AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SOUNDS Of ENGLISH AS SPOKEN IN ENGLAND

1.0 The English Alphabet

The English alphabet has 26 letters, made up of consonants and vowels. There are
five vowels(a,e,i,,o,u) and the rest are all consonants. In English, pronunciation of words
centres upon syllables: asyllable is a unit of pronunciation which has one vowel sound, with
or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word. For example, there
are two syllables in wa/ter and three in in/fer/no.

The sounds of spoken language are known as phonemes. Thus, /water/ has two syllables
but four phonemes: w/a/t/er; /inferno/ has three syllables but seven phonemes: i/n/f/e/r/n/o.
Do not be fooled into thinking that the each letter has a corresponding phoneme, as in these
two examples. A word like /tough/ has two syllables: t/ough and two phonemes: t/ough.

In English, the written equivalent of sounds or phonemes are known as graphemes, and the
English alphabet made up of the 26 letters is called the orthographic alphabet. In a language
such as English, not all words have a phoneme/grapheme match. For example, the
words bough, through and trough all end –ough but each is pronounced differently. English is
thus classified as a semi-phonetic language: that is, sometimes graphemes correspond to
phonemes, and sometimes they do not. The reason for this is historical, going back to the
17th century and the ways in which written English was standardised. In order to study the
sounds of English, linguists devised an alphabet which contains symbols to capture all
possible sounds in English, called the International Phonetic Alphabet.

1.1 The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabet of phonetic notation designed to

capture all the different ways words in English can be pronounced, based on the Latin
alphabet. It was designed by the International Phonetic Association (1999) as a standardised
system for representing sounds of oral language. The IPA font most widely used is Doulos Sil,
downloadable
at:http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=doulossil_download

The IPA is particularly useful when it comes to describing individual sounds of spoken
English. This is because in English there can be more way of pronouncing the same
graphemes. For example, in English, there are two main ways of producing the <a>
sound: bath or grass with a long or short <a>. People from the south of England tend to
pronounce the long <a> and people from the North the short <a>. In the West Midlands region
of the UK, people tend to say Birmingum instead of Birmingham, missing out the <h> and over
articulating or over pronouncing the <g>.
The standard form of spoken English or the reference accent for English is known
as Received Pronunciation (RP), and it is this accent of English upon which IPA is based.
RP is also called variously: BBC English, the Queen’s English or ‘Correct English’ and is the
spoken form to which many learners of English as an additional language aspire. However,
the idea of RP is wide ranging and encompassing, and the IPA tries to capture how people
actually speak. The English language, as a living language, is also subject to change, including
the ways in which words are pronounced. The BBC English we have today is very different
from that of fifty years ago when presenters were required to take elocution lessons in RP.
Today, the BBC has presenters from a wide range of backgrounds and no longer requires
them to take elocution lessons. Similarly, the speech of the British Royal Family is different
with each generation, so that the accent of the younger generation of the Royal Family is very
different from that of older ones. Even so, IPA acts as a useful reference against which
variation, including variation in RP, can be identified.

The tables below illustrates the equivalence of each grapheme (or letter) in the orthographic
alphabet to a phoneme in IPA. Table 1 gives consonant grapheme-phoneme
correspondence, and Table 2, vowel grapheme-phoneme correspondence.

Table 1

Consonants

consonant IPA representative consonant IPA representative

grapheme
words grapheme words
phoneme phoneme

/b/ b baby /r/ r rabbit, wrong

/d/ d dog /s/ s sun,

mouse, city, science

/f/ f field, photo /t/ t tap

/g/ g game /v/ v van

/h/ h hat /w/ w was

/j/ ʤ judge, giant, barge /y/ j yes

/k/ k cook, quick, /z/ z zebra, please, is

mix, Chris

/l/ l lamb /th/ ð then

/m/ m monkey, comb /th/ θ thin

/n/ n nut, knife, gnat /ch/ ʧ chip, watch

/ng/ ŋ ring, sink /sh/ ʃ ship, mission, chef

/p/ p paper zh/ ʒ treasure

Table 2

Vowels

vowel IPA representative vowel IPA representative

phonemes
words phonemes words

/a/ æ cat /oo/ ʊ look, would, put

/e/ e peg, bread /ar/ ɑ: cart, fast (regional)

