Phonology

Taken from TKT Course – Grammar

TAC
Miss Alejandra Cañete Bustamante
What is Phonology?
• Phonology is the study of the sound features in a
language to communicate meaning. In English these
features include phonemes, words stress, sentence
stress and intonation.
Do you know what these
symbols represent?
• /ʤ/
All these symbols
• /æ/ represent phonemes.
• /ð/
• /ɪ/
• Phoneme: is the smallest unit of sound that can make a
difference to meaning in a language. The s in books shows that
something is plural, so the sound /s/ has a meaning and is a
phoneme.
Do you know what these
symbols represent?
• In English the distinction between /s/ and /sh/ is important
because it helos distinguish (notice or understand the
difference between two things):
– so and show
– sock and shock
– sore and shore
• The phonemes of a language can be represented by phonemic
symbols, such as /i:/, /aɪ/ and /ʃ/.
Do you know what these
symbols represent?
• Each phonemic symbol represents only one phoneme, unlike
the letters of the alphabet in English where, for example, the
letter a in written English represent the /æ/ sound in hat, the
/eɪ/ in made and the /ə/ sound in usually.
• Phonemic symbols help the reader know exactly what the
correct pronunciation is.
Do you know what these
symbols represent?
• A phonemic script is a set of phonemic symbols which show
(in writing) how words are pronounced, e.g.
– beautiful /'bju:tɪfl/
– television is /'telɪˌvɪʒən/
– yellow is /'jeləʊ/
• When the symbols are written one after the other to represent a
word or group of words they make a phonemic transcription.
The phonemes in English are often shown in a chart, called the
phonemic chart.
Do you know what these
symbols represent?

• Adapted from sound Foundation by Adrian Underhill,

Macmillan 1994.
Do you know what these
symbols represent?
• The chart groups into:
– Vowels in the top left-hand corner (sound made with the mouth
partly open and where the air is not stopped by the tongue lips or
teeth e.g. /e/)
– Diphthongs in the top right hand(a movement from one vowel
sound to another within a single syllable, e.g. the vowel sound in
make /meɪk/ or in so /səʊ/)
– Consonants in the bottom three rows (the flow of air is partly
blocked by the tongue, lips or teeth when these sounds are made,
e.g. /b/)
Do you know what these
symbols represent?
• The consonants are arranged in an order to according to how
and where in the mouth they are pronounced and whether they
are
– Voiced sounds (spoken using the vibration of our voice, e.g. / b/,
/ʤ/, /g/).
– Unvoiced sounds (spoken without using our voice, e.g. /p/,
/t/, /ʧ/, /k/.
Do you know what these
symbols represent?
• Dictionaries always have a phonemic transcriptions, and an
example of the sound each symbol represents. Most
dictionaries use symbols from the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA).
• In the word /'stju:dənt/ you can see phonemic symbols and '. It
is used to show word stress, it can also see it as /stju:dənt/.
When we give word stress to a syllable we say it with greater
energy, with more length and sound on its vowel sound.
Do you know what these
symbols represent?
• Let´s compare the stress in the vowel sounds with the other
syllables.
– pencil
– children
– important
• We pronounce the other syllables with less energy, especially
the unstressed or weak syllables, whose vowels get shortened
or sometimes even disappear, e.g. the vowel sound in the last
syllable of important, which is pronounced as schwa /ə/
Stress
• In English, stress also influences how sentences and group of
words are pronounced.
– Sentence stress: it is when we say different parts of the
sentence with more or less stress i.e. slower and louder, or
quicker and more softly.
• Normally one word of the sentence has primary or main
stress. It is supposed to be the most important word to the
meaning of the sentence.
• Other words can have secondary stress, that is not so strong
and the words are not so important to the meaning of the
sentence.
Stress
• Example 1:
• She came home late last night.
– Main stress:
• late
– Secondary stress: Main and secondary stress
• came usually occur on content
• home words which carry
• last meaning rather than
• night structural words.
– Unstressed:
• she
Stress
• Example 2
• I can’t understand a word he says.
– Main stress:
• word Content words: give
– Secondary stress: information. Verbs, adverbs or
• can’t
adjectives.
• understand
• says
Structural words: build the
grammar of the sentence.
– Unstressed:
• I
Prepositions, articles, pronouns
• he or determiners.
Stress
• Which are content words and structural words in the following
sentence?

The girl ran to the sea and jumped in quickly.

S C C S S C S C S C

• Normally the grammatical words would not be stressed, but

there are exceptions in case the speaker think a word is
important.
Contrastive Stress
• Putting the stress on an unexpected word in a sentence is
called contrastive stress.
The girl ran to the sea and jumped in quickly.
• This stresses that she ran towards the sea and not, for example,
away from it.
• Changing the stress of a sentence changes its meaning.
– The girl ran to the sea and jumped in quickly. (i.e. not another person)
– The girl ran to the sea and jumped in quickly. (i.e. not to any other
place)
– The girl ran to the sea and jumped in quickly. (i.e. not in any other
way)
Connected Speech
• Sentence stress is a characteristic of connected speech, i.e. spoken
language in which all the words join to make a connected stream of
sounds.
• Some other characteristics of connected speech are:
• Contractions: don’t, haven’t, vowel shortening in unstressed
words and syllables, e.g. the schwa sound /ə/ in at home /ət həʊm/
or London /lʌndən/.
• Weak forms: (unstressed forms of words, e.g. /kən/ for can)
• These characteristics help to keep the rhythm (pattern of stress) of
speech regular. The regular beat falls on the main stress, while the
weaker syllables and words are made shorter to keep to the rhythm.
Connected Speech
• Another feature of connected speech which helps to keep it
smooth linking. In connected speech we join words together at
the word boundaries (where on word ends and the next one
begins) rather than saying them separately. This happens
paticularly when one word ends in a consonant sound and the
next one starts with a vowel sound.
– up above /ʌp əbʌv/
– he did it /hiː dɪd ɪt/
Connected Speech
• Or when one ends with a vowel sound and the next starts with
a vowel sound.
– her English /hɜːr ˈɪŋglɪʃ/
– go away /gəʊwəweɪ/
• Linking is often represented in a phonemic transcription as
Connected Speech
• Intonation: it is the way a speaker changes the level of their
voice to show meaning, i.e. the meaningful tune of a sentence
or a group of words. Through it we can show emotions and
attitudes.
• Emphasise: is to give a special force to a word or make less
important particular things we say, and signal to other people
the function of what we were saying.
– That we are stopping speaking.
– Asking a question.
– Making a statement.
Emphasise
• Try saying ‘School’s just finished’ with these meanings:

As a statement fact.  Intonation falls ‘↘school’s just finished’

With surprise  Fall-rise tone ‘↘ ↗ school’s just finished’
With happiness
As a question  Tone rises ‘↗school’s just finished’
To emphasise ‘just’