Tài liệu Giáo trình ngữ âm âm vị tiếng anh

LỜI NÓI ĐẦU Giáo trình ngữ âm - âm vị tiếng Anh giới thiệu cho sinh viên chuyên ngữ sư phạm và cử nhân tiếng Anh những vấn ñề cơ bản lý thuyết về ngữ âm học và âm vị học thuộc lĩnh vực ngôn ngữ học nói chung và lĩnh vực ngôn ngữ cụ thể - tiếng Anh nói riêng. Giáo trình trình bày khái quát kiến thức về quá trình sản sinh lời nói, quá trình cấu âm của lời nói, hoạt ñộng của dây thanh, luồng hơi từ trong lồng ngực, âm vị, biến thể âm vị, ñồng hóa, dị hóa, trọng âm và ngữ ñiệu tiếng Anh. Trong thời lượng 2 tín chỉ, giáo trình ñược biên soạn cô ñọng, xúc tích dễ tiếp thu. Phần bài tập cho sinh viên tập nhằm làm rõ và củng cố phần lý thuyết. Giáo trình ñược kết cấu như sau: Phần I trình bày khái quát về dẫn luận ngôn ngữ học, giới thiệu ngôn ngữ và lời nói, ngôn ngữ và chữ viết, vị trí của ngữ âm - âm vị học trong lĩnh vực ngôn ngữ học. Phần II giới thiệu quá trình sản sinh lời nói, quá trình cấu âm, hoạt ñộng dây thanh và hoạt ñộng của luồng hơi từ trong lồng ngực ñi ra khoang miệng hoặc khoang mũi. Phần III là một trong những nội dung trọng tâm của giáo trình giới thiệu về ngữ âm học, nguyên âm, phụ âm và các tiêu chí phân loại chúng. Phần này cung cấp kiến thức về hoạt ñộng của cơ quan cấu âm, vị trí phát âm, phương thức cấu âm, vị trí của lưỡi, ñộ nâng của lưỡi, hình dáng của môi và ñộ dài ngắn của nguyên âm. Phần IV giới thiệu về âm vị học, âm vị âm ñoạn tính và âm vị siêu ñoạn tính. Trong phần âm vị âm ñoạn tính, giáo trình giới thiệu âm vị, biến thể âm vị, biến thể tự do, một số quy luật về ñồng hóa, hiện tượng dị hóa, âm tiết hóa, âm nối... Trong phần siêu ñoạn tính, giáo trình tập trung trình bày các mục về âm tiết có trọng âm, âm tiết không trọng âm, trọng âm từ, vị trí trọng âm từ, chức năng của trọng âm, các phương thức nghiên cứu trọng âm từ góc ñộ người phát ngôn và người nghe; Ngữ ñiệu tiếng Anh là phần không thể thiếu trong môn ngữ âm âm vị học. Phần này giới thiệu về giọng ñiệu, ngôn ñiệu và ngữ ñiệu, ý nghĩa và các hình thức biểu thị của ngữ ñiệu cũng như các chức năng của chúng. Giáo trình không thể quán xuyến tất cả các hiện tượng ngữ âm âm vị tiếng Anh vì nhiều lý do. Những hạn chế này là nhược ñiểm của giáo trình. Chúng tôi rất mong nhận ñược ý kiến ñóng góp của các ñồng nghiệp ñể giáo trình ñược tốt hơn. 1 Introduction It is believed when we are speaking a foreign language there are times when the other person does not understand us, or we do not understand the other person. This case is called a communication breakdown. Sometimes communication breakdown is due to a grammar or vocabulary mistake and sometimes it is due to a pronunciation mistake. As we need to be able to analyze and correct our grammar and vocabulary mistakes we need to be able to analyze and correct our pronunciation mistakes. In pronunciation, it is not necessary to pronounce every sound perfectly to be understood – only a few parts of each sentence are really important, but these parts are essential. The native speaker depends on hearing these parts clearly; therefore we need to know which parts of a sentence must be clear and how to make them clear. As the sound systems of English and Vietnamese differ greatly, Vietnamese speakers can have quite severe pronunciation problems. Vietnamese is a tone language; that is, pitch changes distinguish word meaning. Most words in Vietnamese consist of only one syllable; there are fewer consonants than in English and there are no consonant clusters. On the other hand, the Vietnamese vowel system makes a large number of distinctions. Vietnamese uses a modified Roman alphabet but many of the letters have quite different sound values from those of English. This course cannot be learned in a few days. If we tried to cover all of these topics quickly, the result would be little more than a dry terminological list with brief definitions, accompanied by a few diagrams and an abstract discussion of the associated theories. It would not be especially useful for us to require you to memorize these terms with learning anything much about the underlying realities. Instead of giving a tour of the whole of English phonetics and phonology, this portion has two more limited goals. The first goal is to put language sound structure in context. Why do human languages have a sound structure about which we need to say anything more than that vocal communication is based on noises made with the eating and breathing apparatus? What are the apparent "design requirements" for this system, and how are they fulfilled? The second goal is to give you a concrete sense of what the language sound systems are like. In order to do this, we will go over, in a certain amount of detail, a few aspects of the phonetics and phonology of English, and also a bit about the contrastive phonetics and phonology of the Vietnamese language, a language spoken in our country, Vietnam. Along the way, a certain amount of the terminology and theory of phonetics and phonology will emerge. The first part of the course presents briefly introduction to language, to explaine speech and language, sounds and speech, writing, language and grammar, and phonetics and linguistics. Unit II deals with the production of speech sounds through the speech chain, the speech mechanism, the vocal cords and the airstream. In Unit III, the English sounds are mainly presented. Unit IV is concerned with English phonology. Segmental phonology and suprasegmental phonology are emerged in this last part, and they cover the main subject matters of the course such as phonemes, allophones, minimal pair, minimal set, free variation, transcription as well as sounds in connected speech. Unit IV ends with matters dealing with weak forms, the English stress and intonation. