Phonetics: The Science of Speech Sounds [1.1] How to study unit 1? [1.2] Phonetics: the science of speech sounds [1.3] Types of phonetics [1.4] The phoneme and the allophone. The grapheme [1.5] The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) [1.6] The phonemic transcription UNIT
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Transcript
Phonetics: The Science of Speech
Sounds
[1.1] How to study unit 1?
[1.2] Phonetics: the science of speech sounds
[1.3] Types of phonetics
[1.4] The phoneme and the allophone. The grapheme
[1.5] The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
[1.6] The phonemic transcription
U
NI
T
Fonética de la lengua inglesa
Unit 1 – Outline
Outline
Fonética de la lengua inglesa
Unit 1 – Pay attention to
Pay attention to
1.1. How to study unit 1?
The aim of this unit is to learn how English speech sounds are produced so that
students can learn to pronounce and identify English speech patterns and sounds
correctly. In this introductory unit, we will set the bases for the correct understanding
of English phonetics. To accomplish this objective, students are required to:
Pay close attention to the main ideas developed in this summary.
Distinguish between the different types of phonetics and pay close attention to the
main features of the articulatory phonetics.
Clearly identify the distinctions between the concepts of grapheme, phoneme and
allophone.
Become familiar with the reasons why the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
can be a useful resource for any student to visualize the pronunciation of words and
utterances.
Establish preliminary contact with the phonetic symbols used throughout the unit.
Watch the recommended videos to practice the production of certain speech
sounds.
1.2. Phonetics: the science of speech sounds
Languages can be studied from many different perspectives. We can study how words
are formed (morphology), how words are arranged in sentences (syntax), and also how
speech sounds are produced (phonetics).
Phonetics is the linguistic branch which studies:
The production or articulation of speech sounds. (Articulatory phonetics.)
The physical properties of speech sounds. (Acoustic phonetics.)
The way we perceive those speech sounds. (Auditory phonetics.)
Linguistics is the science in charge of studying language in terms of the human
capacity to communicate.
Fonética de la lengua inglesa
Unit 1 – Pay attention to
Broadly speaking, language is our most unique way of conveying information, feelings,
ideas, that is, of communicating with other human beings. Language is eminently
creative. As a matter of fact, it can even deal with “absent phenomena” (Aitchison,
2000: 25), that is, it can describe objects, states or events not available at the time of
speaking. To do so, we share many distinctive sets of signs to encode our messages. To
any of these distinctive sets of signs we call a natural language. We as speakers share
the ability to produce and understand new words and sentences. This ability is known
as linguistic competence. The linguistic competence entails the existence of a system or
set of rules which controls the accurate formation of new words and its appropriate
arrangement into utterances: this system is called grammar.
Grammar has been traditionally divided into the following fields of study:
The morphological field (morphology).
The syntactical field (syntax).
The phonetic field (phonetics).
In general, morphology deals with word formation; syntax deals with how words are
arranged in a sentence and finally, phonetics studies how speech sounds are
produced. To be more precise, phonetics describes speech sounds in a way that every
speech sound may be identified as a distinctive sound within a particular natural
language.
However, before moving on, we must make a distinction between two different but
related fields of study: phonetics and phonology. This course deals with the study of
English phonetics and how English speech sounds are produced from an articulatory
point of view. However, we must also bear in mind that there is a linguistic discipline
called phonology which studies how speech sounds in a particular language are
patterned. Phonology aims at forming the inventory of phonemes (phonemic inventory)
of a natural language. In this sense, it does not provide information on how a specific
speech sound is produced but rather it conveys the list of distinctive speech sounds or
phonemes that are used in one language.
Grammar
Morphology
Syntax
Phonetics
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Unit 1 – Pay attention to
For example, if I say in English the words sum and sun the distinctive sounds that make
me aware of their difference in meaning would be /m/ and /n/. These two words are
called minimal pairs (their only difference being a single phoneme). As we can see,
the speech sounds /m/ and /n/ are distinctive since the occurrence of one of them
instead of the other changes completely the meaning of the word.
