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PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGYListening and understanding Phonetics and phonology are elements behind listening and understanding. The success of a listening activity is determined by the difference between your horizons of expectation and what you really get in the spoken interaction. Since we cannot chan...

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PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY Listening and understanding! Phonetics and phonology are elements behind listening and understanding. " The success of a listening activity is determined by the difference between your horizons of expectation and what you really get in the spoken interaction.! Since we cannot change or (heavily) influence the latter, we will have to work on the former. " PHONETICS — PHONOLOGY — LISTENING and vice versa " From spelling to pronunciation Spelling problems are caused by the indirect (or ‘abnormal’) relationship between letter and sound, grapheme and phoneme. " - Our approach: language awareness, focusing on problems, facing problems through examples, comparative / contrastive approach (English/Italian, English/x)." One phoneme > more than one grapheme English spelling does not accurately represent English sounds. " One single sound (phoneme) is represented by more than one letter (grapheme). For ! example: " /i:/ beat, seed, piece, serene, machine /ei/ bait, day, veil, obey! /∫/ shoe, sugar, issue, mansion " One grapheme > more than one phoneme. For example: " • Grapheme for: ! phoneme /æ/ of man; phoneme /α:/ of car, glass phoneme /ei/ of name. • Grapheme for! phoneme /t∫/ of cheese, church, cheap;! phoneme /∫/ of chalet, champagne, Chicago, chic; phoneme /k/ of character, chemistry, chaos. " SILENT LETTERS! Some letters may represent no sound at all. These are ‘silent’ letters.! • Silent letters cause difficulties for both native speakers and English learners, because they make the spelling of words different from their pronunciation. ! For example:! – subtle, doubt, comb, lamb;! – answer;! – knife, know, knight;! – bright, light, night;! – name, time, goose, Greene, Deere. ! STANDARD BRITISH English! The variety selected is Standard British English because its has common currency —> books, newspapers, magazines and nearly everything else that appears in print in the English-speaking world are written in Standard English.! It is a dialect: in other words, it is a variety characterised by certain lexical and grammatical features.! All speakers of English have a dialect, be it Standard English or some other variety. Whereas a small percentage of the British population speak Standard English, virtually everyone is aware of the standard variety because of its widespread use in public documents, textbooks, newspapers." Similarly, all speakers have an accent: it is the term we use to refer to characteristics of pronunciation, different ways of pronouncing a language (depending on geographical origin of speakers, social class, age, educational background).! RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION (RP)! It is not possible to select the accent used by speakers of Standard English since they do not all speak the same accent. Linguists have traditionally selected a representative accent known as Received Pronunciation (RP) to represent British English.! The Queen speaks RP.! RP: social accent associated with the BBC, the public schools in England, and with members of the upper-middle and upper classes. ! It is regionless, social, often used in radio and TV broadcasts, used natively by only 3-5% of the population in England. ! Perceived as representative of English in that it is the accent taught to many foreigners and the pronunciation given in dictionaries. ! It has the disadvantage of being associated with social privilege, but it also has the advantage of not being associated with any specific geographical region. "

