- •1) Phonetics as a science:
- •2)Experimental phonetics: Methods of investigation (The direct observation method; The experimental method; The distributional method; The semantic method).
- •3)The aspects of speech sounds.
- •4)Physical properties of sounds.
- •5)The organs of speech and their functions: Active and passive organs of speech; The articulatory mechanism and its work.
- •6)Articulatory and physiological classification of English vowels in the works of Soviet, British and American phoneticians.
- •7)Articulatory and physiological classification of English consonants in the works of Soviet, British and American phoneticians.
- •8)Segmental and suprasegmental phonemes: The definition of the phoneme; The aspects of the phoneme; The functions of the phoneme.
- •9) Phonemes and Allophones: The principal allophone; The subsidiary allophones (types); Distinctive and non-distinctive features of phonemes; The invariant of the phoneme.
- •10)Connected speech: Lexical and function words; Strong and weak forms; Neutralization; Assimilation (types); Dissimilation; Accommodation; Elision; Intrusion; Linking (Fillers).
- •11)Syllable: Definition; Parts of syllable; Types and functions of syllables; The structure of the syllable.
- •12)The principal theories of syllable formation and syllable division.
- •13)The accentual structure of English words: Word stress (its types and functions); Sentence stress; Degrees of word stress; The factors that determine the degree and the place of stress.
- •15) Transcription and transliteration. Types of transcription.
- •16)Phonostylistics: The components of extralinguistic situation; The factors which result in phonostylistic varieties.
- •17)Intonation: Definition; The components of intonation and their functions.
- •18)The methods for recording intonation patterns in writing and advantages and disadvantages of these methods.
- •19)The most important nuclear tones in English. Simple and complex tones. High and low falling tones. The types of scales in English.
- •20) The most important elements in the pitch-and-stress pattern of an intonation group (An intonation pattern; The characteristics of an intonation group).
- •21)The pitch and sentence stress components of intonation and their graphical representation on the staves or in the line of text itself.
- •22) Territorial Varieties of English pronunciation. The orthoepic norm. The national language of England. Literary English. Rp and ga.
- •23)Spread of English.
- •24)English-based pronunciation standards of English.
- •25)American - based pronunciation standards of English.
4)Physical properties of sounds.
Sp sounds have a number of physical properties.
Frequency. The vocal cords vibrate and when the vibrations are regular they produce the acoustic impression of voice/ musical tone. When they are irregular, noise is produced. There are some combinations of tone and noise. When tone prevails- sonorants are produced, when noise prevails- voiced consonants. Changes in fundamental frequency are used to produce intonation. The ossylation of the parts of the vibrator produces overtones. The vibrations producing overtones are regular. Overtones play a great role in the formation of vowel sounds. They determine the quantity of the sounds. The vocal cords is not the only source of vibration. The noise that we hear comes from the friction of the air particles which pass through constriction in some point in the respiratory tract. So we have constrictive consonants. Another source of high frequency is a sudden burst of air <t,k> when we have a complete closure of organs of sp and we have to explode this closure to produce sound. The frequency depends on physical properties of the vibrator – mass, length and tension of vocal cords. Thicker and heavier- lower voices; thiner and lighter- higher. The higher the pitch of vibrations, the higher the pitch level. The typical speaking voice of a man lower than of a woman because the vocal cords of woman vibrate more frequently.
Intensity. Changes in intensity are perceived as vibrator in the loudness of sound. The greater the amplitude of vibration, greater the intensity of a sound, the greater the pressure on the eardrums, the louder the sound. Intensity is measured in decibels.
Duration. Any sound has duration, i.e. its length or quantity of time during which the same vibratory motion is performed.
5)The organs of speech and their functions: Active and passive organs of speech; The articulatory mechanism and its work.
There are four cavities in out speech tract. They are: the nasal cavity, the mouth cavity, the pharynx and the larynx. They are empty spaces and function as resonators.
The organs of speech that can move and change their position are called active. They are: the lips, the tongue, the soft palate, the uvula, the vocal cords and the lungs. They take an active part in the articulation of speech sounds. They change the form and size of the resonators.
The lips change the shape and size of the mouth opening. They can be rounded or unrounded.
The bulk of the tongue can move horizontally and vertically. The movements of the tongue change the volume and the shape of the mouth resonator and different sounds are produced.
For the purposes of phonetics the tongue is divided into the following parts: the tip of the tongue, the blade of the tongue, the front of the tongue, the back of the tongue and the root of the tongue.
When the tongue is at rest, the blade with the tip lies opposite the alveolar ridge, the front of the tongue is opposite the hard palate, the back of the tongue is opposite the soft palate and the root of the tongue is opposite the back wall of the pharynx.
The soft palate with the uvula separate the mouth cavity from the nasal cavity. The uvula regulates the way of the stream of air in speech. When the uvula is raised, the stream of air goes out through the mouth cavity. When the uvula is lowered, the stream of the air goes out through the nasal cavity.
The vocal cords are the two muscles by the sides of the larynx. The space between the vocal cords is called the glottis. When the vocal cords are tense, they are brought close together, the stream of air touches them, makes them vibrate and they produce voice. When the vocal cords are lax, the stream of air goes out freely and no voice is produced; when they do not vibrate voiceless consonants are produced.
When we speak, the lungs push the stream of air out.
The passive organs are teeth, the alveoli and the hard palate. They are fixed and serve as places of articulation.
Speech is impossible without the following 4 mechanisms. The power mechanism. The diaphragm, the lungs, the bronchi, the windpipe, the glottis, the larynx, the mouth cavity, the nasal cavity. The functions: supplying in the form of air pressure, regulating the force of the air stream. The airstream provided by the lungs undergoes important modifications in other places of respiratory tract. The vibrator mechanism. It’s housed in larynx. When the air is exhaled from the lungs it’s led under the pressure into larynx through windpipe. Larynx is situated in the upper part of windpipe. The pitch of the voice is controlled by the tension of vocal cords. Voice produced by the vocal cords vibrations is modified by the shape and volume of the air passage. Each of the functions depends on the position and the shape of the glottis. In ordinary sp the glottis is freely open, the glottis is more opened in inhaling than exhaling. The resonator mechanism. Pharynx, larynx, mouth and nasal cavity. The air stream which has passed through the larynx is now subjected to further modifications acc to the shape assumed by the superglottal cavities. The obstructer mechanism. Tongue, lips, teeth, soft palate, uvula, hard palate, alveolar ridge. They serve to make some obstruction to the air stream. The 4 mechanisms work simultaneously and each speech sound is the result of their simultaneous work.