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Unit 07 - Phonetics & Vowels

Pronunciación de la Lengua Inglesa (UNED)

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7 SISTEMA FONOLÓGICO DE LA LENGUA INGLESA I: LAS VOCALES. SÍMBOLOS FONÉTICOS. FORMAS FUERTES Y FORMAS DÉBILES. LOS DIPTONGOS. SÍMBOLOS FONÉTICOS. COMPARACIÓN CON EL SISTEMA FONOLÓGICO DE LA LENGUA DE LA COMUNIDAD AUTÓNOMA CORRESPONDIENTE.

INTRODUCTION Phonology studies the sound systems of languages, especially the contrasts in sound which make differences of meaning. These contrasts are named phonemes. The phonological system of Spanish is significantly different from that of English, particularly in the aspects of vowel sounds and sentence stress. Therefore, studying the differences is essential to avoid mistakes and to establish effective communication, since a bad pronunciation can derive in bad understanding.

1 - THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM Linguistically speaking, we may establish a distinction between the terms phonetics and phonology. Sounds versus phonemes: Phonetics deals with the characteristics of sounds, without any reference to their function, while Phonology deals with phonemes. Phonology is the study of the sound systems of languages, and of the general properties displayed by these systems. By contrast with phonetics, which studies all possible sounds that the human vocal apparatus can make, phonology studies only those contrasts in sound (the phonemes) which make differences of meaning within the language. When we listen carefully to the way people speak English, we will hear hundreds of slight differences in the way individuals pronounce particular sounds. For example, one person may pronounce /s/ in a noticeably slushy manner, while another may pronounce it in a lisping manner. A phonetician would be interested in describing exactly what these differences of articulation are. A phonologist, however, would point out that both articulations are types of /s/, no matter how the /s/ varies, continues to contrast with /bet/ and /met/ and other words where there is just one basic unit, or phoneme, involved. Therefore when we talk about the phonological system of English, we are referring to the number of phonemes which are used in this language, and to how they are organized. To say there are twelve pure vowel sounds in English means that there are twelve units (with the characteristics of the vowels) which can differentiate word meanings. Before going any further, two concepts must be explained for a better understanding of the English Phonological System. The first one is the International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA. It is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. It is the most widely used phonetic alphabet and the one that is employed in most dictionaries. Note that although the symbols are usually called phonetic symbols they represent phonemes. With the help of the symbols provided by the IPA, transcriptions of sounds, words and utterances can be made.

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The second concept is British Received Pronunciation or RP. It is an accent in English regarded by many people as a ‘standard' accent. It has also been called ‘the Queen's English' or ‘BBC English'. In the past, RP had high status in the UK, indicating an educated speaker, and this transferred into EFL where it has been used as a model for pronunciation. With the emergence of international English, the recognition of the equality of a variety of accents, and the emphasis on authentic communication, learners now become aware of a wider range of accents. Using authentic listening texts is one way to expose learners to a variety of accents. Sources for this include films, online radio broadcasts and podcasts, and guest speakers.

VOWELS AND CONSONANTS Degree of obstruction of the air steam: (phonetic difference) -

-

Vowel: Flow of air unobstructed. A sound which is produced without an audible friction or blockage in the flow of air along the central line of breath from the lungs through the mouth. Consonant: Flow of air obstructed.

Position in the syllable: (phonological difference) -

Vowel: Nucleus; can be stressed. Consonant: Marginal; cannot be stressed.

2 - THE ENGLISH VOWEL SYSTEM 12 PURE VOWELS There are twelve pure vowels in English: [u], [ʊ], [o], [ɔ], [i], [ɪ], [e], [ɛ], [æ], [ɑ], [ʌ], [ə] ə

the

ɪ

Fish, big

3:

bird

i:

feet

ʌ

cut

o

Dog, frog

æ

Cat, black

ɔː

All, saw

ɑː

car

ʊ

Good, wolf

e

Get, red

u:

Blue, soon, soup

8 DIPHTHONGS Diphthongs constitute single syllables so they consist of a single impulse of breath. Diphthongs are defined as glides (a quick transition between different vowels), and the whole glide acts as one of the long pure vowels. eɪ

