Important definitions
Phonetics
Phonology
Phoneme
Blends
Types of blend
Variations of one phoneme
Examples: Tea, Writer, Eight and Two
Vocal Tract
The vocal tract is the channel of air flow between the larynx and de mouth and nose.
- - The branch of linguistics that deals with the sounds of speech and their prediction, combination, description and representation by written symbols.
- The system of sounds of a particular language.
- The science concerned with the study of speech processes including the production, perception, and analysis of speech sounds from both an acoustic and physiological point of view.
Phonology
- Phonology is the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural language.
Phoneme
- It is the smallest unit of sound whit in a spoken word.
- In English we have 44 phonemes approximately.
- In Spanish we have 25 phonemes.
Blends
- When two or more letters appear together and you hear only one sound. This combination is called blend.
Types of blend
- Diagraph: It is single sound or a phoneme in other words. It is a blend which is represented by TWO letters: Blue
- Triagraph: It is a single sound or a phoneme which is represented by three letters: Spherical
Variations of one phoneme
- Allophones: A phoneme itself can have different pronunciations according to its context. This different variation of the same phoneme is called allophones.
Examples: Tea, Writer, Eight and Two
Vocal Tract
The vocal tract is the channel of air flow between the larynx and de mouth and nose.
Places of Articulation
The 25 distinct consonant phonemes of NAE can be distinguished a long three main dimensions:
Voicing
Place of Articulation
In the production of sounds, air passes the rough one or both of two passage ways: The oral cavity or the nasal passage way, depending on whether the nasal passage way is blocked off or not, which speech organs are in which position in order for a particular consonant sound to be produce:
Manner of Articulation
In the production of consonant sound, we can think of the air as moving through an obstacle course created by different configurations of the speech organs. As the air encounters these obstacles different kinds of sounds are produced. The type of obstacle course the air takes, referred to as the manner of articulation is another distinguishing feature of how consonants are produced.
Example:
Voiceless = (t)
Voiced = (d)
Manner of Articulation (How) and Place of Articulation (Where)
Labiodental: With lower lip and upper teeth
Dental: With tip of tongue hear or against the upper front teeth
Alveolar: With tip of the tongue touching or near the inner ridge of the gums of the upper front teeth.
Post alveolar: With tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants.
Retroflex: With the tongue has a flat, concave or even curled shape, and it is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate.
Palatal: With body of the tongue raised against the hard palate.
Velar: With back part of the tongue against soft palate.
Uvular: With back of the tongue against or near the uvular.
Pharyngeal: With root the tongue against the pharynx
Glottal: With the glottal
Nasal: With the lower velum, allowing air to scape freely through the nose.
Trill: Vibration of one speech organ against another.
Tap or Flat: allowing the tongue to give a single light tap against the alveolar ridge or uvula.
Fricative: Continuant consonant produced by partial occlusion of the airstream.
Approximant: Narrowing but not blocking the vocal tract, as by placing and articulator, such as the longue, near another part of the vocal tract.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
The 25 distinct consonant phonemes of NAE can be distinguished a long three main dimensions:
- Voicing: (Whether the vocal cords are vibrating)
- Place of Articulation: (Where the sound is made) and
- Manner of Articulation: (How the air flow is affected)
Voicing
- Whether or not the vocal cords are vibrating.
- Voiced and voiceless consonants.
- When you hiss, you hear only air escaping but when you buzz, you can hear the voicing or vibration quite clearly.
Place of Articulation
In the production of sounds, air passes the rough one or both of two passage ways: The oral cavity or the nasal passage way, depending on whether the nasal passage way is blocked off or not, which speech organs are in which position in order for a particular consonant sound to be produce:
Manner of Articulation
In the production of consonant sound, we can think of the air as moving through an obstacle course created by different configurations of the speech organs. As the air encounters these obstacles different kinds of sounds are produced. The type of obstacle course the air takes, referred to as the manner of articulation is another distinguishing feature of how consonants are produced.
Example:
Voiceless = (t)
Voiced = (d)
Manner of Articulation (How) and Place of Articulation (Where)
- Where in your mouth do you make the = Consonant Sounds is Place of Articulation
Labiodental: With lower lip and upper teeth
Dental: With tip of tongue hear or against the upper front teeth
Alveolar: With tip of the tongue touching or near the inner ridge of the gums of the upper front teeth.
Post alveolar: With tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants.
Retroflex: With the tongue has a flat, concave or even curled shape, and it is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate.
Palatal: With body of the tongue raised against the hard palate.
Velar: With back part of the tongue against soft palate.
Uvular: With back of the tongue against or near the uvular.
Pharyngeal: With root the tongue against the pharynx
Glottal: With the glottal
- How to pronounce is Manner of Articulation
Nasal: With the lower velum, allowing air to scape freely through the nose.
