Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Ministry of People’s Power for Education

University Technology Institute “Americo Vespucio”

Subject: phonetics of English

Spelling rules for pronunciation of English Language

Authors:

Samuel Urdaneta
CI: 26.725.162
Suzanne Noguera
CI: 29.765.302
José Arellano
CI: 25.209.905
Indrany Narinesingh
CI: 27.805.351

Caracas, November of 2020

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 INDEX

INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………………….....

¿What is the Phonetic? ................................................................................................................... 4

The speech and writing English ……………………………………………………………….… 5

The phonetic transcription vs the orthography ………………………………………………….. 7

The phonetic alphabet and the orthography……………………………………………… 7

Thinks that is advantage for the Hispanic speaker ……………………………………………… 9

Phonetics and orthographies difference between the English and the Spanish that can

difficult the study of the English for the Hispanic speakers …………………………………... 10

CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………………………...… 11

BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………………………..…. 12

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 INTRODUCTION

A compilation paper on the rules of pronunciation in English will be presented below, taking into

account the differentiation between the spelling of the language and the actual sounds of the

language as postulated by the International Phonetic Alphabet, also the speech and the writing of

it shall be compared to determinate if they are equal. Finally, some brief sections will be

presented regarding the differences and similarities between English and Spanish, in order to

facilitate the introduction to the language for Hispanic language practitioners to recognize or

separate certain elements that cause confusions.

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 ¿What is the Phonetic?

Phonetics is the branch of linguistics, which is responsible for studying the sounds that the

human body is able to make, in order to decode how they are made and perceived within a

specific language from the physical properties of sound. His main fields of study are: the

articulatory phonetics (it studies how the articulatory apparatus produces sound, what are the

apparatus involved, the position or the point at which the sound is produced), the acoustic

phonetics (is in charge of the study of the physical properties of the sounds, that is, it is in charge

of analyzing the sound waves that compose it and other scientific measurements that can be

expressed) and the auditory phonetics (studies the way the listener perceives sound, it is also

called perceptive phonetics).

Phonetics, cannot be confused with phonology, since the first, studies sound itself, while the

second, studies and classifies the sounds’ systems with a complete sense that compose a

language.

According to various authors, each language has its own study of language, based on the unique

use of sounds in it and expressed with the minimum unit of language, the "phoneme", as exposed

in the International Phonetic Alphabet. So you can’t use the proposed rules in Spanish or French

to study English because even an area’s own accent can affect how a sound is perceived and

therefore how it is transcribed.

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 The speech and writing English

There are many differences between written and spoken English that make it difficult for foreign

speakers to learn the language, but what are they?

o Organization: According to the spelling rules of the language, there is a specific order

when formulating a sentence, whether for a question, a list or a longer text, each word has

a pre-established position within a context; at the time of writing you have the time to

organize and correct what is going to be exposed, however, when speaking, it is a totally

different experience, because the speech, is in continuous improvisation, the person is

constantly thinking about what he or she is going to say and can make syntax mistakes,

take unnecessary pauses, repeat an idea or change from one idea to another without

finishing the previous one; so it is said, that the text is grammatically, more accurate than

the spoken.

o Permanence: A text is invariable, remains unchanged once it has been embodied, so it

can be read and reread in a way that suits the reader think is better; while discourse is a

developing fact, the listener should follow the speed of the speaker and although he may

interrupt to ask for clarification from time to time, he should do his best to follow him.

o Quantity: The content of a text tends to be deeper and shorter than that of a spoken

presentation, where it can be gotten a constant repetition, simplified and a lot of filling

that produces a content, longer, but repetitive than necessary.

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o Make explicit: A written text must make clear the information it is giving, so that the

reader can understand what it is reading, instead, during a conversation some information

is understood that is known between the interlocutors and therefore, it is avoided by

considering it unnecessary.

o Detachment: While a conversation takes place at a specific time and place, a text can be

detached from those elements and become ambiguous by not giving in to the order to get

immediate feedback.

o Speed: It is much easier to understand a written text than a dictation, since in the first

case, the reader can read at the speed that suits him best to understand what was read,

while in the other case, there may not be time to capture the information.

o Standardization: A writing tends to use a standard vocabulary which is more familiar to

the reader, unlike spoken language, which may have regional variations or terms specific

to a generational group.

o Ability: While written ability can be easily taught, spoken ability is acquired by constant

practice.

