Universidad de Margarita

Alma Mater del Caribe

Vicerrectorado Académico
Decanato de Artes y Humanidades
Coordinación de Idiomas Modernos
Subject: FFI0304370 - Fonética y Fonología del Inglés

PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY OF ENGLISH

El Valle del Espíritu Santo, abril de 2019

 SUBJECT #1: LANGUAGE

It‘s a system of conventional

spoken, manual, or written symbols by
means of which human beings, as members
of a social group and participants in its
culture, express themselves. The functions
of language include communication, the
expression of identity, play, imaginative
expression and emotional release.

Linguistics
It‘s the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of
morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics. Specific branches of linguistic include
sociolinguistics, dialectology, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, historical-
comparative linguistics, and applied linguistics.

Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics and phonology are related, dependent fields for studying aspects of the
language. Phonetics is the study of sound in speech; phonology is the study (and use) of
sound patterns to create meaning. Phonetics focuses on how speech is physically created
and received, including the
study of the human vocal and
auditory tracts, acoustics, and
neurology. On the other
hand, phonology relies on
phonetic information for its
practice, but focuses on how
patterns in both speech and non-verbal communication create meaning, and how such
patterns are interpreted. This branch of linguistics includes comparative studies of how
cognates, sounds and meaning are transmitted among and between human communities and
languages.

Articulatory, Acoustic and Auditory Phonetics

When we look at speech (sounds), we look at how it is pronounced, transmitted and
perceived:

Articulatory Phonetics
This type of phonetics looks at the production side (how speech sounds are, for
example, articulated).

Acoustic Phonetics
This one looks at the transmission of these sounds (what are the acoustic properties
of speech, such as duration, frequency, energy, and the rest of physical properties).

Auditory Phonetics
Auditory phonetics looks at how humans perceive these sounds (what happens in
the ear).

Phone
Phone is a vibration or wave caused by an
object. This definition comes from acoustics and
underlines physical characteristics of sounds of
speech. Sounds are instances of phonemes in real
speech. Put it simply, sounds are everything we
hear with our ears. Here are some examples of
sounds:

 [k], [b], [f], [u], [d], [e], [i:]

  The word ―cat‖ consists of three sounds and can be transcribed as
follows: [kæt].

In dictionary transcriptions, we have sounds, not phonemes. Sounds are physical

segments. Sounds, unlike phonemes, have such concrete characteristics as duration in time
and loudness; sounds are produced by organs of speech.

Phoneme
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word that makes a difference in its
pronunciation, as well as its meaning, from another word. For instance, the /s/ in ‗soar‘
distinguishes it from /r/ in ‗roar‘, as it becomes different from ‗soar‘ in pronunciation as
well as meaning. There are a total of 44 phonemes in the English language, which include
consonants, short vowels, long vowels and diphthongs. Phonemes have distinct functions in
the English language, such as the /b/, /t/, and /d/ consonant sounds that are missing in some
languages. The written representation of a sound is placed in slashes.

Minimal Pairs
In phonology, minimal
pairs are pairs of words or
phrases in a particular
language, spoken or signed,
which differ in only one
phonological element, such as a
phoneme, toneme or chroneme,
and have distinct meanings.
They are used to demonstrate that two phones are two separate phonemes in the language.
As an example for English vowels, the pair "let" + "lit" can be used to demonstrate that the
phones [ɛ ] (in let) and [ɪ ] (in lit) actually represent distinct phonemes /ɛ / and /ɪ /. An
example for English consonants is the minimal pair of "pat" + "bat".
 Allophone
The definition of an allophone is an alternative sound for a letter or group of letters
in a word. An example of an allophone is the short sound of the "a" in mat and the long
sound of the "a" in mad.

Sound and Letter

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
centers upon syllables: a syllable 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 equivalents 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 tough 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 17 th century and the ways in which
written English was standardized. 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.
 SUBJECT #2: THE VOCAL TRACT

The Vocal Tract: Anatomy and Physiology

The vocal tract is the area from the nose and the nasal cavity down to the vocal
cords deep in the throat. Understanding the vocal tract is an important aspect of learning to
accurately produce sounds. The lips, tongue, and jaw are the parts of the vocal tract that are
initially the easiest to control voluntarily.

Elements of The Vocal Tract:

The production of speech involves the skilful manipulation of all the components of
the vocal tract:

 Lips: the /p/ sound, /b/ sound, and /m/ sound are created by pressing the lips
together, while forming the /f/ sound and /v/ sound requires interaction between the
bottom lip and the top teeth.

 Teeth and tongue: The unvoiced ―th‖ and voiced ―th‖ sounds are created by
controlling how the close the tip of the tongue is to the front teeth.

 Alveolar ridge: the bony ridge behind the upper teeth.

 Hard palate: the bony dome constituting the roof of the mouth. Accuracy of tongue
position in relation to the tooth ridge is necessary for production of the ―t‖ sound,
―d‖ sound, ―ch‖ sound, ―j‖ sound, ―s‖ sound, ―z‖ sound, ―sh‖ sound, ―zh‖ sound, ―l‖
sound, and ―n‖ sound.

 Velum or soft palate: the soft tissue immediately behind the tongue. The back of the
tongue interacts with the soft palate to create the ―k‖ sound, ―g‖ sound, and ―ng‖
sound.
 Uvula: the soft appendage hanging from the velum. Sounds articulated with the
back of the tongue and the uvula are called uvular.

 Pharynx: the back wall of the throat behind the tongue. The pharynx is divided into
two parts: the oropharynx and the nasopharynx. The lowest part (between the glottis
and hyoid bone) is known as the laryngopharynx.

