Step 4 - Speech sounds and Semantics

Tutora: Viviana Andrea Ospina

Estudiantes:

Yaneth Rocio Camargo Tocora

Maria Eugenia Pinto

Luz Janeth Suarez Grismaldo

Ricardo Niño

Grupo: 518017_16

Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia UNAD

Escuela de Ciencias de la Educación

Licenciatura en Lenguas Extranjeras

Curso: introduction to linguistics

Bucaramanga November 2019

1. Read the following three documents

“The phoneme: the same but different” Chapter 2, ‘in McMahon, A. M. S. 2016. An
Introduction to English Phonology’. Also read the document: “Natural Language
Processing & Applications Phones and Phonemes and, finally read: “Chapter 6. Semantics:
The Study of Linguistic Meaning” pages 225-234, in Akmajian, A. and others. 2010.
Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication, 6th edition. Cambridge. All
the material is found in UNIT 1, in the Knowledge Environment.

2. Based on the first document “The phoneme: the same but different” by McMahon, A,
develop the three questions from pages 21, 22.

3. From the second document, “Natural Language Processing & Applications Phones and
Phonemes” please answer questions 1 and 2 from page 10.

4. From the reading “Semantics. The Study of Linguistic Meaning Chapter” by Akmajian
answer the two following questions:

4.1 What is exactly the concept ‘speaker meaning’? Explain and give an example (in
Spanish or English).

4.2 Explain, what is an important problem of the ‘Denotational Theory of Meaning’?

5. Here is a scenario of a pronunciation lesson gone wrong. The teacher repeatedly

demonstrates a pair of similar sounds (e.g., “rrrr” and “llll”). However, the students still fail
to perceive the difference between the two. The thing is that students have difficulty
distinguishing between pairs of sounds when these are taught in isolation. Pronunciation
lessons are infinitely more effective when students are taught to distinguish between words
(e.g., light/right), instead of just individual sounds. Design a mini lesson that presents the
[l] and [ɹ] sounds within the context of minimal pairs. (Option, you can select any other
minimal pairs to design the mini lesson). (Adapted from Gordon T. 2012).

Maria Eugenia Pinto

1-

It is possible that the learner’s native language has a very strong influence on how he or
she learns the pronunciation of English. There are languages that share sounds, which
is helpful for learners when they are learning a second language. But there are sounds
that exist in one language but they don’t in the target language or vice versa, which
make it more difficult to learn the pronunciation of sounds.

I think this learner would say:

/ˈdæð.i/ /ˈiː. ðər/ /ləʊð/ /ʃɪp/ /pɑːʃ/ /dɪʃ/ /ˈʌs.ər/

Initial: mine nine pie buy type die kite guy like right

The sound /ŋ/ does not appear in initial position.

Minimal Pairs final /m/ and /n/ seem seen

Minimal Pairs final /b/ and /p/ Bob pop

Minimal Pairs final /k/ and /g/ back bag

Minimal Pairs final /m/ and /n/ am an

Minimal Pairs final /t/ and /d/ hat had

Minimal Pairs final /n/ and /ŋ/ thin thing

3-

It seems that Linguists A is using a system designed for this particular language ans it
might not be a native speaker of English; on the other hand Linguists B is following
English patterns, and therefore is probably a native speaker of English.

Reading 2
Keith: (three phonemes) / k i: θ / keen: / k iː n /

coughs: (four phonemes) / k ɒ f s / cots: /k ɒ t s/

The time has come the Walrus said

To talk of many things

Of shoes and ships and sealing wax

Of cabbages and kings

And why the sea is boiling hot

And whether pigs have wings

Reading 3

What is exactly the concept ‘speaker meaning’? Explain and give an example (in
Spanish or English).

It is what a speaker intends to communicate when he or she says something. However, it is

important to identify if the speaker is talking literally or nonliterally. When people speak literally,
there is no need to interpret what it is said, for example: It’s raining heavily. In this case, it is
evident what is meant by saying this. But, if you say something like: It's raining cats and dogs!
We mean an idea that differs from the words expressed. That utterance does not mean that
cats and dogs are actually falling from the sky. It means that it is raining heavily but we speak
nonliterally.

Explain, what is an important problem of the ‘Denotational Theory of Meaning’?

This theory explains meaning as the object that an expression or word represents. However,
there are problems with this theory when we are talking about abstract concepts. How can we
express the meaning of something that does not exist physically? For example, sadness.

