Notes on Week 2: Consonants, Phonetics, and Tutorial Logistics

Course logistics and Week 2 setup

• Welcome and apology note from previous session; this is week 2 and tutorials begin today.
• Students should have accessed readings on the iLearn site; the island site will be unveiled progressively as the semester continues.
• Tutorial worksheet is available on the island site for today’s tutorial.
• The tutor will walk through the tutorial worksheet and demonstrate how to answer the questions.
• Model answers will be posted after the last tutorial of the week to aid revision; not all tutorial questions are answered during the session, but model answers will help with review.
• Attendance: you must attend the tutorial you are enrolled in; changes to tutorial enrollment must be done online (staff cannot change enrollment); there are cap on room capacity.
• If you need to change tutorials, do so online; discussion about caps and management by Josh and the lecturer.
• The lecturer has a slide deck ready for the session and expects a positive reception.
• This portion ends with a prompt to attend and enjoy the session.

Introduction to consonants: key distinctions and scope

• Today’s focus: extended introduction to consonants.
• Distinction between phonetics and phonology:
  • Phonetics deals with speech as it is produced and heard in the real world (speech sounds, articulation, auditory perception).
  • Phonology is the study of how language organizes sounds in the brain (the internal system of sounds and rules).
• The discussion centers on consonants as produced by speakers, and how they are interpreted in the auditory language system.
• Relationship to broader topics: phonetics relates to real-world speech production; phonology concerns language-internal organization of sounds and rules.

Three essential components of speech production (initiation, noise source, shaping)

• There are three necessary stages to produce speech sounds:
  • Initiation: the air source (breath) to start sound generation; simply exhalation is not yet speech.
  • Noise source (phonation): the primary source of sound for speech; voicing (phonation) is the main noise source.
  • Sound shaping: shaping the air with articulators to create the specific speech sound.
• Example demonstration of phonation:
  • Place fingers on the larynx (Adam’s apple) and compare voiced vs voiceless segments:
  • For a voiced sound (e.g., vowels or voiced consonants), you should feel vibration in the larynx.
  • For a voiceless sound (e.g., /s/), you should not feel vibration.
  • A nose/closed-mouth exercise can also help detect vibration during phonation.
• Phonation is the main noise source for speech, but there are two other noise sources used in speech production (besides phonation):
  • Turbulence: produced when air is forced through a narrow constriction, creating turbulent noise (fricatives and some consonant types).
  • The transcript mentions a second alternative noise source but does not name it explicitly; it’s described as another way to generate noise when there is no phonation.
• Summary: the three stages relate to how speech is produced: initiation of airflow, voicing (phonation), and the shaping of sounds through articulation.
• All English speech sounds are typically produced with pulmonic airflow (air from the lungs), though the transcript notes this is not universal across all languages.
• A brief aside on biomedical imagery:
  • A slide shows normal young female vocal cords during a stroboscopic exam (to illustrate phonation visually).

Consonant classification: three main properties

• Consonants in all human languages (including English) can be classified by:
  • Place of articulation: where in the vocal tract the constriction occurs (e.g., pharyngeal, glottal openings, etc.).
  • Manner of articulation: how the constriction is formed (e.g., stops/plosives, affricates, fricatives, approximants).
  • Voicing: whether the vocal folds vibrate during the sound (voiced vs voiceless).
• In the material shown, some places of articulation are highlighted as used in English; others are highlighted in gray as not generally present in English.
• Important note: there are places of articulation beyond the standard chart; some involve the pharyngeal region or glottal region.

Place of articulation (high-level overview mentioned in the lecture)

• Examples discussed:
  • Pharyngeal sounds: produced with the base of the tongue approaching the back wall of the pharynx (not primarily tongue-body position).
  • Glottal sounds: produced with the glottis (open or closed configuration).
• The emphasis is on the fact that this dimension covers where the constriction occurs, not just tongue placement.
• The chart (from the textbook) lists English consonant symbols; those in black are the consonants used in English; those highlighted in gray are not typically used in English.

