Lecture 1. The Subject matter of Theoretical Phonetics.

Lecture 1. The Subject matter of Theoretical Phonetics.

 

Phonetics studies the sound system of the language, i.e. segmental phonemes, word stress, syllabic structure and intonation. It is primarily concerned with speech production (how sounds are made by speakers), speech perception (how sounds are perceived by listeners) and speech analysis (how sound waves can be processed and described). It follows from this, that phonetics is a basic branch of linguistics: no language description is complete without phonetics, the science concerned with the spoken medium of language.

The subject matter of theoretical phoneticsisthe study of the sound patterns of language, of how a spoken language functions as a “code” (phonology). Theoretical Phonetics regards phonetic phenomena synchronically without any special attention paid to the historical development of English. The course of theoretical phonetics is aimed at discussing those problems of modern phonetic science which are strongly concerned with English language teaching. The teacher must be sure that what he teaches is linguistically correct.

The process of communication is actualized throughout three stages: psychological, physiological and acoustic. Consequently, there are three branches of phonetics each corresponding to a different stage in the communication process. The branch of phonetics that studies the way in which the air is set in motion, the movements of the speech organs and the coordination of these movements in the production of single sounds and trains of sounds is called articulatory phonetics.

Acoustic phonetics studies the way in which the air vibrates between the speaker’s mouth and the listener’s ear. Acoustic phonetics presents special interest for research work and applied linguistics. The development of computing technique will give rise to all sorts of teaching machines.

The brunch of phonetics investigating the hearing process is known as auditory phonetics. Its interests lie more in the sensation of hearing, which is brain activity, than in the physiological working of the ear or the nervous activity between the ear and the brain. This branch of phonetics is of great interest to anyone who teaches or studies pronunciation.

 

Lecture 2. Speech Production Mechanisms.

 

Human speech is the result of a highly complicated series of events. The formation of the concept takes place at a linguistic level, that is in the brain of the speaker. The message formed within the brain is transmitted along the nervous system to the speech organs. Therefore the human brain controls the behaviour of the articulating organs which effects in producing a particular pattern of speech sounds. The movements of the speech apparatus disturb the air stream thus producing sound waves. The sound waves are received by the listener’s hearing physiological apparatus, the spoken message is transmitted through the nervous system to the brain and the information conveyed is linguistically interpreted.

How sounds are classified

Consonants

The fundamental distinction between consonants and vowels is that consonants make some obstruction to the flow of air, while vowels make relatively little obstruction.

Consonants are classified in terms of the following factors:

· state of the vocal cords (voiced - [b], [d], [g], [v], [z], [ ð ], [ ʒ ], [ ʤ ] or voiceless -[p], [t], [k], [f], [s], [ʃ ], [θ ], [ʧ ])

· position of the soft palate (nasal [m], [n], [ŋ ] or oral [b], [d], [g], [v], [z], [ð ], [ʒ ], [ʤ ], [p], [t], [k], [f], [s], [ʃ ], [θ ], [ʧ ],[w], [l], [r], [j])

· place of articulation (labial: bilabial [p], [b], [m], [w]; labio-dental [f],[v], coronal: dental [θ],[ ð], [s], [z], alveolar [t], [d], [l], [n], palato-alveolar [ ʃ ], [ ʒ ], [ ʧ ], [ ʤ ], retroflex [r], dorsal: palatal [j] ,velar [k], [g], [ŋ], glottal [ h ], [ʔ])

· manner of the production of noise (stops: nasal stops [m], [n], [ŋ ], oral stops [b], [d], [g], [p], [t], [k], fricatives [f], [v], [s], [z], [h], [θ], [ð], [ʃ], [ʒ], approximants [w], [l], [r], [j])

 

Vowels

 

In the production of vowel sounds, the articulators do not come very close together, and the passage of the air stream is relatively unobstructed.