Additionally, according to this theory: if two expressions share the same denotation, they are
then synonyms. But are the expressions: the most incompetent president in Colombian history
and Ivan Duque synonyms? They are not. However, it is evident we are talking about the same
person.

Mini lesson plan

1. Lead-in (5 minutes) The teacher shows students a set of words

which have the target sound /l/. For example:
flies, lent, collect, cold. Then she asks them
what sound they have in common. It is
expected they say /l/.

Then she shows another list of words which

have the target sound /r/. For example: rate,
pray, train, draw. Then she asks them what
sound they have in common. It is expected they
say /r/.

The teacher then explains they are going to

study the consonant sounds /l/ and /r/.

2. Task 1: Drill pattern /l/ (5 minutes) The teacher tells the students that they are
going to listen to the sound /l/. After they listen
to the sound, she shows a mouth diagram to
see how to make this sound.

The students repeat the target sound. Then


3. Task 2: Drill pattern /r/ (5 minutes)
4. Task 3: Identification (10 minutes)
5. Task 4: Identification (10 minutes)
6. Task 5: Discrimination (10 minutes)
7. Follow-up activities
Resources:
Hancock, Mark. English Pronunciation in Use. Cambridge University Press. (2003)
they listen and repeat examples of words with
the target sound.
The teacher tells the students that they are
going to listen the sound /r/. After they listen to
the sound, she shows a mouth diagram to see
how to make this sound.
The students repeat the target sound. Then
they listen and repeat examples of words with
the target sound.
Students are given a list of words: eight, owes,
air, earn, end, eye, egg and each. They have to
add the sound /l/ and /r/ to the beginning of
these words and write new words. They must
be aware that they are thinking of sounds, not
spelling. For example, if they add /l/ to the
beginning of ache /eik/, then they get lake /leik/.
Students are given text which has words that
are wrong. They have to correct the words by
replacing them. The words include the target
sounds /l/ and /r/. Then they listen to the text
and check their answers. They repeat the text
in couples.
Students are given a set of words. They listen
and identify the word the heard. Then they
repeat them.
They record themselves saying the words and
sentences studied in the lesson.
 Luz Janeth Suarez Grismaldo

1- The first thing to do in order to explain the sounds to a non-native learner is to emphasise in
the different allophones to each sound and how they change according to the position of the
letter.

As we know there is a tendency of generalize the recent taught rules as the kids do, so we
need to keep that in mind in order to avoid over Correcting erros, with that said I´d think the
way the learner would pronunce the words would be as Follow:

Predicted pronunciations would be:

Daddy [dæði] - either[ð] - loathe[d] - ship[ʃ] - pass[s] - dish[ʃ] - usher[s].

2-Minimal pairs for letters (m,n,p,b,t,d,k,g,l,r) would be:

My, nigh, pie, buy, tie, die, lie, rye.

There are no cases for initial (ng), final (h), or for some speakers at least, final (r).

3- The first thing to notice is the voiced and voiceless pairs of sounds ([g] – [k], [b] – [p], [z] –
[s]) do not contrast, because oneappears initially and medially, and the voiceless one
finally.Linguistic A has notice this and uses a single symbol for each pair. Linguistic B uses
different graph.

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)

McMahon, April M. S. An Introduction to English Phonology. EUP, 2016.

Second Reading

Natural Language Processing & Applications Phones and Phonemes” please

answer questions 1 and 2 from page 10.

1. How many phonemes are there in

(a) Keith = ˈk-iː-θ there are Three phonemes as in kid =kid

(b) coughs? = kɒfs there four phones as in cast = kɑːst

What are they in the IPA? In each case try to demonstrate the correctness of
your answer by finding words differing by only one of the phonemes you have
identified.

2. You are NOT expected to know the IPA symbols; the table given in the
Appendix will be provided if and when necessary. However it is useful to
have some practice in using them. Study the following phonetic transcription
of a verse of Lewis Carroll’s poem The Walrus and the Carpenter. The
transcription corresponds to my ‘careful’ pronunciation. Write down the
normal English spelling. If your pronunciation differs from mine, write down
an amended transcription in the IPA.
The time has come the walrus said

To talk of many things

Of shoes, and ships and sealing wax

Of cabbage and kings

And why the sea is boiling hot

And whether pigs have wings

Reading number Three

From the reading “Semantics. The Study of Linguistic Meaning Chapter” by

Akmajian answer the two following questions:

4.1 What is exactly the concept ‘speaker meaning’?

Explain and give an example (in Spanish or English).

Speaker meaning refers to purpose that the speaker has to communicate.

