Chapter 3:

Phonetics - The Sounds of Language

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 Introduction to Phonetics
• Definition: Phonetics is a branch of linguistics focusing on
human speech sounds. Phonetics is the study of speech
sounds used in all human languages.
• Key Aspects: Studies the production, transmission, and
perception of speech sounds.
• Focus on : Identifying individual sounds and differentiating
them from others.
(Ladefoged & Johnson, 2011)
 Role of a Phonetician
• Process: Works with native speakers to gather
language data.
• Tools: Utilizes trained ears and recording machines.
• Focus: Records and describes sound segments and
supra-segmental features (stress, pitch, juncture,
intonation, muscle tension, length, etc.).
Physical and Physiological Aspects

•Phonetics: Studies both the physical and

physiological aspects of sounds.
•Importance: Provides a comprehensive
understanding of speech sounds.
Subfields of Phonetics
1.Articulatory Phonetics: Study of sound production.
2.Acoustic Phonetics: Examination of physical properties of sound.
3.Auditory Phonetics: Analysis of sound perception.
 Branch of Linguistics: Studies sound features
produced by human vocal organs.

Goal: Organize these features into distinct speech

sounds.

Articulatory Method: Accurate recording of speech features

Phonetics perceivable by the ears.

Focus: Examines speech sound production using

speech organs (lungs, vocal cords, tongue, lips).

Example: The sound /p/ in 'pat' is a bilabial

plosive, made by closing and releasing the lips.
 Deals with: Physical properties
of sound waves (frequency,
amplitude, duration).

Acoustic Importance: Helps understand

sound transmission and
Phonetics auditory perception.

Example: Pitch of a sound is

linked to its frequency.
 Focus: How speech sounds are
perceived and processed by the
ear and brain.

Auditory Key Study Area: The hearing

process and sound
Phonetics differentiation (e.g., /b/ vs. /p/).

Importance: Understanding the

physical effect of sounds on
human ears.
 Primary Importance:
Articulatory phonetics is often
considered more crucial in
Emphasis on phonetics studies.
Articulatory
Phonetics Key Focus: Detailed
examination of speech sound
production and articulation.
Question 1: What is the primary focus of articulatory
phonetics?
A) The study of how speech sounds are transmitted through air.
B) The examination of sound features produced by human vocal
organs.
C) The analysis of how speech sounds are perceived by the brain.
D) The investigation of the physical properties of sound waves.
Question 2: What role does a phonetician play in the
study of phonetics?
A) Designing new speech sounds for artificial languages.
B) Working with native speakers to gather and analyze language data.
C) Developing software for speech recognition.
D) Teaching phonetics in academic settings.
Question 3: Which of the following is NOT a subfield
of phonetics?

• A) Articulatory Phonetics
• B) Acoustic Phonetics
• C) Auditory Phonetics
• D) Semantic Phonetics
Articulatory Phonetics
Introduction to Articulatory Phonetics
• Definition: Study of speech sound production by various speech
organs.
• Key Organs: Lungs, vocal cords, tongue, lips, and other parts of the
vocal tract.
• Reference: Ladefoged & Johnson, 2011.
Role of Vocal Cords
• Location: Vocal cords are situated in the larynx.
• Voiced Sounds: Produced when air passes through vibrating vocal
cords (e.g., /b/, /d/, /g/).
• Voiceless Sounds: Occur without vocal cord vibration (e.g., /p/, /t/,
/k/).
• Reference: Clark, Yallop & Fletcher, 2007.
Articulators in Sound Production
• Articulators: Tongue, lips, teeth, and palate.
• Function: Shape airflow into specific sounds.
• Example: Sound /t/ is produced by the tongue against the alveolar
ridge.
• Reference: Kent & Read, 2002.
Classification of Speech Sounds
• Vowels vs. Consonants: Vowels (open vocal tract, free airflow) and
consonants (constriction in vocal tract).
• Vowel Characteristics: Determined by tongue height, position, and lip
rounding.
• Reference: Reetz & Jongman, 2009.
 Consonant Classification
• Place of Articulation:
• Bilabial (e.g., /p/, /b/): Both lips.
• Alveolar (e.g., /t/, /d/): Tongue against alveolar ridge.
• Velar (e.g., /k/, /g/): Back of the tongue against the soft palate.
• Manner of Articulation:
• Plosives (e.g., /p/, /k/): Closure and release of airflow.
• Fricatives (e.g., /f/, /s/): Air through a narrow constriction.
• Nasals (e.g., /m/, /n/): Airflow through the nose.
• Reference: Zsiga, 2013.
Acoustic Phonetics
Acoustic Phonetics
• Focus: Studies the physical properties of sound waves in speech.
• Key Properties: Frequency, amplitude, and duration.
• Role: These properties are essential in how speech sounds are
perceived.
• Reference: Kent & Read, 2002.
Frequency in Speech
• Definition: Number of vibrations per second, measured in Hertz (Hz).
• Relation to Pitch: Higher frequency means higher pitch.
• Example: A child's voice (high frequency) vs. an adult male's voice
(lower frequency).
Amplitude and Speech
• Relation to Loudness: Amplitude determines the loudness of a sound.
• Importance: Crucial for understanding stress and emphasis in speech.
Duration of Speech Sounds
• Definition: The length of time a sound is produced.
• Impact: Affects the rhythm and fluency of speech.
• Example: Longer vowel duration in stressed syllables.
Spectrograms in Acoustic Phonetics
• Function: Provide a visual representation of sound, showing
frequency and amplitude variations over time.
• Uses: Analyzing phonemes, pitch variations, and speech patterns.
• Applications: Useful in linguistic research, speech therapy, language
teaching, and speech recognition technology.
• Reference: Zsiga, 2013; Reetz & Jongman, 2009.
Auditory Phonetics
Introduction of Auditory Phonetics
• Focus: How the human ear perceives and processes speech sounds.
• Process: Sound waves are transformed into neural signals for the
brain to interpret.
• Reference: Ladefoged & Johnson, 2011.
Perception of Speech Sounds
• Key Ability: Distinguishing different speech sounds (e.g., /b/ vs. /p/).
• Factors: Includes voicing, aspiration, and listener's native language.
• Influences: Context, acoustic environment, and background noise.
• Reference: Clark, Yallop & Fletcher, 2007.
Factors Affecting Sound Perception
• Influences on Perception: Native language, sound context, and
acoustic environment.
• Example: How background noise can alter speech sound perception.
Basics and Importance of Phonetic Transcription

