English Phonology

Flashcards covering key terms and concepts in English phonology.

What is phonetics?

deals with the anatomy and physiology of speech and studies the whole mechanism involved in the production and reception of speech. It is the study of the phonemes (the minimum or smallest units of sound).

What are the three areas phonetics is divided into?

Articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, and auditory phonetics.

What does articulatory phonetics study?

The way in which speech is produced

What does acoustic phonetics study?

The physical properties of speech sounds as waves transmitted from a speaker

What does auditory phonetics study?

The way in which speech is perceived and processed by the brain of the hearer.

What is phonology?

The study of the sounds/segments when they are no longer in isolation but grouped together in syllables and words

What are the two types of phonology?

Segmental phonology and suprasegmental phonology

What are the three stages of speech production?

Respiration, phonation, and articulation

What is the vocal tract?

The organs of speech that constitute the articulatory system and are responsible for articulation, located after the larynx.

What three parts make up the vocal tract?

Pharyngeal cavity, nasal cavity, and oral cavity.

What is a phoneme?

The smallest unit of sound, an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words.

What does the acronym IPA stand for?

International Phonetic Alphabet

What is the basic principle of the IPA?

A different symbol for every distinguishable sound.

How do you define obstruents?

A category of consonant sounds that includes stops, fricatives, and affricates.

Define sonorants.

A category of consonant sounds that includes nasals, approximants

What are stops (plosives/occlusives)?

Total obstruction of the airstream followed by rapid release, so that the compressed air bursts out of the vocal tract.

What are fricatives?

Partial obstruction of the airstream, resulting in audible friction.

What are affricates?

The airstream is blocked but the blockage is released more slowly, and a short period of friction is heard.

What are nasals?

Sounds produced when the velum is lowered, allowing air to escape through the nose as well as the mouth.

What are approximants?

Sounds where the vocal tract is narrowed but not enough to cause turbulence, so there is no friction.

What are trills?

Continuous sounds produced by part of the tongue rapidly touching and leaving another speech organ.

What is assimilation?

A phonological process where a sound becomes more like a nearby sound.

What is elision?

Occurs when a sound or syllable is omitted to facilitate speech.

What is liaison?

The linking of sounds between words, typically involving the insertion of a sound to smooth the transition.

What is epenthesis?

The addition of a sound within a word.

What is a syllabic consonant?

A consonant that functions as the nucleus of a syllable.

Define variation.

Differences in language use across different groups of speakers or regions.

Define language families.

Groups of languages that share a common ancestor.

Define standard language.

A variety of a language that is widely recognized as the norm for educated speakers.

What is a non-rhotic accent?

An accent in which the /r/ sound is not pronounced after a vowel.

Define Cockney.

Traditional dialect of London.

Define Estuary English.

A variety of English spoken in the area around the Thames Estuary, combining features of RP and Cockney.

Define Irish English.

English dialect spoken in Ireland.

What is American English?

The variety of the English language spoken in the United States.

What is meant by the California Vowel Shift?

A series of shifts in the pronunciation of vowels that is occurring in California.

What is General American?

A perceived "neutral" accent of American English, commonly associated with the Midwestern United States.

Define diphthong.

A sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, in which the sound begins as one vowel and moves towards another

What is stress-timing?

A rhythm in language where stressed syllables occur at relatively regular intervals, and unstressed syllables are shortened to fit the rhythm, like in English

Define schwa.

The most common sound in English denoted as /ə/, which typically occurs in unstressed syllables.

Define speech accommodation.

The process of adjusting speech to be more or less similar to that of another speaker.

Define convergence.

A type of speech accommodation where individuals try to reduce the differences between their speech and that of others.

Define divergence.

A type of speech accommodation where individuals accentuate the differences between their speech and that of others.

Define sociolect.

Ways of speaking that are typical of a particular social group.

Define sociolinguistics.

The study of language in relation to social factors, including regional, social, and ethnic differences.

Define official language.

A language that has official recognition and is used in government, education, and media.

Define pidgin.

A simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common.

Define creole.

A pidgin language that has become the native language of a speech community, with its own grammar and vocabulary.

Define language diffusion.

The process by which a language spreads geographically or socially.