 The epiglottis: is a leaf-like cartilage which is attached to the anterior part of the
thyroid cartilage, and to the root of the tongue. As the epiglottis is joined with the
root of the tongue, the whole can be drawn back and down towards the wall of the
pharynx in the production of, for instance, Arabic pharyngeal sounds.

 Larynx: containing the vocal cords. When the larynx is pulled down (as in yawning)
the vocal tract becomes longer, this creates a lower pitch of the air (lower formant
frequencies). When the larynx is pulled up (as for swallowing) the vocal tract
becomes shorter. This creates a higher pitch of the air (higher formant frequencies)

 Trachea: the tube going to the lungs.

 The nasal cavity: is the uppermost section of the vocal tract. The ―m‖ sound, ―n‖
sound, and ―ng‖ sound are nasal sounds that are created when air is released through
the nasal cavity.

 The vocal cords: are deep in the throat, and their vibration allows sound to be said
more loudly or more quietly. While all vowel sounds are voiced, meaning the vocal
cords vibrate during their production, many consonant sounds are unvoiced,
meaning that the vocal cords do not vibrate during their production.
 The Speech Organs
The various organs of our mouth we use to produce speech sounds are called the
organs of speech or Speech organs, produce the sounds of language. Organs used for
speech include the lips, teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate, velum (soft palate), uvula, glottis
and various parts of the tongue. The study of speech sound is essentially important for
getting the fundamental idea about producing speech sounds. The various organs work in
different ways to produce speech sounds.
 The function of the parts of human speech organs

 Lips form different shapes, such as an oval, and movements in order to make
different sounds. Sounds can be formed by using the teeth to shape the lips, in
combination with the tongue, or to block air from escaping the mouth.

 The tongue moves throughout the mouth and with many of the other organs, as well
as making shapes like the lips, in order to formulate speech.

 The uvula is used to make guttural sounds. It helps to make nasal consonants by
stopping air from moving through the nose.

 The glottis is used in controlling the vibration made by the vocal chords, in order to
make different sounds.

 The alveolar ridge helps us to make different sounds, known as alveolar sounds, the
tongue touches the ridges found on this organ.

 Hard palate, like the alveolar ridge, is the organ of speech where the tongue touches
and taps the palate when articulating speech.

 The movable velum can retract and elevate in order to separate the mouth from the
nasal cavity, helping to make speech less nasally. When the tongue hits the velum, it
also makes a special sound called the velar consonant.

Articulatory Processes
The articulatory process is a combination of sound waves produced by the
articulatory muscles. There are few ways of making the speech sound; it all depends on
how one‘s motor cortex, the part which controls the face, jaw, lungs, and larynx, works.
Hence, it is causing several combinations in pronouncing sounds or the articulatory process.

 Assimilation: is a combination when a sound merges with another sound that

follows or precedes it. There are two types of Assimilation; Regressive Assimilation
 and Progressive Assimilation. Regressive Assimilation is when a sound change
according to the sound that precedes it. Meanwhile, Progressive Assimilation is
term to describe a sound that change according to the sound that follows it.
Example: ―Impossible‖, the /p/ influences the nasal for place of articulation.
 Dissimilation: the opposite of Assimilation, is a combination in which two sounds
are disperse with one another. Therefore, the words are more clearly to pronounce
and easy to distinguish.
Example: ―Surprise‖, the second R influences P to stress, resulting the word to be
pronounced as ‗supprise‘.
 Epenthesis: is a process of adding a new sound in the middle of already existing
sequence of sounds.
Example: ―Warmth‖, there is a P sound in the middle of M and TH.
 Metathesis: is a process of switching two sounds in the same sequence. This
rearrangement often makes the words to be easier when pronounced.
Example: ―Comfortable‖, there is a rearrangement in the ―ort‖ sound, making the
word to pronounce as ‗comfterble‘.
 Deletion: this is the process
when we unconsciously
delete a sound from its
sequence. Deletion often
happens in verbal
communication, as we have
the tendency to speak fast.
Example: ―Suppose‖, in
verbal communication, we delete the ―u‖ sound and saying it as ―s‘ppose‖.
 SUBJECT #3: PHONETIC NOTATION

Phonetic notation
Phonetic notation refers to the ways in which
speech sounds are written down or ―transcribed‖
visually. The ideal goal is to be able to transcribe any book = [bʊ k]
sound that can occur in any language of the world. Since
the early twentieth century, in the European tradition,
this task has been accomplished most commonly using
alphabetic notation. The principal difference between this and orthographic notation is that
orthography may not represent every sound that occurs, may not represent every sound
uniquely, and may maintain historical representations that no longer indicate how the
particular language forms are pronounced. Also, a phonetic form of notation typically
isolates the individual speech sounds in a string of ―auditorily distinct articulatory
maneuvers‖, representing them one after the other as far as the particular phonetic theory
allows.

Phonetic transcription systems have evolved with the intention of representing in a

universal way the speech sounds that can occur in human language, irrespective of the
orthographic means by which they may be written. The principles that phonetic notation
should follow are outlined in the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association,
beginning with the theoretical assumptions that underlie how speech is analyzed and
repeating policy statements first developed in the late nineteenth century. The main
underlying tenet is that each ―distinctive sound‖, in the sense of a sound that is
meaningfully distinct from another in a particular phonology, merits its own sign
 The International Phonetic Association and its alphabet (IPA)
The IPA is the major as well as the oldest representative
organization for phoneticians. It was established in 1886 in Paris.
2016 marked the 130th anniversary of the founding of the IPA,
and 2018 marked the 130th anniversary of the first publication of
the International Phonetic Alphabet and the formulation of the
principles. The aim of the IPA is to promote the scientific study of
phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. In furtherance of this aim,
the IPA provides the academic community world-wide with a notational standard for the
phonetic representation of all languages - the International Phonetic Alphabet (also IPA).

