UE103 Phonologie & Phonétique de l’anglais, CM1, autumn 2006, Alice Henderson
Welcome to 2nd half of this lecture.
I hope that you found the lectures by JPG interesting and that they will help you to understand mine.
To give you an idea of where we’re going, here is an overview.
Total of 5 lectures.
Today there’ll be a short introduction.
Then, dive into the phonemes- the smallest unities of human sounds.
We’ll look at thee sounds in context in Lecture 2, because the context that a phoneme occurs in has a rather important impact on the phoneme.
For example, we saw in class that the word AND is not pronounced in the same way when you say “Tom and Anne” and “Tom and Bob”
Lecture 3 looks at two concepts which are often mixed up (stress & accent) and rhythm. Rhythm is obvious … but we’ll look at how English rhythm is so different to French rhythm.
After these concepts, we’ll look at intonation.
Intonation is, with rhythm, perhaps the most noticeable feature of spoken English. It is only music after all, and humans are sensitive to music.
However, in English we do use intonation differently so Lecture 4 will look at the tunes of English in more detail.
The last lecture is a sort of review and an extension into the study of the many varieties of English.
You all know that there are now more non-native speakers of English than native speakers in the world, and this is a rather unique historical position for a language to be in.
Every week there will be handouts and I will give you short exercises to do during the lecture- to help you understand what I’m saying & to keep you awake.
TAKGIN NOTES: the CMs will all be on the Web a week after the CM, so … just note down the number of the slide and your comments.
Today we’ll look at some fundamentals.
I’ll explain the IPA.
A few generalities about spoken French and spoken English.
The bibliography is a shortened version of the bibliography on the hand-out.
WHY this lecture?
WHY phonology? Why phonetics?
Difference between phonetics & phonology?
PHONETICS = study of sounds, the nature of sounds, their production
Specialists interested in the description of sounds humans produce.
Specialists interested in the interactiosn between sounds, how sounds function together in a language.
Phonetician= study the way a sound is articulated or the existence of a sound over time or in different populations. Compare Scottish “wh” with English “w”, OR interested in the different ways “t” is pronounced: Tom, mat, matter BUT kitten (glottal stop).
Phonologist= study restrictions/legal combinations of consonants. For example, NO English word begins with “zbf” or “ng”.
So easy to see that we’ll move rapidly from phonetics to phonology. Why? = more useful for you to know things about the interactions which are possible and/or probable, more useful than knowing lots of detail about how sounds are articulated.
== why the lecture is called phonetics AND phonology
Start with phonetics … but WHICH phonetics?
Which tools for descriptive phonetics?
General Outline
IPA: three letters referring to 2 things:
the table on your photocopy, the “IPA Chart”
the International Phonetics Association
First, the Association.
The present name dates from 1897.
1886: group of language teachers in Paris. Wanted to encourage the use of a phonetic system of symbols to help children to learn to read better/more quickly.
1914= 1751 members in 40 countries
WWI seriously decimated the ranks (radio silence 1914-1922)
Since then, promotes the study of phonetics and its various applications to science and teaching.
Their major contribution is the phonetic alphabet.
today’s missionaries
Cherokee alphabet- another writing system for an “oral” language
The official alphabet used by linguists around the world, to represent the variety of sounds that human beings are capable of making.
REFER TO PHOTOCOPY
Most of the symbols come from the Roman alphabet, some from Greek and others …. look like nothing that already exists.
