Lecture 1

Змістовний модуль І. Звукова будова мови

Тема 1. Фонетика як наука та її практичне застосування. Розділи фонетики.

Тема 2. Фонема та її функції. Алофони. Артикуляційна база англійської мови.

Тема 3. Фонетика та викладання мови. Транскрипція та її типи.

Phonetics as the science has a long history. It came into being in India and Greece before our era. The term came from the Greek “phone” – sound. The scientists of that time investigated speech sounds. For a long time Phonetics remained a science, which treated of the production of sounds, their representation dealing only with articulatory aspects. Phonetics followed the views and concepts that ruled in linguistics at that time: the investigation of the history of languages (history of sound changes).

Considerable progress of science caused a revolution in the treatment of many problems and radically changed the direction of investigation in linguistics. In the present day linguistics makes its task to investigate the language as the system and the system at the given period of its historic development.

Respectively phonetics also confronts new tasks, in other words the investigation of the sound system of the language. Today the sphere of phonetics is wider and deeper. New concepts have come into existence, new methods have been developed, new branches have arisen. Phonetics like Lexicology, Grammar is a branch of linguistics, which deals with the investigation and description of all sound means of the language from the point of view of their own in the speech, their articulation and acoustic qualities.

Respectively there are 3 aspects in the study of the sound means:

1. Articulatory or physiological aspect. It makes the task of physiological phonetics to investigate the work of the organs of speech in pronouncing sounds; from the articulatory point of view any speech sound is a complex of definite movements and position of organs. And experimental methods are widely used (the artificial palate, X-ray photography; recording, reproducing machines).

2. Acoustic aspect investigates speech sounds as physical phenomena since speech sounds like any other are the form of sound waves and they have their pitch, intensity, timbre, length. Acoustic phonetics is often termed experimental since it makes wide use of special operators and instruments, such as: kymograph, an oscilograph, slow motion films etc. Experimental phonetics is connected with physics and mathematics.

3. Linguistic or social aspect. That section of phonetics, which makes a study of all Phonetic phenomena from the point of view of social function – is phonology.

It must be noted that many scientists abroad propagate it as a new. According to them phonetics and phonology are 2 independent branches of science.

Phonetics is a biological science, which is concerned with physical and physiological characteristics of speech sounds.

Phonology is a linguistic science and is concerned only with the social functions of different phonetic phenomena ignoring their real historically formed social qualities.

However it doesn’t seem logical to contrast and separate function from phonetic form. So we see that this division of Phonetics into 3 sections is highly relative and is determined by the methods of investigation.

All the 3 sections are closely linked and are considered only as aspects of one and the same linguistic science, which deals with the investigation of all sound means of the language in connection with their social significance.

This study of the sound system is very important. One can’t master the language without mastering its sound system, because the language can perform its function of communication between people mainly as a language of sounds, in other words by means of the system of signals carrying some information.

In fact spoken language consists of succession of sound, which constitute the material form of words. The speech sounds have no lexical meaning in isolation, but they have tremendous force in the combination with other sounds thus forming words and the word meaning is connected with its sound forms, in other words all lexical and grammar phenomena are expressed phonetically. And here we again refer to the materialistic theory that language performs its function mainly as sound language.

We communicate ideas by means of words, which get their proper grammatical and intonational framing in sentences. But in order to make oneself easily understood, while expressing thoughts orally and understand others one should pronounce words and sentences correctly, in other words one should have a good pronunciation. It means to master the phonetic structure of the language.

The main components are:

1. Phonemic system, in other words the system of its segmental phonemes;

2. Stress or accentual structure;

3. Intonation.

To have a good pronunciation means to master the following things:

1. To articulate correctly all the speech sounds;

2. To pronounce sentences with correct stress, melody, rhythm, pauses.

Wrong pronunciation causes difficulties in the process of communication. It leads to misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Before the learner of spoken language has acquired a good pronunciation, he must overcome a number of difficulties. They are:

1. Must recognize various speech sounds occurring in the language when he hears them pronounced;

2. Remember the acoustic qualities of the sounds;

3. Learn to make the language sounds with his own organs of speech.

2 Methods of teaching the pronunciation.

1. Imitating somebody’s pronunciation

2. Analytical way, which is based on the detailed analysis and description of organs.

Phonetic transcription and its types

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.

