UNIT 7: THE ENGLISH PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM. VOWELS. PHONETIC SYMBOLS.

WEAK & STRONG FORMS. DIPHTHONGS. PHONETIC SYMBOLS. CONTRASTIVE

ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH & SPANISH PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEMS.

1. INTRODUCTION
When one person wants to convey a message to another he can use a variety of
means. He may write it down on a piece of paper (parchment, wood, bone, clay, was, stone)
and hand it over; he may transmit it in sign language, as deaf mutes do; he may stand one
apl and wave or drape flags in a pre-arranged way to the recipient standing on another; or
he may prefer to flash a mirror. All these are visual means. On the other hand, the message
may be passed by audible means, by fog-horn, morse-key or drum; or it may be simply
spoken: transmitted by word of mouth, which is, and is likely to remain, by far the most
frequent medium of communication between man and his neighbour.

The sounds of speech are all around us. We use, hear, enjoy, and suffer from them;
in general, we know remarkably little about them. It seems worthwhile, therefore, to attempt
to explain how speech sounds can to some extent be pointed down, so that we may have a
firmer foundation for understanding how sounds contribute to the process of communicating.

2. THE PRODUCTION OF SPEECH

The Speech Chain
Any manifestation of language through speech is the result of a highly complicated
series of events. The communication in sound of a given utterance involves several activities
on the part of the speaker. The first stage is said to be a number of activities on the part of
the speaker. The first stage is said to be PSYCHOLOGICAL (i.e. the formulation of the
concept at a linguistic level in the brain). Then, the nervous system transmits this message
to the organs of speech and we face the second stage at a
PHYSIOLOGICAL/ARTICULATORY level (i.e. the production of the utterance). The
movement of our organs of speech will create disturbances in the air, or whatever the
medium through which we are talking, which constitutes the third stage in our chain: the
PHYSICAL or ACOUSTIC. Since communication generally requires a listener as well as a
speaker, these stages will be reversed at the listening end.

Our immediate concern, however, is with the speaker’s behaviour and more
especially, on the concrete speech level, with the activity involved in the production of
sounds. For this reason, we must now examine the speaker’s articulatory stage (his speech
mechanism) to discover how the various organs behave in order to produce the sounds of
speech.

The Speech Mechanism

Man possesses, in common with many other animals, the ability to produce sounds
by using certain of his body’s mechanisms. The human being differs from other animals in
that he has been able to organise the range of sounds which he can emit into a highly
efficient system of communication. So as to do so, we get hold of a complex mechanism
which extends from the lungs to the mouth and nose. The description of any sound, in our
case vowels, will need the provision of certain basic information:

➔ The nature of the air-stream; usually, this will be expelled by direct action of
the lungs. It may also be relevant to assess the force of exhalation.
➔ The action of the vocal cords; in particular, whether they are closed, wide
apart, or vibrating.
➔ The position of the soft palate will decide whether or not the sound has nasal
resonances.
➔ The disposition of the various movable organs of the mouth (e.g., the shape
of the lips and tongue, in order to determine the nature of the related oral and
upper pharyngeal cavities).

In addition, it may be necessary to provide other information concerning, for instance,

a particular secondary stricture or tenseness wich may accompany the primary articulation;
or again, when it is a question of a sound with no steady state to describe, an indication of
the kind of movement which is taking place.

3. THE ENGLISH PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM

Phonetics vs. Phonology
The most obvious aspect of language is speech. Speech is not essential to the
definition of an infinitely productive communication system, such as is constituted by a
language. But, in fact, speech is the universal material of human language, and the
conditions of speaking and hearing have, throughout human history, shaped and determined
its development. The study of speech sounds and the physiology of speaking is called
PHONETICS.