The IPA is based on the Roman alphabet, which has the advantage of being widely
familiar, but also includes letter and additional symbols from a variety of other sources.
These additions are necessary because the variety of sounds in languages is much greater
than the number of letters in the Roman alphabet. This
alphabet can be used for many purposes. For instance, it
can be used as a way to show pronunciation in a
dictionary, to record a language in linguistic fieldwork,
to form the basis of a writing system for a language, or
to annotate acoustic and other displays in the analysis of
speech. For all these tasks it is necessary to have a
generally agreed set of symbols for designating sounds
unambiguously, and the IPA aims to fulfill this role.
 One-to-one correspondence between sound and written symbol
If we want to write down speech sounds as
accurately as possible, we cannot depend on
[p]
traditional spelling. We need a method that relates
p
sounds to letters or symbols more systematically: each [d]
sound must be represented consistently by the same d
symbol, and, conversely, there must be a separate [b]
symbol for each distinctive sound. Such a one-to-one
correspondence between speech and writing is referred to as phonographic relationship.
This is one of the guiding principles for the association; a single sound should never be
represented by a sequence of symbols, the way that English uses two letters to represent the
consonant at the beginning of ―thin‖. Nor should a single symbol represent a sequence of
sounds, the way the English letter ―x‖ does in ―tax‖.

Phonetic transcription and graphic correspondence

A phonetic transcription in the narrower sense aims to represent actual speech
sounds, i.e. concrete utterances of an individual speaker on a particular occasion. It does so
with a high degree of accuracy, showing a lot of articulatory details. This type of
transcription is also called narrow transcription. It is occasionally also referred to as
impressionistic transcription, or said to be ―objective‖, because the transcriber simply
writes down what he hears (even if he does not know what the utterance means). It
represents spoken language at the level
of phonetics, through a wide range of
John sat by the open door
phonetic symbols for phones or
allophones. The transcribed text is
therefore enclosed in square brackets
―[]‖.The IPA does not, however, provide
[dʒ ɒ n sæt baɪ ðɪ әʊ pәn
the means for a prosodic transcription,
i.e. it cannot indicate suprasegmental features like rhythm or intonation. Apart from a mark
to indicate stress, there is no generally agreed system for writing down the prosody of
speech.

Grapheme
It‘s the minimal
contrastive unit in the writing
system of a language; usually
enclosed in angle brackets. The
grapheme <a>, for example, is
realized as several allographs
A, a, a, etc., which may be seen
as units in complementary distribution (e.g. upper case restricted to sentence-initial
position, proper names, etc.), or in free variation (as in some styles of handwriting), just as
in phonemic analysis. ‗Grapheme analysis‘ is the main business of graphemics (or
graphology).

An individual grapheme may or may not carry meaning by itself, and may or may
not correspond to a single phoneme of the spoken language. Graphemes include alphabetic
letters, typographic ligatures, Chinese characters, numerical digits, punctuation marks, and
other individual
symbols. A grapheme
can also be construed
as a graphical sign that
independently
represents a portion of
linguistic material.
 Diacritic
(1) In phonetics, a mark added to a symbol to alter the way it is pronounced.
Diacritic marks (or ‗diacritics‘) include the various accents (´ ` ^ etc.), and the signs of
devoicing [o] and nasalization [~].

(2) In graphology, the term refers to a mark added to a written symbol which alters
the way the symbol should be pronounced. The mark may be placed over it, under it, before
it, after it, or through it.

(3) In generative phonology, diacritic features are introduced into the derivation of
formatives to account for the apparently exceptional behavior of segments. A readjustment
rule introduces the feature [D], e.g. to handle the exceptional stress pattern of words like
momentary (cf. the more regular elementary). [+D] would be inserted ad hoc at an early
stage in their derivation.
 Text Reading: common writing and phonetic alphabet
“ALONE”
[“əˈ loʊ n”
By Edgar Allan Poe
baɪ ˈ ɛ dgər ˈ ælən poʊ
From childhood‘s hour I have not been
frʌ m ˈ ʧ aɪ ldhʊ dz ˈ aʊ ər aɪ hæv nɑ t bɪ n
As others were—I have not seen
æz ˈ ʌ ðərz wɜ r - aɪ hæv nɑ t sin
As others saw—I could not bring
æz ˈ ʌ ðərz sɔ - aɪ kʊ d nɑ t brɪ ŋ
My passions from a common spring—
maɪ ˈ pæʃ ənz frʌ m ə ˈ kɑ mən sprɪ ŋ—
From the same source I have not taken
frʌ m ðə seɪ m sɔ rs aɪ hæv nɑ t ˈ teɪ kən
My sorrow—I could not awaken
maɪ ˈ sɑ roʊ - aɪ kʊ d nɑ t əˈ weɪ kən
My heart to joy at the same tone—
maɪ hɑ rt tu ʤɔ ɪ æt ðə seɪ m toʊ n—
And all I loved—I loved alone—
ænd ɔ l aɪ lʌ vd - aɪ lʌ vd əˈ loʊ n—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
ðɛ n-ɪ n maɪ ˈ ʧ aɪ ldˌ hʊ d - ɪ n ðə dɔ n
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
ʌ v ə moʊ st ˈ stɔ rmi laɪ f-wʌ z drɔ n
From every depth of good and ill
frʌ m ev'ry dɛ pθ ʌ v gʊ d ænd ɪ l
The mystery which binds me still—
ðə ˈ mɪ stəri wɪ ʧ baɪ ndz mi stɪ l—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
frʌ m ðə ˈ tɔ rənt, ɔ r ðə ˈ faʊ ntən—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
frʌ m ðə rɛ d klɪ f ʌ v ðə ˈ maʊ ntən—
From the sun that ‘round me rolled
frʌ m ðə sʌ n ðæt raʊ nd mi roʊ ld
In its autumn tint of gold—
ɪ n ɪ ts ˈ ɔ təm tɪ nt ʌ v goʊ ld—
From the lightning in the sky
frʌ m ðə ˈ laɪ tnɪ ŋ ɪ n ðə skaɪ
As it passed me flying by—
æz ɪ t pæst mi ˈ flaɪ ɪ ŋ baɪ —
From the thunder, and the storm—
frʌ m ðə ˈ θʌ ndər, ænd ðə stɔ rm—
And the cloud that took the form
ænd ðə klaʊ d ðæt tʊ k ðə fɔ rm
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
(wɛ n ðə rɛ st ʌ v ˈ hɛ vən wʌ z blu)
Of a demon in my view—
ʌ v ə ˈ dimən ɪ n maɪ vju—]
 SUBJECT #4: THE SOUNDS OF ENGLISH

