lOMoARcPSD

Unit 07 - Phonetics & Vowels

Pronunciacin de la Lengua Inglesa (UNED)

Su distribucin est prohibida | Descargado por Silvia Guerrero (silviaguerrerofdez6@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD

SISTEMA FONOLGICO DE LA LENGUA INGLESA I: LAS VOCALES. SMBOLOS

FONTICOS. FORMAS FUERTES Y FORMAS DBILES. LOS DIPTONGOS.
SMBOLOS FONTICOS. COMPARACIN CON EL SISTEMA FONOLGICO DE
LA LENGUA DE LA COMUNIDAD AUTNOMA 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.

Su distribucin est prohibida | Descargado por Silvia Guerrero (silviaguerrerofdez6@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD

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], [], [o], [], [i], [], [e], [], [], [], [], []

the Fish, big

3: bird i: feet

cut o Dog, frog

Cat, black All, saw

car 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.

e Day

Su distribucin est prohibida | Descargado por Silvia Guerrero (silviaguerrerofdez6@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD

a Die

Boy

3 Home

a House

3 Beer

e3 Where

3 Poor

5 TRIPHTHONGS

e3 player

a3 fire

3 employer

33 slower

a3 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

Su distribucin est prohibida | Descargado por Silvia Guerrero (silviaguerrerofdez6@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD

3 - COMPARING PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEMS: ENGLISH

SPANISH
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.

a


e e
i
i:
o o
:
u
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 //
sound; so, for example, school becomes eschool and strip becomes estrip

Su distribucin est prohibida | Descargado por Silvia Guerrero (silviaguerrerofdez6@gmail.com)

 lOMoARcPSD

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 ee //, 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.

Su distribucin est prohibida | Descargado por Silvia Guerrero (silviaguerrerofdez6@gmail.com)