Phonetics covers much of the ground loosely referred to in language study as

pronunciation. But, from a rather different point of view, speech sounds are also studied in
PHONOLOGY. Every language makes use of a wide range of articulations and resultant
sounds that are available within the human vocal and auditory resources. Each language
uses a somewhat different range, and this is partly responsible for the difficulty of learning to
speak a foreign language and even more if it is spoken “with an accent”. But mere
repertoires of sounds are not all that is involved. Far fewer general classes of sounds that
are phonetically different. For example, the English ‘t’ sounds at the beginning and end of
‘tot’ and at the end of ‘stouter’ are all different, though these differences are not readily
noticed by English speakers; and rightly, the same letter is used for them all.

However, what is distinctive in one language may not be distinctive in another, or

may be used differently; this is an additional difficulty to overcome in learning to speak and
understand a foreign language. languages differ in the ways in which consonant and vowel
sounds can be grouped into syllables in words. English and German tolerate several
consonants before and after a single vowel sound (‘ng’ and ‘th’ stand for one sound each).
Italian does not have such complex syllables in words, and in Japanese and Swahili, for
example, the ratio of consonant and vowel sounds in syllables and words is much more
even.

Speakers for such languages find English words of the sort just mentioned very hard
to pronounce, though to an English person they are perfectly “natural”, which in this context
means within the sounds and sound sequences whose mastery is acquired in early
childhood as part of one’s mother tongue. All these considerations relating to the use of
speech sounds in particular languages fall under the general heading of PHONOLOGY.

The English System

The roots of the English phonological system can be traced back to Old English, the
earliest form of the English language. During this period, English was heavily influenced by
Germanic languages brought to England by Anglo-Saxon settlers. Old English had a
relatively simple phonological system with distinct vowel sounds. Then, the English
phonological systems experienced several changes throughout history and those changes
are key to what we know and understand for the current English phonological system. Today,
the English phonological system is characterized by a combination of historical influences,
regional accents, and modern developments. It remains a dynamic and evolving aspect of
the language.

English shows a great dialectical (grammar and lexical items) and accentual
(pronunciation) variation. An account of all the different possibilities within the English
phonological system may sounds like a hard nut to crack. We can not expect a person in
Sydney to speak in the same way as another in Delhi, Manchester or Boston. Thus, we may
have considered it convenient to focus on a particular variety of English which is not better or
worse than others, just different; British Received Pronunciation (RP), by definition, is the
usual speech of educated people living in London and south-eastern England is one of the
many different forms of standard speech. Other pronunciations, although not standard, are
entirely acceptable in their own right on conversational levels.

Once we have stated which variety of English we are going to focus on, it seems
reasonable to make explicit the phonological model to follow. As we all know, throughout
history many approaches and models have been offered by well-known phoneticians. In fact,
there have been such different approaches and models that the amount of English
phonemes has ranged from 6 to 23. In British English, we can observe three main trends
derived from the focus lying on Timbre (Quality) and Quantity (Length).

The Edinburgh school with scholars such as Abercrombie and Ladeforeg does not
pay attention to Quantity or Length, and different phonemes are considered depending on
their features, monophthong in this case. Thus, their transcription of ‘bit-beat’ /bɪt-bit/
shows a different sound since for them the second instance presents both consonants more
separate than the first one. A second major trend reinforces the distinctive significance of
Length. So for Daniel Jones, from the London School, the length of a given monophthong is
crucial in order to be distinguished from another such as ‘ship’ /ʃɪp/ vs. ‘sheep’ /ʃiːp/.

After these two models, Gimson, also from the London school, considers both
approaches complementary and therefore establishes his own model by coining both ideas
in EPD-14 (‘English Pronouncing Dictionary’ 14th edition). This model being the most
widespread one as it pays attention to both the Quantity and Quality of monophthongs, and
establishes the current distinction between short and long monophthongs.

It seems reasonable to highlight that there is no language acquisition without the

acquisition of the phonological system of such language, as it is treaded in the Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages (CERF). In the context of English
language proficiency, specific phonological features may be considered in language
assessments or curriculum development, but these considerations typically align with
broader proficiency levels outlined in frameworks like the CEFR. For instance, phonological
features might be relevant in assessing speaking and listening skills.
 4. ENGLISH VOWELS
Defining Vowels
A vowel can be defined as the most prominent sound in a syllable. According to the
Merriam-Webster dictionary, it is: ‘one of a class of speech sounds in the articulation of
which the oral part of the breath channel is not blocked and is not constricted enough to
cause audible friction’.

