Lecture 1 Phonetics and communication n Phonetics as

Lecture. 1 Phonetics and communication. n Phonetics as a science. Its aims, methods, significance and its practical application. n Phonetics and its branches. n Phonetics and language teaching. n

Language is a system of conventional signs used for communication by a whole community. n Speech is the realization of the language by all the members of the community in communication. n Speech a manifestation of language, which exists in two forms of speech: oral and written. n Both speech forms have a material substance: - phonic in oral speech - graphic in written speech. n

Phonetics and communication When one person wants to convey a message to another he can use a variety of means. He may write it down on a piece of paper and hand it over. He may transmit it in sign language, as deaf mutes do; he may stand on one alp and wave or drape flags in a pre-arranged way to the recipient standing on another alp; or he may prefer to flash a mirror. All these are visual means of communication. On the other hand the message may be passed by audible means, by fog-horn, Morse-key or drum, gestures; or it may simply be spoken: transmitted by word of mouth…. The spoken word, i. e. language, is by far the most frequent and the most important medium of communication between man and his neighbour [O’Connor, Phohetics, 1973, p. 9].

The phonetic system of a language n n n The phonetic system of a language – a set of phonetic units arranged in an orderly way. Components of the phonetic system are: 1) segmental phonemes existing in the material form of their allophones; 2) the syllabic structure of the words; 3) the accentual structure of the words; 4) the intonation. Four components of the phonetic system of English constitute its pronunciation

The phonetic level of a language n n segmental level: elementary sounds, vowels, consonants that form the vocalic and consonantal subsystems; suprasegmental (prosodic) level: syllables, accentual (rhythmic) units, intonation groups, utterances, which form the subsystems of pitch, stress, rhythm, tempo, pauses.

Three language levels n n n Phonetic (segmental and prosodic) units serve to form and differentiate lexical and grammatical units. Grammatical level defines the rules governing the modifications of words and their combination into sentences. Lexical level deals with the vocabulary, the origin of words and their meaning, and with word-building.

n n n …Each of our utterances carries not only its own message, but through accent, tone of voice and voice quality it is an audible declaration of our membership of social and regional groups, of physical and psychological identity, and our momentary mood. … A vast amount of social and personal information about the speaker is carried as well. To reach a full understanding of the nature of communication through speech one would have to appeal to concepts not only from linguistics, but also from sociology, anthropology, philosophy, physiology, anatomy, neurology, medicine, pathology, acoustics, physics, cybernetics, electronic engineering, computer science and artificial intelligence. The study of speech … thus embraces aspects of the social sciences, the life sciences, the physical sciences, the engineering sciences and the information sciences. All the disciplines mentioned above take speech as part of their professional domain…. Phonetics is the discipline that takes speech as its central domain, and stands at the intersection of all these disciplines. Phonetics is the scientific study of all aspects of speech. The domains of phonetics (the scientific study of speech) and linguistics (the scientific study of language) overlap in the area of spoken language [J. Laver, Principles of Phohetics, 1995, p. 9].

Phonetics a linguistic as science n n n Phonetics is concerned with the study of speech in human communication. Phonetics deals with the production, transmission, and perception of speech in communication. Phonetics is the study of the way humans make, transmit and receive speech sounds.

The sounds of speech are all around us. We use them, we hear them, we enjoy and suffer from them, and in general we know remarkably little about them…. n It seems worthwhile, therefore, to attempt to explain how speech sounds can to some extent be pinned down, so that we may a firmer foundation for understanding how sounds contribute to the process of communication [O’Connor, Phohetics, 1973, p. 7]. n

Aspects of Speech Sounds n n the articulatory (sound production). Speech sounds are products of human organs of speech. They result from the activities of the diaphragm , the lungs, the bronchi, the trachea, the larynx (with the vocal cords in it), the pharynx, the mouth cavity, the nasal cavity. the acoustic aspect. It exists in the form of sound waves and have the same physical properties – fundamental frequency (Fo), intensity (I), duration (T), spectrum. the auditory (sound perception) aspect. The perception of speech sounds involves the activity of our hearing mechanism, which can be viewed in two ways: physiologically and psychologically. the linguistic aspect (functional or social) because of the role which sounds play in the functioning of language as a social phenomenon.

