dialectology is at the interface
between Linguistics and geography. It is
the study of regional variation within a
language.
 (2) Sociolinguistics connects linguistics
with sociology. It is concerned with
language variation according to age, sex,
social class, etc.

 (3) Ethnolinguistics overlaps with
anthropology and investigates language
variation and the part language plays in
ethnic groups. These three branches
study the way language is used in different
speech communities. (They are therefore
often referred to as Sociolinguistics).

 The language variety [Varietät] spoken in
a particular speech community is referred
to as a lect. Thus we speak of dialects,
sociolects, and ethnolects. The
characteristic speech of an individual
person is called an idiolect.

 (4) Discourse analysis, text linguistics, and
stylistics are related branches that also deal
with language variation.
 Unlike the first three branches, however, they do
not look at the way language is used in different
speech communities, but rather at the language
characteristics of different text types, especially
beyond the sentence level.

 The language of these text types is
communicated either through the medium of
speech (e.g. personal conversations, broadcast
discussions, lectures) or through the medium of
writing (e.g. personal letters, newspaper articles,
academic papers).

 The next four branches of linguistics are not
concerned with language variation:
 (5) Contrastive linguistics describes the
similarities and differences between two or more
modern languages, especially in order to
improve language teaching and translation.
 (6) Psycholinguistics overlaps with psychology
and explores mental aspects of language, such
as language learning.

 (7) Neurolinguistics overlaps with
medical science and investigates the
connection between language and the
nervous system. It is especially
interested in the neurological processes
necessary to produce speech sounds and
in language disorders [Sprachstörungen].

 (8) Computational linguistics
[Computerlinguistik] overlaps with artificial
intelligence. Some of its concerns are
machine translation, automatic speech
recognition, and speech simulation.
 … (Applied Linguistics – Theoretical
Linguistics – Synchronous Linguistics –
Historical/Diachronic Linguistics –
Comparative Linguistics).

In Phonetics &
Phonology it's important
to know the Vocal
Organs places; to be
able to pronounce
correctly.

 Whereas syntax is about sentence
formation, and semantics about sentence
interpretation, phonetics and phonology
cover the field of sentence utterance.
 Phonetics is a descriptive tool necessary
to the study of the phonological aspects
of a language.

 Phonetics is concerned with how sounds
are produced, transmitted and perceived.
 Phonology is concerned with how sounds
function in relation to each other in a
language (System).
 Phonetics is about sounds of language,
phonology about sound systems of
language.

What is ‘Phonetics’?
 The study and description of concrete
utterances and concrete, individual
speech sounds.

 Phonetics first of all divides, or segments,
concrete utterances into individual speech
sounds. It is therefore exclusively
concerned with parole or performance.
Phonetics can then be divided into three
distinct phases:
 (1) articulatory phonetics, (production of
sounds),
 (2) acoustic phonetics (transmission of
sounds), and
 (3) auditory phonetics (perception of
sounds).

 (1) Articulatory phonetics describes in
detail how the speech organs, also called
vocal organs or articulators
[Sprechwerkzeuge], in the vocal tract
[Mundraum] are used in order to produce,
or articulate, speech sounds.

 (2) Acoustic phonetics studies the
physical properties of speech sounds, i.e.
the way in which the air vibrates as
sounds pass from speaker to listener. A
spectrograph is a machine that measures
the soundwaves [Schallwellen] and
depicts them as images, called
spectrograms or sonograms, showing the
duration, frequency, intensity, and quality
of the sounds.

 (3) Auditory phonetics investigates the
perception of speech sounds by the
listener, i.e. how the sounds are
transmitted from the ear to the brain, and
how they are processed.

Let’s start by looking at the Speech Chain
which may be diagrammed this way:

What is Phonology?
 The study and description of the sound
system of a language.

 Phonology deals with the speakers'
knowledge of the sound system of a
language. It is therefore exclusively
concerned with langue or competence.
Phonology can be divided into two
branches: (1) segmental phonology and
(2) suprasegmental phonology.

 Speaker’s Brain = Phonology.
 Speaker’s Mouth = Articulatory Phonetics.
 Transmission of sound via air = Accoustic Phonetics.
 Listener’s Ear = Auditory Phonetics.
 Listener’s Brain = Phonology.
THE SPEECH CHAIN

 Phonetic transcription
 If we want to write down speech sounds as
accurately as possible, we cannot depend on
traditional spelling. We need a method that
relates sounds to letters or symbols more
systematically: Each sound must be represented
consistently by the same symbol, and,
conversely, there must be a separate symbol for
each distinctive sound. Such a one-to-one
correspondence between speech and writing is
referred to as a phonographic relationship.

 The symbols that we use to represent
speech sounds in this manner are
phonetic symbols. A whole set of them
form a phonetic alphabet.

 The term phonetic transcription refers to
the process of writing down spoken
language in phonetic symbols as well as
to the resultant written text.
 Phonetic transcription is a system in
which one symbol is used to represent
one sound.

 When we talk about English spelling,
each unit is called a letter. When we talk
about phonetic transcription, each unit
is called a symbol.
 Phonetic transcription is written using
slashes, like this: /……./ [I Want a
vacation]

 Why is phonetic transcription useful?
 Phonetic transcription is useful because
English spelling does a poor job of
showing how words are pronounced.

 The International Phonetic Alphabet:
 The most widely used phonetic alphabet, and
one that provides suitable symbols for the
sounds of any language, is the International
Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA. It was first
published in 1889 by the International Phonetic
Association in France, and has since then been
revised and corrected in various ways, most
recently in 1996.

 Sounds can be divided into consonants &
vowels. The former can be characterised
according to 1) Place, 2) Manner of
Articulation, and 3) Voice (Voiceless or
Voiced).
 For vowels, one uses a coordinate system
called a Quadrangle with which actual
vowel values are located.

 Bilabial sounds are produced when the lips are
brought together (both lips).
Examples are [p], which is voiceless, as in pay or
[b] and [m] which are voiced, as in bay, may.
 There is only one fortis bilabial in English,
namely /p/ as in peach, whereas there are two
lenis bilabials, /b/ as in banana and /ml as in
mango.

 Labiodental sounds are made when the
lower lip is raised towards the upper front
teeth. Examples are [f] safe (voiceless)
and [v] save (voiced).
 There is one fortis labiodental in English,
/f/ as in film, and one lenis labiodental,/v/
as in video.

 The bilabials and labiodentals form one
larger group, the labials, because they all
make use of the lips.

 Dental (or Interdental) sounds are
produced by touching the upper front teeth
with the tip of the tongue. Examples are
[ө] oath (voiceless) and [ð] clothe (voiced).
 They are the fortis /ð/ as in thin and the
lenis /ө/ as in this.

[ө] [ð]

 Alveolar sounds are made by raising the
tip of the tongue towards the ridge that is
right behind the upper front teeth, called
the alveolar ridge. Examples are [ t,s ]
too,sue, both voiceless, and [d,z,n,l,r ] do,
zoo, look, took, all voiced.

 Palatoalveolar sounds are made by
raising the blade of the tongue towards the
part of the palate just behind the alveolar
ridge. Examples [∫,t ∫] pressure, batch
(voiceless) and [z,dz] pleasure, badge
(voiced).

 Palatal sounds are very similar to
palatoalveolar ones, they are just
produced further back towards the velum.
The only palatal sound in English is [ j] as
in yes, yellow, beauty, new and it is
voiced.

 To be continued…

English phonetics redouane boulguid ensa_safi_morocco

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