semester outline introduction to english phonology and
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1
Introduction to English
Phonology and Phonetics
Dr. Nadja Nesselhauf
Semester Outline
1. Phonetics and phonology: basics
(& introducing transcription)
2. English consonants
3. English vowels
4. Beyond the phoneme (connected speech,
suprasegmentals etc.)
5. Accents of English
American vs. British English- rhoticity
- flapped /elided t
- more yod-dropping
- absence of /P/ (usually @9)
- flat /z/ vs. broad /@9/
- often /@9/ vs. /N9/
- /29/ vs. /U/ in some words
Purely phonetic differences:
/r/ retroflex, /l/ always dark; /e/ more open, /@9/ further
back, less movement in /eH/, /?T/ vs. /nT/
Approximant /r/
Pronouncing /r/ in RP:
� /r/ / __ V (Cara)
� /r/ / __ # V (car engine) = linking /r/
� Ø / __ C,# (car, cart)
� not having /r/ in the last two contexts, RP is
non-rhotic; GA is rhotic (r-full)
2
Plosives: Allophonic Variation
T-flapping in General American [π]:
� /t/ → flap / V __ .V (better)
/ r __ .V (party)
/ __ kÿÿ, qÿ, lÿ (bottle, shutter, bottom)
� flap → Ø / n __ .V (winter)
Plosives: Allophonic Variation
D-flapping in GA in the same contexts as t-flapping
(cf. ladder, weirdo, saddle)
-> NEUTRALISATION of the contrast /t-d/ in the
relevant contexts
-> homophones such as
shutter – shudder, writing - riding etc.
Approximant /j/:
Yod-Dropping Before /u:/
[t9][t9]revolution/ l __
[t9][it9it9it9it9] [t9]enthusiasm/ θ __
[t9][it9it9it9it9] [t9]resume/ z __
[t9][it9it9it9it9] [t9]assume/ s __
[it9] [t9t9t9t9][it9]new/ n __
[it9] [t9t9t9t9][it9]duke/ d __
[it9] [t9t9t9t9][it9]Tuesday/ t __
[it9][it9]pure/ p __
[it9][it9]few/ f __
[it9][it9]mule/ m __
GARPExampleContext
English Monophthongs:
RP – GA Correspondences
RP /U/
GA /U/ cut
GA /29/ / __ r hurry, worry
RP /@9/
GA /@9/ father
GA /z/ / __ e,S,r,m,l(+C) staff, bath...
RP /N9/
GA /@9/ laundry
GA /N9/ <o,ou,oo> / __ r court
<a> /w __ r war
RP /P/ GA /@9/ lot
3
American vs. British English
Some more examples of “flat a:”
advance, after, ask, aunt, banana, basket, bath,
castle, class, disaster, fasten, France, glass, grass,
half, last, laugh, mask, monograph, nasty, passport,
past, path, plant, raspberry, rather, staff, task, vast
Approximant /r/ [¢¢¢¢]
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 4
7
Approximant /r/ [±±±±]
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 4
7
Lateral /l/: Allophonic Variation
Allophones of resonance in RP:
� clear [l] / __ V,j (land, billion, will you)
� dark [4] / __ C,# (silk, ball)
dark [4] = velarized
GA: dark [4] only
4
English Monophthongs (RP)
Source: S
auer 1
990, 1
6
English Monophthongs (GA)
Source: S
auer 1
990, 1
6
American vs. British English
Task: Please transcribe the following words in your
preferred variety:
anti-, adult, ate, clerk,
herb, leisure, medicine, progress,
schedule, semi-, shone, tomato,
vase, vitamin, with, zebra
American vs. British English
Semi-systematic differences:
<er> sometimes /@9/ in RP /29/ in GA:
clerk, derby, Berkely
<ei> sometimes /dH/ or /d/ in RP and /h9/ in GA
either, neither, leisure
Differences in individual words:
advertisement, alumin(i)um, apricot, data, dynasty, falcon,
khaki, lieutenant, lever, mum/mom (mummy/mommy), wrath,…
5
Word Stress
Suffix –ary, -ory:
/ !S __ /(?)qH/ (satisfactory)
<-ary,-ory>
/(?)qH/ in RP
/ .S __ (territory,
/dqH,N9qH/ in GA temporary)
→ pattern !1-2-$3-4 exists in GA, but not RP
Further Stress Differences
Task: How would you stress the following words (+ does your stress pattern correspond to RP or GA?):
address inquiry
advertisement laboratory
ballet magazine
cafe moustache / mustache
cigarette research
controversy translate
frontier weekend
garage (source: Crystal 1995)
Further Stress Differences
Semi-systematic differences:
- a number of words ending in –ate have the stress on the first syllable in GA: donate, migrate, vacate, vibrate and on the second in RP
- -ony like ory/ary/(ery): secondary stress on second syllable from end: testimony, ceremony
- GA has secondary stress of the last element of some compounds, esp. –berry: blueberry, raspberry etc.
