Phonetics

the study of speech sounds

Lesson Outcomes
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to;

1. describe the phonetic properties of all English

consonant sounds.
2. describe the articulatory features of all English
vowel sounds.

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Science of Phonetics
Acoustic Phonetics Auditory Phonetics Articulatory
focuses on the Phonetics
physical properties of is concerned on how is the study of how the
sounds listeners perceived vocal tract produces
sounds sounds of languages

our focus

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 PHONETICS:
WORDS ARE MAID OF AT LEAST ONE
INDIVIDUAL SOUND (phoneme)
TRUST YOUR EARS NOT YOUR EYES

▪ Words with one ▪ Words with two ▪ Words with three

individual sound individual sounds individual sounds

i, are, me, tap,

shh boy play 4
When we speak, the
sounds seem to run
together, causing
confusion. However,
humans have this asset
called “mind’s ear”

Grade A

I scream

Gladly, the crossed-eyed bear

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The Phonetic Aphabet
Orthography - Spelling
Roman alphabet is inadequate to
represent sounds in a language system.
One sound can be represented by
various spelling; e, ie,ae, ee,eo, ei, ea, y,
oe, ey and i (refer page 186)
English spelling is even worse - it
almost never represents the sound.
nation, coat, plain, rough, honest, island
Spelling is an inconsistent
representation of sounds
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
A set of alphabet that have one-to-one
representation of sounds - but of which
language system?
Uses both ordinary letter and invented
symbols to represent sounds across all of the
world's languages! (refer page 187)
The symbols however do NOT inform
everything about the sounds as sound
production vary from one person to another.
The smallest unit of sound is called
phoneme.

GHOTI = FISH

George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion (1912)

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Classes of Sounds
Consonants
are sounds produced with
some restrictions or closure
in the vocal tract that
impedes the flow of air in
the lungs.
Vowels
are sounds produced with
little restriction of the
airflow from the lungs out
through the mouth and / or
nose.
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IPA for English
Pronunciation

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 BE THAT TRANSCRIPTION HERO
1. Clap
2. Popular
3. Mainstream
4. Choose
5. Stain
6. Knee
7. Numb
8. Father
9. Grumpy

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 WHAT’S YOUR SECRET CODE
Write something in about 2-3 sentences using the IPA
symbols for your friends to guess

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Articulatory
Phonetics

...the lips
...the tongue
...the air
...the palates
...the teeth

THE VOCAL TRACT

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Places of Articulation
Refers to places in the vocal tract
where the airflow restriction
occurs.
Movement of tongue and lips creates
the constriction, reshaping the oral
cavity in various ways to produce
various sounds.
Places of articulation of consonants
Palatals
Bilabials
raising the front part of the tongue to
bringing both lips together
the palate
Labiodentals Velars
touching the bottom lip to the upper raising the back of the tongue to the
teeth velum
Uvulars
Interdentals / dentals
raising the back of the tongue to the
inserting the tip of the tongue
uvula.
between the teeth / behind the teeth
(trill / retroflex [R])
Glottals
Alveolars
Letting the air through the open
raising the tongue in variousways to
glottis, past the tongue and lips.
the alveolar ridge.
Glottis stop [?]
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Manner of Articulation

Refers to how the airstream in the

lungs is directed to the mouth and
modified by the various structures to
produce various sounds.
Phonetic features
1. Voiced and voiceless
sounds
voiced - when the vocal cords
are together, the airstream
forces its way through and
causes vibration; aspirated &
unaspirated.
voiceless - when the vocal
cords are apart so that air flows
freely through the glottis into
the oral cavity.
2. Nasal and oral sounds
Nasal - when velum is
lowered and air escapes
through both mouth and nose.
Oral - when velum is up and
blocking the nose so air
escapes only through the oral
cavity.
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Manner of articulation of consonants
Fricatives; palatal, velar, glottal
when the airflow is severely
obstructed and causes friction.
Approximants;
when articulators approximate a
frictional closeness but no actual
friction occurs

Affricates; palatal Trills;

when there is a stop closure, follwed when there is rapid vibrations of an
immediately by a gradual release of articulator.
the closure.
Liquids; alveolar Flaps;
when there is some obstruction of when tongue is flicked against
the airstream but not enough to alveolar ridge.
cause any real friction.
Glides; labiovelar
Clicks;
when there is little obstruction and
when air moves between various
always follwed directly by a vowel
articulators.
sound.
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Do you notice we left out some sounds?
All manners of articulation distributed in the table
are known as continuants.
Another manner of articulation is stop; when
airstream is completely blocked in the oral cavity
for a short period.
There are bilabial stops, alveolar stops, velar
stops, palatal africates and glottal stops.

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Refer to
p.198

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Let’s review!
You should by now be able to distinguish all of the
consonant sounds of English through the properties;

Voicing
Nasality
Places of articulation
Manner of articulation

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Vowels
Monophtongs Diphtongs
A single vowel sound A sequence of two vowel
sounds bonded together

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Articulatory Features of Vowels -
involves two articulatory tools
Tongue Lips
1. How high or how low? 1. How round?
So, there are; high vowel, So, there are; rounded and
midvowel and low vowel sounds. spread (lips) vowel sounds
2. How forward or backward?
So, there are; front, central and
back vowel sounds
*The vowel sounds are described using the
two features together for example, low
front vowel.

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Other Manners of Articulation of vowels
Nasalization of vowels Relaxation of vowels
1. when velum is raised, blocking 1. when there is greater tension of
nasal passage, and prevents the air tongue muscle with a litte longer
from escaping through the nose - oral duration of producing the sounds -
vowel. tense vowels

2. when velum is lowered, opening the 2. when tongue muscle is relax and
nasal passage, and allows air to pass production of sounds is short - lax
through the nose - nasal vowel. vowels.
The use of diacritic symbol (~) to
mark nasalization.

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Major Phonetic Classes
More general classes of sounds that what have been
discussed.

1. Noncontinuants and continuants

2. Obstruents and sonorants; consonantals, labials,

coronals, anteriors and sibilants

3. Syllabic sounds
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Prosodic Features
or suprasegmental features

1. Length
2. Pitch
3. Stress
4. Tone; register tone and contour tone
5. Intonation

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Thanks!
Any questions?
Let's do some exercises on
pp.210 - 215

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