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS LỜI NÓI ĐẦU........................................................................................................................................ 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................................................. 3 CHAPTER I A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE ............................. 5 1.1 LANGUAGE AND SPEECH ........................................................................................................... 5 1. 2 SOUNDS AND SPEECH................................................................................................................. 5 1.3 WRITING.......................................................................................................................................... 5 1.4 LANGUAGE ...................................................................................................................................... 6 1.5 GRAMMAR........................................................................................................................................ 7 1.6 THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SPEECH AND LANGUAGE .................................................. 8 1.7 PHONETICS AND LINGUISTICS ............................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER II ENGLISH PHONETICS .......................................................................... 14 2.1 THE STUDY OF HOW ORGANS OF SPEECH WORK IN PRODUCING SPEECH SOUNDS14 2.2 PHONETIC ASPECTS.................................................................................................................. 15 2.3 THE PRODUCTION OF SPEECH SOUNDS.............................................................................. 18 2.4 THE SPEECH CHAIN................................................................................................................... 20 2.5 THE SPEECH MECHANISM (ARTICULATORS) ..................................................................... 21 2.6 THE VOCAL CORDS ..................................................................................................................... 22 2.7 THE AIR STREAM .......................................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER III THE ENGLISH SOUNDS ....................................................................... 27 3.1 THE ENGLISH VOWELS ............................................................................................................. 27 3.2 THE ENGLISH CONSONANTS ................................................................................................... 30 CHAPTER IV ENGLISH PHONOLOGY ....................................................................... 37 4.1 SEGMENTAL PHONOLOGY ........................................................................................................ 37 4.1.1 Minimal Pairs .................................................................................................................... 38 4.1.2 Minimal set.......................................................................................................................... 38 4.1.3 Phonemes – contrastive phonemes ........................................................................... 39 4.1.4 Allophones – non-contrastive phonemes ................................................................ 39 4.1.5 Free Variation ................................................................................................................... 40 4.1.6 The Transcription ............................................................................................................. 40 4.1.7 The Description ................................................................................................................. 41 4.2 SOUNDS IN CONNECTED SPEECH (GENERAL PHONOLOGICAL RULES) ................ 42 4.2.1 Assimilation ........................................................................................................................ 48 4.2.2 Types of assimilation:..................................................................................................... 48 4.2.3 Basic Rules of Assimilation ........................................................................................ 49 4.2.4 Degrees of Assimilation................................................................................................. 50 4.2.5 The Elision........................................................................................................................... 50 4.2.6 Liaison (sound linking) .................................................................................................. 52 4.3 SUPRA-SEGMENTAL PHONOLOGY ....................................................................................... 54 4.3.1Weak forms ........................................................................................................................... 55 4.3.2 Vowel reduction in English .......................................................................................... 55 3 4.3.3 Alternation ........................................................................................................................... 