In short, phonology lists all these distinctive speech sounds or phonemes whereas
phonetics describes how these speech sounds are produced and realized (allophones).
In other words, phonology aims at an ideal pronunciation of speech sounds whereas
phonetics studies the realizations of those speech sounds.
As professor Eugenio Martínez Celdrán states:
La lengua solo reside en las mentes de los individuos. El habla es producida por los
órganos de fonación, transmitida o transportada por las ondas acústicas hasta el oído y
aquí captada y enviada al cerebro donde se interpreta”
Martínez Celdrán, 1994: 10
To end up this discussion, we will highlight that phonological or phonemic
transcriptions use slant brackets // whereas phonetic transcriptions use square
brackets [ ].
As we have already stated, languages are communication-oriented tools.
Therefore, how can we describe the process of communication? Obviously, we can find
an unlimited number of scenarios but, generally speaking, the process of
communication is regularly described as a chain in which several components can be
found. Here is a brief outline of the process:
Message
Channel
When we speak we address some information to an addressee that may or may not be
in front of us. Any person who addresses another person is considered the sender.
Context
Sender Code A
Context
Receiver(s)
Code A
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Needless to say, speaking is not the only way we can address another person. We may
also write or make signs and noises. Throughout this subject, we will concentrate on the
sender’s ability to produce speech sounds. This ability encompasses many different
aspects such as the mental processes involved in the generation of a message and the
articulation of that message into speech sounds.
In studying languages, one of the first features that comes to our minds is that of the
pronunciation or how speech sounds are produced and perceived. At this point, we
must make a valuable distinction in terms of linguistic accuracy vs. communication. On
the one hand, natural languages share a common goal: they are all tools for establishing
communication. However, we should always make a distinction between being
able to communicate in one particular language and being a proficient user of
that same language. For example, English around the world has become a lingua
franca, that is, a language spoken among people from many different countries.
English is a common vehicle for people speaking different languages. In this sense,
English plays the role of a bridge language and thus enables communication. However,
this situation does not always entail having a good command of the English language.
Although people using English as a lingua franca may usually have an advanced level
at syntactic and lexical levels, one feature - does usually denote its non-native origin:
the production of English speech sounds. The way we produce speech sounds is the
main object of study for the linguistic field of phonetics.
It is commonly agreed that we are all born with the same psycho-physical abilities to
produce any speech sound available in the world’s languages. It is difficult to find an
agreement concerning the inventory of speech sounds in the world. Some linguists
assert that there may be an average of 700 and 800 speech sounds in the world. Some
others point at more than 1000 speech sounds. Therefore, it is only a matter of chance
that we end up producing speech sounds belonging to German, Spanish, English,
Japanese or Swahili. Since we all possess the same physical hardware to produce
sounds (lungs, pharynx, vocal folds, larynx, nasal cavity, oral cavity, etc.) we are able
to produce all sorts of human sounds. However, we just pick up those speech
sounds used in our mother tongues.
In English, for example, we just need to use an average of 44 speech sounds. It is one
of the main goals of phonetics to describe and classify each one of these distinctive
speech sounds. The word “distinctive” is here a very important feature to take into
account since the use of one phoneme instead of another inevitably results in a change
Fonética de la lengua inglesa
Unit 1 – Pay attention to
of meaning. As we will see in 1.4, this distinctive quality is the main difference between
a phoneme and its allophones. In addition, we must never forget the fact that “every
speech sound is a combination of gestures, each exerting its own pattern of sculpting of
the sound wave, all executed more or less simultaneously—that is one of the reasons
speech can be so rapid.” (Pinker, 1994: 166-167).