Manner of articulation (overview with specific examples mentioned in lecture)

• Stops (plosives): complete closure in the vocal tract, creating a total stop of airflow; the release follows with phonation and shaping.
• Affricates: a combination of a stop followed by a fricative release (a stop with a frication release).
  • Example discussion includes pairs like:
  • /t/ vs /t͡ʃ/ (illustrative contrasts between a stop and a post-stop fricative release in words like “church” to contrast with other sounds).
  • /d͡ʒ/ as in “judge.”
• The speaker notes differences between sounds like /t/ vs /t͡ʃ/ (the release is stronger and faster in affricates like /t͡ʃ/).
• Fricatives (implied via turbulence): produced with a narrow constriction causing continuous turbulent air flow; the lecture references turbulence as a source of noise for certain sounds.
• Approximants: relatively open vocal tract with less constriction; sound closer to vowels; includes sounds that are on the border between consonants and vowels.
  • In English, approximants include several sounds (examples not exhaustively listed in the transcript).
• Rotic (rhotic) sounds: a key example is the rhotic /ɹ/ in American English; the term rotic refers to the r-like quality of the sound.

Nasals in English

• English has three nasal consonants: bilabial /m/, alveolar /n/, and velar /ŋ/.
• The transcript includes a quick exercise about which nasal is produced in a given context, noting the alveolar position for certain rhotic-like sounds in examples.
• The concept of rhotics (not nasal) is discussed in connection with whether a language variety is rhotic or non-rhotic.

Rhotic vs non-rhotic accents and linking R

• Rhotic accents: where the /r/ is pronounced in most contexts, including after vowels in many dialects (e.g., American English, Canadian English, Irish English, Scottish English, some Indian varieties).
• Non-rhotic accents: the /r/ is typically not pronounced unless followed by a vowel in a linking position; examples include many varieties of Southern English, Australian English, New Zealand English, and much of South Africa.
• Linking /r/ phenomenon: in rhotic varieties, an /r/ may be pronounced across word boundaries when the following word begins with a vowel (e.g., “master of pasta” vs “master pasta” – illustrating that linking can occur when the next word begins with a vowel and the first word ends in an /r/ spelling occurrence).
• The speaker demonstrates how linking /r/ affects pronunciation and how non-rhotic varieties often do not use linking /r/ consistently; this can depend on region, language background, and age.
• Hiatus explanation: many languages avoid having two vowels in close succession; linking /r/ and other connecting devices help to break up vowel sequences.
• The definite article “the” has two pronunciations depending on the following sound:
  • Before consonant sounds: /ðə/
  • Before vowel sounds: /ðiː/
• Because of hiatus avoidance, linking strategies like the linking /r/ and the two pronunciations of “the” help maintain smoother speech and prevent vowel adjacency issues.

English consonant phoneme chart and study guidance

• The chart in the textbook lists all English consonant phoneme symbols.
• Students should start trying to memorize these for the unit, but it is not required to memorize the entire IPA chart.
• Practical takeaway: focus on the consonants that occur in English (the black symbols on the chart) and be aware of other symbols that are present in broader languages (the gray symbols).

Practical implications and broader connections

• Phonetics vs phonology: understanding how sounds are produced versus how they are organized in the mind helps explain why different dialects (rhotic vs non-rhotic) produce the same written symbols differently.
• The three-stage model (initiation, phonation, shaping) provides a framework to analyze any sound in terms of air source, voicing, and articulatory configuration.
• The concept of hiatus and linking R shows how language adapts to ease pronunciation and maintain flow in connected speech.
• The discussion of English consonants and the IPA chart underlines the importance of recognizing which sounds are native to English and which belong to broader phonetic inventories for cross-language comparison.

Note: Some portions of the transcript are imperfectly phrased (e.g., an incomplete description of the second noise source beyond turbulence). The notes above reflect the content as presented and summarize the key concepts and examples discussed during the session.