Define language death.

The loss of a language as its speakers shift to using another language.

What is the difference between diachronic and synchronic linguistics?

Diachronic linguistics studies language development through time, while synchronic linguistics studies language at a single point in time.

What is a morpheme?

The smallest meaningful unit in a language.

What is morphology?

The study of the structure and formation of words.

What is syntax?

The study of sentence structure.

What is semantics?

The study of meaning in language.

What is pragmatics?

The study of how context contributes to meaning in language.

What is discourse analysis?

The study of language in use, including conversations, texts, and other forms of communication.

What is code-switching?

The practice of alternating between two or more languages or dialects in conversation.

What is language ideology?

Beliefs and ideas about language, often reflecting social and political interests.

What is linguistic relativity (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis)?

The hypothesis that the structure of a language affects its speakers' world view or cognition.

What is an idiolect?

The speech habits peculiar to a particular individual.

What is prescriptive grammar?

A set of rules about language that are intended to tell people how they should speak or write, according to some notion of correctness.

What is descriptive grammar?

A type of grammar that describes how a language is actually used, without making judgments about what is right or wrong.

What is universal grammar?

A theory in linguistics that suggests that some rules of grammar are hard-wired into the brain, and manifest regardless of particular languages one may learn.

What is generative grammar?

A linguistic theory that regards grammar as a system of rules that generate exactly those combinations of words that form grammatical sentences in a given language.

What are minimal pairs?

Pairs of words that differ in only one phoneme (sound), used to demonstrate that the two sounds are distinct in the language.

What is a phone?

A speech sound.

What is a allophone?

A variation of a phoneme that does not change the meaning of a word.

What is morphology?

The study of the forms of words.

What

What is the difference between diachronic and synchronic linguistics?

Diachronic linguistics studies language development through time, while synchronic linguistics studies language at a single point in time.

What is a morpheme?

The smallest meaningful unit in a language.

What is morphology?

The study of the structure and formation of words.

What is syntax?

The study of sentence structure.

What is semantics?

The study of meaning in language.

What is pragmatics?

The study of how context contributes to meaning in language.

What is discourse analysis?

The study of language in use, including conversations, texts, and other forms of communication.

What is code-switching?

The practice of alternating between two or more languages or dialects in conversation.

What is language ideology?

Beliefs and ideas about

What are the categories of the IPA?

The IPA chart is divided into sections based on manner of articulation (e.g., plosive, fricative) and place of articulation (e.g., bilabial, alveolar) for consonants, and by tongue position (high, mid, low) and backness

What sounds does the IPA letter /p/ represent?

Voiceless bilabial stop

What sounds does the IPA letter /b/ represent?

Voiced bilabial stop

What sounds does the IPA letter /t/ represent?

Voiceless alveolar stop

What sounds does the IPA letter /d/ represent?

Voiced alveolar stop

What sounds does the IPA letter /k/ represent?

Voiceless velar stop

What sounds does the IPA letter /ɡ/ represent?

Voiced velar stop

What sounds does the IPA letter /f/ represent?

Voiceless labiodental fricative

What sounds does the IPA letter /v/ represent?

Voiced labiodental fricative

What sounds does the IPA letter /θ/ represent?

Voiceless dental fricative

What sounds does the IPA letter /ð/ represent?

Voiced dental fricative

What sounds does the IPA letter /s/ represent?

Voiceless alveolar fricative

What sounds does the IPA letter /z/ represent?

Voiced alveolar fricative

What sounds does the IPA letter /p/ represent?

Voiceless bilabial stop

What sounds does the IPA letter /b/ represent?

Voiced bilabial stop

What sounds does the IPA letter /t/ represent?

Voiceless alveolar stop

What sounds does the IPA letter /d/ represent?

Voiced alveolar stop

What sounds does the IPA letter /k/ represent?

Voiceless velar stop

What sounds does the IPA letter /ɡ/ represent?

Voiced velar stop

What sounds does the IPA letter /f/ represent?

Voiceless labiodental fricative

What sounds does the IPA letter /v/ represent?

Voiced labiodental fricative

What sounds does the IPA letter /θ/ represent?

Voiceless dental fricative