Phonetics Phonetics is the study of the physical characteristics of speech sound.! It involves:" - how they are produced (articulatory phonetics) " - how they are used in spoken language" - how we hear and recognise them (auditory phonetics) " - how we can record the using written symbols " Articulatory phonetics: area of phonetics which deals with the actual production of speech sounds.! ex. the word bat is made up of 3 different sounds.! We will be concerned with discovering what precisely we do in physiological terms in order to produce individual sound such as these and many others. " Phonology ! Phonology is the study of speech sounds in relation to meaning, it is more concerned with sounds system and patterns.! It involves:" - recognising phonemes as speech sounds that distinguish words and convey meaning as opposed to phones and allophones" - understand the relationship between phonemes " Speech is very important because human language materialises first and foremost as speech —> speech sounds in their representative abstract form are called phonemes. " WHAT’S A PHONEME? Phonemes are the sounds which occur in English as represented by Received Pronunciation.! Phoneme is an abstract concept.! Phonemes are distinct and distinctive speech sounds in their representative, abstract form: " • distinct: having its own peculiar characteristics;" • distinctive: these characteristics are used by speakers to distinguish words and to convey meaning." How many sounds has the word bat?" We can verify this through substitution and if a single sound substitution enables us to make a distinction between two different words, this is proof that two sounds involved are each meaningful sounds in the language." Each of these sounds is distinct and distinctive, we see this by replacing individual sounds with other sounds of English and obtaining different words —> minimal pairs" Bat " Cat —> b and c carry a meaning " Bet —> e carries a meaning" CONTEXTUAL VARIATION OF A PHONEME On the other hand, the same sound can be pronounced differently depending on where it occurs in a group of sounds. " ex.—> look vs. cool " ALLOPHONES! The surface form of the phoneme, which may vary depending on the position of a sound or on the speaker’s accent, are allophones.! Clear “l” and dark “l” are allophones of the phoneme /l/. " PHONEME INVENTORY! The complete set of phonemes in a language or in a particular accent of a language is know as a phoneme inventory.! When we write down sound we make a transcription, but to indicate sounds clearly to the reader we need to use a special alphabet (code). " THE INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET! The problem of there not always being the same correspondence between letters and sounds led a group of linguists concerned with the teaching of a foreign language to devise a special alphabet in which one symbol always represented the same sound and in which there was a sign for every possible sound.! IPA stands for International Phonetic Alphabet and is an indispensable tool for the study of phonetics and phonology, as it makes the task of identifying and referring to sounds much easier.! The IPA is used to transcribe sounds, not spelling. "

Phonetic symbols are written in slant brackets / /, while letters are written in angles brackets < >.! In phonetics it is the sound of a word which is important not its written form. " TRANSCRIPTIONS! The symbols in slant brackets represent underlying phonemes —> /ʃ/ is as in ‘ship’. This type of transcription is known as broad transcription.! It is possible to use special markings called diacritics in a transcription in order to identify allophones: in this case we produce a narrow transcription, placed within [ ] square brackets. " 15 letters of the English alphabet are used in a very similar way in the phonetic alphabet. The following letters are all consonants." THE VOCAL TRACT! The vocal tract is where sounds are produced, it begins with the voice box or larynx and it ends with the lips.! The larynx is a casing of cartilage rings at the top of the trachea: it contains two small muscles which can open and close, and these are the vocal cords and the space between them is called glottis.! The section of the vocal tract between the larynx and the uvula is known as the pharynx. Above the pharynx, the vocal tract branches into nasal cavity and oral cavity. For the majority of English sounds, the soft palate is raised; however, there are 3 sounds for which the soft palate is lowered: the 3 nasal consonants. " The flow of air is called airstream when air is passing from the lungs, up the trachea, then through the larynx and the rest of the vocal tract." • if the airstream flows out of the lungs, it’s called egressive pulmonic airstream;" • if the airstream flows into the lungs, it’s called ingressive pulmonic airstream." All sounds in English are made by using an egressive pulmonic airstream. " THE CONSONANTS OF English CONSONANTS: involve some kind of narrow partial or complete closure (stricture). • " VOWELS: involve no closure between different parts of the mouth. " A consonant is a speech sound produced through a temporary closure (partial or complete) of the vocal tract, usually in the mouth.! The English of Received Pronunciation is based on a system of 24 consonants.! We classify consonants according to 3 different aspects:! - place of articulation " - manner of articulation! - presence or absence of voice " PLACE OF ARTICULATION It’s possible to identify various places of articulation.! A place of articulation is the part of the vocal tract where the closure necessary for a consonant sound is made.! The part of the mouth involved in making speech sounds are called articulators: " • PASSIVE ARTICULATOR: three parts of the mouth cannot move: the upper teeth, ! the alveolar ridge and the hard palate " • ACTIVE ARTICULATORS: are those part that do move like: the tongue (tip, blade, ! front and back and sides). The tongue is a very important articulator as is often brought in contact with another part of the mouth. " All the consonants will fall into one of the following categories: " • bilabial: the lips (/b/, /m/, /p/, /w/) " • labio-dental: the upper front teeth placed against the lower lip (/f/, /v/) " • (inter-) dental: the tongue (tip and sides) between the front teeth and touching the ! upper teeth (/ɵ/, /ð/) " • alveolar: the tongue (tip, blade and sometimes sides) against the alveolar ridge (/t/, / ! d/, /s/, /z/, /n/, /l/, /r/) "

