Universidad de Guadalajara

Diana Gutirrez Luque

Task 4: Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics, Phonology and Speech of Science are some of the sciences dedicated to the study of
pronunciation at the theoretically and pragmatically level. The studies made by each of them has
helped increasing the knowledge and improving methodologies in the Language Teaching area. The
purpose of this essay is to analyze the speech of some English native speakers in order to identify
patterns of pronunciation. For the purposes of this assessment task, I asked 6 native speakers to help
me with it. They were mainly adults coming form the United States and one British man, so his
pronunciation had a little variance.
To begin with, it is necessary to make a distinction between Phonetics and Phonology. The first
is dedicated to analyze the phonic elements lf a language from their acoustic formation and
perception. The second one works with the function of those elements in the language system. This
studies are helpful since they provide evidence of pronunciation differences among speakers from
diverse countries, therefore, facilitating the stage of teaching pronunciation. However, most of the
research has been done on the segmental aspects. The research on the supra-segmental parts, such as
intonation, stress or accent, is really young and should also be taken into account.
As the articulatory phase of speech is of examination, scientists have been designing programs
to facilitate this analysis. One example of it is PRAT, which is only a tool for investigation but is not
of real use in language classes. However, a teacher specialized in this topics might find it useful due
to the fact that it shows both segmental and supra-segmental parts of the speech.

Universidad de Guadalajara
Diana Gutirrez Luque

To continue with the analysis of native speakers speech, they were asked to read the following
sentences, which represented a challenge considering that they included nonexistent words:
1.
The man pratted over the group, bicked the woman and rathed in front of her.
2.
Susan went to the local market and bought her favorite crants, some fresh wugs and
choice chugles.
3.
The woiter told his brother, he woider, what to do.
4.
Where did that fantastic sphinger learn to sphing so well?
5.
A tingrene uses a metal tinger to point with.
The first process that took place at the moment of saying the sentences was equivalence. Speakers
started looking for a word in their language system which might sound similar, as it is a natural step
in the process of speaking. This necessity of looking for an answer took place in less than one
minute.
All sentences were read with pauses and rhythm, using an easy flow, however, as they were dealing
with new words, in some cases pauses took longer. There were some consistencies among all of the
speakers; nonetheless, slight differences were showed, especially in sentence 3.
Regarding the pronunciation of American and British English in sentence 3, the American
emphasized the sound of woiter as /ei/, while the British man made it similar to /oi/. In sentence 2,
the words were pronounced similarly except for the preposition of, which in some cases was
pronounced like /f/ and some others like /v/. I also noticed small differences of pronunciation in
chugles, which was syllabically divided into chug-les and chu-gles.
By following some of the linkage rules proposed by Kenworthy it was also noticeable that when a
word is ending in a consonant and followed by a vowel, transitions are easily done. Some times
when a word is ending in vowel sound and is followed by a word beginning in vowel sound uses a
transition sound [w]. In in the most notorious case, British speakers who do not pronounce final /r/
will only reintroduce it when the next word begins with a vowel.

Universidad de Guadalajara
Diana Gutirrez Luque

As a conclusion, speaker use all their previous knowledge when facing a new word, and try to make
it fit in some of the rules they already know. However, some of those rules, especially in English, are
difficult due to the variety of sounds standing for the same phoneme or combination of phonemes.
Even more, knowing the pronunciation of certain word also depends of the variation of English you
speak. As an example, British and American English have different ways of pronouncing phonemes
and even allophones. Likewise, the sounds of consonants could be said to be unpredictable and
varied.

References
Dale, P. and Poms, L. (1995) English Phonetics for Spanish Speakers. Prentice Hall Inc.
Kenworthy, J. ( 1987) Teaching English Pronunciation. UK: Longman.
Prator, C. and Wallace, B. Manual of American English Pronunciation.