Description of the English consonant system

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with
complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are [p], pronounced with the lips;
[t], pronounced with the front of the tongue; [k], pronounced with the back of the tongue;
[h], pronounced in the throat; [f] and [s], pronounced by forcing air through a narrow
channel (fricatives); and [m] and [n], which have air flowing through the nose (nasals).
Contrasting with consonants are vowels.

Since the number of possible sounds in all of the world's languages is much greater
than the number of letters in any one alphabet, linguists have devised systems such as the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to assign a unique and unambiguous symbol to each
attested consonant. In fact, the English alphabet has fewer consonant letters than English
has consonant sounds, so digraphs like "ch", "sh", "th", and "zh" are used to extend the
alphabet, and some letters and digraphs represent more than one consonant. For example,
the sound spelled "th" in "this" is a different consonant than the "th" sound in "thin". (In the
IPA, they are transcribed [ð] and [θ], respectively.)

The word consonant is also used to refer to a letter of an alphabet that denotes a
consonant sound. The 21 consonant letters in the English alphabet are B, C, D, F, G, H, J,
K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Z, and usually W and Y. The letter Y stands for the
consonant /j/ in yoke, the vowel /ɪ / in myth, the vowel /i/ in funny, and the diphthong /aɪ /
in my. ―W‖ always represents a consonant except in combination with a vowel letter, as in
growth, raw, and how, and in a few loanwords from Welsh, like crwth or cwm.

Physiological Characteristics and Pertinent Features

In phonetics, consonants are discussed in terms of three anatomical and
physiological factors: the state of the glottis (whether or not there is voice or vibration in
the larynx), the place of articulation (that part of the vocal apparatus with which the sound
is most closely associated), and the manner of articulation (how the sound is produced).

Place of Articulation

a. Labials: if they make use of the lips. In this group we can find:
 Bilabial: sounds are produced with both lips.
 Labiodental: sounds are produced by a movement of the lower lip against
the upper teeth.
b. Dental or Interdental: these sounds are made with the tongue tip and rims
between the upper and lower teeth or against the upper teeth. The dentals in
English are often popularly called ―teeaitch‖ because of their spelling.
c. Alveolar: these sounds are made with the tongue tip coming near or touching the
bony ridge behind the upper teeth, called the alveolar ridge.
d. Postalveolar: these sounds are made with the tongue tip approaching or
touching the rear of the alveolar ridge or the area just behind it.
e. Retroflex: these sounds (from Latin ―retrôflexus‖, ‗bent backwards‘) are
produced when the tip of the tongue is curled back to approach or make contact
with the front part of the roof of the mouth, called the hard palate, just behind
the alveolar ridge. There is a retroflex pronunciation variant of the /r/ phoneme
in most American accents, in Irish English, and in accents of south-west
England in words like worse and hard. This retroflex /r/ is phonetically
transcribed as [ɻ ].
The dental, alveolar, postalveolar and retroflex sounds all involve the tip of the
tongue; therefore, they can be grouped together as apical sounds.
f. Palatoalveolar: these sounds are made with the tongue tip touching the alveolar
ridge, and with simultaneous rising of the blade of the tongue towards the hard
palate. They therefore belong to the group of laminal sounds.
g. Palatal: these sounds are produced when the body of the tongue comes near or
touches the (hard) palate.
h. Velar: these sounds are made by placing the back of the tongue against or near
the velum, or soft palate. The phoneme /w/ is different from the other English
velars in that it is labialized,
which means that it is
pronounced with rounded lips.
The lips, then, are a secondary
place of articulation. This
phoneme is therefore more
specifically described as a
labiovelar.
 A place of articulation which adds some quality to the main articulation is
called secondary articulation. Some linguistics speak of coarticulation or
double articulation, but these terms are usually reserved for the simultaneous
use of two places of obstruction of equal importance, which hardly ever occurs
in English.
i. Uvular: these sounds are made by moving the root or back of the tongue against
the uvula, which is the appendage that hangs down from the velum.
j. Pharyngeal or pharyngal: these sounds are made when the root of the tongue is
pulled back in the pharynx.
The palatal, velar, uvular and pharyngeal sounds are grouped together as
dorsal sounds because they all use the body of the tongue.
k. Glottal: these sounds are produced in the larynx when air passes through the
glottis.