So vowel, in human speech, is a sound in which the flow of air from the lungs passes
through the mouth, which functions as a resonance chamber, with minimal obstruction and
without audible friction; e.g. the ‘i’ in ‘fit’ and the ‘a’ in ‘back’. Although usually produced with
vibrating vocal cords, vowels may be pronounced without such vibration, resulting in a
voiceless, or whispered, sound.

All vowels can be divided into two main categories: Diphthongs and Monophthongs.
Diphthongs are gliding vowels in the articulation of which there is a continuous transition
from one position to another. Diphthongs are contrasted in this respect with so-called pure
vowels, or monophthongs such as in unchanging or steady-state vowels. Although they are
single speech sounds, diphthongs are usually represented, in a phonetic transcription or
speech, by means of a pair of characters indicating the initial and final configurations of the
vocal tract. Many of the vowel sounds in most dialects of English are diphthongs - e.g., the
vowels of ‘out’ and ‘ice’, respectively. Semivowels are sounds produced in the same manner
as vowels but are used and perceived as consonants. Examples include the ‘y’ in ‘yawn’ and
the ‘w’ in ‘walk’.

It is important to make a distinction between a monophthong or phoneme and an

allophone. The former being minimum phonological and contrastive units, since their
replacement brings about differences in meaning (‘bet’ vs. ‘vet’), whereas the latter does not
involve a change in meaning as in ‘economics’ /ik…- ek…/. Thus, how many vocalic
phonemes can we count on?

English Monophthongs

English vowels are distinguished by two characteristics: their degree of openness

and their point of articulation. This classification can be seen in the chart designed by the
IPA (International Phonetic Association) where the different sounds of vowels in English are
depicted in an acoustic representation in the form of a quadrilateral which represents the oral
cavity and the points of articulation. According to IPA, vowels can be characterised by:
● The degree of openness. It expresses the height of the tongue. The higher it
is, the more closed it is. Depending on the degree of openness, vowels can
be:
○ Closed. Here the tongue is located very high, almost touching the
alveolar area, /i:/
○ Medium-closed. Where the tongue is in the same position but not so
high, /ɪ/.
○ Half-open. The tongue here is closer to the lower part of the mouth,
/æ/
○ Open. Where the tongue is in the lowest possible area, /ɔ:/
● Articulation point. It is the point where the tongue is anchored. Vowels can be:
○ Frontal. Where the upper part of the tongue moves towards the hard
palate, /i:/
○ Central. Where the upper and central part of the tongue is held
towards the central part of the palate, /ʌ/.
○ Rear. Where the back of the tongue rises towards the roof of the
mouth /ɒ/.
Likewise, vowels can be classified according to how the lips move, whether they are
rounded or not; whether their sound is longer or shorter; and depending on their position
within words, whether they are weak or strong. Therefore, taking these considerations into
account, we can distinguish 20 vowel sounds in English, as we will see below.

Short vowels
In the English language we find 7 vowels that we will call "short" as opposed to those
that are "long" because in comparison with the Spanish language there is no concept of
length in the sound. The short vowels are the following: /æ/, /ʌ/, /e/, /ɪ/, /ɒ/, /ʊ/ and /ə/.

/æ/ -> is a half-open, front vowel that is uttered without rounding the lips. Its most
common spelling is "a" as in the word mad, or "ai" as in the word plaid. This vowel also
appears in words whose pronunciation is altered by the addition of a suffix, where the
diphthong /eɪ/ becomes /æ/:
nature -> natural

nation -> national

 /ʌ/ -> is a half-open, central vowel that is uttered without rounding the lips. Its most
common spelling is "u" as in the word cup; "o" as in the word son; "ou" as in the word
country, or "00" as in blood. Exceptionally, we find this sound in "oe" does.

