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Course: Phonetics and Phonology Presented by: Khurram Piracha Roll Number 29 Presented to: Prof. Dr. Mubashar Nadeem Dept. of English, Federal Urdu University, Lahore.
Introduction:
In this document two English sounds, // and // are discussed and later the problem of utterance faced by the students of ESL having Punjabi as their mother-tongue is mentioned. // and // are consonant fricative sounds.
Consonants
The basic speech sound in which the breath is at least to some extent blocked and which can be combined with a vowel to form a syllable is a consonant. Consonants sounds in any language are the outcome of the brief stoppage or restraint of airstream during speech at different 'points of articulation'. While speaking, the vocal cords either vibrate or they do not, resulting in voiced or voiceless consonant sounds.
Fricatives
It is a kind of consonant made by the friction of breath in a narrow opening, producing a blustery air flow. Fricatives are considerably the largest set of English consonants. // is a strong friction sound and // is a weak one. The soft palate is raised so much that all the breath is enforced to go through the mouth. There is a contraction between the tip of the tongue and the back of the alveolar ridge. The front of the tongue is higher than /s/ and /z/. The lips are a little rounded. These two sounds are paired together because they take the same place of articulation in mouth. // is unvoiced, meaning only air passes through the mouth. And // is voiced, meaning you make sound with the vocal cords.
f,v - fine, vine , think, this s,z - price, prize , - mission, vision h - hard
These fricatives are called post-alveolar, which can be taken to mean that the tongue is in contact with an area slightly further back than that for s, z. If you make s, then , you should be able to feel your tongue move backwards.
Post-alveolar fricative
The air escapes through a passage along the centre of the tongue, as in s, z, but the passage is a little wider. Most BBC speakers have rounded lips for , , and this is an important difference between these consonants and s, z. The fricative is a common and widely distributed phoneme, but is not. All the other fricatives described so far (f, v, , , s, z, ) can be found in initial, medial and final positions, as shown in the example words. In the case of , however, the distribution is much more limited. Very few English words begin with (Peter Roach. 2009)
3. shell
/el/
Word Internal
1. fashion 2. ashamed 3. crushing /f.n/ /emd/ /kr./
Word final
1. crash 2. wish /kr/ /w/
ch spelling:
1. moustache 2. chef /mst/ /ef/
1. Pleasure
/ ple/
/plej/
It is important to note here that the new generation who is being taught in urban areas find it less difficult to learn the // sound. They can easily grasp the sound after a good practice.
References
Consonant: definition of consonant in Oxford dictionary (British & World English). (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/consonant Fricative: definition of fricative in Oxford dictionary (British & World English). (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fricative?q=fricative The SH [] and DJ [] Consonants | Rachel's English. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.rachelsenglish.com/videos/sh-and-dj-consonants U.S. English Pronunciation - Lesson 6: the sounds // and // -- ESLport.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.eslport.com/2008/10/us-english-pronunciation-lesson-6.html American English Pronunciation Lesson: zh sound //. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.pronuncian.com/Lessons/Default.aspx?Lesson=119 Fricatives. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://notendur.hi.is/peturk/KENNSLA/02/TOP/fric.html O'Connor, J. D. (1980). Better English pronunciation. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press. Roach, P. (2009). English phonetics and phonology: A practical course. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Home page for British English Dictionary and Thesaurus - Cambridge Dictionaries Online. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/