E-Book, Englisch, 292 Seiten
Reihe: bachelor-wissen
E-Book, Englisch, 292 Seiten
Reihe: bachelor-wissen
ISBN: 978-3-8233-0286-5
Verlag: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Christian Mair ist Inhaber des Lehrstuhls für Englische Linguistik der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.
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Phonetics and phonology – the sounds of speech
2.1 Orientation
2.1.1 Sounds and letters: The need for a phonetic alphabet
The difficult relationship between spelling and pronunciation In the linguistic analysis of the sounds of spoken language, beginners usually have to make a conscious effort to break the mould of spelling, particularly in a language such as English, in which there is such an obvious discrepancy between orthography and pronunciation. Of course, there is a correspondence between letters, the graphic signs of writing, and the sounds articulated in pronunciation. For example, the letter
fairly regularly corresponds to a particular sound, and so do most other consonants (that is sounds which usually cannot form the nucleus of a syllable, see p. 29). However, there are irregularities even here in this simple case: for example, the
is silent in the words psychology or pneumonia. The correspondences between sound and spelling are much more complex for most vowels (that is sounds which usually form the nucleus of a syllable). For example, the words people, beat, seed and perceive all have the same vowel [i:], but it is spelled in four different ways. If two vowels are pronounced together, we have diphthongs. The correspondence between sound and spelling is similarly complex for English diphthongs. The three words pair, pare and pear, for example, have the same diphthong [e?], which however is spelled in three different ways depending on the meaning. Fig. 2.1 George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), writer, social activist and spelling reformer Transcription and the phonetic alphabet This list could easily be extended – and might culminate in asking whether fish could not equally well be written ghoti: gh as in laugh, o as in women, and ti as in nation (a witticism probably wrongly attributed to the famous dramatist and campaigner for spelling reform George Bernard Shaw). Clearly, before embarking on the serious study of speech sounds, we have to get rid of the complexities caused by the spelling system, which – in English as in most other languages with a long writing tradition – is the result of a historical evolution and often rather arbitrary when seen from a synchronic perspective. The problem was recognised by the pioneer phoneticians (a word derived from the Greek word for “sound” and describing linguists studying speech sounds) of the 19th century. To put the study of speech sounds on a firm footing, the International Phonetic Association (IPA), founded in 1886 and thus one of the oldest professional associations in linguistics, developed a phonetic alphabet designed to enable linguists to unambiguously transcribe the sounds of all human languages. Used in this sense, to transcribe means not just to write but to really represent the spoken language on the written or printed page. Vowels and consonants As has already been hinted at, the two major classes of speech sounds are vowels and consonants. In order to produce the different vowels, we position our speech organs in certain specified ways but do not block the air-stream by causing friction or complete closure. If we block the air-stream in some way, the result is a consonant. The IPA transcription symbols for vowels and consonants are represented in Figures 2.2 and 2.3 respectively. Since this phonetic alphabet is designed to capture the sounds of all languages of the world, or all the possible speech sounds which human beings can produce, it contains many more symbols than the student of English has need for. Therefore, you need not be intimidated by the complexity of the symbols. To the extent that they are relevant for English, they will be explained in further detail below. Fig. 2.2 IPA symbols for vowels (revised to 2015, https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/sites/default/files/IPA_Kiel_2015.pdfsource) In this diagram, [i] figures as a “close and front” vowel because it is articulated in the front of the mouth and with the front part of the tongue close to the palate. The vowel [?], by contrast, is a “back and open” vowel because it is articulated at the back of the mouth, with the tongue lowered (more on these physiological details below). Fig. 2.3 IPA symbols for consonants (revised to 2015, https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/sites/default/files/IPA_Kiel_2015.pdf) To facilitate comprehension of this complex diagram, these are the consonants needed for the transcription of Standard British English. In addition to the IPA categories, the following Table also lists affricates, which occur when a plosive consonant, e.g. [t], merges with the fricative, e.g. [?], produced in the same place of articulation. Table 2.1 List of English consonants plosives (or stops) p, b, t, d, k, g affricates t?, d? fricatives f, v, O, ð, s, z, ?, ? nasals m, n, ? other l, r, j, w, h The terms appearing in the horizontal axis of the IPA chart (s. Fig. 2.3) – from “bilabial” to “glottal” – refer to the place of articulation, the terms appearing in the vertical axis – from “plosive” to “lateral approximant” – refer to the manner of articulation. They will be explained further below. The term pulmonic means that an air-stream exhaled from the lungs is involved in their production. This is the statistically normal case in all languages, and most languages in the world have only pulmonic consonants. (The best-known examples of non-pulmonic consonants are the click sounds of the South African Khoisan languages, for which the air-stream is started by a downward movement of the tongue. They have been popularised by South African singer Miriam Makeba’s “Click Song,” available from several web-sources, for example YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6 aNZ8qwKDrE). Beginning students are frequently overwhelmed by the complexity of the phonetic alphabet and fail to see the relevance of this degree of detail for their studies. However, the connection to everyday life is real enough. Just pronounce the German word viel and use this pronunciation for the English word feel. You will immediately hear that it does not sound right, and the reason is simply that in German we have a clear or “palatal” [l], whereas in English in this position the [l] is dark or velar. 2.1.2 Sounds as sounds, and sounds as elements of linguistic systems: From phonetics to phonology
Phonetics – the physiological and physical attributes of sounds The aim of phonetics is a precise description of the sounds of human languages from three perspectives: articulatory (how are they formed in the mouth, the glottis and the nasal cavity?) acoustic (what are they like when measured while travelling through the air?), and auditory (how are they perceived by the listener?) In phonetics, sounds are described for their own sake and in their own terms. Factors such as meaning and grammar are not relevant. From among the three perspectives named in the above paragraph, it is the articulatory one that provides the most useful starting point. Figure 2.4 below represents the parts of the human body that play a role in the production of sounds. Fig. 2.4 The human articulatory apparatus (source: www.universalteacher.org.uk) The production of vowels The single most important factor in the...