Vowels can be classified in terms of the following factors among which the first three are the most important for English vowel quality:

· height of the body of the tongue (high [ i: ], [ u: ], mid-high [i], [u], mid [ ɜ: ], [ e ], [ ɔ: ], mid-low [ ə ], [ ɒ ], low [ ʌ ], [ æ ], [ ɑ: ])

· front-back position of the tongue (front [ i ], [ e ], [ i: ], [ æ ], central [ ɜ: ], [ ʌ ], back [ u: ], [ ɑ: ], [ u ], [ ɒ ])

· degree of lip rounding (rounded ( labialized [u:], [u], [ɔ:], [ɒ], unrounded non-labialized)

· stability of articulation (monophthong [ i ], [ e ], [ i: ], [ æ ], [ ɜ: ], [ ʌ ] [ u: ], [ ɑ: ], [ u ], [ ɒ ], [ ə ], [ ɔ: ] diphthong [ əu ], [ ɔi ], [ei], [ai], [au], [ɒi], [u ə], [i ə])

· duration (length) of the vowel segment (short [ i ], [ e ], [ æ ], [ u ], [ ɒ ], [ ə ], [ ʌ ], long [ i: ], [ u: ], [ ɜ: ], [ ɔ: ], [ ɑ: ])

· tenseness of the vocal organs (lax [ i ], [ e ], [ æ ], [ u ], [ ɒ ], [ ə ], [ ʌ ], tense [ i: ], [ u: ], [ ɜ: ], [ ɔ: ], [ ɑ: ])

· position of the soft palate (oral, nasal)

· energy discharge (checked [ i ], [ e ], [ æ ], [ u ], [ ɒ ], [ ə ], [ ʌ ], unchecked[ i: ], [ u: ], [ ɜ: ], [ ɔ: ], [ ɑ: ]).

 

To be aware of and to be able to preserve in our speech the vowel and, particularly, consonant contrasts, as well as placement of stress in polysyllabic words, and the principle contrasts carried by accent and intonation are the necessary conditions for communication to be successful in the international context.

 

Questions and tasks:

1. What is human speech?

2. Describe each of the mechanisms of the process of speech production.

3. Classify English vowels.

4. Classify English consonants.

 

 

Phonetics and Phonology

The development of different approaches to the interpretation of a phoneme enriched the linguistic science in general and leads to the appearance within phonetics a separate branch called phonology.

What is the main distinction between phonetics and phonology?

Phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are made, transmitted and received i.e. phonetics is the study of all possible speech sounds. The human vocal apparatus can produce a wide range of sounds; but only a small number of them are used in the language to construct all its words and utterances.

Phonology is the study of these segmental (speech sound types) and prosodic (intonation) features which have a different value in the language. It studies the way in which speakers systematically use a selection of units – phonemes and intonemes in order to express meaning. It investigates the phonetic phenomena from the point of view of their use.

Within phonology two branches of study are usually recognized: segmental and supra-segmental. Segmental phonology analyses speech into discrete segments such as phonemes. Supra-segmental phonology analyses those features which extend over more than one segment such as intonation contours.

The primary aim of phonology is to discover the principles that govern the way that sounds are organized in languages, to determine which phonemes are used and how they pattern phonological structure of a language.

Phonology also solves:

1. the problem of the identification of the phonemes of the language:

2. the problem of the identification of the phoneme in particular word, utterance;

It establishes the system of phonemes and determines the frequency of occurrence in syllables, words, utterances. The distribution and grouping of phonemes and syllables in words are dealt with an area of phonology which is called phonotactics.

Phonology was originated in the 30s of the 20^th century by a group of linguists belonging to the Prague linguistic school – Vilem Matesius, Nicolai Trubetsoy, Roman Jakobson. The theoretical background of phonology is phoneme theory whose foundations were first laid down by I.A. Bodoine – de- Courtenay (1845-1929) in the last quarter of the 19th century (between the years 1868-1881). The most important work in phonology is THE GROUNDWORK OF PHONOLOGY (1939) by Nicolai Trubetsoy. He claimed that phonology should be separated from phonetics as it studies the functional aspect of phonic components of language. Phonetics is a biological science which investigates the sound-production aspect. Contemporary phoneticians hold the view that form and function cannot be separated and treat phonology as a linguistic branch of phonetics.

