English Phonetics

PART 2 Vocalic Sounds

Luis G. Vera V. (M.A.)

 Luis G. Vera V.

Vocalic Sounds
There are two types of sounds that we can make by using the articulators and resonators in our mouth in-
side: consonantal sounds and vocalic sounds
Vocalic sounds, which also include diphthongs, are different than consonants in terms of their articulation.
When we articulate vowels, two organs approach each other but NEVER really touch each other. The or-
gans that we use to articulate vocalic sounds are the tongue, the jaw and the lips. The tongue is a very
flexible organ which can be moved forwards, backwards, upwards and downwards. The mouth cavity
works pretty much like a musical instrument which modifies the
shape of the mouth inside.

The vocal cords vibrate for all vocalic sounds; this means
that ALL vowels and diphthongs are voiced. To explain how
vowels and diphthongs are articulated, linguists designed an
imaginary graph which shows the levels of the tongue being
raised or lowered; put forwards or backwards.

This graph shows the height reached by the tongue going up and down. The names
of these lines are low, mid low, mid high and high and they represent how the
tongue moves upwards and downwards.
 Luis G. Vera V.

In relation to the tongue going forwards and backwards (backness), the chart shows three parts called front,
central and back. FRONT represents the use of the tip and blade of the tongue; CENTRAL represents the cen-
tral part of the tongue, the part of the tongue which is between the blade and the back part of it; and the
BACK, which represents the back of the tongue being used.

FRONT CENTRAL BACK

HIGH

MID-HIGH

MID-LOW

LOW

For example,[ i: ], [ I ],[ e ] and [ æ ] are front vowels; [ ə ], [ ɜ: ] and [ ʌ ] are central
vowels; whereas [ ɑ: ], [ ɒ ], [ ɔ: ], [ ʊ ] and [ u: ] are back vowels.

In this way, vowels can be described using three characteristics:

HEIGHT (low, mid low, mid high and high)
BACKNESS (front, central and back)
LIP POSITION (neutral, lip-spread, lip-half-spread, lip-rounded and lip-half-rounded)

For example, [ i: ] is a high front lip-spread vowel.

Luis G. Vera V.
 Luis G. Vera V.

Diphthongs

Now the question is, how are diphthongs represented in the vowel chart?

As a diphthong is like “two” vowels together (for example, in the diphthong [ ], we start with
[ e ] and then we rapidly move to [ I ]. This is why diphthongs are represented by an arrow in the vowel
chart. The beginning of the arrow shows the beginning of the diphthong [ e ] in this case; and the end of
the arrow shows the second sound ( [ I ]. So, what the arrow shows is the trajectory between the first
sound and the second one.

In this way, diphthongs are described as

[ eI ] is a mid to mid high front lip neutral to lip half spread diphthong.

We can conclude that for describing the articulation of all vocalic sounds, we have to make
use of this vowel chart.
Luis G. Vera V.