Phonetics

Teacher: Rubelimar Musett

 When a student of a foreign language, English in our
case, hears the spoken version of the language it is often difficult
for him to understand what is being said. Often he claims that the
vocabulary of the sentence is too difficult or unknown to him.
However, if the same sentence is written and placed before him
he can, many times, interpret it correctly. It is obvious that in
such a case the problem is not only lack of knowledge about the
structure or the vocabulary included in the sentence what is
causing the trouble but, instead, his inability to recognize the
sounds of English.

Teacher: Rubelimar Musett

 For example, when a Spanish-speaking student is learning
English and is confronted with a picture of a woman washing a
baby and another where a woman is watching a baby, he surely
understands the difference between the two situations. Again, if
he reads two sentences which report the actions represented in
the pictures he will surely understand their meanings. But if he
hears the English sentence The mother is watching the baby, lie is
often unable to decide which of the two actions is being described.
The problem here is his inability to differentiate between the final
sounds of the words wash and watch, sounds which we do not use
in our language to distinguish meaning.

Teacher: Rubelimar Musett

 The example given illustrates the fact that we must
teach the sound system of English in the same way we teach
its vocabulary and structures.

Teacher: Rubelimar Musett

 “Phonetics is the scientific study of speech. It has a
long history, going back certainly to well over two thousand
years ago. The central concerns in phonetics are the discovery
of how speech sounds are produced, how they are used in
spoken language, how we can record speech sounds with
written symbols and how we hear and recognize different
sounds” ROACH

Teacher: Rubelimar Musett

 Phonetics is the scientific study of speech
sounds. The Study of the way Humans make,
Transmit, and Receive Sounds.
It consists of three main sub-fields:
Articulatory phonetics how speech sounds are
produced (by the tongue, lips, vocal folds, etc.)
Acoustic phonetics how speech sounds are
transmitted from producer to perceiver
Auditory phonetics how listeners understand
which speech sounds are being produced

Teacher: Rubelimar Musett

 Phonetic transcriptions are usually written in the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), in which each English
sound has its own symbol.
For example, the IPA-based phonetic transcription of
the word HOME is /hoʊm/ ,and the transcription of COME is
/kʌm/. Note that in spelling, these words are similar. They
both end in OME. But their phonetic transcriptions are
different, because they are pronounced differently.

Teacher: Rubelimar Musett

 In 1888 the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
was invented in order to have a system in which there was a
one-to-one correspondence between each sound in language
and each phonetic symbol.

Teacher: Rubelimar Musett

 The speech apparatus is formed by a series of organs
and cavities that form the passage from the lungs to the lips
and nose. The principal function of these organs is not the
production of sounds but the role they play in other organic
functions such as respiration and digestion. However, as our
interest is centered in the role they play in the production
of speech, we shall study them from that point of view only.

Teacher: Rubelimar Musett

Teacher: Rubelimar Musett
Most speech sounds are produced by pushing air through the
vocal cords.
Glottis the opening between the vocal cords
Larynx ‘voice box’
Pharynx tubular part of the throat above the larynx
Oral cavity mouth
Nasal cavity nose and the passages connecting it to the
throat and sinuses

Teacher: Rubelimar Musett

THANK YOU!