Manner of Articulation

a. Plosives, or stops, are sounds for which the speaker makes a complete closure at
some point in the vocal tract, builds up the
air pressure while the closure is held, and
then releases the air explosively through
the mouth.
b. Affricates are sounds that consist of two elements. The first element is a plosive.
This means that affricates, too, require a complete closure in the vocal tract, but
the air is released slowly enough to produce friction, which we hear as a
hissings-like sound. This second element is articulated in the same place, i.e.
with the same speech organs, as the preceding plosive. We therefore say that the
two elements are homorganic sounds.
 c. Nasals have a complete closure in the vocal tract as
well. They stand out from all other English
phonemes, however, in that the velum, or soft palate,
is lowered, so that air escapes through the nose. In
the production of English nasals, usually all the air
escapes through the nose.
d. Rolls or Thrills, involve an intermittent closure of the speech organs in the vocal
tract. Rolls are produced when one articulator vibrates against another.
e. Flaps or Taps, involve a single flap by one articulator against another.
f. Fricatives, are made
when air forces its way
through a very narrow
gap between two speech organs, thereby producing audible friction.
g. Lateral Fricatives are made with air that escapes around the sides of a partial
closure of the speech organs.
h. Approximants are generally made with a wider gap between the speech organs
than is the case in the production of fricatives. The speech organs approach each
other, but they do not touch each other.
i. Lateral Approximants are also made with air that escapes around the sides of a
partial closure of the speech organs, but the air passage is not quite as narrow as
in lateral fricatives.

Nasalization

The basic feature of a nasal is that the air escapes through the nose and the main
difference between the three types of nasals is the point where the air is stopped in the
mouth. In this sense, there are three types of nasals: bilabial /m/, alveolar /n/ and velar /ŋ/ .
This last velar sound never occurs in initial position; in medial position, it may appear with
or without a /g/ sound, depending on whether it occurs at the end of a morpheme or not. If
it occurs in the middle of a morpheme it has a following /g/. In final position the preceding
rule is observed.

Voicing

a. Voiced: a voiced sound is a sound where the vocal cords vibrate, producing
some sort of pitch. This is the kind of sound most people associate with regular
talking or singing.
b. Voiceless/Unvoiced: a voiceless or unvoiced sound is one where the vocal cords
do not vibrate, making the sound very whispery and without a pitch. It can tend
to make a letter sound harsher when pronounced.

Auditive Discrimination and Oral Practice

 Description of the English Consonant System
Sounds are described taking in consideration 3 criteria: articulatory, auditory and
acoustic, some sounds are better learnt articulatorily (like consonants), while some others
are better learnt auditorily (vowels), that is trough listening and imitation.

Physiological Characteristics and Pertinent Features

A vowel sound is a sound in the production of which the air stream comes out
through the mouth (or mouth and nose), centrally over the tongue and meets a stricture of
open approximation. A vowel sound is generally syllabic, i. e., it functions as the central
element of a syllable. Vowel sounds are all oral and voiced.

Classification
To classify and describe the vowels is not always possible to use purely articulatory
criteria, given the difficulty of observing articulatory movements, so we must also take into
account an auditory point of view.

The English vowels, unlike the Spanish ones, can be divided into two groups
regardless of the context in which they appear: long and short vowels. The length or vowel
quantity (vowel quantity) is one of the distinctive features of the vowels and therefore the
long vowels are represented phonemically followed by a colon (:).

Long vowel phonemes (/ i: ɜ : ɑ : ɔ : u: /) require a greater articulatory effort than

short phonemes, so they are often described as tense. This difference in tension is easily
discernible, for example, if we compare the articulation of the vowel / i: / with the vowel /
ɪ / o of the vowel / u: / with the vowel / ʊ /. One of the biggest problems we encounter
when learning English as a foreign language is the fact that there is no stable relationship
between English spelling and pronunciation. In the case of vowels this problem is even
more obvious, since in English there are 12 pure vowel phonemes, plus 8 diphthongs that
can only be represented by combining 5 letters (A, E, I, O, U).
 To try to clarify the relationship between spelling and pronunciation, we often use a
popular terminology that establishes at least two possible pronunciations for each of the 5
written vowels: a long pronunciation and a short pronunciation.

As you can see in the previous table, the pronunciation popularly known as "short"
of the A is / æ /, and the "long" is / eɪ /. According to this principle in England, young
children are taught that: Cons + A + Cons is pronounced / æ /, Cons + E + Cons is
pronounced / e / and so on. Nevertheless this subject will be treated in deph further is this
guide.

In addition to a quantitative distinction between the vowels, there is also a

qualitative difference between all of them that depends on the position adopted by the
articulatory organs in their articulation. In the articulation of the twelve English vowels the
language adopts a variety of positions and forms. To distinguish them, we usually pay
attention to two aspects: the vertical distance from the tongue to the palate (degree of
opening) and the part of the tongue that adopts a higher position (position on the anterior-
posterior axis).
 Vowel Trapezium
For the study and description of English vowel phonemes it is very useful to make
use of the so-called vowel trapezium.

The vowel trapezium is a diagram to understand vowel sounds. It tries to represent

where the tongue lies in relation to the openness of the mouth when you produce a vowel.
So the front closed vowel /i:/ means that your tongue is in a forward position in the mouth,
which is in a relatively closed position. Try saying it to yourself and then contrast it with
the open back sound in the diagram.