Sometimes you must have an understanding of the context to be able to
comprehend what the speaker is actually saying, also there are different
purpose for the speaker to communicate.

Eg: A John is talking to a friend who is in another country

John= Hi Alex, how is the weather over there?

Alex= It´s boiling! (meaning that´s is too hot)

In this case the Alex´s answer is informative, since John isn´t in that place and
it has no idea how the weather is.
But if John were in a waiting room and he is sitting next to an stranger, he
would say

John= Hey is boiling in here!

Stranger= Yes you´re right

In this Second scenario the purpose of the sentence “I´ts boiling in here” isn´t
informative, because the other person obviously knows how is the weather
there, so the speaker meaning in this case is to simply break the ice and maybe
start a conversation.

4.2 Explain, what is an important problem of the ‘Denotational Theory of

Meaning’?

In the Denotational theory of meaning the speaker says something that can´t
take literally by the listener, so in order to have a good communication is
necessary that the listener has acknowledge of the context, another way to
understand Denotational theory of meaning is by catch the denotation of the
sentences, so if it has denotation it has meaning, in that case we can talk about
things that aren't actually real or doesn't exist fiscally but when we talk about
it the speaker and the listener understand what they are referring, for example
the santa Claus (people talk about it and everybody understand and even have
an image of it but it doesn't exist)

stage Procedure timi

 ng
Warm up Teacher greet students and informs that today the lesson is about 5 minutes
the different sounds of “l and r”

Lead in Teacher presents a tongue twister 15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14KsizvMEzQ
minutes
Students try to repeat but is not spected for them to do it right, the
purpose of this is to break the ice and introduce the topic

developm Teacher show pictures of the right position of the tongue to 15

ent pronounce the letter “l” and “r” then ask then to repeat the minutes
following words paying special attention to the form of the tongue
while they are pronouncing them:

Light – right

Lace-race

Pilot – pirate

Glass – grass

Poor - pull
CLosing Students must find words with this sound and write their own 20
tongue twister to challenge their classmates. minutes

https://magoosh.com/toefl/2015/tongue-and-mouth-awareness/

Ricardo Andres Niño

It is common for the learners to use the same sounds that they normally have in their
native language however as we can tell, there are a lot of sounds that are not the same
in all the languages, this makes the learning process even difficult.

In this way the learner would say:

Daddy [dæði] - either[ð] - loathe[d] - ship[ʃ] - pass[s] - dish[ʃ] - usher[s].

In this case for the minimal pairs

My, nigh, bye, pie, tie, die, lie, ride.

Regarding the last example “ride”, it has the same sound however it finishes with the
letter “d”.
This is something that Makes me thing about the way the word is pronounced and the
way it is write, in mi opinion it is better for a learner to write the words the same as
those sound, if I am correct the Linguist B has the same pronunciation as the written
word, for that reason I would take the option B.

Reading #2.

Keith has three phonemes / k i θ / And Coughs has four phonemes / k ɒ f s /

Kit would be an example with the three phonemes and it is / k i t /

And Costs which has the same four phonemes and would be // k ɒ t s /

The time has come the Walrus said.

To talk of many things.

Of shoes and ships and sealing wax.

Of Cabbages and kings.

And why the sea is boiling hot.

And whether pigs have wings.

Reading #3.

What is exactly the concept ‘speaker meaning’? Explain and give an example (in
Spanish or English).

R/ It is the capacity that humans have in order to communicate something, depending

on if it is implicit or explicit, since there are some words/phrases which literally says
what the speaker wanted to say, however there are implicit communication in which it
is necessary to know the context in order to know what the speaker is talking about,
like when someone says “you have a shoulder to cry on” it is not literally however the
one who hears it knows that the person is referring to the support he/she can provide.
Explain, what is an important problem of the ‘Denotational Theory of Meaning’?

In this case an important problem with this Denotational Theory of meaning is that,
On the denotational theory of meaning, if an expression has a denotation, it has a
meaning. However, there are some ones that does not have it. For example,

El conejo de Pascua which is of course a character created by a human and there is

not information about a rabbit that do this in the real life.

PLAN DE CLASES

Initially The teacher greet the students, in order to start the

class, let them know the rules that will follow the
class, in this case the teacher explains what is going to
do in the class.

Intermedium
At this point the teacher shows a video for the
Letter /l/ Sound - Phonics by TurtleDiary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=4602pHQCB20
 The students must repeat while the video is being
played.

