English phonetics phonetics as a science

PHONETICSis a branch of linguistics, which deals with the investigation of the sound means of a certain language from the point of view of their articulation, acoustic qualities and semantics.

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION is a sort of phonetic alphabet, a system of symbols in which every phoneme is supposed to have its own symbol. It helps in learning a foreign language (the International Phonetic Transcription, the Phonemic Transcription (broad), the Allophonic Transcription (narrow)).

The organs of speech

The organs of speech are as follows:

1. The nasal cavity.

2. The mouth cavity.

3. The pharyngal cavity (the pharynx).

4. The tongue: the blade of the tongue with the tip; the front of the tongue; the back of the tongue; the root of the tongue.

5. The root of the mouth: the alveoli (the teeth ridge); the hard palate; the soft palate; the uvula.

6. The teeth: the upper teeth; the lower teeth.

7. The lips: the upper lip; the lower lip.

8. The larynx.

9. The vocal cords.

10. The windpipe.

11. The lower jaw.

Branches of Phonetics:

ARTICULATORY PHONETICS – of the study of the way speech sounds are articulated by the articulatory organs.

ACOUSTIC PHONETICS – of the study of the physical properties of the speech sounds, as transmitted between mouth and ear.

AUDITORY PHONETICS – of the study of the perceptual response to speech sounds, as mediated by ear, auditory nerve and brain.

Phonetics has branches of its own:

• General Phonetics;

• Special Phonetics:

• Descriptive Phonetics (synchronical);

• Historical Phonetics (diachronical).

FUNCTIONAL PHONETICS / PHONOLOGY – linguistic branch of phonetics; the study of the segmental and prosodic (intonation) features that provide expressing of the meanings of morphemes, words, and sentences; is concerned with functions of speech sounds in the specific language.

Segmental phonology – analyses functions of speech sounds in the connected speech.

Suprasegmental phonology – analyses functions of prosodic features in the connected speech.

Phonotactics – the area of phonology dealing with the distribution and grouping of phonemes in words.

Phonology has its own methods of investigation – semantic method – based on the phonemic rule that phonemes can distinguish words and morphemes when opposed to one another.

Phonology was originated by the Prague Linguistic School.

Basic work on phonology – The Groundwork on Phonology by N. Trubetskoy.

Schools of phonology

1) The mentalisticview (B. de Courtenay)– the phoneme as a physical image of a sound.

2) Moscow phonological school (R.I. Avanesov, V.N. Sidorov, P.S. Kuznetsov, A.A. Reformatsky, and N.F. Yakovlev) – the phoneme is represented as whole number of its alternating features.

3)The materialistic view –  Leningrad (Petersburg) phonological school (L.V. Shcherba, L.R. Zinder, M.I. Matusevich) the phoneme is a real, independent, distinctive unit which manifests itself in the form of its actual realization.

4) Prague Phonological School (N.S. Trubetzkoy, R. Jakobson) – the phoneme is viewed as a bundle of distinctive features. They defined phonologyas a linguistic science, while phoneticsas a biological science; introduced the theory of phonologic opposition and the theory of arch-phoneme (a unity of relevant features common to two phonemes).

5) Theabstractview (Copenhagen Linguistic School –L. Hjelmslev)– theabstractview of the phoneme, as essentially independent of the acoustic and physiological properties associated with it that is of speech sounds.

EXPERIMENTAL PHONETICS–subfield of phonetics, studies phonetic phenomena implying controlled experiment.Basic methods of investigation in modern phonetics:

1. the direct observation method;

2. the linguistic method;

3. the experimental method.

PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF ENGLISH

Speech sounds

Hierarchy of discrete and non-discrete phonological units

The phoneme is an abstract linguistic unit; it is an abstraction from actual speech sounds that is allophonic modifications.

SPEECH SOUND– anyoftheminimalidentifiablediscretesegmentsofsoundoccurringinspeech. Aspects of speech sounds are: articulatory, acoustic, auditory, functional.

Hierarchy of discrete and non-discrete phonological units

The four components of the phonetic system of English all constitute its pronunciation: phonemic, syllabic, accentual, and intonational:

1. segmental phonemes existing in the material form of their allophones constituted by the spectral, fundamental frequency, force and temporal components of the sound matter of language in various combinations;

2. the syllabic structure of its words has two aspects – syllable formation and syllable division; both aspects are sometimes designated by the cover term syllabification.

3. the accentual structure of its wordshas three aspects: (1) the physical (acoustic) nature of word accent; (2) the position of the accent in disyllabic and polysyllabic words; (3) the degrees of word accent (stressed – half-stressed – unstressed);

4. the intonational structure of the utterance.

The PHONEME is the smallest linguistic unit, which is capable of differentiating the meaning and grammar forms of words.

In British English there are 44 phonemes: 20 vowel phonemes and 24 consonant ones. In speech they manifest themselves in the form of phonemic variants or allophones.

The ALLOPHONE is a material representation of the phoneme in speech. They appear in connected speech as a result of assimilation or reduction or due to the individual speech habits. The number of allophones in a language is unlimited.