The description of speech

Phonetics IV

THE DESCRIPTION OF SPEECH

Norma Ferreyra

MAIN FEATURES OF PRONUNCIATION

Features of Pronunciation

Phonemes

Consonants

Voiced Voiceless

Vowels

Single Vowels

Short Long

Dipthongs

Suprasegmental features

Intonation Stress

Word Stress

Sentence Stress

Phoneme

It is an abstract mental unit that

represents a speech sound within a

language.

Sounds may be:• Voiced: there is

vibration of the vocal cords.

• Unvoiced or Voiceless: there is no vibration of the vocal cords.

Distinctive feature: phonemes contrast with each other. Using one sound rather than another can change the meaning of a word:• E.g. rat// -- rot//

Two categories of phonemes:• Vowels: voiced • Consonants: voiced or

voiceless.

PHONEMES (part 1)

Vowels Dipthongs Consonants

bead cake pin sue

hit toy b bin zoo

book high t to she

food beer d do measure

left fewer cot hello

about where got more

shirt go church no

call house judge sing

hat fan live

run van red

far think yes

dog the wood

PHONEMES (part 2)ENGLISH PHONEMES

Stress

It gives rythm to speech

Word stress:

It applies to individual words.

One syllable in a word will sound more

prominent than the others.

E.g.: PAper, Bottle

Sentence stress:

It applies to utterances

One or more words within each utterance

are made more prominent to the

listener.

E.g.: She bought a new DRESS

Inonation

It is the way in which the pitch of the

voice goes up and down in the course of an utterance.

Forms of intonation:

FallRise

Fall-RiseRise-Fall

Level

SUPRASEGMENTAL FEATURES (part 1)

SUPRASEGMENTAL FEATURES (part 2)

Utterance stress and intonation patterns are used to convey meaning:

As regards intonation

These are the new MEMbers.

Did you like the FOOD? – Well, the FISH was

good

As regards stress

I will travel to London toMOrrow.

(not today)

I will travel to LONdon tomorrow. (not to other place)

I will travel to London tomorrow. (not other person)

THE PHISIOLOGY OF PRONUNCIATION

Physiology of

Pronunciation

To produce sounds we use

the speech organs

The set of sounds we

acquire may vary depending

on the environment in which we are

grown up

We also learn to use our voices

in different ways according to the language

we use

People can learn to use their

speech organs in new ways in

order to produce sounds

learnt in a foreign

language

The ability to adopt unfamiliar

set of sounds diminishes after

childhood

THE SPEECH ORGANS

THE ARTICULATION OF PHONEMES (part 1)

“Close”, “Close-Mid” , “Open-Mid” and “Open” refer to the distance between the tongue and the roof of the mouth.

Articulation of vowels

“Front”, “Central” and “Back” and their corresponding vertical lines refer to the part of the tongue.The position of each phoneme represents the height of the tongue, and also the part of the tongue which is raised.

THE ARTICULATION OF PHONEMES (part 2)

Force involved in producing consonant sounds: Fortis: applies to unvoiced

consonant sounds like /p/ Lenis: describes voiced

consonant sounds like /b/

Place of articulation:BilabialLabio-dentalDentalAlveolarPalato-alveolarPalatalVelarGlottal

Articulation of consonants

Manner of articulation:Plosive (Stop)AffricateFricativeNasalLateralApproximant

Table of English Consonant PhonemesPlace of Articulation

Front Back

bilabiallabio-dental

dental alveolar Palato-alveolar palatal velar glottal

Manner of articulation

plosive p b t

d k g

affricate

fricative v s h

nasal m n lateral lapproxi-mant

(w) r j w

VOICELESS VOICED

THE ARTICULATION OF PHONEMES (part 3)

PHONEMIC TRANSCRIPTION

In written English we use 5 vowels and 21 consonant

letters.

In spoken English we use 20 vowel sounds (12 single

vowels and 8 dipthongs)and 24 consonant sounds

In some languages there is a one-to-one relationship between spelling and pronunciation:•Same number of phonemes as there are letters in the alphabet. E.g.: Spanish

In English there is no a one-to-one relationship between spelling and

pronunciation.

Characteristics of Phonemic Transcription

Underhill’s chart: English sounds

Some conventions used in phonemic transcription

Words in utterances are enclosed within slant lines

This mark shows primary stress on the next syllable

Absence of a mark shows an unstressed following syllable

This mark shows secondary stress on the next syllable

Sounds do not always tally with words. This is a representation of one way in which ‘do you’ may be pronounced

PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

• It refers to the study of speech sounds.• Areas of study:• Physiological phonetics: studies the anatomical,

neurological and physiological bases of speech.• Articulatory phonetics: studies the actions and movements

of the speech organs in producing sounds.• Acoustic phonetics: studies the nature and acoustics of the

sound waves which transmit speech.• Auditory phonetics: studies how speech is received by the

ears.• Perceptual phonetics: studies how speech is perceived by

the brain.

Phonetics

• It is primarly concerned with how we interpret and systematise sounds.

• It deals with the system and pattern of the sounds which exist within a particular language.

• It looks at the vowels, consonants and suprasegmental features of the language

Phonology