the description of speech
TRANSCRIPT
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)
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 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)
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
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
• 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