Intermedium
At this point the teacher shows a video for the
Letter /r/ Sound - Phonics by TurtleDiary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o80Vb2d-
ZxM

Th
e students must repeat while the video is being played.

Exercises The teacher start an exercise in the classroom in order

to practice the knowledge.
 Teacher makes them question like: Give an example
of a word which starts with the sound /r/ or /l/.

Final The Teacher is going to ask for a homework, in which

students get the most common words with the sound
they had studied.

As an example “Light and Right”

 Yaneth Rocio Camargo

A learner of English as a second language has the following pronun-ciations (note that
[ʃ] is the symbol for the first sound in ship, and [ð] forthe first sound in the)
How might you explain these non-native pronunciations? How do youthink this learner
would pronounce the bold-faced consonants in Daddy,either,
loathe;ship,pass,dish,usher?
 Importantly, our native phoneme system tends to interfere when we try to learn other
languages. It may not be surprising that at first it is difficult for us to produce sounds
that are not at all in our first language. However, it is equally difficult, and sometimes
worse, to learn sounds that are phonetically contrasting in the language we are learning,
but only one phonemes in our native system. They can also create innovative
pronunciations for English sounds that are not found in the speaker's first language.
This process is very complicated for students who are studying a second language
I think the student could say it in the following way:
Daddy [dæði] - either[ð] - loathe[d] - ship[ʃ] - pass[s] - dish[ʃ] - usher[s]

2. Do the following sounds contrast in English? Find minimal pairs tosupport your
hypothesis, ideally for initial, medial and final position inthe word. Where minimal pairs
for all positions do not seem to be avail-able, write a short statement of where the sound
in question can andcannot be found

[m n ŋ p b t d k g l r]

me- nail- pig- bay-top- die- key.(minimal pairs)

cut / cat - vowel difference / ʌ / y / æ /
thing / think - difference of consonant combinations / ŋ / and / nk /
bag / back - consonant difference / g / y / k /
NOTE:TEACHER AT THE MOMENT I AM NOT SURE I WAS SEEING YOUR
INFORMATION ABOUT "MINIMAL PAIRS" I UNDERSTOOD ... BUT I DO NOT KNOW IF I
DID ACCORDING TO THE QUESTION
3. The Ministry for Education in a certain country whose language hasup to now been
unwritten has hired two foreign linguists to produce anorthography. Linguists A and B
have suggested two rather differentsystems. Which one is most in line with the
phonological structure of language it is designed for? Why do you think the other
linguist mayhave made different decisions?

I think that the linguist A took into account each of the symbols at the beginning, in the
middle or at the end of the word, which is correct according to the structure. linguist B
was probably not a native speaker, so I don't use the necessary phonetic elements,
sapir says so (CENTURY XX)
 Natural Language Processing & ApplicationsPhones and Phonemes

How many phonemes are there in (a) Keith(b) coughs? What are they in the IPA? Ineach
case try to demonstrate the correctness of your answer by finding words differingby
only one of the phonemes you have identified.

Keith, it has three phonemes: / k i: θ / kick it has three phonemas /ˈk ɪ k /

Coughs: it has four phonemes: / k ɒ f s / COUNT it has four phonemas / k aʊ n t /

You are NOTexpected to know the IPA symbols; the table given in the Appendix will
beprovided if and when necessary. However it is useful to have some practice in
usingthem. Study the following phonetic transcription of a verse of Lewis Carroll’s
poem TheWalrus and the Carpenter. The transcription corresponds to my ‘careful’
pronunciation.Write down the normal English spelling. If your pronunciation differs from
mine, writedown an amended transcription in the IPA

The time has come the Walrus said

To talk of many things
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax
Of cabbages and kings
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings

1. From the reading “Semantics. The Study of Linguistic Meaning Chapter” by

Akmajian answer the two following questions:

4.1 What is exactly the concept ‘speaker meaning’? Explain and give an example (in
Spanish or English).
It is the ability that human beings have to transmit ideas or information through voice or
speech. It is said that it is part of the pragmatic that allows the speaker to realize what
the enunciator wants to imply, being this part fundamental in communication since it is
the main emitter of some information and its speech becomes the channel used as a
communicative method, for this reason successful communication requires that the
listener correctly decode the speaker's words in their associated ideas. Thus
interpreted, the meaning of an expression. We must know the moment in which the
speaker expresses his sentences literally or not, because when we speak not literally,
we want to say something different from what our words express. Example]: sarcasm.

