The study of linguistic sounds and symbols is called Phonetics.
The
study of systems of sounds, often the sound system of a particular language is
called Phonology
Phonetics
Linguistic sounds are produced by pushing air from the lungs out through the mouth, sometimes by way of the nasal cavity. The movement of the air can then be manipulated by the anatomy of the mouth and throat to produce different sounds. In the actual writing, the same sound may often be spelled in different ways.
Linguists use a phonetic alphabet called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
Many
IPA letters are the same as those of the English alphabet, so we place IPA
spellings in square brackets to indicate that they are phonetic spellings.
Consonants
Sounds
Consonants are produced by restricting and then releasing the flow of air in three ways: vibrating the vocal cords, changing the part of the anatomy, which restricts the airflow, and changing the extent to which the airflow is restricted.
Consonants
with relatively little vibration of the vocal cords are called voiceless consonants.
Consonants with relatively more vibration of the vocal cords are called voiced.
Consonants fall into the following categories, depending on what part of the anatomy is used to restrict the airflow:
Labial Airflow is restricted with the
lips.
Dental Airflow is restricted with the
teeth.
Labiodentals Airflow is restricted with the top teeth on the bottom lip (if both lips are used the
sound is called bilabial).
Alveolar Airflow is restricted by placing the tongue on the hard plate (alveolus) behind the
top front teeth.
Palatal Airflow is restricted by
placing the tongue on the soft palate behind the alveolus.
Velar Airflow is restricted by
placing the tongue far back in the mouth.
Glottal airflow is restricted by tightening the folds in the vocal cords (glottis).
Consonants can also be categorized by the extent to which the airflow is restricted:
1.
Stop Airflow
is stopped and released quickly.
2.
Fricative Airflow
is released gradually.
3.
Affricate Airflow
is stopped and released gradually.
4.
Nasal Airflow
is channeled through the nasal cavity.
5.
Liquid Air
flow is channeled around the sides of the tongue.
6. Glide Airflow is only partially restricted (these sounds are often called semi-vowels).
Vowels
Vowels are produced by directing the flow of air into different parts of the mouth. They can be adjusted by changing the position of the tongue, by rounding of the lips, and by the degree of opening of the mouth.
All vowels are voiced.
The position of the tongue can be described in terms of how far forward the tongue is and how high it is.
Vowels are categorized as follows, depending on the position of the tongue:
1.
Front The tongue is in the front of the
mouth.
2.
Central The tongue is further back in the mouth.
3.
Back The tongue is in the back of the
mouth.
4.
High The tongue is high in the mouth.
5.
Mid The tongue is lower in the mouth
6. Low The tongue is low in the mouth.
All vowels can be described in
terms of their location on both vertical and horizontal axes.
1.
If you pronounce
the High and Mid Back Vowels, you will find that you round your lips. These are
called rounded vowels.
2.
When the mouth
is relatively more open, the vowel is called lax.
3. When the mouth is relatively more closed, the vowel
is tense.
Transcription of English Consonants and Vowels
1.
Phonemic (or broad)
transcription is indicated by slanted brackets: / / Phonetic (or narrow)
transcription is indicated by sæuare brackets: [ ] unless otherwise indicated,
you will be transcribing phonemically and should use slanted brackets around
your transcriptions.
For example: Single
phonemes: / k /
One word: / tIp /
Utterance: / kæn ju rid ∂Is /
Do not use capital letters or punctuation marks. The IPA does not follow conventionally
writing rules and makes use of some capitals and punctuation marks as symbols
indicating specific sounds or properties of sounds.
For example,
A colon after a symbol indicates length / i: / / i;/
An apostrophe following a symbol indicates that the sound is an ejective. / p’ /
Do not use the letters x, c, or q in the transcription of English. These
are symbols for sounds that occur in other languages.
/ x / is a voiceless velar fricative,
/ c / is a voiceless palatal stop, and
/ q/ is a voiceless uvular stop.
The sounds that the letters represent in English are transcribed as
follows:
X - For either / ks
/ or / gz / as in the fix and exactly
c - For either /k/
or /s/ as in the car and since
q - For the sound /k/ as in the quick or risqué
Be careful to distinguish your symbols properly. / ə / with / ʌ /, / ᶿ / with / ∂ /
When double letters in the spelling of a word come, do not use double consonants in a transcription.
For example, rabbit is transcribed / ræbit /.
In the speech, there are actually no gaps between words. In transcription, you
will find that some words seem to “stick” together and you should transcribe
them as such.
For example, “is a” in the phrase “is a cat” would be transcribed / izə kæt /.
Use these various “sounds like” rules in transcribing vowels before nasals and / r /:
Words that contain “ank” and “and”, like tank, thank, bank, hand, band, tanned, should be transcribed with the vowel [ æ] and the appropriate nasal consonant:
tæƞk tæƞk bæƞk
hænd bænd tænd
Words that contain “ing” or “ink”, like thing, ring, singer, think, blink, should be transcribed with the vowel [i] and the appropriate nasal consonant:
ᶿiƞ riƞ siƞə ᶿiƞk bliƞk
The only tense vowels used before [ɹ] in the same syllable are [Ɔ] and [ᵅ].
Follow these rules:
1.
If it sounds like “or” [Ɔɹ ] as in tore, lore,
four, score.
2.
If it sounds like “are”
[ɑɹ¨] as
in car, far, bar, star.
3.
If it sounds like “ear”
[iɹ ] as
in fear, leer, sneer, beer.
4.
If it sounds like “air”
[ɛɹ ] as in bare,
stare, fair, care.
5.
If it sounds like
“lure” [ʊɹ] as in
tour, poor.
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