/e/ -> is a half-open, front vowel that is emitted without rounding the lips. Its most
common spelling is "e" as in the word met; "a" as in the word may; "ea" as in the word head.
Exceptionally we find this vowel sound in the words: said, again and friend.

/ɪ/ -> is a half-closed, half-central vowel that is uttered without rounding the lips. Its
most common spelling is "i" as in the word big; "e" as in the word pretty; "y" as in the word
very; "o" as in the word women; "u" as in busy or minute; and also in "ie" as in ladies.

/ɒ/ -> is a half-open, back vowel that is emitted by rounding the lips. Its most common
spelling is "a" as in the word what; "o" as in the word wrong; "ou" as in the word cough; "ow"
as in the word knowledge.

/ʊ/ -> is a half-closed, mid-back vowel that is emitted by rounding the lips. Its most
common spelling is "u" as in the word full; "o" as in the word wolf; "oo" as in the word good;
"ou" as in the word would.

/ə/ -> is a half-closed - half-open, central vowel that is emitted without rounding the
lips. It is known as the schwa vowel and always appears in syllables where the stress does
not fall. This sound can represent all other vowels: thus it can be found as "a" in away; "e"
as in the word garden; "i" as in the word April; "o" as in the word police; "u" as in the word
suffice; as well as in vowel pairs such as "ai" as in villain; "ia" as in parliament; "eo" as in
surgeon, etc. This sound will appear in the weak forms of some words and in connected
speech.

Long vowels
In English, we find 5 vowels that we will call "long" as opposed to those that are
"short" because, in comparison with the Spanish language, there is no concept of length in
the sound. The long vowels in English are: /a:/, /3:/, /i:/, /ɔ:/, and /u:/.

/a:/ -> is an open, front-back vowel that is uttered without rounding the lips. Its most
common spelling is "ar" as in the word star, or "a" followed by the letters f, s, th, n and l as in
the words after, ask, path, dance and calf. This vowel also appears as "er" in clerk; "au" as in
aunt.
 /3:/ -> is a half-open to half-closed, central vowel that is emitted without rounding the
lips. Its most common spelling is always with the letter "r": "ir" as in birth; "yr" as in the word
myrtle; "er" as in the word her, or "or" as in worst; and "ur" as in burn.

/i:/ -> is a closed, front vowel that is uttered without rounding the lips. Its most
common spelling is "e" as in the word even; "ee" as in the word wheel; "ea" as in the word
pea; "ei" as in the word receive; and "ie" as in the word piece. With the spelling "i" in words
with a Latin root such as police and exceptionally in people or key.

/ɔ:/ -> is a half-open to half-closed, back vowel that is emitted by rounding the lips. Its
most common spelling is "a" as in the word wall; "au" as in the word cause; "aw" as in the
word law; "or" as in the word short; "our" as in the word four; and "oa" as in abroad.

/u:/ -> is a closed, back vowel that is emitted by rounding the lips. Its most common
spelling is "o" as in the word lose; "oo" as in the word shoot; "ou" as in the word soup; "u" as
in the word June; "ue" as in the word true; "ui" as in the word juice; and "oe" as in the word
shoe.

Further Articulatory Features

Additional articulatory features describing vowel articulation are ‘wide’ and ‘narrow’,
‘tense’ (fortis) and ‘lax’ (lenis). Wide and narrow refer to the tongue-root position. To form a
narrow vowel, the tongue root is retracted toward the pharyngeal wall, and the pharynx is
narrowed. To form a wide vowel, the tongue root is advanced so that the pharynx is
expanded. Tense and lax are less clearly defined terms. Tense vowels are articulated with
greater muscular effort, slightly higher tongue positions, and longer durations than lax
vowels.
A remarkable aspect to bear in mind when describing monophthongs is the role of
distribution. This means that we should not regard the position of monophthongs in Gimson’s
diagram in absolute terms since they are subject to change because of the great distribution
of some vowels. Vowel schwa, for instance, varies its position depending on whether it is
final or medial in a word. Thus, in the final position (e.g. ‘mother’ or ‘doctor’, etc.) the vowel
may be articulated either in the half-open central position or in the most open region of the
central area.