58 4.3.4 The English Stress ............................................................................................................ 58 4.3.5 Stress is as an intonation unit ..................................................................................... 59 4.3.6 Word stress ........................................................................................................................ 60 4.3.7 Types of word stress ........................................................................................................ 61 4.3.8 Function of word stress ................................................................................................. 62 4.3.9 Stress in phrasal verbs ................................................................................................... 63 4.3.10 Secondary stress ............................................................................................................. 64 4.3.11 Degrees of stress in English ...................................................................................... 64 4.3.12Tonic Stress........................................................................................................................ 66 4.3.13 Emphatic Stress .............................................................................................................. 67 4.3.14 Contrastive Stress .......................................................................................................... 67 4.3.15 New Information Stress ............................................................................................... 68 4.4 RHYTHM IN ENGLISH ................................................................................................................. 68 4.5 THE ENGLISH INTONATION ..................................................................................................... 70 4.5.1 Intonation Units ............................................................................................................... 71 4.5.2 Tone ........................................................................................................................................ 72 4.5.3 Functions of Intonation ................................................................................................ 77 4.5.4 Attitudinal function......................................................................................................... 77 4.5.5 Grammatical function..................................................................................................... 77 4.5.6 Accentual function .......................................................................................................... 78 4.5.7 Interactive function approaches (discourse function)..................................... 78 APPENDIXES...................................................................................................................................... 81 APPENDIX 1. ASSIMILATION ...................................................................................................... 81 APPENDIX 2 GLOSSARY TO PRONUNCIATION TERMS AND TERMINOLOGY ................ 87 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................... 91 4 CHAPTER I A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE 1.1 Language and Speech The purpose of speaking is to convey meaningful ideas to the listener. In order to do this, the listener should be able to interpret the meaning of the spoken sounds. One way of doing this is by providing a coding mechanism with set of rules enabling the listener to interpret the meaning of the speech. The human being uses linguistics as the tool for coding the information. The coding mechanism is not straightforward. The new ideas are converted into linguist structure. This requires selection of appropriate words, phrases. These words are ordered in sequence according to grammatical rules. 1. 2 Sounds and speech From the linguistic point of view the smallest speech unit is known as phonemes, which indicates a different in meaning and is normally written between slashes as for example /m/ in hum. In fact the sounds produced for individual phonemes vary depending on where it appears in a word, phonemes sets are different for different languages, as for example about 44 phonemes are sufficient to discriminate between all the sounds made in British English. Phonemes are characterized into six different groups. These are the vowels, diphthongs, semi vowels, stop, fricative and affricative consonants. The grouping of these phonemes is based on the way these sounds are produced. Each phoneme is a combined version of the first three dominant formant frequency which is originated due to the vibration of the vocal cord. However the formant frequency largely varies depending on the speaker. One of the chief characteristics of the human being is his ability to communicate to his fellows complicated messages concerning every aspect of his activity. A man possessing the normal human faculties achieves this exchange of information mainly by means of two types of sensory stimulation, auditory and visual. The child will learn from a very early age to respond to the sounds and tunes which his elders habitually use in talking to him; and a need to communicate, he will himself begin to imitate the recurrent sound patterns with which he has become familiar. In other words, he begins to make use of speech; and his constant exposure to spoken form of his own language, together with his need to convey increasingly subtle types of information, leads to a rapid acquisition of the framework of his spoken language. Nevertheless, with all the conditions in his favor, a number of years will pass before he has mastered not only the sound system used in his community but also has at his disposal a vocabulary of any extent or is entirely familiar with the syntactical arrangements in force in his language system. It may be said that, as we grow older, the acquisition of a new language will normally entail a great deal of conscious, analytic effort, instead of the child’s ready and facile imitation. 