• palato-alveolar: the tip or blade of the tongue making contact with the alveolar ! ridge, while the front of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate (/ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /ʤ/) " • palatal: the tongue (front and/or sides) against the hard palate (/ŋ/) " • velar: the ache of the tongue against the velum (/j/) " • glottal: the vocal cords (/h/) " MANNER OF ARTICULATION ! Identifying the manner of articulation allows us to classify sounds according to what happens to the airstream as it passes through the vocal tract.! We can distinguish 5 manner of articulation:" • PLOSIVE: the articulators involved block the air (lips are closed as air passes from the lungs and up in the trachea into the mouth), the pressure builds up and when we release the air, there is a small explosion —> some examples are /b/, /p/, /k/, /g/ etc…" •NASAL: the articulators are closed as in plosives, however some air escapes through the nasal cavity so the pressure is lower. When the air is released, there is a small burst of air, however there is less pressure and the sound resonates in the nasal cavity. N asana are always voiced —> examples are / m/ and /n/." •FRICATIVES: the nasal cavity is blocked off through the rising of the velum. But in contrast to plosives, the closure isn’t so tight that no air at all can escape, the air passes through, but there is a friction and this gives the sound its turbulent or fricative quality. We can pronounce fricatives as long as we have enough air. Some examples are /s/, /f/." • AFFRICATE: an affricate sound is a combination of a plosive and a fricative sound. The sound begins as plosive, but the air is released more gently than in a plosive consonants, so that the closure is partially maintained. In English there are only two which are: /ʧ/, /ʤ/. " • APPROXIMANTS: when they are produced, the restriction to the air passage are less than those for the other four types since the closure in the vocal tract is never total, nor is friction ever produced at the place of articulation. This makes approximants more like vowels, but they appear where consonants rather than vowels normally occur. " /w, l, r, j/ are all voiced ! /w/ is a bilabial approximant ! /l, r/ are alveolar approximants - liquid ! /l/ is alveolar approximant -lateral ! /r/ is alveolar approximant - central ! /j/ is palatal approximant " VOICING A further feature must be identified and this feature is voicing.! If we describe consonants by place and manner of articulation, in some instances we still get two sound per slot.! Difference between /s/ and /z/: /s/ is voiceless and /z/ is voiced.! Voicing is the vibration of the vocal cords in the articulation of a speech sound.! The presence or the absence of voice when a phoneme is produced is caused by the state of the vocal cords in the larynx:! • if the folds are open when the air passes through the larynx, the sound is voiceless.! • if the folds are almost closed, the sound is voiced." /h/ also referred to as an aspirate, is unlike the other consonants and is produced in the glottis, not in the mouth. It is voiceless because to produce it the vocal cords need to be more open than for voiced consonants but not fully open as when breathing out normally and silently. " The voiced/voiceless quality of a speech sound may create semantic opposition: "

• house /s/ vs house /z/! • to cease /s/ vs to seize /z/! • niece vs knees " • pin vs bin " THE VOWELS OF English From a phonetic point of view, vowels are articulated with an open configuration of the vocal tract and no such closure used for the consonants are used for the vowel and also none of the vocal organs come so close together causing audible friction. " From a phonological point of view, vowels are units of the sound system, which rely on the shape of the lips and the position of the tongue in the mouth, without the tongue coming into contact with the other articulators as it does for consonants." Vowels might be viewed as being at one end of a continuum of closure and as being distinct from the consonants in that they are not dependent from their production on contact between the articulators.! Vowels are all voiced (not like consonants). " CLASSIFICATION OF VOWELS! The vowel have already been classified into two types: monophthongs and diphthongs. " A monophthong is a pure vowel: when the vowel is spoken in isolation, the position of the mouth remains unchanged.! A diphthong is glide from one vowel towards another: as we pronounce a diphthong we will feel the shape of our mouth alter slightly.! There are 20 vowels in RP: some vowel symbols resemble or are letters of the Roman alphabet, while others look less familiar.! Diphthongs are represented by two symbols, the first is the vowel with which the glide begins and the second is the vowel towards which the glide moves. They are treated as distinct phonemes because they are not simply sequences of one vowel followed by another, but single elements of a more complex nature than monophthongs in that the tongue glides from one position to another. " The 20 vowels sounds of RP English are qualitatively divided according to the following criteria." • the distance between tongue and palate:" . - close, lowered-close , half-close, mid, half-open, raised-ope, open. " • the part of the tongue that is raised: " . - front, central, neutral, back" • the position and also the shape of the lips: " . - unrounded (spread), neutral, rounded ! In English the soft palate is normally raised for vowels, so that the air escapes through the oral cavity only. " To understand the tongue position we can use a grid that relates to the shape of the mouth (grid introduced by Daniel Jones).! Each corner of the grid indicates the points, front and back, where the tongue will be at its highest or lowest, particularly when the mouth is open quite wide. " The front of the tongue lies opposite the hard palate, while the back of the tongue lies opposite the soft palate." front vowel: the tongue will be raised towards the alveolar ridge and the hard palate." back vowel: the back of the tongue is raised towards the soft palate.! central vowel: tongue tends to be flatter than for front or back vowels. " The levels and the sides of the grid denote the height of the tongue and therefore the amount of space between tongue and the hardened soft palate when the vowel is produced. " close vowel: a close vowel will have a small cavity between the tongue and the palate." open vowel: an open vowel will have a large cavity between the tongue and the palate." There are also two intermediate measures of tongue height half-close and half-open. Vowels are arranged in a close-open, front-back diagram (a quadrilateral). " Vowels are arranged in a close-open, front-back diagram. These vowels are primary cardinal vowels and are the most familiar to the speakers of most European languages. Daniel Jones also