• Process: Using IPA symbols to transcribe speech sounds.

• Requirements: Detailed understanding of a language's sound system.
• Importance: Essential for language variation studies, pronunciation
teaching, and speech disorder research.
• Applications: Useful for linguists and language learners for objective
analysis and comparison.
• Reference: Zsiga, 2013.
Limitations of Orthographic Representation:
• Orthography, the conventional spelling system of
a language, often fails to represent the
pronunciation of words accurately.
• This is especially true in English, where the
relationship between spelling and pronunciation
is only partial and often inconsistent.
 Problems with English Orthography:
The text outlines five major issues with representing English speech sounds
in writing:
• Different letters or combinations representing the same sound (e.g., "to,"
"too," "two").
• A single letter representing multiple sounds (e.g., "a" in "dam," "dad,"
"father").
• Combinations of letters representing a single sound (e.g., "sh" in "shoot").
• Letters that are silent in some words (e.g., "k" in "know").
• Sounds not represented in spelling (e.g., the sound in "cute").
Phonetic Alphabets:
• To address these issues, phonetic alphabets are
used. These are sets of special symbols that
correspond to specific speech sounds, aiming to
represent any sound in any human language.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is the
most widely accepted system.
 Types of Phonetic Transcription:
• Phonemic Transcription: Represents phonemes
(abstract sounds) using slashes (/ /). It focuses on
the sounds that are crucial for distinguishing words
in a language.
• Phonetic Transcription: Represents concrete
sounds (allophones) using square brackets ([ ]). It
includes more detail about how sounds are actually
pronounced.
Phonetic Transcription and IPA
• Introduction to IPA: A standardized system for
phonetic notation of human speech sounds.
• Purpose: Enables consistent transcription across
different languages.
• Reference: Ladefoged & Johnson, 2011
Phonetic Transcription and IPA
• Introduction to IPA: A standardized system for phonetic notation of
human speech sounds.
• Purpose: Enables consistent transcription across different languages.
• Reference: Ladefoged & Johnson, 2011.
 Narrow vs. Broad Phonetic Transcription:
•Narrow Transcription: Includes extensive phonetic details like aspiration,
length, labialization, etc. It represents the finer nuances in pronunciation.
•Broad Transcription: Uses primary phonetic symbols with fewer details,
focusing on the most significant aspects of pronunciation.
 List of basic IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)
symbols as used in British English by Daniel Jones
Consonants
• Plosives: [p] (as in "pat"), [b] (as in "bat"), [t] (as in "tap"), [d] (as in "dog"),
[k] (as in "cat"), [g] (as in "go")
• Nasals: [m] (as in "mat"), [n] (as in "net"), [ŋ] (as in "sing")
• Fricatives: [f] (as in "fat"), [v] (as in "vat"), [θ] (as in "thin"), [ð] (as in "this"),
[s] (as in "sat"), [z] (as in "zoo"), [ʃ] (as in "shut"), [ʒ] (as in "measure")
• Approximants: [r] (as in "red"), [j] (as in "yes"), [w] (as in "wet")
• Lateral: [l] (as in "let")
 List of basic IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)
symbols as used in British English by Daniel Jones
Vowels
• Short Vowels: [ɪ] (as in "kit"), [e] (as in "dress"), [æ] (as in "trap"), [ʌ] (as in
"strut"), [ɒ] (as in "lot"), [ʊ] (as in "foot")
• Long Vowels: [iː] (as in "fleece"), [uː] (as in "goose"), [ɑː] (as in "start"), [ɔː]
(as in "thought"), [ɜː] (as in "nurse")
Diphthongs: Nguyên âm đôi
• [eɪ] (as in "face"), [aɪ] (as in "price"), [ɔɪ] (as in "choice"), [əʊ] (as in "goat"),
[aʊ] (as in "mouth"), [ɪə] (as in "near"), [eə] (as in "square"), [ʊə] (as in
"cure")
 Phonemic and Phonetic Transcription