1.3 Writing Later in life the child will be taught the conventional visual representation of speech, he will learn to use writing. Today, in considering those languages which 5 have long possessed a written form, we are apt to forget that the written form is originally an attempt at reflecting the spoken language and that the latter precedes the former for both the individual and the community. Indeed, in many languages, so parallel are the two forms felt to be that the written form may be responsible for changes in pronunciation or may tend to impose restraints upon its development. In the case of English, this sense of parallelism may be encouraged by the obvious lack of consistent relationship between sound and spelling. A written form of English, based on the Latin alphabet, has existed for more than 1,000 years and, though the pronunciation of English has been constantly changing during this time, few basic changes of spelling have been made since the fifteenth century. The result is that written English is often inadequate and misleading representation of the spoken language of today. Clearly it would be unwise, to say the least, to base our judgments concerning the spoken language on prejudices derived from the orthography. Moreover, if we are to examine the essence of the English language, we must make our approach through the spoken rather than the written form. Our primary concern will be the production, transmission, and reception of the sounds of English, in other words, the Phonetics of English. 1.4 Language It is clear that the analysis of the spoken form of English is by no means simple. Each of us uses an infinite number of different speech sounds when speaking English. Indeed, it is true to say that it is difficult to produce two sounds which are precisely identical from the point of view of instrumental measurement: two utterances by the same person of the word “cat” may well show quite marked differences when measured instrumentally. Yet we are likely to say that the same sound sequence has been repeated. In fact we may hear clear and considerable differences of quality in the vowel of “cat” as in the London and Manchester pronunciation of the word; yet, though we recognize differences of vowel quality, we are likely to feel that we are dealing with a variant of the same vowel. It seems that we are concerned with two kinds of reality: the concrete, measurable reality of the sounds uttered, and another kind of reality, an abstraction made in our minds, which appears to reduce this infinite number of different sounds to a manageable number of categories. In the first concrete, we are dealing with sounds in relation to speech; at the second, abstract, our concern is the behavior of sounds in a particular language. A language is a system of conventional signals used for communication by a whole community. This pattern of conventions covers a system of significant sound units (the phonemes), the inflexion and arrangement of ‘words’, and the association of meaning with words. An utterance, an act of speech, is a single concrete manifestation of the system at work. As we have seen, several utterances which are plainly different on the concrete, phonetic level may fulfill the same function on the systematic language level. It is important in any analysis of spoken language to keep distinction in mind and we shall later be considering in some detail how this dual approach to utterance is to be made. It is not, however, always possible or desirable to keep the two level of analysis entirely separate: will draw upon our knowledge of the linguistically significant units to help us in determining how speech continuum 6 shall be divided up on the concrete, phonetic level; and our classification of linguistic units will be helped by our knowledge of their phonetic features. It is obvious that language is the system of human communication by means of a structured arrangement of sounds (or their written representation) to form larger units, e.g. Morphemes, words, sentences. In common usage it can also refer to nonhuman systems of communication such as the language of bees, the language of dolphin. The possession of language distinguishes humans from other animals. Today, linguists agree that the knowledge of a language is that of something quite abstract: it is a knowledge of rules and ways of saying and doing things with sounds, words, and sentences without any guiding principles for their use. It is knowing what is in the language and what is not; it is knowing the possibilities the language offers and what is impossible. This knowledge explains how it is we can understand sentences we have not heard before and reject others as ungrammatical: in the sense of without being possible in the language. Communication among people is possible