Introduction to English phonology and phonetics pptx

1. English Phonetics and
Phonology

2. What is
LINGUISTICS?
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 Scientific study of human language.
 Aims of linguistic theory:
 What is knowledge of language? (Competence)
 How is knowledge of language acquired?
(Acquisition)
 How is knowledge of language put to use?
(Performance/language processing)

3. LANGUAGE
“Language is a purely human and
non-instinctive method of
communicating ideas, emotions and
desires by means of voluntarily
produced symbols.”
--Edward Sapir (1884-1939):
Language: An Introduction to the
Study of Speech (1921)
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4. “From now on I will consider
language to be a set (finite or
infinite) of sentences, each
finite in length and constructed
out of a finite set of elements.”
--Noam Chomsky (1928- ):
Syntactic Structures (1957)
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5. IMPORTANCE OF
LANGUAGE
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 The most important tool ever invented.
 Distinguishes us from other creatures.
 Provides a medium to think effectively, communicate
interpersonally and collaborate with other people in
work.
 Impossible to imagine a world without language.

6. MAIN BRANCHES OF
LINGUISTICS
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 Phonetics
 Phonology
 Morphology
 Syntax
 Semantics
 Pragmatics

7. Definition of Phonetics
• Phonetics i s the science of speech sounds, which
aims to provide the set of features or
properties that can be used to describe and
distinguish a l l the sounds used in human
language (Peter Roach, 2000).
• The branch of linguistics concerned with the study of
speech sounds with reference to their distribution and
patterning
• Thesystem of sounds of aparticular language.
• sourceThe American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by HoughtonMifflin

8. Types of Phonetics
• Articulatory phonetics: the study of the production of speech soundsby
the articulatory and vocaltract by the speaker
• Acousticphonetics: the study of the physical transmission of speech
soundsfrom the speakerto the listener
• Auditory phonetics: the study of the reception and perception of speech
soundsby the listener

9. PHONOLOGY
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 Studies the sound system of languages.
 Distinctive sounds within a language,
 Nature of sound systems across the languages.
 Phoneme (from the Greek: φώνημα, phōnēma, "a
sound uttered") is the smallest segmental unit of
sound employed to form meaningful contrasts
between utterances.

10. Branchesof Phonology
1. Segmental phonology :- It analyses speech into
discrete segments, such as phonemes.
2. Supra-segmental phonology :- It analyses those features
which extend over more than one segment such as
intonation , stress.
3. Diachonicphonology :- It studies the patterns of sound
system through the history of language.
4. Synchronic phonology :- It studies the patterns of sound
regardless of the process of historical change.

11. MORPHOLOGY
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 Studies the formation of words from smaller units
called morphemes.
 Morpheme: minimal meaningful language unit.
 Phoneme(s): smallest linguistically distinctive units
of sound) in spoken language.
 Grapheme(s): written symbol to represent speech.

12. SYNTAX
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 Rules that govern the formation of sentences from
words.
 Syntactic phrases include:
 Noun Phrase : a tall man, the bus
 Verb Phrase : roam around, hit the ball
 Prepositional Phrase : in the class, at the club
 Adjective Phrase : Very good, nice girl
 The Grammatical Rules:
 SOV: eg. Hindi
 SVO: eg . English

13. GRAMMAR
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 The syntax of a language deals
grammatical structure of a language.
with the
 Grammar is the structural foundation of our ability
to express ourselves.
 Descriptive grammar : structure actually used by
speakers and writers.
 Prescriptive grammar : structure that should be used.

14. HIERARCHY OF LANGUAGE:
STRATIFICATION
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 Phonemes
 Syllables
 Morphemes
 Words
 Phrases
 Clauses
 Sentences/utterances
 Texts/discourses

15. SEMANTICS
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 Study of language meaning.
 Concerned with not only the meaning of words, but
also that of morphemes and of sentences.
 Lexical semantics study how and what the words of
a language denote.

16. PRAGMATICS
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 Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context.
 How language is used to communicate rather than
how it is internally structured.
 Govern a number of conversational
interactions, such as sequential organization, repair
of errors, role and speech acts.

17. MENTION THE 26 ALPHABETS
MENTION VOWELS AND
CONSONANTS THAT YOU KNOW
DO YOU KNOW IPA SYMBOLS?

18. International Phonetics
Alphabets (IPA) Symbols

19. Assignment
Describe the difference between phonetics and phonology
Find and write the words from each of the IPA symbols (must be
different from the chart), as well as the pronunciation of the words.

20. References
EnglishPhonetics& PhonologybyPeter Roach3rd edition (1983-2000)