Phonemic transcription is used to transcribe phonemes. They are

written between / / brackets.
Allophones are written between [ ] brackets.
 Phonetic Details (or Narrow Phonetic Transcription)
• Aspirated stops [ h ]: Voiceless stops which are produced with a puff of air
are called aspirated sounds. They occur in initial stressed syllables before
vowels.
• Unreleased stops [ ]: Stop consonants involve the complete blockage of
airflow in the oral tract. Ordinary, this stoppage is released before the next
sound is produced. But it is possible for an oral stop to be unreleased
when it occurs before another stop.
• Flaps [ ]: In American English, [t, d] in unstressed position between two
vowels are produced as a flap sound [ ].
• Dental consonants [ ]: Alveolar consonants are produced as dental
variants when occurring before an inter-dental sound.
 Phonetic Details (or Narrow Phonetic
Transcription)
• Velarized [ ]: The lateral sound [l] is velarized (the back of the
tongue is raised) when occurring at the end of a syllable or before
another consonant.
• Voiceless Liquid and Glides [o]: When liquid sounds and glides are
followed by a voiceless obstruent, they are pronounced as voiceless
consonants.
• Nasalized vowels : Vowels are nasalized when standing before a
nasal consonant in the same syllable.
• Lengthened vowels [:]: Vowels are lengthened when standing before a
voiced consonant.
Phonetic Features

Beyond Traditional Descriptions: Instead of traditional terms

like "alveolar" for sounds like [t] and [d], phonologists use
more general features. For instance, the feature "coronal"
describes any sound where the tongue blade is raised towards
the teeth or alveolar ridge.
Combining Features for Precision: By combining features, we
can precisely identify sounds. For example, [t] is [+coronal,
+anterior], but [tʃ] is [+coronal, -anterior]. This combination of
features helps in pinpointing the exact place of articulation.
Descriptive and Contrastive Nature: Phonetic features are both
descriptive and contrastive. They're descriptive as they detail how
sounds are produced, and contrastive because they help distinguish
one sound from another.
Classifying Sounds: These features categorize major sound classes,
articulation manners, voicing, and even supra-segmental aspects (like
tone or stress).
Binary Values in Features: Features usually have binary values: either
present (+) or absent (-). For example, instead of separate labels like
"voiced" and "voiceless," we use one label "voiced" and mark it as
either [+voiced] or [-voiced]. This binary system creates clear
oppositions and differentiates sound sets effectively.
Major class features

• Major class features distinguish basic categories such as vowels, obstruents, and glides.
• Syllabic: The feature [+syllabic] is assigned to the sounds that can be the head (or peak) of a syllable. Those
that do not constitute a syllable peak are non-syllabic [-syllabic]. Typically, nucleus vowels are [+syllabic]
and the non-vowels are [-syllabic]. When non-vowels constitute a syllable peak, they are specified as
[+syllabic]
• Sonorant: Sonorous sounds are produced with a vocal tract cavity in which spontaneous voicing is possible.
In other words, the vocal tract is not constricted to the extent that airflow across the glottis is inhibited.
Vowels, glides, lateral and nasals are all [+sonorant]. The rest of consonants are[-sonorant] , and are
frequently referred to as obstruents.
• Consonantal: Sounds with the feature [+consonantal] are formed in the vocal tract with an obstruction that is
a least as narrow as that of a fricative. Note that the glides are not true consonants and not true vowels, and
therefore are described as [-consonantal].
Phonetic features of Australian English consonants