This document discusses the sounds of language. It explains that humans are unique in having complex verbal language. Understanding language requires knowledge of distinct sounds, word meanings, tenses, and word order. Phonology is the study of sounds in a language, distinguishing between phonetics which identifies sounds and phonemics which analyzes sound patterns. Phonetic charts show all a language's sounds while phonemic charts show only distinctive sounds. Vowels have less constricted airflow than consonants. Suprasegmentals like pitch and nasalization further modify sounds. Tone and rising/falling intonation can also influence meaning.

1. THE SOUNDS OF LANGUAGE
CHAPTER 3

2. THE POWER OF LANGUAGE
•Humans are the only animals with complex verbal
language
•What do you need to know in order to understand
language?

3. THE POWER OF LANGUAGE
• Example: “My boyfriend and I are flying to his mother’s next
week.”
• Distinct sounds
• Each word has a specific meaning
• Different tenses
• Implicit meanings
• Order of the words

4. THE POWER OF LANGUAGE
• This is linguistic knowledge
• Most of this knowledge is unconscious and learned at a young age
during enculturation
• It is intuitive and understood (most times) immediately
• Words are arbitrary
• Words are combinations of discrete and recombinable sounds
• Language is creative
• It can discuss hypothetical or imaginary things

5. INTRODUCTION
• To learn a language, you must learn sound production
• Rules for producing any sound in any human language
• You must also learn phonology
• Many sounds in other languages will not be the same as
those in your native language

6. PHONOLOGY
• The study of sounds in a language
• It focuses on two differences
• 1. phonetics
• Identifies and describes language sounds
• 2. phonemics
• Analyzes the way sounds are arranged in a language

7. EMIC AND ETIC
• Phonetic study is often etic
• Phonemic study is often emic

8. LANGUAGE AND SOUND
• In other words,
• Linguists describe and analyze the nature and patterning of
sounds
• These patterns make the phonological system and the study
of this is phonology
• When you speak you do not consciously think of sounds
• The word “debt”
• How many sounds does this have?
• How is this different from “pet”?

9. PHONOLOGY
• A phonetic chart shows all the sounds of a language and uses
different symbols for different sounds made by the same letter
• The sounds on the chart are called phones

10. PHONOLOGY
• A phonemic chart shows only the distinctive sounds of a language,
and all sounds made by one letter are grouped together
• The sounds on the chart are called phonemes

11. PHONOLOGY
• If you grew up speaking one language you will probably use the
phonetic system even when learning new languages
• If you grew up speaking multiple languages, then you can use multiple
phonetic systems

12. PHONETICS
• Three types:
• 1. Acoustic
• Physical properties of sounds/soundwaves
• Voice recognition, voiceprints
• 2. Auditory
• How sounds are perceived and interpreted
• 3. Articulatory/Descriptive
• How speech sounds are produced
• Catalogue all human language sounds
• Used in fieldwork

13. ROSETTA STONE
• Egyptian hieroglyphs are not pictures, they are phonemes
• https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/history/ancient-
medieval/Ancient/v/rosetta-stone--196-b-c-e

14. ANATOMY
• Three areas of importance:
• 1. Lungs
• Push air out
• 2. Larynx
• Where voice box is located and where vocal cords modify air into sounds
• 3. Supralaryngeal vocal tract
• Above vocal cords
• Where sound waves become recognizable speech sounds

16. LARYNX
• As air moves through larynx, it passes through vocal cords
• If cords are relaxed and open, the sound is voiceless
• If cords are closed and vibrating, the sound is voiced
• Touch your throat and say “ssssss” and “zzzzzz”
• Do you feel the difference?

17. SOUNDS
• Phonemes are the particular sounds that speakers and listeners
recognize as distinct from other sounds
• This gives different sounds different meanings
• Compare:
• /b/ and /p/
• Put your hands on your ears and say these sounds out loud
• /b/ causes vibrations and is called voiced (others: /d/, /z/, /v/, /j/)
• /p/ does not and is called voiceless (others: /t/, /s/, /f/)

18. ARTICULATION ABOVE LARYNX
• After air moves through larynx, it goes to the nose and mouth, where it
can be modified and articulated
• The position of the tongue and lips can change sounds
• Articulation is
• Place: where the air is being modified
• Manner: how the air is being modified

19. ARTICULATION ABOVE LARYNX
• Phonetic charts are important in understanding different languages
• There are different spellings and symbols for different sounds in
different languages
• International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was used to have one unique
symbol for each sound
• This was modified to the American Usage System (AUS)
• Both charts are used