Instead of creating an alphabet for each language, use ONE symbol for same sound
Almost 200 symbols to cover the sounds encountered in the world’s languages
== covers ALL of the sounds that the human articulatory apparatus is capable of producing
EMPTY boxes= no example for this sound, constantly being updated as discovered
Understanding the chart: basic categories on the page
Top box = pulmonic consonants
Horizontal axis & Vertical axis = possible to label sounds, describe them
****USEFUL if you want to teach a language, to be able to reliably describe how a sound is produced AND to understand how the other langauge produces a similar sound
http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/full/ipachart_cons_pulm_fbmp3.html Vertical= the space between the articulators becomes gradually more & more open
approach stage= the active articulator (the one that moves) is approaching the passive articulator (the one that stays where it is)
hold/compression stage= the two articulators in firm contact, air pressure rises in vocal tract
release stage= the active articulator breaks contact with the passive articulator and moves away. the compressed air is released with an explosive “pop”
GIVE TIME TO DO EXERCISES on photocopy, at least 8.1 & 8.2
To simplify the description, classification and comparison of vowels humans make.
Traditional vowel chart, a side-cut of the oral cavity
Vertical axis= aperture or opening of the cavity
Horizontal axis= relative position in the cavity
Vowels are at the furthest points and may seem exagerrated.
These represent the edges of the map (“Beyond, there be dragons”)
And it is like a map of an area you like, because that map is only useful if it covers the ENTIRE area. In doing so, it will also include parts of that area that don’t interest you, where you will never go. NOnetheless, it’s useful to know where the edges are.
NONE of these symbols represent exctaly English vowels, but I can use the chart to describe the Englihs sound” cat” = not quite as open as Cardinal Vowel n°4
Pairs of sounds: rounded lips on the right, spread lips on the left
FRENCH KISS: Luke/Luc
Try it …
Other symbols
“upside down Scottish w”= where – wear are not homonyms
Alveolo-palatal friucatives = Polish siadac/zieba
The two Englisha affricates chucrh/judge NOT here: WHY? == tie bar to link 2 symbols
The chart is basic and simple, often need to link two sounds to describe a sound properly
Excellent site: RP British monopthongs relatives aux voyelles cardinaleshttp://www.ling.mq.edu.au/units/ling210901/phonetics/vowelgraphs/RPE_Monophthongs.html
Nowhere is the English spelling system more bizarre than in its representation of diphthongs
If one has a clear idea of where pure vowels are articulated on the quadrilateral then interpreting the diphthong symbols is not difficult.
**Diphthongs are the element in a language which are most liable to change. The majority of the characteristics of a given accent are usually to be found in this area, so understanding of the underlying mechanics is vital if one wants to understand accents and accent change.
Technically, English diphthongs are divided into two groups:
5 Closing diphthongs (non-centring) – which tend to move from an open to a close position, these roughly correspond to Italian sounds
**When we say “non-centring” we mean ...CLICK on “fermantes”
3 Centring diphthongs – which tend towards a central position First we will look at the 5 closing (or non-centraing) group…
… the ‘pay’, ‘ made’, ‘maid’, ‘reign’, ‘obey’, sound:
Then we have the ‘I’, ‘my’, ‘tie’, ‘sigh’, ‘either’, ‘eye’, ‘Thai’, sound:
Then there is ‘boy’, ‘choice’:
Then ‘down’, ‘loud’:
To end the closing group, the most common diphthong in English, that of ‘no’, ‘know’,‘bone’, ‘foam’, ‘sew’, ‘though’, ‘don’t’, ‘foe’, ‘crow’:
To start with the centring group, we have the most common, that of ‘clear’, ‘deer’, ‘here’, ‘wier’:
Then ‘air’, ‘where’, wear’, ‘care’, ‘heir’:
Finally, there is a diphthong which is quite rare and is often realised as /O:/ - ‘tour’, ‘poor’:
REMEMBER:
Although the symbols indicating pure vowels and the starting and closing points of diphthongs are often the same they do not necessarily correspond to the same points
Lip rounding is another variable, generally associated with back vowels
‘pay’, ‘ made’, ‘maid’, ‘reign’, ‘obey’
I, tie, eye, Thai, sigh
Loud, house, shout
Clear, deer, here
Air, where, care
Triphthongs: diphthong + schwa
In North American Englsh- and increasingly in other varities- these are disappearing, to be replaced by diphthongs + consonant + schwa= two syllables