5. WEAK & STRONG FORMS

In English phonology, vowels exhibit variations in pronunciation depending on their
position within a word and the surrounding sounds. These variations are commonly referred
to as the weak and strong forms of vowels. Understanding these forms is essential for
grasping the nuances of English pronunciation.

The strong form of a vowel occurs when a vowel is stressed or emphasized in a

word. It is the full, clear pronunciation of the vowel. Strong forms typically appear in content
words such as nouns, main verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. For example, in the word
"happy," the vowel 'a' is pronounced in its strong form because it is stressed: /ˈhæpi/.

The weak form of a vowel occurs when a vowel is unstressed or occurs in a function
word (e.g., articles, prepositions, auxiliary verbs). In weak forms, vowels often become
reduced and may be pronounced more quickly and with less clarity. Weak forms are
prevalent in unstressed syllables and help to maintain the rhythm and flow of speech. For
example, in the word "banana," the first and third syllables contain weak forms of the vowels:
/bəˈnænə/.

Strong Form: "Do you want a cup of tea?" (The strong form of 'a' in "cup" is
pronounced clearly because it is stressed.)
Weak Form: "I'd like a cup of tea, please." (The weak form of 'a' in "a" is less clear
and pronounced more quickly because it is unstressed.)

Understanding weak and strong forms is crucial for achieving natural and fluent
English pronunciation. In connected speech, native speakers often employ weak forms to
enhance the overall flow and rhythm. Recognition of stressed and unstressed syllables
contributes to effective communication and comprehension.

In general terms, the distinction between weak and strong forms of vowels in English
phonology lies in the level of stress a vowel receives within a word. Strong forms occur in
stressed syllables of content words, while weak forms are prevalent in unstressed syllables
and function words, contributing to the rhythmic patterns of spoken English.

It can be stated that there is a strong form whenever emphasis and a prominent role
are given to part of the utterance, which must be surrounded by unstressed forms,
otherwise, there would be no contrast whatsoever. As we can see, the voice of a weak or
strong form is not entirely free, but rather it is conditioned by its position within the phonic
group and the meaning to be conveyed. So we may find both Weak and Strong forms in the
different phonological components of the system: consonants, monophthongs, and
diphthongs, which is the next part of the essay.
 6. DIPHTHONGS.
A diphthong, in Phonetics, refers to a gliding vowel in the articulation of which there is
a continuous transition from one position to another. As we already mentioned before,
diphthongs are to be contrasted in this respect with so-called pure vowels - i.e. such as in
unchanging or steady-state vowels. Although they are single speech sounds, diphthongs are
usually represented, in a phonetic transcription or speech, by means of a pair of characters
indicating the initial and final configurations of the vocal tract. Many of the vowel sounds in
most dialects of English are diphthongs - e.g., the vowels of ‘out’ and ‘ice’ represented as
/au/ and /ai/, respectively.

They may be said to have a first element (the starting point) and a second element
(the point in the direction in which the glide is made). Heffner in his ‘General Phonetics’
considers diphthongs as elements where both belong to the same grammatical category,
that is to say, both are back or front; and secondly, the movement found is from less closed
to more closed vowels, usually the first one presenting more acoustic prominence - and
often greater duration - than the second element. The RP diphthongs have as their first
element sounds in the general regional of (/e/, /ɪ/, /a/, /ə/, /ɔ/) and for their second
element (/ɪ/, /ə/, /ʊ/).