Day

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aɪ

Die

ɔɪ

Boy

3ʊ

Home

aʊ

House

ɪ3

Beer

e3

Where

ʊ3

Poor

5 TRIPHTHONGS eɪ3

player

aɪ3

fire

ɔɪ3

employer

3ʊ3

slower

aʊ3

flower

WEAK FORMS AND STRONG FORMS

FOUR FACTORS -

Length: Long or Short Raising Degree of the Tongue: High (close), Mid (half-open), Low (open) Position of the Tongue: Front, Central, Back Position of the Lips: Spread, Neutral, Rounded

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3 - COMPARING SPANISH

PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEMS: ENGLISH–

By comparing the phonological systems of Spanish and English, we can predict common mistakes and pitfalls, and so avoid them when possible. Spanish is a Romance language and part of the Indo-European language family. It is closely related to Italian and Portuguese. The phonological system of Spanish is significantly different from that of English, particularly in the aspects of vowel sounds and sentence stress. These differences are very serious obstacles to Spanish learners being able to acquire a native-English-speaker accent. European Spanish speakers, in particular, probably find English pronunciation harder than speakers of any other European language. VOWELS Spanish has 5 pure vowels and 5 diphthongs. The length of the vowel is not significant in distinguishing between words. This contrasts with English, which has 12 pure vowel sounds and 8 diphthongs. The length of the vowel sound plays an important role. It is not surprising, therefore, that Spanish learners may have great difficulty in producing or even perceiving the various English vowel sounds. Specific problems include the failure to distinguish the sounds in words such as ship/sheep, taught/tot, fool/full or cart/cat/cut. The sound ‘schwa’ (3, 3:) does not exist in Spanish, whereas in English is very used. ʌ æ ɑː e ɪ i: o ɔ: ʊ u:

a

e i o u

CONSONANTS Producing English consonant sounds is not so problematic for many Spanish learners, but difficult enough! They may have problems in the following aspects:    

failure to pronounce the end consonant accurately or strongly enough ; e.g. cart for the English word card or brish for bridge or thing for think problems with the /v/ in words such as vowel or revive difficulties in distinguishing words such as see/she or jeep/sheep/cheap the tendency to prefix words beginning with a consonant cluster on s- with an /ε/ sound; so, for example, school becomes eschool and strip becomes estrip

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

the swallowing of sounds in other consonant clusters; examples: next becomes nes and instead becomes istead.

Unshared consonants:  

Here we have three phonemes of the English phonological system that do not exist in the Spanish one: /v/, /z/, /h/. Here we have three phonemes of the Spanish phonological system that do not exist in the English one: the ‘eñe’ /ɲ/, the ‘jota’ /x/ and the ‘rr’.

PROSODIC FEATURES Spanish is a syllable-timed language. This means that every syllable is produced by an expulsion of air from the lungs. That is a language whose syllables take approximately equal amounts of time to pronounce. However, English is a stress-timed language. That is a language where the stressed syllables are said at approximately regular intervals, and unstressed syllables shorten to fit this rhythm. Learners whose first language is syllable-timed often have problems producing the unstressed sounds in a stress-timed language like English, tending to give them equal stress. When Spanish speakers transfer the intonation patterns of their mother tongue into English the result may sometimes be barely comprehensible to native English speakers. This is because the meaning or information usually conveyed in English by the combination of stress, pitch and rhythm in a sentence is flattened or evened out by the Spanish learner.

DIDACTIC IMPLICATIONS To sum up, phonetics and phonology can help our students to establish effective communication, since a bad pronunciation can derive in bad understanding. This is specially the case of minimal pairs in which a slight difference in pronunciation brings about a change in meaning. So this unit talks about some of these topics that are normally so difficult but so important to deal with in classroom. Above all it is important to remember that there is a place for phonology in nearly every lesson. BIBLIOGRAPHY GIMSON, A.C. 1970. An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English. KELLY, G. 2000. How to Teach Pronunciation. HALLIDAY, M.A. A course in Spoken English. HARMER, J. 2003. The Practice of English Language Teaching.

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