Consider the following examples:
- Some letters represent more than one different sound
c: recall vs. receive g: gear vs. siege
enough through thorough thought bough
[ʌf] [u:] [ə] [ɔ:] [aʊ]
think those thistle thong
[θ] [ð] [θ] [θ]
church chemistry loch Cheryl
[tʃ] [k] [x] [ʃ]
- Some letters represent no sounds at all
receive use high knee
- Sometimes two letters represent just one sound
Recall phonetics
- Some letters represent two or more sounds at once
tax use
- The same sound can be represented by many different letters (or letter combinations).
sh: shy, mission, machine, special, caution
Phonetics: studies the physical characteristics of sounds
Phonetics is the study of speech sounds.
- a) how they’re produced (articulatory phonetics)
- b) their physical characteristics (acoustic phonetics) and
- c) how they’re perceived (auditory phonetics).
Phonology: describes the organization of the sound system of a language
n segmental: describes the phonemes of a language and the way they combine
n suprasegmental: describes the units larger than the phonemes (syllables, rhythm groups and intonation phrases)
Phonetics Alphabet (IPA).
- Solution: use a phonetic alphabet
- In a phonetic alphabet, sounds and symbols have a one-to-one relationship to each other
- Each symbol represents one sound
Each sound is represented by one symbol
The use of a phonetic alphabet to represent speech is called phonetic transcription.
Our phonetic alphabet of choice:
-
- The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
- Presided over by the International Phonetic Association
- Created in 1886
- Still active and evolving today.
Accents and dialects
Languages have different accents: they are pronounced differently by people from different geographical places, from different social classes, of different ages and different educational backgrounds. The word
accent is often confused with dialect. We use the word dialect to refer to a variety of a language which is different from others not just in pronunciation but also in such matters as vocabulary, grammar and word order. Differences of accent, on the other hand, are pronunciation differences only.
ACCENTS OF ENGLISH:
NATIVE, ‘NATIVESED’, FOREIGN
Accent: the way in which a language is pronounced in a specific geographical area
- native: UK , Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada
- ‘nativised’: where English is a second language (e.g. India)
- foreign: where English is a foreign language (e.g. Europe, China)
The British and the Americans are “divided by a common language” TWO STANDARDS OF PRONUNCIATION (Compare the BBC and CNN News):
RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION, RP, OR BBC ENGLISH
GENERAL AMERICAN