• Phonetics- the study of the minimal units that make up language (sounds of speech - the consonants, vowels, melodies, and rhythms)

• Three aspects to the study of speech sounds

  • Articulatory phonetics- the study of the production of speech sounds

  • Acoustic phonetics- the study of the transmission and the physical properties of speech sounds

  • Auditory phonetics- the study of the perception of speech sounds

Representing Speech Sounds

• Impressionistic phonetic transcription- a method of writing down speech sounds in order to capture what is said and how it is pronounced

  • the simplest and most basic method of phonetic analysis

  • the “normal” spelling of a word doesn’t tell us enough about how it is pronounced by different people

    • Spelling symbolizes the word that is meant, rather than how it is pronounced

• Co-articulation- the influence of one sound on a neighboring sound

• This book uses the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for phonetic transcription

  • IPA symbols only represent the sounds of language

• Segments- the discrete units of the speech stream that can be divided into consonants and vowels

  • Consonants- produced with a constriction somewhere in the vocal tract that impedes airflow

  • Vowels- have at most only a slight narrowing and allow air to flow freely through the oral cavity

    • Monophthongs- simple vowels composed of a single configuration of the vocal tract

    • Diphthongs- complex vowels composed of a sequence of two different configurations

• Suprasegmental- applies to entire strings of consonants and vowels (such as stress, tone, and intonation)

• Breakdown of Syllables

  • Onset- any consonants that occur before the rhyme

  • Rhyme- consists of the vowel and any consonants that come after it

    • Nucleus- the vocalic part of the rhyme

    • Coda- consists of any final consonants

  • All syllables have a rhyme, but onsets are optional in some languages

Articulation: English Consonants

• Articulation- the motion or positioning of some part of the vocal tract with respect to some other part of the vocal tract in the production of a speech sound

• When describing a consonant, it is necessary to provide information about three different aspects of its articulation:

  • Is the sound voiced or voiceless?

  • Where is the airstream constricted?

  • How is the airstream constricted?

• Segmental features- the voicing, place, and manner of articulation

• Three basic components of the human anatomy that are involved in the production of speech

  • Larynx- contains the vocal folds and glottis; located in the throat at the Adam’s apple

  • Vocal tract- located above the larynx, which is composed of the oral and nasal cavities

  • Subglottal system- part of the respiratory system located below the larynx

• Voiceless sounds- sounds made without such vibration

• Voiced sounds- sounds made with the vocal folds vibrating

• Bilabial consonants- made by bringing both lips close together

  • [p], [b], [m], [w], [w̩]

• Labiodental consonants- made with the lower lip against the upper front teeth

  • [f], [v]

• Alveolar sounds- made with the tongue tip at or near the front of the upper alveolar ridge

  • [t], [d], [s], [z], [n], [r], [l], [ɹ]

• Post-alveolar sounds- made with the front of the tongue just behind the alveolar ridge, right at the front of the hard palate

  • [ʃ], [ʒ], [tʃ], [dʒ]

• Palatal sounds- made with the body of the tongue near the center of the hard portion of the roof of the mouth

  • [j]

• Velar consonants- produced with the back part of the tongue body raised near the velum, also known as the soft palate

  • [k], [g], [ŋ]

• Glottal sounds- produced when air is constricted at the larynx

  • [h], [ʔ]

• Stops- made by obstructing the airstream completely in the oral cavity

• Fricatives- made by forming a nearly complete obstruction of the vocal tract

• Affricates- made by briefly stopping airstream completely and then releasing the articulators slightly so that frication noise is produced

• Nasals- produced by relaxing the velum and lowering it, thus opening the nasal passage to the vocal tract

• Approximants- involve constriction of the vocal tract, but the constrictions are not narrow enough to block the vocal tract or cause turbulence

• Liquids- formed with slightly more constriction than glides, and their quality changes depending on where they occur in a word

• Glides- made with only a slight closure of the articulators, and they require some movement of the articulators during production

• Flap- involves the complete obstruction of the oral cavity, however, it is much faster than that of a stop

• Consonant Chart

Articulation: English Vowels

• Low vowel- pronounced with the jaw opened and the tongue body away from the roof of the mouth

  • [æ] [a]

• Mid vowel- produced with an intermediate tongue height

  • [ɛ], [ʌ], [ɔ]

• High vowel- pronounced with the tongue body close to the roof of the mouth

  • [i], [ɪ], [u], [ʊ]

• Front vowel- pronounced by pushing the body of the tongue forward

• Back vowel- pronounced by raising the body of the tongue in the back of the mouth

• Tense vowels- have more extreme positions of the tongue and/or the lips

• Lax vowels- require less extreme gestures, movements, and/or raisings

• Vowel Chart

Suprasegmental Features

• Identified by comparing different segments and different utterances to see what the features are

• can influence the meanings of words and sentences

• Length- the varying duration of a segment

• Intonation- the pattern of pitch movements across a stretch of speech

  • Intonation contours are marked by pitch accents and phrase tones

  • Pitch accents usually involve a change in a fundamental frequency in the middle of an utterance

  • Phrase tones affect the overall meaning of an utterance at the end of an utterance, and group words into phrases

    • Typically distinguishes between a statement at the question

• Tone- the pitch at which the syllables in a word are pronounced

• Stress- the level of prominence of a syllable

The Phonetics of Signed Languages

• There are five key parameters of articulation in signed languages

  1. Place of articulation/location

  2. Movement

  3. Handshape

  4. Hand orientation

  5. Non-manual markers