because such a knowledge is shared or even how it is acquired, - is not well understood. The knowledge of a language is an internalized system of many things. Probably without being aware of it, we know the sounds that are part of our language as well as those are not. Knowledge of the sound patterns also includes knowing which sounds may start a word, end a word, and follow each other. This, nevertheless, constitutes only one part of our linguistic knowledge. Another important part is knowing that certain sounds and sound sequences signify or represent different concepts or “meaning”. Note not all strings of words make sense in a language. Our linguistic knowledge enable us to form larger and larger sentences by joining words into phrases, phrases into clauses, clauses into sentences, and sentences into discourses. There is a difference between having the necessary knowledge to produce sentences in a language and the way we use this knowledge in linguistic performance or behavior. In fact, our linguistic knowledge works on two levels: What we know linguistic competence and how we use this knowledge in actual behavior- linguistic performance. 1.5 Grammar A language consists of all the sounds, words, and possible sentences. When we know a language, we know the sounds, the words, and the rules for their combination. The elements and rules constitute the grammar of a language. Grammar represents our linguistic competence. According to Victoria Fromkin (1984), the grammar includes the sound system, called phonology, the system of meaning, called semantics, the rules of words formation, called morphology; and rules of sentence combination, called syntax. It also includes the rules of act of communication, called discourse. Every human who speaks a language knows the grammar of that language. Chomsky maintains that a native speaker has somewhere in his/ her brain a set of grammar rules which s/he uses to make sentences with. This by no means that s/he can tell us what the rules are, or rather how that language works, grammatically. Of course there may be some differences between the knowledge that one speaker has 7 and of another, there must be shared knowledge because it enables speakers to talk to and to understand one another. There are two types of grammar. A description of the grammar is called Descriptive Grammar- it describes how a language is actually spoken and or written; it explains how it is possible for us to speak and understand speech; it does not state what is right or what is wrong; neither does it evaluate what is better nor prescribes how the language ought to be spoken or written, but it describes what is happening in the language. Prescriptive Grammar prescribes rules for what is considered the best or the most correct usage. It is based on the grammarians’ view of what is best. Prescriptive grammar does not help speakers learn their language, but rather, it is an aid in foreign language teaching, or keeps a language in a country in uniform. When talking all the aspects of grammar into consideration, linguists have identified some properties that all natural language share: systematic, arbitrary, and conventional; without these characteristics, communication among humans would hardly be possible. 1.6 The differences between speech and language When observing a group of people engaged in a conversation you witness several kinds of communication. There is first of all the voice, with all its complexity and richness of intonation and other modulation. There is also a tapestry of gestures, including hand waving of various sorts, body stance, gaze, and other facial movements. These combine to communicate intention. The ordinary vehicle of linguistic communication is the voice, and speech is a primary mode of human language. This is so hardly surprising for speech has several advantages over other vehicles of human communication. It is extremely valuable to have a vehicle with other life-sustaining activities. Because speech does not need to be seen, it can do its work as effectively in darkness as in light, around corners, and in other visually inaccessible spots. Although in its natural state it cannot span time, its physical reach is far greater than arm’s length. Unlike singing, speech leaves eyes and the hands free for other work. We can talk and listen while looking at things besides our interlocutors. In the development of speech in the human species, when hands and eyes were occupied in hunting, fishing, food gathering, and other manual activities of work and play, speech was free to carry out other tasks: to report, point, ask for and give direction, explain, promise, bargain, warn. Speech has still other advantages. For one thing, the human voice is a complex vehicle with many channels. It has variable volume, pitch, stress, and speed: it is capable of wide-ranging modulation. Speech is not a single channel mode. It has intonation and stress, as well as the more familiar grammatical levels. Besides a set of sounds, speech takes advantages of the organization of those sounds – of their sequencing into words and sentences. Like wring and singing, speech can take advantage of word choice and word order. Intonation, stress and volume are more fully privileges of the spoken mode than of the written or signed modes. Speech and writing are the two primary modes of linguistic communication, each with advantages and limitations. For example, speech is the only modes of linguistic communication possible when visibility is hindered. It is also the only 8 mode in which the communication’s hands and eyes are left free to do other things. Speech has limitations too. Speech has an evanescent character and vanishes upon being uttered unless it was tape-recorded or filmed. Writing, on the other hand, has evolved to meet other needs. It can be preserved for thousands of years. Writing has another advantage over speech in that it can transcend space. One can send a written massage anywhere on earth. With technology, of course, this advantage of writing over speech is decreasing. 