Trill: Vibration of one speech organ against another.
Tap or Flat: allowing the tongue to give a single light tap against the alveolar ridge or uvula.
Fricative: Continuant consonant produced by partial occlusion of the airstream.
Approximant: Narrowing but not blocking the vocal tract, as by placing and articulator, such as the longue, near another part of the vocal tract.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
- The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) it is mostly used in dictionaries to indicate the pronunciation of words. It is used in some foreign language text books and phrase books to transcribe the sounds of languages which are written with non-Latin alphabets. It is also used by non-native speakers of English when learning to speak English.
- The IPA has often been used as a basis for creating new writing systems for previously unwritten languages. (Ager, N/D)
- Vowels
- Vowel sounds present a considerable challenge to non-native speakers. Spoken English has an unusually high number of vowel sounds - from 5 written vowels (a, e, i, o, u) we produce 19 vowel sounds.
Diphthongs
A diphthong is a speech sound that begins with one vowel sound and changes to another vowel sound in the same syllable. Diphthongs are very common in English, but vary greatly from region to region. A diphthong is a more complex vowel sound.
Diphthongs begin with one vowel sound and change to another vowel sound in the same syllable. Your mouth position changes slightly through the vowel sound. (N/A, N/D)
Minimal Pairs
Two words that only differ by one sound.
Example:
Ice vs. eyes warm vs. worm
Silent Letters
Aspect of Pronunciation
What is a syllable?
Intonation
Intonation is the rising and falling sound of the voice when speaking. There are two basic patterns:
Tone units
In English, the intonation patterns are on groups of words.
These groups can be called tone groups, tone units, intonation groups, or sense groups. tone units are said on a single breath, they are limited in length and average about two seconds, or about five words. We break up spoken language into tone groups because we need to breathe. (English online, 2009).
Intonation and lexical chunks
The sound patterns of word and phrases are stored in our brains and help with memory and retrieval. Many fixed phrases/ lexical chunks have fixed intonation patterns. So it would be useful to draw attention to these patterns when teaching new lexis.
A diphthong is a speech sound that begins with one vowel sound and changes to another vowel sound in the same syllable. Diphthongs are very common in English, but vary greatly from region to region. A diphthong is a more complex vowel sound.
Diphthongs begin with one vowel sound and change to another vowel sound in the same syllable. Your mouth position changes slightly through the vowel sound. (N/A, N/D)
Minimal Pairs
Two words that only differ by one sound.
Example:
Ice vs. eyes warm vs. worm
Silent Letters
- Silent letters are letters can’t be heard when the word is spoke. (BBC. 2011)
- Design Thumb Knee Listen Half Guess
Aspect of Pronunciation
- Stress: Stressed syllables are most often defined as those syllables within an utterance that are longer louder, and higher in pitch.
- Strong / Strongly stressed
- Medial / lightly stressed
- Weak / Unstressed
- Ways to understand where the stress goes
- How native speakers highlight a stressed syllable (length, volume, pitch)
- How they produce unstressed syllable.
- What the tree main levels of stress are.
- Stress placement in English words is for the most part a rule-governed phenomenon, and explicit teaching of word stress patterns should be a part of the ESL pronunciation curriculum.
- They are several systems of notation for marking stress in a written word that can help make the concept visual for students.
What is a syllable?
- The small parts in which a word is divided
- Open syllable: Ends in a vowel
- Closed syllable: Ends in a consonant
Intonation
Intonation is the rising and falling sound of the voice when speaking. There are two basic patterns:
- Rising tone
- Falling tone
Tone units
In English, the intonation patterns are on groups of words.
These groups can be called tone groups, tone units, intonation groups, or sense groups. tone units are said on a single breath, they are limited in length and average about two seconds, or about five words. We break up spoken language into tone groups because we need to breathe. (English online, 2009).
Intonation and lexical chunks
The sound patterns of word and phrases are stored in our brains and help with memory and retrieval. Many fixed phrases/ lexical chunks have fixed intonation patterns. So it would be useful to draw attention to these patterns when teaching new lexis.
Bibliography
- Ager, S. (N/D). International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Retrieved from: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ipa.htm
- Class notes. (2015). Phonetics. Aguascalientes, Mexico. U.A.A.
- English Online. (2009). Tone Groups. Retrieved from: http://englishonline.tki.org.nz/English-Online/Planning-for-my-students-needs/Exploring-language/Intonation/Tone-Groups
- Hudson, J. (N/D) 19 Vowel Sounds of English. An English Accent. London. Retrieved from: http://www.anenglishaccent.com/vowels.html
- N/A. (N/D). Diphthong: (a combination of two vowel sounds). Retrieved from: http://www.really-learn-english.com/english-pronunciation-lesson-17-dipthongs.html