20. VOWELS AND CONSONANTS
• These are shown on every phonetic chart
• Vowels have less constricted air flow and consonants have more
constricted air flow
• Let’s practice pronouncing different ones

21. VOWELS AND CONSONANTS:
ARTICULATION
• “Bilabial Stop”
• Bilabial (with both lips)
• Stop (stop the air and then let it out)
• “B,” “P”
• Turn to pg. 57-59 and look over articulation places and manners
• Practice:
• Alveolar nasal “N”
• Palatal approximate “J”
• Velar stop (plosive) “K,” “G”

22. VOWELS AND CONSONANTS:
ARTICULATION
• Be familiar with the terms for place and manner

23. VOWELS AND CONSONANTS:
ARTICULATION
• Generally, consonants are sounds made by constricting the air stream
and vowels are made by not constricting the air as much or at all
• Phonetic charts are not as helpful for vowels
• We look at ways air streams can be modified
• Height of tongue
• How high tongue is in mouth: “ee” sound tongue is high, “ah” sound is low
• Place of tongue
• How far forward or back tongue is in mouth: “ee” sound tongue is forward, “oo”
sound tongue is back
• Rounding of lips
• Holding lips in rounded or flat position: “oh” sound versus “ee” sound

24. VOWELS AND CONSONANTS:
ARTICULATION
• These are guidelines
• Different dialects and accents can make these sound differently

25. BEYOND PHONETIC CHARTS
• Phonetic charts show the basic sounds, or segments, of language
• But language can further modify sounds
• These are called suprasegmentals are have their own special
symbols in a phonetic chart
• Nasalization: sound goes through nasal cavity and not mouth
• Pitch: high or low “notes”
• Clicks: air released inward (symbol is ! In Kung)
• Lengthening: holding sound for longer period of time

26. ASSIGNMENT
• Article on Click Languages
• Video Log on Click Languages
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c246fZ-7z1w
•

27. PHONEMICS
• In order to really understand and speak a language, you need to also
know how the sounds are used
• Phonemics/phonology analyzes the way sounds are arranged and
what sounds are important in a language
• Phonemics can give you an insider (emic) view of a language

28. PHONEMICS
• Phoneme is a sound that functions to distinguish one word from
another
• Example: “t” and “d” are different sounds, and also distinguish the
word “tie” from the word “die”
• This is also a minimal pair, or a pair of words in which one difference
in sound makes a difference in meaning
• This is how to identify phonemes

29. PHONEMICS
• Allophones are another type of phoneme; they are a group of sounds
that together form a single phoneme
• Each allophone is a separate unit but all together they make up a
phoneme
• Wherever you find allophones in a language, there is a good chance
you will also find a pattern that defines how and where they are used
in a language
• Example:
• [ph] (aspirated p sound) usually occurs at the beginning of words
• [p] (unaspirated p sound) usually occurs in the middle of words

30. PHONEMICS
• Example:
• [ph] (aspirated p sound) usually occurs at the beginning of words
• [p] (unaspirated p sound) usually occurs in the middle of words
• Aspirated Unaspirated
• Peak Speak
• Pool Spool
• Pend Spend
• Pun Spun

31. PHONEMICS
• The previous example is one of complementary distribution (the
different variations, or allophones, are distributed between different
words)
• Conditioned variation means variation in allomorphs happens
because of the sounds around them
• Sometimes this can be social
• Men and women can pronounce words differently (example, pg. 69)
• Even if two languages have the same phones, they may not group them into
phonemes and allophones the same way
• How does “ng” sound in our language? Where is it found in a word?
• How do you pronounce ngoma (drum)? Why is this difficult?

32. PARALANGUAGE
• Paralanguage refers to anything that is communicated alongside
language
• Voice cues
• Intensity
• Penmanship
• Emoticons 
• USING ALL CAPS
• One must learn how to use these properly as well

33. VOICE QUALITY AND INTONATION
• AKA tone of voice
• Most commonly noticed type of paralanguage
• What does it mean when you whisper?
• What does it mean if you whine?
• How do you talk to a baby?
• Trend of ‘rising intonation’ (began with “Valley Girl”): voice goes up at
the end of a sentence
• How can this be confusing with meaning?

34. SOUNDS: TONE
• Pitch of voice can also convey meaning
• What are the differences between these:
• She went to class.
• She went to class?
• In tone languages, changing voice pitch changes meaning of the
word
• Example: Nupe (African):
• Bá: high tone = “to be sour”, mid tone = “to cut”, low tone = “to
count”
• Example: Thai:
• Nâa: tone falls on second vowel = “face”
• Nˇaa: tone rises on second vowel = “thick”