THE SOUNDS OF ENGLISH

THE CHAOS (1922)

GERARD NOLST TRENITÉ

Dearest creature in creation

Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain

(Mind the latter how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.
 THE SOUNDS OF ENGLISH

The sounds of general American English are

classified into three, namely:
• Vowels
• Diphthongs
• Consonants
 INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET

This is an internationally recognized set of

phonetic symbols developed in the late 19th
century, based on the principle of strict one-to-
one correspondence between sounds and
symbols.
 VOWELS

Vowels are sounds with the

vibration of air in the oral cavity. All
vowel sounds, then are voiced oral
sounds.
 VIETOR TRIANGLE

A Vietor Triangle is a schematic representation

of vowel sounds, created by Wilhelm Vietor (1850-
1918, German philologist and phonetician). It shows
the position of the tongue and jaw according the
vowel sound(s) required when speaking.
VIETOR TRIANGLE
 VIETOR TRIANGLE

The purpose of this vowel triangle is to show the

differences among the vowel sounds in English and
their relative positions on the tongue.
 FRONT VOWELS

[i] see, neat, piece

[ɪ] pin, bit, lick
say, place, rain
[e]
(in spoken Canadian English, [e] becomes [eɪ])
[ɛ] ten, said, bread

[æ] mad, cat, fan

 CENTRAL VOWELS

believe, cinnamon, surround

[ə]
(in an unstressed syllable)
[ʌ] bus, mud, lunch
[a] far, start
 BACK VOWELS

[u] pool, blue

[ʊ] look, good, bush
throw, hole, toe
[o] (in spoken Canadian
English, [o] becomes [oʊ])
[ɔ] store, more, corn
 DIPHTHONGS

Sounds which combine two vowel sounds

and which blend them into one within a
syllable.
 DIPHTHONG

Example: LIGHT

The vowel sound in the word is a diphthong. It

starts with a position /a/ and moves smoothly on to
the /I/ position within one syllable.
 DIPHTHONG

[aɪ] fly, lie, smile

[aʊ] now, frown, loud
[ɔɪ] boy, spoil, noise
[ju] cue, few
 CONSONANTS

Speech sound used with a vowel or

diphthong to constitute a syllable. Consonant
sounds are those sounds which are produced
with the partial or complete obstruction of
air column by some parts of the speech
apparatus.
 NATURE OF OBSTRUCTION OR
MANNER OF ARTICULATION

A. Stops
These are consonant sounds produced by stopping
the passage of the breath stream with the build up
of pressure behind the closure before releasing the
breath.
 NATURE OF OBSTRUCTION OR
MANNER OF ARTICULATION

A. Stops
[p] peach, apple, cap
[b] bill, above, rib
[t] tall, internal, light
[d] dill, adore, kid
[k] cave, ticket, luck
[ɡ] give, baggage, dig
 NATURE OF OBSTRUCTION OR
MANNER OF ARTICULATION

B. Fricatives
These are continuants produced when the air
stream is not completely stopped but passes
through with friction or hissing sound.
 NATURE OF OBSTRUCTION OR
MANNER OF ARTICULATION

B. Fricatives
[f] phone, raffle, leaf
[v] video, lively, love
[θ] thin, author, bath
[ð] there, leather, breathe
[s] celery, passing, bus
[z] zebra, deposit, shoes
[ʃ] shell, ocean, rush
[ʒ] genre, measure, rouge
[h] hill, ahead
 NATURE OF OBSTRUCTION OR
MANNER OF ARTICULATION

C. Affricatives
These are produced when a stop combines with a
fricative. Like the fricatives, they are also
continuants.
 NATURE OF OBSTRUCTION OR
MANNER OF ARTICULATION

C. Affricatives

[tʃ] chip, achieve, ditch

[dʒ] jump, adjoin, bridge
 NATURE OF OBSTRUCTION OR
MANNER OF ARTICULATION

D. Nasals
These are produced with the air stream
passing through the nose rather than
the mouth.
 NATURE OF OBSTRUCTION OR
MANNER OF ARTICULATION

D. Nasals

[m] mill, hammer, broom

[n] nickel, sunny, spoon
[ŋ] singer, wrong
 NATURE OF OBSTRUCTION OR
MANNER OF ARTICULATION

E. Approximant
These are sounds that are produced by
bringing one articulator in the vocal
tract close to another without, however,
causing audible friction.
 NATURE OF OBSTRUCTION OR
MANNER OF ARTICULATION

E. Approximant

[l] lamb, silly, fall

[ɹ] [r] robot, furry, star
[j] yellow, royal
[w] winter, flower
 ACTIVITY

Pronounce the following pair of words correctly.

heat – hit leap – lip
least – list steal – still
feet – fit feel – fill
peal – pill cheap – chip
 ACTIVITY

Pronounce the following phrases correctly.

Leap with ease sheep in the ship

Reach the rich feel and fill the jar
Sit in the seat live but never leave
Beat or bit peel that thing
“
.”

- Haruki Murakam