It is possible to speak about three types of phonetic transcription.

1. INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION. It was introduced by the International Phonetic Association in 1887. But the science of phonetics has been considerably developed since then. And now the drawbacks of that system are quite evident; it suggests the same symbols for different phonemes: [i: - i], [¢ - ¢], [u:- u], [ə: - ə ], which gives the wrong impression that those phonemes differ only in their duration (length).

2. THE PHONEMIC TRANSCRIPTION (broad). In the phonemic transcription every phoneme is given an individual symbol, the number of which is 44 (according to the number of phonemes in British English). It introduces four more symbols: /²/ for /i /; / ¤ / for /u /; // £ / for / o /; /à/ for / è: /.

Words and sentences transcribed with the help of this phonetic script are placed between the slanting brackets. This type of transcription is used in studying English as a speciality.

3. THE ALLOPHONIC TRANSCRIPTION. (narrow). In this type of transcription every allophone has either a special symbol or a diacritical mark. The brackets are also different.

E.g. dark / ł / - little / l²tł /; Aspiration – pit / p^h²t /

It is used in doing research work in the field of phonetics.

Note: The elements of the allophonic transcription are used in the phonemic transcription, such as diacritical mark of long and a half long vowels. (i:, u:)

Branches of phonetics

We know that the phonic medium can be studied from four points of view: the articulatory, the acoustic, the auditory, and the functional.

We may consider the branches of phonetics according to these aspects. Articulatory phonetics is the study of the way the vocal organs are used to produce speech sounds. Acoustic phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds. Auditory phonetics is the study of the way people perceive speech sounds. Of these three branches of phonetics, the longest established, and until recently the most highly developed, is articulatory phonetics. For this reason, most of terms used by linguists to refer to speech-sounds are articulatory in origin.

Phoneticians are also interested in the way in which sound phenomena function in a particular language. In other words, they study the abstract side of the sounds of language. The branch of phonetics concerned with the study of the functional (linguistic) aspect of speech sounds is called phonology. By contrast with phonetics, which studies all possible sounds that the human vocal apparatus can make, phonology studies only those contrasts in sound which make differences of meaning within language.

Besides the four branches of phonetics described above, there are other divisions of the science. We may speak of general phonetics and the phonetics of a particular language (special or descriptive phonetics). General phonetics studies all the sound-producing possibilities of the human speech apparatus and the ways they are used for purpose of communication. The phonetics of a particular language studies the contemporary phonetic system of the particular language, i.e. the system of its pronunciation, and gives a description of all the phonetic units of the language. Descriptive phonetics is based on general phonetics.

Linguists distinguish also historical phonetics whose aim is to trace and establish the successive changes in the phonetic system of a given language (or a language family) at different stages of its development. Historical phonetics is a part of the history of language.

Closely connected with historical phonetics is comparative phonetics whose aims are to study the correlation between the phonetic systems of two or more languages and find out the correspondences between the speech sounds of kindred languages.

Phonetics can also be theoretical and practical. At the faculties of Foreign Languages in this country, two courses are introduced:

1. Practical, or normative, phonetics that studies the substance, the material form of phonetic phenomena in relation to meaning.

2. Theoretical phonetics, which is mainly concerned with the functioning of phonetic units in language.

This dichotomy is that which holds between theoretical and applied linguists. Briefly, theoretical linguistics studies language with a view to constructing theory of its structure and functions and without regard to any practical applications that the investigation of language might have. Applied linguistics has as its concerns the application of the concepts and findings of linguistics to a variety of practical tasks, including language teaching.

All the branches of phonetics are closely connected not only with one another but also with other branches of linguistics. This connection is determined by the fact that language is a system whose components are inseparably connected with one another.

Phonetics is also connected with many other sciences. Acoustic phonetics is connected with physics and mathematics. Articulatory phonetics is connected with physiology, anatomy, and anthropology. Historical phonetics is connected with general history of the people whose language is studied; it is also connected with archaeology. Phonology is connected with communication (information) theory, mathematics, and statistics.