So as to give a brief account of the phonetic vowel typology of diphthongs, we have

focused on Gimson’s model. It is important to bear in mind that he, and the London school,
consider the two semivowels as an integrative part of the nucleus. Both ‘j’ and ‘w’. And their
combinations, are not regarded as diphthongs. Thus for Gimson, there are eight diphthongs
out of three glides. First, there is the glide to the high, front, unrounded vowel, produced with
the tongue close to the roof of the mouth represented as /ɪ/. This glide can be found in
words such as /eɪ/ "bay", /aɪ/ "bike" and /ɔɪ/ "boy". Second, there is the glide to the schwa
sound; a neutral, mid-central, unstressed vowel. This glide can be seen in words such as /ɪə/
"near", /eə/ "air/ and /ʊə/ "tour". Third, there is the glide to /ʊ/ a near-high, back, rounded
vowel. Some examples are found in /aʊ/ "cow" and /eʊ/ “boat”.

Features of English Diphthongs

The following generalizations may be said to apply to all the RP diphthongs.
➔ Most of the length and stress associated with the glide is concentrated on the
first element, the second element being only slightly sounded; diphthongs of
this type are said to be falling.
 ➔ They are equivalent in length to the long (pure) vowels and are subject to the
same variations of quantity (e.g. plays vs. place), The reduced forms show a
considerable shortening of the first element.
➔ They are particularly susceptible to variation in different regional and social
types of speech. Even within the RP varieties, considerable variation is
possible in both elements.
➔ No diphthong occurs before the voiced velar nasal /ŋ/, except where word
final /n/ is assimilated to/ŋ/ in connected speech.

A final comment on glides is that lf a common phenomenon found in English:

triphthongs. They are the combination of three vowel sounds serving as a monophthong. In
fact, it consists of a diphthong plus schwa. These can appear within a word as in the case of
‘fire’, and also as a suffix morpheme ‘-er’ as in ‘lower’. However, there is a tendency in
colloquial speech to reduce this to a phoneme, remaining as long ‘a’. Thus, ‘fire’ could also
be pronounced /fa:/.

7. CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS WITH SPANISH

There are a few aspects of English vowels which seem to be specific to this
language. In fact, if we contrast both the English and the Spanish systems, as far as vowels
are concerned, we can observe certain differences.

I. From the acoustic point of view, there are 12 vowels in English and just five in
Spanish.
II. Another important difference is that of length since lengthening a vowel in
Spanish would not involve any differences in meaning.
III. Besides, we can also notice that there is a difference in the role of symbols
between both languages. So we can realise that the Spanish system has a
simpler representation of the different vowels, since the phonetic transcription
coincides entirely with the graphemic one, whereas the English system shows
clear differences between both the graphological and phonemic distribution.
IV. Whereas the English system covers 20 spelling forms, the Spanish one does
just cover 14. Thus, we may find that Spanish learners of English will simplify
sounds and overlap them since many subtle differences will not be noticed.
V. Spanish can present up to 14 diphthongs, whereas English has 8.
VI. The phoneme schwa does not exist or appear in Spanish, and as a
consequence, all the forms and sounds related to it.
 VII. The most relevant feature regarding the contrast between Spanish and
English diphthongs is the fact that there is no equivalence in both languages
since those which are apparently similar differ in quality.

8. CONCLUSION
Learners’ situations and requirements present so many variables that it is difficult to
give advice of general applicability. What is clear is that, in teaching pronunciation, we are
concerned especially with imparting motor and auditory skills rather than with inculcating the
kind of logical agility such as may be involved in the acquisition of a new grammar, since the
knowledge of the pronunciation rules is of little value if the learner is unable to transmit a rule
in efficiency articulated speech.

Besides, we cannot expect a young learner to ‘learn’ or ‘digest’ the whole English
vocalic system as if it were history. Rather, the learner should be given enough input in order
to help him grasp and familiarise himself with the system and not force him to produce at
early stages if they do not feel at ease. Since it is generally the case that the acquisition of a
second language's pronunciation becomes increasingly difficult after adolescence.
Furthermore, every effort may be made to overcome the interference from the sound system
of the L1, through which the new, English vocalic sounds are being filtered.

As phoneticians…

9. BIBLIOGRAPHY