/i/ ɪ pig, give /ur/ ɜ: burn, first, term,

heard, work
 /o/ ɒ log, want /au/ ɔ: torn, door, warn,
haul, law, call

/u/ ʌ plug, love /er/ ə wooden, circus, sister

/ae/ eɪ pain, day, gate, /ow/ aʊ down, shout

station

/ee/ i: sweet, heat, thief, /oi/ ɔɪ coin, boy

these

/ie/ aɪ tried, light, my, shine, /air/ eə stairs, bear, hare

mind

/oe/ oʊ road, blow, bone, /ear/ ɪə fear, beer, here

cold

/ue/ u: moon, blue, grew, /ure/ ʊə pure, cure

tune

1.2 Standard Lexical Sets

It is useful to consider the pronunciation of vowel sounds in English through the idea of
Standard Lexical Sets, introduced by the linguist John C. Wells in 1982. Wells defined
one lexical set on the basis of the pronunciation of words in the reference accent Received
Pronunciation (RP) for the English spoken in England. English has five vowels in its alphabet:
a, e, i ,o u. However, there are many more ways of pronouncing the vowels than the five
sounds given by a,e,i,o,u. /a/ can be pronounced as a ‘short’ sound as in the word <bad>, or
pronunciations common in the North of England, such as <grass> and <bath>. It can also
represent a ‘long’ sound, as in the word <laugh>, or <bath>, and <grass>. The sound
represented by /o/ can also be spelt in different ways, such as in the word <off> or in <cough>.

Wells classified vowel sounds of the English language into 24 lexical sets based on the
pronunciation of the vowel within the first stressed syllable of a word. Each lexical set is named
after a representative keyword, as shown below. Click on each key word and the example
words to hear them spoken:
Schwa Sound
3. Initial Medial Final about facade comma across character idea abandon correct
cinema enough porous anaesthesia establish volunteer arena
4. • about your character • across the arena • abandon the idea • enough data • volunteer
for the occasion
5. • The screening committee asked me about your character. • The bull chased the
matador across the arena. • It is impossible for us to abandon the whole idea. • Have you
gathered enough data for your paper? • Only a handful of volunteer helped.
6. B. /æ/ /ä/
7. /æ/ /ä/ /æ/ /ä/ add odd lack lock cad cod hack hock gnat not back bock smack smock
sack sock chap chop knack knock
8. • a black cat • on my block • her watch • in a pawnshop • a hack writer
9. • A black cat prowls on my block every night. • That cat sleeps on a cot. • My landlady
hocked her watch. • She hocked her watch in a pawnshop. • He’s a hack writer.
10. C. /æ/ /e/
11. /æ/ /e/ /æ/ /e/ add Ed mat met pan pen lad led had head sat set man men flash flesh
sad said latter letter
12. • needs a pen • not a pan • at bat • he looks • a good bet
13. • I beg you to return my bag. • Baby Beth enjoys taking a bath. • I expect to get a
letter in the latter part of the month. • Ben favors the ban on smut films. • I bet you cannot
carry a bat.
14. D. /i/ /I/
15. /i/ /I/ /i/ /I/ deed did reap rip heat hit dean din eat it peak pick reach rich leave live
least list sheep ship
16. • dean of women • took a dip • look at the chick • deep part of the pool • leave your
seat • stand the dean • sit down • pecked her cheek • take a deem view
17. • The dean of women can’t stand the din in the hallway. • He took a dip in the deep
part of the pool. • She was looking closely at the chick when it pecked her cheek. •
People deem it wise to take a dim view of politicians’ promises. • Sit down! Do not leave
your seat until I come back.
18. E. /e/ /I/
19. /e/ /I/ /e/ /I/ bed bid etch itch send sinned pen pin wet wit sense since red rid led lid
bet bit peck pick
20. • hid the pen • sit on the bed • bring the bell • will make a well • sex pills
21. • I hid the pen, not the pin. • Set the table and sit down. • Bring the bell, not the bill. •
When will you feel well? • Did you say six pills or sex pills?
22. F. /U/ /u/
23. /U/ /u/ /U/ /u/ cooed could Luke look fool full suit soot pool pull wooed would stewed
stood shoot shook shooed should who’d hood
24. • pull him up • out of the pool • a blue suit • soot on the sleeve • book on the hood
25. • Pull him out of the pool. • Put on your blue shirt. • There’s a soot on the sleeve of
your suit. • There’s a book on the hood of your car. • Who’d think of putting the car on the
site.
26. G. /ȯ/ /ō/
27. /ȯ/ /ō/ /ȯ/ /ō/ ought oat gall goal awed owed haul hole off oaf law low often open raw
row gnaw know ball coach
28. • am certainly awed • tell that oaf • often paraded in open cars • low marks in his
class • a big hole in that net
29. • I was awed when I learned how much he owed the bank. • Tell that big oaf to get off
the bike immediately. • He got very low marks in his law class. • How can you haul a fish
in a net with a big hole.
30. H. /ə/ /ä/
31. /ə/ /ä/ /ə/ /ä/ bird bard curve carve burn barn fur far turn tarn firm farm lurk lark hurt
heart curt cart purse parse
32. • like a bird • a burn beside the barn • curt answer • a hard time • fur coat
33. • The English bard sang an old song like a bird. • There’s a burn beside a barn in our
farm. • The bout driving the car gave curt answers. • He heard you had a hard time in
summer camp. • A mink coat is far more expensive than any other fur coat.
34. I. /ei/ /e/
35. /ei/ /e/ /ei/ /e/ late let rake wreck braid bread mate met blade bled tale tell quail quell
shade shed waste west gate get
36. • the late students • bled to death • tool shed in the shade • tell a terrifying tale • left at
the gate