- -ile endings: reduced vowel in GA but not in BrE: fertile, fragile, hostile,…
Accents of English in the World
� accent, variety
� linguistic variation:
� regional
� social
� ethnic
� gender
� standard vs. non-standard
6
Accents of English in the World
regional and social variation:
after Trudgill 2000
regional variation
social variation
Accents of English in the World
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anglospeak%28800px%292.png
Accents of English in the World
Source:Crystal, D
avid 2003.The Cambridge Encyclopedia of
the English Language.Cambrid
ge: C
UP, 1
07.
Kachru (1985): three circles of English users
Accents of English in the World
Language spread= the increase in the number of users of a language, often in new areas
Types of language spread (Quirk 1988):� demographic: speaker movement, settlement in new areas
� imperial: language is introduced to new areas through political domination
� econocultural: the language gains new speakers through its economic / cultural attractiveness
7
Accents of English in the World
20th + 21st centuryAll regions of the
worldEconocultural
phase 4
16th – 20th century
South Asia, South East Asia, West
Africa, East Africa, Caribbean, Pacific
Imperialphase 3
17th – 19th century
North America, Australia, New Zealand, South
Africa
Demographicphase 2
11th – 19th centuryIreland, Scotland,
WalesImperial
phase 1
Rough TimelineAreas InvolvedDominant Type of
Spread
Accents of English in the World
Types of accent variation:
� systemic: different accents possess
different phoneme inventories
� distributional: certain phonemes occur
in different environments
� lexical: individual words or word
groups take different phonemes
� realizational: phonemes have different
phonetic realizations
Accents of English: British Isles
/α:/ in bath
(instead of
/æ/)
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
44
Accents of English: British Isles
/H/ as the final
vowel in happy
(no happY-
tensing)
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
44
8
Accents of English: British Isles
/T/ instead of
/U/ (systemic
variation)
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
44
Accents of English: British Isles
force and North
words are
distinguished:
e.g. [mNqS] vs.
[enqr]
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
44
Accents of English: British Isles
light grey:
monophthongs in
face and goat
dark grey:
diphthong shift in
face, price, goat
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
45
Accents of English: British Isles
rhoticity
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
45
9
Accents of English: British Isles
h-dropping
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
45
Accents of English: British Isles
word-medial
glottal stop
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
45
Accents of English: British Isles
Listen to:
London
(Cockney)
[41]
Source: C
ollin
s/M
ees 2003, 1
43
Accents of English: British Isles
There was one of our blokes – one of his family –like cousins or uncles – or you know – in that range – had had an accident – and been taken to hospital – so he spent – I think most of his weekend without any sleep at all – at this hospital like – until he knew – that the person was going to be OK – anyway – come Monday morning – he decides to go straight to work –and – he comes to work – and say he has had no sleep at all and he‘s got a job to do in this house to provide – an extension phone – you know –and usually – it‘s – you run the cable upstairs into a bedroom – it‘s the usual place to have the phone – and – the bed – was fitted into slots in the floor – so he couldn‘t sort of – move it over.