Phonetics and its branches n n n Articulatory phonetics is the branch of phonetics, which studies the way in which speech sounds are articulated by the speech organs. Methods employed in articulatory phonetics are experimental. They involve objective methods: palatography, laryngoscopy, photography, cinematography, X-ray photography, electromyography, and various kinds of technique to study sound-production. Besides the objective methods articulatory phonetics uses its oldest subjective method – the method of direct observation that involves observation of speech organs movements in pronouncing sounds and analysis of the speaker’s muscular sensations during the speech sound articulation.

n n Auditory (perceptual) phonetics is the branch of phonetics concerned with the study of man’s perception of segmental sounds, pitch variations, loudness, tempo, rhythm, pauses and timbre. The methods used in auditory, or perceptual phonetics are experimental. They include various kinds of auditory tests.

n n n n Acoustic phonetics deals with the study of the physical nature of speech sounds and gives their acoustic parameters in speech. A sound consists of small vibrations in air pressure that occur rapidly one after another. The acoustic structure of a speech signal is measured by the cycles of vibrations (fundamental frequency Fo), by the amplitude of vibrations (intensity) during certain time periods (duration of different types of vibrations). Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz), Intensity is measured in decibels (d. B), Duration is measured -in milliseconds (ms). A spectrograph is used to analyse the acoustic spectra of sounds, an oscillograph and intonograph - to analyse frequency, intensity and duration.

n n Phonology or functional phonetics is a linguistic branch of phonetics. It deals with the functional aspect of sound phenomena. Phonology discovers those segmental and prosodic features that have a differential value in a language, establishes the system of phonemes and prosodemes. Phonology of segmental units is known as phonemics; phonology of suprasegmental units is called prosodemics, or intonology. The most basic activity in phonology is phonemic analysis, in which the objective is to establish the phonemic inventory of the language.

n n . . . many significant sound contrasts are not the result of differences between phonemes. For example, stress is important, when the word “import” is pronounced with the first syllable sounding stronger than the second. English speakers hear it as a noun, whereas when the second syllable is stronger, the word is heard as a verb. Intonation is also important: if the word “right” is said with the pitch of the voice rising, it is likely to be heard as a question or as an invitation to a speaker to continue, while falling pitch is more likely to be heard as confirmation or agreement. These examples show sound contrasts that extend over several segments (phonemes), and such contrasts are called suprasegmental [P. Roach, English Phonetics and Phonology, 1999, p. 36].

Phonetics and Phonology n n n 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 language. When we listen carefully to the way people speak English, we will notice hundreds of slight differences in the way individuals pronounce particular sounds. For example, one person may pronounce /s/ in a slushy manner, while another may pronounce it in a lisping manner. Phoneticians 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/: /set/, no matter how the /s/ varies, it continues to contrast with /bet/, /met/ and other words. There is just one phoneme involved [D. Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2000, p. 236].

“. . . Language is an instrument of society, used for purposes of social cooperation and social intercourse. n It must of its nature be tightly linked to the structure of the community in which it operates, and it must, therefore, be capable. . . of serving as an index of groups and attitudes within that community. n So far as pronunciation is concerned, we are aware that it characterizes geographical areas in the form of regional accents and classes within those areas by modification of the accent, n but we really have very little knowledge about this obvious connection and no general theory … to give an account of the relation between differences of pronunciation and differences of social grouping and social attitudes. “ [J. D. O’Connor, Phonetics]. n

Phonetics and its practical application n n Phonetics has practical application in medicine (speech pathology), logopedics, surdo-pedagogics, in the field of sound transmission and machine translation, communication engineering. The connection of phonetics with non-linguistic sciences gave birth to such sciences, as technical acoustics, psycho-phonetics, socio-phonetics (which studies the peculiarities of pronunciation of speakers’ social groups), pragma-phonetics and other phonetic sciences which contribute to the formation of speechology – the science of speech.

Phonetics and Language Teaching n n To underline the importance of the sound matter of the language Prof. H. Gleason noted that to speak any language a person must know nearly all the 100% of its phonetics, while only 50 -90% of its grammar and 1% of the vocabulary may be sufficient.

n n n Perspective EFL teachers could be recommended the following sources of reference for teaching contemporary English pronunciation: 1. Gimson A. C. Gimson’s Pronunciation of English Gimson. Sixth Edition. Revised by Alan Cruttenden. – London, New York, 2001, which presents comprehensive and accessible standard description of spoken English. 2. Celce-Murcia M. , Brinton D. , Goodwin J. Teaching Pronunciation: A Reference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge, 1996. This book gives a valuable linguistic and didactic model for teaching North American pronunciation. 3. Pennington, Martha. Phonology in English Language Teaching: An International Approach. – London and New York, 1996. This is a comprehensive manual on theory of English pronunciation. 4. Jenkins, Jennifer. The Phonology of English as an International Language. – Oxford, 2000. The author gives an international perspective on teaching the English pronunciation, she advocates intelligibility as the key concept in the field of English as an international language.

Thank you for attention!