Do the highlighted letters in each of the following

sets of words represent the ‘same’ sound?

a) city, cotton, species, cello.

b) gold, ginger, gnaw, high
c) can, can't, ancient, sofa.
d) bus, news, vision, Asia.
e) sit, site, machine, racial.
f) stuff, rough, cough, through.
g) kick, charisma, unique, cut.
h) may, lame, fail, hey.
i) chef, shell, mission, special
1
Let’s pronounce these words:
• Wednesday • Project
• Execute • Trio
• Executive • Hazard
• Relative • Exorbitant
• Exchequer • Suit
• Genre • Suite
• Wind chimes • Hotel
• Liaison • Vehicle
• Sesame • Academy
• Strategy • Academic
• Strategic • Academician
• Economics • Helped
• Economy • Competitive
Phonetics
 DEFINITION
The science or study of speech sounds,
their production,
their analysis,
classification and
transcription.
 Language
• a system of communication through speech
• written language - an attempt to represent the
spoken language by visual symbols.

English Language
• English is not a phonographic language, i.e. spelling
generally does not give a clear indication of
pronunciation
Same spelling for different sounds
Combination of letters representing one sound,
Some letters are silent
• Necessary for Indian students to make a systematic
study of the English sound system.
 Phonetic Alphabet

• One symbol represents one sound

• Each speech sound has a distinct symbol

• Cross-linguistically applicable
 Sounds
Vowels Consonants
• Air comes out freely • the closure or
through the mouth narrowing takes place

• No closure of the air

passage

• No narrowing of the
passage that would
cause audible friction.
 International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

• Unique alphabet/symbol for each sound

• Always written in small case
• Always put between slashes eg. /put/

:
Colon ( ) in vowel sounds represent stress (long
sound)
 IPA Symbols for Transcription
(24 Consonant Sounds)
/p/ as in pat /f/ as in foot
/b/ as in bat /v/ as in van
/t/ as in tap /h/ as in hat
/d/ as in dam /m/as in mull
/k/ as in car /n/ as in null
/g/ as in guard /s/ as in sap
 IPA Symbols for Transcription
(24 Consonant Sounds Contd.)
/r/ as in ring /ð/ as in this
/l/ as in leaf /ʃ/ as in shine
/w/as in with /ʒ/ as in vision
/z/ as in zip /ʧ/ as in touch
/ŋ/ as in ring /ʤ/as in judge
/θ/ as in think /j/ as in yes
 IPA Symbols for Transcription
(12 Vowel Sounds)
/i/ as in ship /ɔ/ as in hot
/i:/ as in sheep /ɔ:/ as in caught
/ɛ/ as in bed /ə/ as in about
/æ/ as in bad /ə:/ as in serve
/ʊ/ as in put /ʌ/ as in but
/u:/ as in boot /ɑ:/ as in father
 Diphthongs
(8 Complex Vowel Sounds)
Complex because they are two-part vowels
But count as a single sound because two vowels
are articulated together

/eɪ/ as in bait /au/ as in house

/ɑɪ/ as in bite /iə/ as in cheer
/ɔɪ/ as in boil / ɛə/ as in air
/əu/ as in home /uə/ as in poor
 Let’s transcribe
• /n e k s t/ Next
• /k a i t/ Kite
• /ʧ i n/ Chin
• /l æ m b/ Lamb
• /m i: t/ Meet
• /ʤ ʌ g/ Jug
• /ə b a u t/ about
• / ð ʌ s/ thus
• / θ ɔ t f u l/ thoughtful
• /j u: l ə ʤ i/ eulogy
• /h əu t e l/ hotel
Let us practise

about

breakfast

substance
gentlemen

human
backward

standard

beggar

particular

drama
STRESS, RHYTHM AND
INTONATION
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTt8XQCiBgY
(Italian Accent of English)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoF4i77kPak
(Indian Accents)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOgdhqtGu98
(Clip from The Big Bang Theory on Accent)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdIx62AyCOc
(A young linguist boy from Rural India M.P.)
 What is Word Stress?
• Take 3 words: photograph, photographer and
photographic, for example.

Do they sound the same when spoken? No…

They sound different, because *one* syllable in each

word is "stressed" (stronger than the others).

