PHONETICS:
Why some sentences sound similar when spoken but differ so much
when written eg. I scream vs ice cream; the sun’s rays meet vs the sons
raise meat
What is Phonetics
The study of speech sounds
Aims of phonetics:
To understand and describe speech sounds
How they are produced
How they are classified
Branches of phonetics
1. Acoustic phonetics: the physical properties of speech sounds
2. Auditory Phonetics: how listeners perceive speech sounds
3. Articulatory Phonetics: how the vocal tract produces speech sounds
Articulatory Phonetics:
The shape the mouth makes when producing sounds
The speech organs involved in producing sounds
To produce speech sounds, there needs to be movement of air
Movement of air:
1. Egressive: Air flowing outwards from the vocal tract
2. Ingressive: air flowing inwards into the vocal tract
Sounds Segments
A language is made up of a combination of speech sounds
We understand a language because we know the combination of speech
sounds in the language: eg. In English “bus” contains 3 sounds (b+u+s)
Words sound like one continuous sound
A speaker can segment the sounds to make sense of the word
Not knowing a language means not knowing the sound segments
1. Du+ mel+ an +g 2. C+ ata+ st+ rophe
The is not about literacy but about knowing a language
, No 2 speakers speak the same. Age, gender, other spoken languages etc
make us speak differently (think of accents and voice pitch)
Speakers of a language can identify different sounds to be the same
word
Therefore, you can understand English spoken in two different accents
We have linguistic knowledge and thus know which sounds don’t form
part of the language. i.e. How (*sneeze) are you? (we know that the
sneeze doesn’t form part of the language
Speech sounds need to be written down and to be read
Sounds that don’t appear in a known language can be difficult to
reproduce
Orthography:
The writing system of a language (English – Roman Alphabet)
The Roman alphabet doesn’t represent all the sounds in all languages
1. The same sound can be written with different letters
2. The same letter can represent many sounds
3. Words included in the spelling but not pronounced EG. Honest,
psychology
4. A combination of letters that make one sound
Phonetics is scientific and symbols for sounds need to be replicable.
LECTURE 2:
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)
Was created for one symbol to represent one sound across all languages
In 1888, the international phonetic association developed the IPA, using
both invented characters and ordinary letters, they assigned each
linguistic sound a unique symbol. Symbols represent basic sounds found
in a language
NB in phonetics, the terms consonant and vowel ALWAYS refer to the
sounds and not the letters
Symbols from the IPA are always written in square brackets [ ]
Sounds of all languages are divided into two classes, consonants and
vowel
Why some sentences sound similar when spoken but differ so much
when written eg. I scream vs ice cream; the sun’s rays meet vs the sons
raise meat
What is Phonetics
The study of speech sounds
Aims of phonetics:
To understand and describe speech sounds
How they are produced
How they are classified
Branches of phonetics
1. Acoustic phonetics: the physical properties of speech sounds
2. Auditory Phonetics: how listeners perceive speech sounds
3. Articulatory Phonetics: how the vocal tract produces speech sounds
Articulatory Phonetics:
The shape the mouth makes when producing sounds
The speech organs involved in producing sounds
To produce speech sounds, there needs to be movement of air
Movement of air:
1. Egressive: Air flowing outwards from the vocal tract
2. Ingressive: air flowing inwards into the vocal tract
Sounds Segments
A language is made up of a combination of speech sounds
We understand a language because we know the combination of speech
sounds in the language: eg. In English “bus” contains 3 sounds (b+u+s)
Words sound like one continuous sound
A speaker can segment the sounds to make sense of the word
Not knowing a language means not knowing the sound segments
1. Du+ mel+ an +g 2. C+ ata+ st+ rophe
The is not about literacy but about knowing a language
, No 2 speakers speak the same. Age, gender, other spoken languages etc
make us speak differently (think of accents and voice pitch)
Speakers of a language can identify different sounds to be the same
word
Therefore, you can understand English spoken in two different accents
We have linguistic knowledge and thus know which sounds don’t form
part of the language. i.e. How (*sneeze) are you? (we know that the
sneeze doesn’t form part of the language
Speech sounds need to be written down and to be read
Sounds that don’t appear in a known language can be difficult to
reproduce
Orthography:
The writing system of a language (English – Roman Alphabet)
The Roman alphabet doesn’t represent all the sounds in all languages
1. The same sound can be written with different letters
2. The same letter can represent many sounds
3. Words included in the spelling but not pronounced EG. Honest,
psychology
4. A combination of letters that make one sound
Phonetics is scientific and symbols for sounds need to be replicable.
LECTURE 2:
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)
Was created for one symbol to represent one sound across all languages
In 1888, the international phonetic association developed the IPA, using
both invented characters and ordinary letters, they assigned each
linguistic sound a unique symbol. Symbols represent basic sounds found
in a language
NB in phonetics, the terms consonant and vowel ALWAYS refer to the
sounds and not the letters
Symbols from the IPA are always written in square brackets [ ]
Sounds of all languages are divided into two classes, consonants and
vowel