As you can see, in addition to its length, we can also classify the vowels according
to their opening degree in closed (Close), half-closed (Close-mid), half-open (Open-mid)
and open (Open). On the other hand, we can divide the positions in the longitudinal axis in:
anterior (Front), Central and posterior (Back), as well as two intermediate positions,
what could we define as between central and frontal and between central and posterior, that
correspond to the phonemes / ʏ / / ʊ / and / ɪ /.
 Finally, we must also take into account the shape adopted by the lips in the
articulation of a vowel. As you may see in the following graphic, the lips adopt
fundamentally three differentiated positions: rounded or flared (rounded), extended (spread)
and neutral. The rounding of the lips (lip-rounding) is a distinctive articulatory feature that
we must take into account. In English the phonemes / u: /, / ɔ ː / and / ʊ / are articulated
by substantially rounding the lips; this also happens in the articulation of the vowel / ɒ /
although it is not so apparent.

Tongue and Lips Position

Closeness/Openness, or Tongue Height

In American terminology, refers to the distance between the tongue and the palate
(and at the same time to the position of the lower jaw). If the tongue is high, as in the last
sound of the word bee, it is close to the palate, and we therefore speak of a close vowel. If
the tongue is low, as in the third sound of the word starling, the gap between it and the
palate is more open, and we speak of an open vowel. Between these extremes, there are
three intermediate levels: If the tongue is in a mid-high position, i.e. a bit lower than high,
the resultant sound is a mid-close vowel, or half-close vowel. If it is mid-low, i.e. a bit
higher than low, we hear a mid-open vowel, or half-open vowel. A vowel that is made
with a tongue height somewhere between mid-high and mid-low is simply called a mid-
vowel.

Frontness/Backness

This refers to the part of the tongue that is raised highest. If it is the front of the
tongue (in which case the body of the tongue is pushed forward), as in the last sound in bee,
we speak of a front vowel. If the back of the tongue is raised highest (in which case the
body of the tongue is pulled back), as in the middle sound in goose, the resultant sound is a
back vowel. Between these extremes, we recognize one intermediate position: If the center
of the tongue is raised highest, as in the second sound of the word bird, we speak of a
central vowel.

The Shape of the Lips

It can be either spread, neutral, or round. English does not utilize this contrast very
much. As in most other languages, the spreading of the lips usually correlates with
frontness and lip-rounding with backness. This means that there are no two vowel
phonemes in English that differ only in the shape of the lips. Many linguists therefore do
not regard this criterion as relevant in English.

Degrees of Aperture

Three of the cardinal vowels—[i], [ɑ ] and [u]—have articulatory definitions. The

vowel [i] is produced with the tongue as far forward and as high in the mouth as is possible
(without producing friction), with spread lips. The vowel [u] is produced with the tongue as
far back and as high in the mouth as is possible, with protruded lips. This sound can be
approximated by adopting the posture to whistle a very low note, or to blow out a candle.
And [ɑ ] is produced with the tongue as low and as far back in the mouth as possible.
 The other vowels are 'auditorily equidistant' between these three 'corner vowels', at
four degrees of aperture or 'height': close (high tongue position), close-mid, open-mid, and
open (low tongue position).

These degrees of aperture plus the front-back distinction define 8 reference points
on a mixture of articulatory and auditory criteria. These eight vowels are known as the eight
'primary cardinal vowels', and vowels like these are common in the world's languages.

The lip positions can be reversed with the lip position for the corresponding vowel
on the opposite side of the front-back dimension, so that
e.g. Cardinal 1 can be produced with rounding somewhat
similar to that of Cardinal 8 (though normally compressed
rather than protruded); these are known as 'secondary
cardinal vowels'. Sounds such as these are claimed to be
less common in the world's languages. Other vowel
sounds are also recognized on the vowel chart of the
International Phonetic Alphabet.

Nasalization
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or
velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously. By
contrast, oral vowels are produced without nasalization. In a stricter sense, nasal vowels
shall not be confused with nasalized vowels.

Nasalized vowels are vowels under the influence of neighboring sounds. For
instance, the [æ] of the word hand is affected by the following nasal consonant. In most
languages, vowels adjacent to nasal consonants are produced partially or fully with a
lowered velum in a natural process of assimilation and are therefore technically nasal, but
few speakers would notice. That is the case in English: vowels preceding nasal consonants
are nasalized, but there is no phonemic distinction between nasal and oral vowels (and all
vowels are considered phonemically oral).
 Compensatory Lengthening
Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening
of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the
syllable coda, or of a vowel in an adjacent syllable. Lengthening triggered by consonant
loss may be considered an extreme form of fusion (Crowley 1997:46). Both types may arise
from speakers' attempts to preserve a word's moraic count.

SUBJECT #5: THE PROSODY

What is prosody?
For simply the intonation, the rhythm, the melody we use when speaking and
without which it would be impossible for us to communicate. We usually associate with
language the meaning of words, syntax, even the most daring, grammar, and perhaps we do
not fall into the importance of intonation. How many times has the use of a misguided word
betrayed us?

The Syllabification
The syllabification it is splitting of
words according to the syllables or units of
sounds or vowel sounds.

To determine whether a syllable is

closed or open, look at the vowel. Closed
Syllables In a closed syllable, the vowel is
followed by a consonant. Take a look at
these words:

Cap - Sit - Men

Do you notice that in each of the closed syllables, the vowel is short?
 Closed and open syllables are the first two syllable types students should learn. Out
of the six syllable types, these two are the easiest for students to master. Hundreds of
common words can be spelled using these two syllable types, so our students can get a lot
of practice even while their spelling skills are still in the early development stage. In an
open syllable, nothing comes after the vowel. Look at the word he. We say that the vowel is
open. There is nothing closing it in.