1.6.1 Speech as Rule-Governed Language Use There is much more to the ability to speak than grammatical competence. Being as the elements of a language, speech is used to put together into well-formed, or grammatical, sentences. Speech falls far short of knowing how to accomplish the work that speakers accomplish with language, and falls short of native speaker fluency. To be fluent in a language requires not only mastery of its grammatical rules but also competence in the appropriate use of the sentences that are structured by those rules. Fluency requires knowledge of how to put sentences together in conversation, for example, and how to rely on nonlinguistic context and previous linguistic context in shaping utterances appropriately, and in interpreting them. The point is that fluency presumes two kinds of competence: knowledge of how to form sentences and knowledge of what those sentences are capable of doing and of when and how to use them appropriately (as well as how to interpret them in context). The capacity that enables us to use language appropriately is called communicative competence. It enables language users to weave utterances together into conversation, apologies, requests, directions, descriptions, Knowing a language presumes both communicative competence and grammatical competence. To be fluent, grammatical competence and communicative competence are jointly needed. We can summarize by saying that grammatical competence is the language user’s implicit knowledge of vocabulary, pronunciation, sentence structures and meaning, while communicative competence is the implicit knowledge that underlies the appropriate use of grammatical competence in the various situations of language use. The rules that govern the appropriate use of language differ from one speech community to the next, so even a shared grammatical competence may not be adequate to make you a fluent speaker in another community, at least in some situations. 1.6.2 Language as Rule-Governed Systems Precisely because the relationship between linguistic symbols and the things they represent is arbitrary, languages must be highly organized systems if they are to function as reliable vehicles of expressions and communication. If there were no pattern to the way we voiced our thoughts and feelings, listeners would face an insuperable task in determining what we meant. If language were not highly organized and patterned systems, listeners would find it impossible to unravel their arbitrary symbols for the content they encode. 9 It is not surprising then that languages have evolved over centuries into such extraordinary complex systems. Language is rule governed. It follows observable patterns that obey certain inherent rules. Such rules are not imposed from the outside, and they do not specify how something should be done. Instead, they are merely the regularities that we can observe being followed when people use language. In other words, the linguistic rules described are based on nothing more than the observed regularities of language behavior and of the underlying systems. A language is a set of elements and a system of rules for combining those elements to form patterned sentences that can be used to do specific jobs in specific contexts. Utterances report something, greet someone, invite a friend to lunch, request the time of day, express admiration, propose marriage, create fictional worlds, and so on in an endless list. And languages do this using a finite system of elements and rules that a child normally masters in a few short years. The mental capacity that enables speakers to form grammatical sentences is called grammatical competence. In our course we focus on language as it is represented in spoken and written communication. It is important to keep in mind that historically and developmentally, writing is a secondary mode of linguistic communication. This can be a challenge to you as students, whose principal focus and principal context for discussing language has been written language. Since speech and writing are the two modes of linguistic communication, language is a system of grammatical rules that structured the organization of expression. Equally important is the role of language as a tool that we use to accomplish tasks with one another. Structure and use go hand in hand and correspond to the dual function of language as an integral component of our mental functions and as a tool in the regulation of social interactions. Human language is a system primarily of arbitrary symbols, although certain symbols are representational. Communication that involves language can take place in any of two modes speech and writing. To describe what language is, G.H. Lewes compares as follows “Just as birds have wings, man has language. The wings give the birds its peculiar aptitude for aerial locomotion. Language enables man’s intelligence and passions to acquire their peculiar characters of intellect and sentiment.” Walt Whitman argues that “Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary-makers, but is something arising out of the work , needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.” H.G Widdowson points out language functions as follows “Language serves as a means of cognition and communication; it enables us to think for ourselves and to cooperate with other people in our community. It provides for present needs and future plans, and at the same time carries with it the impression of things past”. 