This document provides an introduction to phonetics. It defines phonetics as the study of speech sounds and explains that it involves the complex process of conceptualizing an idea, transmitting it through the nervous system to speech organs, and producing sound waves to communicate. It describes the key organs involved in speech production and defines a phoneme as the smallest unit of phonetics. The document outlines that there are 44 phonemes in English, including 20 vowel phonemes divided into pure vowels and diphthongs. It provides a phonemic chart and discusses vowels in more detail, explaining the categories of pure vowels and diphthongs and providing examples.

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