For other examples, look at the first

syllables in these words:

 Baby.
 Paper.
 Even.
 Table.

Do you notice that in each of the open

syllables, the vowel is long (says its name)?

Why Does It Matter?

Knowing the syllable types will help the student be a much better speller. When
spelling multisyllable words, students should spell the word syllable by syllable.

More Examples of Closed and

Open Syllable

 Hotel
 Latest.
 Combat.
 Locate.
 Moment.
 Diphthong and Hiatus

Diphthongs
Diphthong comes from the Greek word diphthongs. It literally means "having two
sounds". More specifically, diphthongs deal with vowels. Every vowel has its own short
sound and long vowel sound. However, diphthongs come into play whenever a vowel
makes a new and different sound, usually because it's working in conjunction with another
vowel.

One of the best diphthong examples is the word "oil." Here, we have two vowels
working side by side and, together, they create a sound different than anything "O" or "I"
alone can produce.

A single vowel, such as the "O" or "I" in "oil" is called a monophthong (mono for
one, di for two). An example of a monophthong is the "O" in "hop." But, when we move
from one vowel sound to another, such as the "oi" in "oil" is called gliding. As such,
diphthongs are sometimes referred to as "gliding vowels."

Hiatus
The Hiatus refers to two vowel sounds occurring in adjacent syllables, with no
intervening consonant. When two adjacent vowel sounds occur in the same syllable, the
result is instead described as a synaeresis. The English words hiatus and diaeresis
themselves each contain a hiatus between the first and second syllables.

Semivowels
A speech sound intermediate between vowel and consonant examples: If you
observe in the word "CRY", 'Y' acts as vowel whereas 'Y' acts as semi vowel in the word
"YES".
 Rhythm
Rhythm is both a feature of and product of the
phonological structure of English. The spoken English
words with two or more syllables have different stress
and length patterns. Some syllables are stressed more
than others and some syllables are pronounced longer
than others. The same is true of phrases and sentences.
Different words in a sentence have stronger stress and
are pronounced longer and other words are weaker and shorter. This pattern of strong and
weak stress and short and long pronunciation gives English its rhythm.

One of the things that make English difficult to understand for foreign students is its
particular rhythm. Many languages are syllabic, which means that every syllable takes the
same amount of time to pronounce. In some languages stressed syllables take longer than
unstressed syllables, but still, the pronunciation unit is the syllable.

English is different, we don't care about syllables, we don't even care about words,
it's all about beats (sound units). Every beat takes the same amount of time to pronounce. A
beat may have one syllable, ten syllables, one word or five words, but it still takes the same
amount of time (more or less). At normal speed, every beat takes about half a second or one
second to pronounce, and it doesn't matter how many things are in that beat. That means
that the more syllables we have in a beat, the faster we have to pronounce them, because
the global time is not going to change.

But not all words are affected in the same way. There are two different kinds of
words in English (as in most languages):

a. Content words: the words with meaning (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
b. Grammatical words: words with no meaning, but they build the grammatical
structure of the sentence (prepositions, articles, verb particles, pronouns, etc.)
 Every sound unit (beat) has a content word, which is the most important part of it.
You can also have more than one content word, for instance, a noun with an adjective.
Then, optionally, we may have one or more grammatical words (structure words). But we
always have about one or half a second to pronounce it all, so, obviously, we give more
time to the important things (content words) and less time to the grammatical words. So in
English, grammatical words are usually pronounced very fast and very weakly (they are
often pronounced with a schwa, as in the article in "the cat"); so weak that foreign students
often can't hear them because they are not used to this particular rhythm of the English
language, but if you pay attention, they're all there, just get used to it!

Here's an example:

―Hi, what were you doing when I rang an hour ago?‖

Content words  hi, doing, rang, hour

Structure words  what, were, you, when, I, an, ago

4 Beats (stress marked in capital letters)  HI / what were you DOing / when i
RANG / an HOUR ago.

Stress
In linguistics, and particularly
phonology, stress or accent is relative
emphasis or prominence given to a certain
syllable in a word, or to a certain word in a
phrase or sentence.

This emphasis is typically caused by

such properties as increased loudness and
vowel length, full articulation of the vowel,
and changes in pitch. The terms stress and accent are often used synonymously in this
context, but they are sometimes distinguished. For example, when emphasis is produced
through pitch alone, it is called pitch accent, and when produced through length alone, it is
called quantitative accent.

Intonation
It‘s a variation in spoken pitch when used, not for distinguishing words as sememes
(a concept known as tone), but, rather, for a range of other functions such as indicating the
attitudes and emotions of the speaker, signaling the difference between statements and
questions, and between different types of questions, focusing attention on important
elements of the spoken message and also helping to regulate conversational interaction.

Intonation is a feature of pronunciation

and common to all languages. Other features
of pronunciation include stress, rhythm,
connected speech and accent. As with these
other features, intonation is about how we say
something rather than what we say.

At its simplest, intonation could be

described as 'the music of speech'. A change
or variation in this music (or pitch) can affect the meaning of what we say. We can
therefore think of intonation as referring to the way we use the pitch of our voice to express
particular meanings and attitudes.

Linking
At its simplest, linking is the merging of multiple words together until they sound as
if they are only one word. Native speakers of English all do this naturally. Linking is an
advanced topic for non-native speakers, but learning to correctly link words can result in
significantly more fluid and fluent sounding English speech.
 Failing to link words naturally results in spoken English which may have awkward
pauses, extra, unnecessary sounds, and which will sound very foreign to native speakers.
Techniques used for linking words depend on specific adjacent sounds where the words
meet in the sentence.