Therefore, speech sounds can be studied according to their physical and physiological
features. As we have already stated at the beginning, language is a distinctive feature of
human beings. However, it is noticeable to know that our speech organs were not
originally intended for this purpose. It was only with time that they developed
their actual function as speech organs. Here is a table which depicts the primary
functions of speech organs and their late linguistic specialization (O’Grady, 1997: 14):
Dual functions of the speech organs
Organ Survival function Speech function
Lungs To exchange CO2, oxygen To supply air for speech
Vocal cords To create seal over passage
to lungs
To produce voice for
speech sounds
Tongue To move food back to
throat
To articulate vowels and
consonants
Teeth To break up food To provide place of
articulation for consonants
Lips To seal oral cavity To articulate vowels and
consonants
Nasal cavities Breathing To provide nasal resonance
It is then important to be aware of how a particular speech sound is produced or
articulated. This is why our main concern will be the study of articulatory phonetics.
As we will see throughout the course, phonetics can provide us with a helpful amount of
resources for our educational purposes. It can convey:
An accurate description of the articulatory mechanisms involved in the production
of every single speech sound.
A written representation of speech sounds so that students can visualize how a
particular word or sentence should be pronounced (phonemic transcription).
Tips for non-native speakers to pronounce English speech sounds in a correct
manner.
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Unit 1 – Pay attention to
Exercises (minimal-pairs activities) to distinguish between similar speech sounds.
Rules to use word stress correctly.
The importance of teaching phonetics when learning a foreign language relies on their
techniques to reproduce the different speech sounds of any language by means of
written symbols (phonemic transcription). This is especially useful when teaching
languages such as English which has no one-to-one correspondence between spelling
and pronunciation (inconsistent spelling).
1.3. Types of phonetics
The scientific study of the speech sounds can be tackled from several points of view. As
we have already stated, a thorough study of speech sounds must encompass several
issues:
The organs we use to produce these sounds.
The physical features of the sounds.
The different aspects involved in their reception and interpretation.
As a consequence, phonetics has been traditionally divided into three different
branches:
Articulatory phonetics: it deals with the articulatory mechanisms of our body
involved in the production of speech sounds. These are known as the organs of
speech and fall into three areas:
o Respiratory system: the lungs and the bronchial tubes.
o Phonatory system: the larynx and the vocal folds.
o Articulatory system: the pharynx, the oral cavity and the nasal cavity.
Acoustic phonetics: it studies the physical properties of the speech sounds in
terms of frequency (high tones or low tones), amplitude (amount of energy) and
time (duration).
Auditory phonetics: it tackles the mechanisms involved in the perception and
interpretation of the speech sounds.
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Unit 1 – Pay attention to
Although we will primarily focus on the resources provided by the articulatory
phonetics, it seems convenient to provide a general overview of the object of study of
each type of phonetics.
Articulatory phonetics
Articulatory phonetics deals with the description of the parts of our body used when
producing speech sounds.
More specifically, it gives us information on how and where a particular speech sound
is produced. Using the diagram on the process of communication we studied before, we
will notice that articulatory phonetics deals primarily with the sender’s ability to
speak, in other words, to articulate speech sounds.
To have a clearer idea of the process involved in the production of speech let’s begin by
describing it step by step. A first question then arises: what is speech? According to
professor Beverley Collins, “speech is a continuous flow of sound with interruptions
only when necessary to take in air to breathe or to organize our thoughts” (Collins,
2008: 10).
Therefore, we must bear in mind that sounds are produced by moving air which travels
in the form of vibrations. But, how are speech sounds produced? To produce a
speech sound we must first set some previously inhaled air in motion. This inhaled air
is stored in our lungs so we can say that the starting point for speaking relies on our
lungs. This way of producing speech is known as pulmonic egressive mechanism since
it originates in the lungs and the airstream is directed outwards (egressive). It is the
mechanism used in the great majority of languages although some African languages
can also use pulmonic ingressive mechanisms.
Once the airflow has been set in motion it goes through several stages before becoming
a particular speech sound. These stages correspond to different body parts and