1.7 Phonetics and Linguistics This course is primarily concerned with the sound system of English and it is proper that phonetic and phonemic analysis should occupy an important place in the study of any language. It should be remembered that phonetic analysis constitutes but one step in a linguistic investigation. A complete description of the current state of a 10 language must provide information on several interrelated levels:(1) Phonology,- The concrete phonetic characteristics of the sounds used in the language; the functional, phonemic behavior of these sounds for distinctive purposes; the combinatory possibilities (syllabic structure) of the phonemes; the nature and use of such prosodic features as pitch, stress and length. A study of the phonic substance of the language may be accompanied by a description of the written form of the language. (2) Lexis - The total number of word forms which exist. (3) Grammar - The system of rules governing the structures of phrases, clauses and sentences consisting of words contained in the lexicon (4) Semantics - The relation of meaning to the signs and symbols of language. (5) Other aspects of language which would require investigation include the variation of the same language in different regions and social classes (dialectology); the influence of context and style upon the form and substance of the language; the behavior of human beings in their production and perception of the language (psycholinguistics); the interaction of the language and the society in which it is spoken (socio-linguistics). Finally, it is clear that the phonology, lexis, grammar and semantics of a language are always undergoing change in time. The state of a language at any moment must be seen against a background of its historical evolution. This course provides the basic sound system of English in a limited phonetical and phonological subject but required one at professional levels. The purpose of this course is to explain how English is pronounced in the accent normally chosen as the standard for people learning the English spoken in England. This course is aimed to present the pronunciation in the context of a general theory about speech sounds and how they are (speech sounds) used in language. It is necessary to learn this theoretical background, because at lower levels of study one is concerned simply with setting out how to form grammatical sentences, but people who are going to work with the language at an advanced level as teachers or researchers need the deeper understanding provided by the study of grammatical theory and related areas of linguistics. This theoretical course is for anyone who needs to understand the principles regulating the use of sounds in spoken English, and it is called English Phonetics and Phonology. The nature of phonetics and phonology is the study of used sounds (vowels and consonants) that we call phonemes. Because of the confusing nature of English spelling, it is particular important to learn English pronunciation in terms of phonemes rather than letters of the alphabet. This course is concerned with identifying and describing the phonemes of English, with the practical business of how some English sounds are pronounced and with large units of speech such as the syllable and aspects of speech such as stress and intonation. This course deals almost with R.P (Received Pronunciation). The reason is simply that R.P. is the accent that has always been chosen by British teachers to teach to foreign learners, and is the accent that has been most fully described and has been used as the basis for pronouncing dictionaries. If your accent is different from R.P. you should try to note what your main differences are for purposes of comparison and you shouldn’t try to change your pronunciation to R.P. and you will find it an interesting job to listen, to see if you can identify the ways in which they differ from R.P or even to learn to 11 pronounce some examples of different accents yourself. As a teacher of English you already know that English spelling is obviously different from its pronunciation. So the purpose of the study English phonetics and phonology is very simple: to help your learners to pronounce English better than they do now, because there are many problems facing the English language learners when they communicate orally. Among these difficulties the problem of pronunciation is considered as the most serious problem for students who learn English as a foreign language, especially in the Vietnamese environment. Many foreign students want to learn English as well as they can; for some their purpose is for a matter of reading and writing, and they will find no help here. But many students want to be able to speak English well, with a pronunciation that can be easily understood by English people and speaking English people. Written English and spoken English