 

 

Questions and tasks:

1. What is a phoneme? What are allophones?

2. What is the basic method of establishing a phonemic status of a sound?

3. Give detailed characteristics of each approach to the study of a phoneme.

4. What is the difference between phonetics and phonology?

5. Phonology as a separate branch of phonetics.

 

Changes in the Standard

As was stated above, changes in the standard may be traced in the speech of the younger generation of native RP speakers. These changes may affect all the features of articulation of vowel and consonant phonemes and also the prosodic system of the language. Considerable changes are observed in the sound system of the present-day English, which are the most remarkable since the well-known Great Vowel Shift in the Middle English period of the language development.

Changes of Vowel Quality

1. According to the stability of articulation.

1) historically long vowels [i:], [u:] have become diphthongized and are often called diphthongoids.

2) A tendency for some diphthongs to become shorter like pure vowels.

* [ei] in final position, where the glide is very slight: [tə` dei], [sei], [mei].

* [ai], [au] [ə]: Conservative RP: [tauə], [faiə]

General RP: [taə], [faə]

Advanced RP: [tɑ:], [fɑ:]

2. According to the horizontal and vertical movements of the tongue. The general tendency is marked by centering of both front and back vowels:

· the nuclei [ai], [au] tend to be more back;

· [æ] is often replaced by [ɒ] by younger speakers: [hæv] – [h ɒv], [ænd] – [ɒnd].

· [ou] is replaced by [əu]

Conservative RP:[sou], [foun], [nout];

General RP: [səu, [fəu], [nəut];

This tendency is so strong that the transcription symbol has been recently changed in many British books.

* [ʌ], [u] are considerably fronted in the Advanced RP: but [bʌt] – [bət], good

[gud] – [gəd].

Combinative changes.

· Сhanges in [j+u:], [l+u:]. Words like suit, student, super may be pronounced either [sju:t] or [su:t], [stju:dənt] or [stu:dnt], [sju:pə] or [su:pə]

· Changes of [ɔ:] to [ɒ] before [f, s, θ ] the pronunciation of the word loss

[lɔ:s] is replaced by [l ɒ s]. Words like salt and fault may be pronounced with [ɔ:].

4. Changes in length. There is a strong tendency for the so-called short vowels to be lengthened.

· the lengthening of [i] is often heard in big, his, is; of [u] in good; [ʌ] in come.

· [e, æ] are frequently lengthened in yes, bed, men, said, sad, bad.

 

Lecture 1. The Subject matter of Theoretical Phonetics.

 

Phonetics studies the sound system of the language, i.e. segmental phonemes, word stress, syllabic structure and intonation. It is primarily concerned with speech production (how sounds are made by speakers), speech perception (how sounds are perceived by listeners) and speech analysis (how sound waves can be processed and described). It follows from this, that phonetics is a basic branch of linguistics: no language description is complete without phonetics, the science concerned with the spoken medium of language.

The subject matter of theoretical phoneticsisthe study of the sound patterns of language, of how a spoken language functions as a “code” (phonology). Theoretical Phonetics regards phonetic phenomena synchronically without any special attention paid to the historical development of English. The course of theoretical phonetics is aimed at discussing those problems of modern phonetic science which are strongly concerned with English language teaching. The teacher must be sure that what he teaches is linguistically correct.

The process of communication is actualized throughout three stages: psychological, physiological and acoustic. Consequently, there are three branches of phonetics each corresponding to a different stage in the communication process. The branch of phonetics that studies the way in which the air is set in motion, the movements of the speech organs and the coordination of these movements in the production of single sounds and trains of sounds is called articulatory phonetics.

Acoustic phonetics studies the way in which the air vibrates between the speaker’s mouth and the listener’s ear. Acoustic phonetics presents special interest for research work and applied linguistics. The development of computing technique will give rise to all sorts of teaching machines.

The brunch of phonetics investigating the hearing process is known as auditory phonetics. Its interests lie more in the sensation of hearing, which is brain activity, than in the physiological working of the ear or the nervous activity between the ear and the brain. This branch of phonetics is of great interest to anyone who teaches or studies pronunciation.