10
Accents of English: British Isles
I mean – he could only get two legs out of the holein the floor and he couldn‘t – he needed two people to actually lift it and move it – so he laid across the bed – to – finish the cabling – and screw the – terminal box on the wall – and – not having had any sleep – he just sort of drifted off – and the thing is – the gentleman who let him in – but said he was going to work – and his wife would be in shortly – and she‘s come in – and not knowing the telephone man was there – I mean –to see a van outside – but she didn‘t – you know – sort of put two and two together – she‘s come in – she‘s gone upstairs – into the bathroom –
Accents of English: British Isles
and she‘s taken her clothes off like – you know –and gone into the bedroom to get her housecoat – she was going to have a bath – and there‘s a strange man laying on the bed – snoring his headoff – needless to say – our bloke spent about six hours in the nick – trying to explain what had happened – yes – spent six hours in the police station
Accents of English: British Isles
A closer look at Scotland
The languages of Scotland:
� Scottish Gaelic (today almost extinct)
� Scots (might be considered a distinct
language, an earlier split from English)
� Scottish English (the Scottish standard
of English)
Accents of English: British Isles
Task: Listen to the following excerpt from “Saving
Grace”, with the Scottish actors Craig Ferguson and
Valerie Edmond [Kapitel 5, 31:07]:
1) In what ways is the pronunciation of the phoneme /r/
different from Standard British English?
2) How is what would be Standard BrE /?T/ pronounced?
3) How is what would be Standard BrE /dH/ pronounced?
4) How is what would be Standard BrE /`T/ pronounced?
11
Accents of English: North America
North American accents (USA and Canada) are
relatively uniform.
Special features are to be found in: New England,
South, Canada
Two important ethnic accents:
� the accent of African Americans (~ African-
American Vernacular English = AAVE)
� the accent of Hispanic Americans (~ Chicano)
Accents of English: North America
Canada:
• house is [?T] and price is [?H] before fortis consonants
= “Canadian raising”
• otherwise, like GA
Accents of English:
The Southern Hemisphere
The three major Southern Hemisphere
varieties of English are:
� Australian English
� New Zealand English
� South African English
They share:
� a similar history (British settlement in the
18th-19th centuries)
� similar accents!
Accents of English:
The Southern Hemisphere
Some shared features of Southern
Hemisphere accents:
� non-rhotic
� /e/ and /æ/ are very close
� palm is very front: [a9] (only AusE and
NZE)
12
Accents of English:
The Southern Hemisphere
Listen to New Zealand English [55]:
- Close /e/: went, bed, very, everybody, let
- Close /z/: bad, flatmate
- Long /@9/ very front: car, guitar
Listen to South African English [56]:
- Close /e/: went, special, together, vegetable
Accents of English in the World
Source: Trudgill/Hannah
Systematizing the major differences between native-speaker accents of English:
Accents of English in the World
Key to the previous figure:
1 /a:/ rather than /æ/ in path
2 absence of non-prevocalic /r/
3 close realizations for /æ/ and /e/
4 front [a:] for /@9/
5 absence of contrast between cot and caught
6 /æ/ rathern than /a:/ in can’t
7 absence of contrast between bother and father
8 voicing of intervocalic /r/
9 unrounded vowel in pot
10 syllabic /r/ in bird
11 absence of contrast between pull and pool
Accents of English in the World
Numbers of English native speakers in different countries
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:English_dialects1997.png
13
Accents of English:
Second-Language Varieties
� apart from native-speaker varieties, new
varieties have also developed in post-
colonial settings
� these institutionalised varieties have their
own accent, lexicon and syntax
� some New Englishes: Indian English,
Singaporean English, West African English,
Jamaican English
Accents of English:
Second-Language Varieties
Criteria for an institutionalised New English:
� function: the variety must be used for a
broad range of functions
� form: the variety must have its own
distinctive features
� attitude: the speakers must recognize
their own variety as the standard
→ the status of many varieties is still
debated (e.g. Fiji, Philippines, Bahamas)
Accents of English:
Second-Language Varieties
West African English accent:
� smaller set of monophthong
phonemes: /h,d,`,N,t/
� no /?/; e.g.: perpetrate /o`o`sqds/
� syllable timing
� tendency for spelling pronunciation
Accents of English:
Second-Language Varieties
Listen to:
West Africa
[60]
Source: h
ttp://e
n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Im
age:Afric
a-m
ap.jp
g
14
The Chaos
(The Joy of English Pronunciation)
(by Gerard Nolst Trenité)
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.
I will keep you Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you‘ll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.
The Chaos
(The Joy of English Pronunciation)
(About 65 stanzas on):
Pronunciation – think of Psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
[…]
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Don’t you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
The Chaos
(The Joy of English Pronunciation)
Finally, which rhymes with enough,Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??Hiccough has the sound of sup...My advice is: GIVE IT UP!
http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j17/caos.php
MY ADVICE IS: DON‘T GIVE UP!!!
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