4.2 Explain, what is an important problem of the ‘Denotational Theory of Meaning’?

The theory of the denotation of meaning is the one that implies that each expression is
the object or thing it denotes. In this sense the meaning of an expression represents
terms of reference and truth, (let it be true). When a sentence is expressed, its meaning
can be understood when it is specified if it is true.
If an expression has a meaning, it follows that it must have a denotation ": However,
there are some words that a reference cannot have. For example when we say" THE
MOUSE PEREZ "this concept is not true is a narrative figure created by some person
and there is no evidence to show that this animal can take a tooth
 First, let's start by greeting the class.

START After this we will begin our

pronunciation class for this the teacher
will begin with an activity on "rhyming
words" this in order to release our
tongue and leave our nerves

When we finish the previous activity,

we will go on to perform a song where
we have to put our language into
operation, trying to make the sounds
we hear in it. it's called "The twinkle,
twinkle, little star"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=sebZ1JJwzOI
 the teacher will give the lyrics of the
song and with it, we will listen to the
words that the sounds may have [l] and
[ɹ]

DEVELOPING the teacher emphasizes in some words

of the song that have the sound / l / and
after this she will show a card or image
where she will represent how they
should put their mouth to make the
sound correctly

then perform the same exercise but

listening to the words where they find
the sound [ɹ] and then show the
corresponding image to be able to do
the exercise correctly
To do an exercise of what has been
learned, the teacher will show a word
on the board and each student must
make the sound correctly according to
the specifications given by the teacher

Light – /laɪt/ = Luz

Valley – /ˈvæli/ = Valle

 Bell – /bel/ = Campana

Level – /ˈlevəl/ = Nivel

Have students repeat after you. Cue

them two words at a time, in minimal
pairs.

Call on the class as a group for the first

few pairs, then call on individual
random students if you know their
names or in order of seating maybe if
you don't their names.

Please repeat after me

· lack rack

· lamp ramp

· lent rent

· lies rise

· light right

· liver river

· load road

· lock rock

· long wrong

· loot root

· row low

· bloom broom

· climb crime
 · gloom groom

· flog frog

· plowed proud

CLASSROOM EXERCISES

In English there are two kinds of /l/

sounds. The /l/ sound in the words
below is pronounced with the front of
the tongue spread out across the tooth
ridge. Pronounce the following words:

live long
letter

late land
listen

Notice that in all of these words the /l/

sound appears before vowels at the
 beginning of a syllable.

When the /l/ sound appears at the end

of a syllable after a vowel it"s
pronounced differently than before
vowels. Listen to the pronunciation of
the following words and imitate them.

all meal

ill peel

Practice the following words. For the

/r/ sound curl the tip of the tongue up
toward but not touching the tooth
ridge.

car airplane
sister horse

chair morning
water church
 farm star
father

barn party
mother yard

door work
paper birthday

THE TEACHER AT THE END WILL

final
GIVE SOME HOMEWORK
EXERCISES TO BE DONE AT
HOME

Practice the following sentences. The

underlined parts of the words contain
the /l/ sound at the end of a syllable
after a vowel.

a) How do you feel?

b) I feel fine.

c) The child is very tall.

d) Please put the milk on the table

e) He was peeling an apple.

f) I want to help him.

g) The child is playing with a dol

h) They are going to fill the pool

Read the following paragraph. Pay

particular attention to the words which
contain the sound /r/.

Robert went to school early in the

morning. He walked up the street and
stopped at the drug store. He ate some
 ice cream and some fruit. There were
many cars in the street. The traffic was
very heavy. Some boys were selling
newspapers. He heard a radio in one of
the stores. Suddenly it started to rain.
Robert began to run. He went straight
to school and sat down in his chair. The
bell rang and the teacher entered the
room. Robert was happy because he
was not late.

References

McMahon, A. M. S. (2016). An Introduction to English Phonology. Edinburgh: EUP.

Retrieved from http://bibliotecavirtual.unad.edu.co/login?
url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1584999&lang=es&site=eds-live&scope=site
Coxhead, P. (2006). Natural Language Processing & Applications Phones and
Phonemes. [PDF FILE]. Retrieved from https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pxc/nlp/NLPA-
Phon1.pdf
Akmajian, A. et al. (2010). Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and
Communication, 6th edition. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Retrieved from
http://93.174.95.29/_ads/697AA18A69B732602396BABDBF8BEF88
Huang, Y. (2007). Pragmatics. Oxford: OUP Oxford. Retrieved from
http://bibliotecavirtual.unad.edu.co/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1640096&lang=es&site=eds-live&scope=site