Intrusion
It‘s a feature of connected speech. When two
words are said together, an extra sound is sometimes
placed between them in order to make them easier to
say.

Example: When a native speaker says 'I am not

happy' there is an intrusive /j/ sound between 'i' and 'am' which makes it easier to say the
phrase quickly.

Intrusion is placing an additional sound between other sounds. For instance, adding
a slight 'w sound' /w/ or /y/ between vowel sounds is a helpful technique for pronouncing
both vowels clearly.

In the phrase "he asked," a small /y/ is added between the 'long e' /i/ and 'short a' /æ/.
This allows both vowel sounds to be pronounced fully and separately without pausing
between words. A slight /w/ is added to link the ‗oo‘ sound /u/ to the short ‗i‘ /ɪ / sound in
the phrase "do it". Again, this allows both vowel sounds to be pronounced clearly.

Contraction
A contraction is a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word,
syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters and sounds. Before a vowel
sound, the contraction of ―are‖ has a /r/ sound. Before a consonant sound, the contraction is
pronounced as a schwa sound: /ə/.
 Here are the words that can make contractions in English:

 Am ‗m.
 Are  ‗re
 Is  ‗s
 Will  ‗ll.
 Would  ‗d.
 Have  ‗ve.
 Has  ‗s.
 Had  ‗d.

Let’s see an example in a sentence:

You are the nicest person i have ever met.

We can make two contractions here: You can contract ―you are‖ to ―you‘re‖, and ―I
have‖ to ―I‘ve‖.

How to make negative English contractions:

If you have an auxiliary verb plus ―not‖, you can put the words together and
contract not to ―n‘t‖. For example:

 Do not  don‘t.
 Is not  isn‘t.
 Have not  haven‘t.
 Would not  wouldn‘t.

Assimilation: changing sounds

Assimilation is a more drastic type of coarticulation. Instead of "sharing" part of a
sound, the merged sounds are pronounced as an entirely different sound. Two examples of
assimilation occur when the ―t‖ sound /t/ or /d/ precede the ―y‖ sound /y/.
 When the /t/ and /y/ assimilate, the sounds merge into the ―ch‖ sound /ʧ /. This
causes the phrase "don't you" /doʊ ntyu/ to be pronounced /doʊ nʧ u/.

The /d/ assimilates with the /y/ and is pronounced as a ―j‖ sound /ʤ/. This causes
the phrase "did you" /dɪ dyu/ to be pronounced as /dɪ ʤu/.

Elision: omitting sounds

Elision occurs when a sound is removed from a word. For example, when a /t/ or /d/
is between two other consonant sounds (but not the first sound of a word), the /t/ or /d/ can
be omitted.

- In the phrase "kept going," the /t/ is between two consonant sounds and can be
omitted.
- In the phrase "diamond ring," the /d/ is between two consonant sounds and can
be omitted.

Coarticulation: overlapping sounds

Coarticulation occurs when
adjacent sounds overlap one
another, causing a change in one or
both sounds' pronunciation. Two
examples of coarticulation include
nasal aspiration and lateral
aspiration.

Nasal aspiration occurs

when the ―d‖ sound /d/ links into
the ―n‖ sound /n/. The ton
 n].

An example of nasal aspiration occurs in the phrase "good news": the air is stopped
as a /d/, but released as an /n/.

Lateral aspiration is similar in concept to nasal aspiration in that the air is stopped as
a normal /d/, but released as a different sound as an 'l sound'
l].

In the phrase "bad luck," the /d/ links into the /l/, and lateral aspiration occurs.

Schwa /ә/: Characteristics and Terms of Use

Schwa may be the most misunderstood sound in English. Most people have heard of
schwa, but it is rare that a teacher or a student knows that: Every vowel may say the schwa
sound.

 Schwa is the most common

sound in every dialect of
English.
 Schwa may sound like /ŭ/ or
/ǐ/ in English words.
 Schwa occurs in unaccented
syllables and unaccented
words.
 BIBLIOGRAFÍA

Aston University. (s/a). Sounds of English. Aston University. Birmingham, UK. Link:
https://www2.aston.ac.uk/lss/research/lss-research/ccisc/discourse-and-culture/west-
midlands-english-speech-and-society/sounds-of-english

Hardcastle, W., Laver, J. & Gibbon, F. (2012). The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences.
Chichester, United Kingdom: Wiley – Blackwell.

International Phonetic Association.

Link: https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/
International Phonetic Association. (1999). Handbook of the International Phonetic
Association. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Skandera, P. & Burleigh, P. (2005). A Manual of English Phonetics and Phonology.
Germany: Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen.
Trujillo, F. (s/a). English Phonetics and Phonology.
Link: https://www.ugr.es/~ftsaez/fonetica/vowels.pdf
Universidad de Zaragoza. (s/a). Fonética de la Lengua Inglesa. Magisterio Lengua
Extranjera. Facultad de CC. de la Educación. Zaragoza, España: Universidad de
Zaragoza.
 Elaborado por:

Alkhatib, Kais

Bermúdez, Marcos

Caraballo, Andrea

Hernández, Nicole

Hernández, Ximena

Madriz, Verónica

Marcano, Jesús

Marcano, José

Márquez, María

Martínez, Freddy

Martínez, Samuel

Pellino, Angelica

Pistohl, Daniel

Padilla, Greit

Tovar, Carla

Trimestre I-2019