• PHOtograph
• phoTOgrapher
• photoGRAPHic
 STRESS
• In linguistics, stress is emphasis, force, pressure
(intense effort or exertion).

• It means intensity of utterance given to speech

sound, syllable or a word producing relative
loudness.
• Stress mark (‘) is used to show the stressed
syllable when spoken (Accent mark).
 Understanding Syllables
• To understand word stress, it helps if we understand syllables.
• Every word is made of syllables.
• Each word has one, two, three or more syllables.

Word Number of
syllables
Hot Hot 1
Water Wa.ter 2
Inferno In.fer.no 3
Interesting In.ter.est.ing 4
Unexceptional Un.ex.cep.tion.al 5
 DEGREES OF STRESS
Primary stress
• It is the stronger degree of stress.
• Primary stress gives the final stressed syllable.
• Primary stress is very important in compound words.
Secondary Stress
• It is the weaker of two degrees of stress in the
pronunciation of a word.
• Secondary stress gives the other lexically stressed
syllables in a word.
• Secondary stress is important primarily in long words
with several syllables
 NOTATION
Different systems exist for indicating syllabification and
stress.
• In IPA, primary stress is indicated by a high vertical line
before the syllable, secondary stress by a low vertical
line. Example: /sɪˌlæbəfɪˈkeɪʃən/

• In English dictionaries which do not use IPA, stress is

typically marked with a prime mark placed after the
stressed syllable: /si-lab′-ə-fi-key′-shən/
Here’s an example…
The mice will go to the moon tomorrow to take over the world.
Who?
The mice will go to the moon tomorrow to take over the world.
Where?
The mice will go to the moon tomorrow to take over the world.
When?
The mice will go to the moon tomorrow to take over the world.
To do what?
The mice will go to the moon tomorrow to take over the world!
 Rules of Word Stress in English

There are two very simple rules about word stress:

1. One word has only one stress.
One word cannot have two stresses. If you hear two
stresses, you hear two words. Two stresses cannot be in
one word. It is true that there can be a "secondary"
stress in some words. But a secondary stress is much
smaller than the main /primary/ one, and is only used in
long words.
2. We can only stress vowels, not consonants.
 RHYTHM
• A rhythm is a regular beat.
• A rhythmic sound is repeated regularly, it could be at
different/various speeds.
• It is related to words and syllables. Rhythm is important
for distinguishing stressed and unstressed syllables.

Look at these sentences. Note that the content words (in

red) are stressed more (pronounced louder and longer)
than the functions words.

1. When are you coming to dinner?

2. Motorcycles can be dangerous to drive or ride on.
 Function of Rhythm
• Rhythm acts as beat does in music.

• The use of rhythm in speaking and writing arises from the

need that some words are to be produced more strongly
than others.

• They might be stressed for longer period of time. Hence,

the repeated use of rhythmical patterns of such accent
produces rhythmical effect which sounds pleasant to the
mind as well as to the soul.

• In speech, rhythm is used unconsciously to create

identifiable patterns. Moreover, rhythm captivates the
audience and readers alike by giving musical effect to a
speech or a literary piece.
 INTONATION
• In linguistics, intonation is (responsible for melody of
the language) the variation of pitch when speaking.

• Speakers frequently depend more on the intonation

patterns to convey their meaning than on the
pronunciation of the individual vowels and consonants.

• If your voice falls you are making a statement .if your

voice rises you are making a question.

So it’s not WHAT you say ,it’s HOW you say it!
English has a number of intonation patterns which add
conventionalized meanings to the utterance:

question, statement, surprise, disbelief, sarcasm,

teasing.
 Examples of rising and falling
intonations
RISING INTONATION: a question that is answerable with
"yes" or "no”

1. Do you think he is funny? no

2. Is your father handsome? yes
3. Can you sing? yes
4. Is this your school? yes
5. Do you eat pasta? no
 FALLING INTONATION
A question that is not answerable by "yes" or "no" but is
answerable by a simple sentence or statement
1. What is the brand of your pencil? The brand of my pencil
is Bic.
2. What is your Sister's name? My sister's name is Emily.
3. What state do you live in? I live in Florida.
4. Where do you work? I work in an office.
5. What's your name? My name is John.