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 The phonetic transcription vs the orthography

It is quite common for the pronunciation of a word to differ from its written and orthographically

correct form, due to various elements such as: changes in intonation over time, regional or

national variations, or by practical modifications such as shortening or merging words (among

other phenomena), in English it is common and almost a law, that pronunciation and spelling

differ.

So the only ways to know how to pronounce a word are the practice and phonetic knowledge of

the word. The phonetics, it gives a sense to sounds that spelling cannot, because it examines the

sounds produced by the speaker and not his writing, with specific and invariable symbols for

each type of sound, examining even the differences between dialects, to give a clearer answer to

what is meant.

The phonetic alphabet and the orthography

The English orthography give many problems at the hour of pronoun the words and they are:

o The grammar mappings the same sound to different words like: to, too, two = /tu:/

o Can give many sounds to the same letter: sign, pleasure, resign “s”

o Two or more letters can be part of the same sound: character [k], tough [f], thorough [o],

deal [i:]

o One letter can have more than two sounds: exit [ks]

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While the phonetic alphabet have an only one correspondence between a sound and a symbol

(and this symbol is the same in all the languages).

Phonetic consonant symbols

Phonetic vowels symbols

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 Thinks that is advantage for the Hispanic speaker

Most people, may consider that there is no similarity between English and Spanish, however, if

we investigate a little, we can find certain similarities that allow the Hispanic student (when

learning this language), quickly familiarize themselves with the subject and the learning can be

used when memorizing these similarities:

o Both are languages with Roman alphabets, which means that they use symbols to

represent one or more sounds that may be similar, in some cases for both languages;

which differentiates it from other writing systems such as the logogram (such as Chinese

or Japanese kanji) or those with a specialized alphabet (such as Arabic, Korean, hiragana

and Japanese katakana).

o With a few exceptions (such as the order of adjectives and auxiliaries), both have the

same basic structure for the formation of sentences.

o Due to the narrow history in the evolution of both languages during the Roman Empire,

many English words have sounds, appearance, or meanings similar to Spanish.

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 Phonetics and orthographies difference between the English and the Spanish that can

difficult the study of the English for the Hispanic speakers

The most notable difference between both languages lies in the number of vowel phonemes that

exist between the two, while Spanish has only five, the English has about 21 sounds, which

makes pronunciation difficult for the student; however, this is not the only one, others that can be

named are:

o The Spanish, does not have verbal contractions like: hasn’t, won’t, I’m…

o Certain combinations between vowels and consonants do not have the same sound in

Spanish: "qu" for example, in English the sound is pronounced like a “cu”, while in

Spanish it is used in conjunction with the “e” and “i” to form the sound of the "k".

o Some punctuation marks change their function between both languages (the quotation

marks ("") in a writing becomes a hyphen (-) in Spanish).

o The phoneme corresponding to several vowels, changes between both languages, as in

the case of "j" and other cases does not exist (the "ñ" in English and the "ts" and

Spanish).

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 CONCLUSION

From the above read, it can be inferred that the language is not as simple as it seems and that in

each part of it, it’s working several factors that tend to be ignored unconsciously to be

accustomed to realize them, but they cause difficulties to those who are not used to it. The

phonetics, for these cases, is a great support, since it allows to modify the pronunciation that

many times, is ignored the small differences between the sounds of orthographically similar

words and prevent the communication to be carried out satisfactorily, which leads to confusions

and misunderstandings that hinder daily life.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Capitalizar las similitudes y diferencias entre el español y el inglés. Colorín Colorado!.

https://www.colorincolorado.org/es/articulo/capitalizar-las-similitudes-y-diferencias-

entre-el-espa%C3%B1ol-y-el-ingl%C3%A9s

 Phonetics. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonetics

 Reglas de fonética para leer y escribir/hablar. English Live. https://englishlive.ef.com/es-

mx/blog/tips-para-estudiar/reglas-de-fonetica-para-leer-y-escribir-hablar/

 What is Phonetics?. ielanguages.com. https://ielanguages.com/phonetics.html

 Areas in phonetics & Phonology Differences between Speech and Writing (February of

2011). ResearchGate.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331162289_Areas_in_phonetics_Phonology_Di

fferences_between_Speech_and_Writing

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