Phonetics: An

Introduction
Science of Speech Sounds
Outline of the Presentation

 What is Phonetics (English Phonetics)

 Why should a non-native speakers of the English language learn Phonetics?
 Is English pronunciation difficult?
 Use of Phonetics
 Organs of Speech
 Description of consonant sounds
 Description of vowel sounds
 The Most mispronounced words of English in India
What is Phonetics?
A branch of linguistics that deals with the production,
transmission and reception of speech sounds.
 Types of Phonetics
a.Articulatory Phonetics (Production of Speech sounds)
b.Acoustic Phonetics (The physical properties of Speech
sounds, like, frequency, amplitude, etc.)
c.Auditory Phonetics (Reception and perception of speech
sounds)
Why should a non-native speakers of the English language learn Phonetics?

 International intelligibility
 To get rid of regional accents of English (like, Punjabi
English, Bengali English, Bihari English, etc.)
 To learn the segmental and the suprasegmental features
of English (like, pitch, intonation, stress pattern, etc.)
 To make your speech “pleasant”
Is English pronunciation difficult?
 Englishhas an extremely poor
correspondence between graphemes
(spelling) and phonemes (sounds).
For example: Machine, Church & Monarch.
Though, tough, thought, plough, through
 Borrowing: Pizza, Rendezvous, etc
 Number of vowel sounds
Use of Phonetics

 Forensic Science
 Legal Studies
 Discourse and Critical Discourse Analysis
 Speech Writing
 A common alphabet for all the languages in the world
(IPA)
 Speech Recognition
Organs of Speech
IPA examples
ʌ cup, luck
ɑ: arm, father
æ cat, black
e met, bed
ə away, cinema
ɜ:ʳ turn, learn
ɪ hit, sitting
i: see, heat
ɒ hot, rock
ɔ:
ʊ
call, four
put, could
English Vowel Sounds
u: blue, food
aɪ five, eye
aʊ now, out
eɪ say, eight
oʊ go, home
ɔɪ boy, join
eəʳ where, air
ɪəʳ near, here
ʊəʳ pure, tourist
IPA examples
b bad, lab
d did, lady
f find, if
g give, flag
h how, hello
j yes, yellow
k cat, back
l leg, little
m man, lemon
n no, ten
ŋ sing, finger
p pet, map
r
s
red, try
sun, miss
English
ʃ she, crash Consonant
t tea, getting
tʃ check, church Sounds
θ think, both
ð this, mother
v voice, five
w wet, window
z zoo, lazy
ʒ pleasure, vision
dʒ just, large