identified 8 reference points around the grid and this reference points are known as cardinal vowels (when we write cardinal vowels we use a C before the vowel). " All eight cardinal vowels do not have a counteRPart in English or in RP." LIP POSITION! When classifying vowels the shape of the lips is usually given less attention than the height of the tongue and the part of the tongue that is raised. " • unrounded: /i/ the corners of the lips are moved away from each other (as for smile)." • neutral: /ə/ (the noise when hesitating ‘er’) the lips are not rounded or spread. " • rounded: /u:/ corners of the lips are brought towards each other and the lips pushed forward. " LONG AND SHORT VOWELS! Some vowels do not only differ qualitatively, but also quantitatively (as indicated by the colon as the diacritic for length): long vowels (/i:/) as opposed to short vowels (/ɪ/).! The 20 vowels sounds of RP English are quantitatively divided into short vowels, long and diphthongs. " • short vowels (7): no noticeable change in quality during their articulation (e.g. pit, set, cat, dog, but, put)." • long vowels (5) and diphthongs (8): change in length, quality and “gliding” (e.g. pool. card, peace, say, buy, cow, ice, go)." DIPHTHONGS! There are eight diphthongs:" Three diphthongs move towards /ɪ/ and other two towards / ʊ/ . These five diphthongs are often referred to as closing diphthongs.! The other three diphthongs move towards /ə/, and are often referred to as centring diphthongs.! They can be described as closing or centring diphthongs — > the closing diphthongs can be divided between those of which the tongue movement is toward the front of the mouth (towards /ɪ/) and those four which the movement is towards the back of the mouth (/ʊ/). "

SEGMENTAL PHONOLOGY Whereas phonetics is concerned with the production of individual speech sounds, phonology is concerned with the phoneme system of languages and with the individual sounds or segments when they’re no longer in isolation but they’re grouped together in syllables and words.! Phonology is often divided into: " • segmental phonology: deals with the distribution of phonemes, how they vary in different environments, and how phonemes group together to form syllables and words." • suprasegmental phonology: deals with aspects of speech such as pitch and intonation which colour speech at the syllable level and beyond." A phoneme may vary from accent to accent or from speaker to speaker.! Phonologists consider that the phoneme is an abstract concept.! Phonologists make a contrast between phonemes, which make up the sound system of a language on an abstract level, and allophones, which are the sounds speakers actually produce.! THE DISTRIBUTION OF CONSONANTS! The RP has 6 plosives, 2 affricates, 9 fricatives, 3 nasals and 4 approximants.! We now move and see how they combine to form syllables and words.! We study the distribution of consonants in syllables and words by looking at the positions in which they occur." • monosyllabic words: they will have the structure CVC." • disyllabic words have two syllables: they will have the structure CVCV(C)." There are three positions in which the consents can occur: " - word-initial: at the beginning of the word and all consonants, with the exception of /ŋ/ , can occur in word-initial position." - word-final: at the end of the word, all consonants with the exceptions of the approximants /r, j, w/ and of the glottal fricative /h/ are final consonants." - word-medial: between vowels in a word of two syllables or mo...