are very different things. Writing consists of marks on paper that makes no noise and are taken in by the eyes, whilst speaking is organized sound, taken by the ear. How can a book, which is nothing but marks on paper, help anyone to make their English sound better? The answer to this is that it can’t, not by itself. But if you will co-operate, and listen to English as much as you can, then you will find that your afford will make your ears shaper for the sound of English and when you can hear English properly you can go on and improve your performance. Language starts with the ear. When a baby starts to talk, he does it by hearing the sounds his mother makes and imitating them. If a baby is born deaf he cannot hear these sounds and therefore cannot imitate them will not speak. But normal babies can hear and can imitate; they are wonderful imitators, and this gift of imitation, which gives us the gift of speech, lasts for a number of years. It is well known that a child of ten years old or less can learn any language perfectly, if it is brought up surrounded by that language, no matter where it was born or who its parents were. But after this age the ability to imitate perfectly becomes less, and we all know too well that adults have great difficulty in mastering the pronunciation of foreign languages. Some people are more talented than others; they find pronouncing other languages less difficult, but they never find them easy. Why is this? Why should this gift that we all have as children disappear in later life? Why can’t grown-up people pick up the characteristic sound of a foreign language as a child can? The answer to this is that our native language won’t let us, because of the mother tongue interference. By the time we are grown up the habits of our own language are so strong that they are very difficult to break. In our own language we have a fairly small number of sound units which we put together in many different combinations to form the words and sentences we use every day. And as we get older we are dominated by this small number of units. It is as if we had in our heads a certain fixed number of boxes for sounds; when we listen to our own language we hear the sounds and we put each into the right box, and when we speak we go to the boxes and take out the sounds we want. And as we do this over the years the boxes get stronger and stronger until everything we hear, whether it is our own language or another, has to be put into one of these boxes, and everything we say comes out of one of them. But every language has a different number of boxes, and the boxes are arranged differently. The main problem of English pronunciation is to build a new set of boxes corresponding to the sounds of English, and to break down the arrangement of boxes which the habits of our native language have so strongly built up. We do this by 12 establishing new ways of hearing, new ways of using our speech organs, new speech habits. This may sound easy, but it isn’t. Unfortunately, it is never easy to establish good habits, it is always the bad ones which come most naturally, and you will need to do a great deal of hard work if you want to build yourself a set of English boxes which are nearly as firm as those of your own language. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Share your understanding of rule-governed system and rule-governed language use between language and speech among your classmate group. 2. State the differences between sounds and speech. 3. Indicate theoretically the position of phonetics in language studies in general. 13 CHAPTER II ENGLISH PHONETICS 2.1 The study of how organs of speech work in producing speech sounds Phonetics is concerned with speech and investigates the processes which underlie human communication from speech production to utterance comprehension. Speech is an extremely complex phenomenon, and its study requires theoretical and experimental research, often together with fields bordering phonetics. The research areas of the English Phonetics fall partly in the domain of basic research and partly in that of applied research. One main topic is the acoustic phonetic and perceptual analysis of spontaneous speech. We seek answers to the questions of how the pronunciation of speech sounds is modified in continuous speech, what effect neighboring sounds have on each other, what influences the speed of speech, or the features of melody or stress. The analyses, which begin theoretically and continue through the processing of the experimental data, target the dependencies between articulation, acoustic structure and perception. Phonetic research has undergone major development in the last three decades, primarily due to advances in its technical and technological prerequisites. The aim of speech research, which used to be mostly descriptive, has now become to discover all processes involved in speech, based on the achievements of the pioneers of experimental phonetics. In laying the foundations of modern phonetics, a detailed presentation of the mechanisms involved in the production of speech sounds, with the help of figures showing the movement of the lips or the way the tongue touches the palate, or with X-ray pictures taken at the time of the production of speech sounds, played an important role. The analysis of the acoustic effects of pronunciation led to more and more detailed accounts of the physical properties of speech. Research concentrating on the recognition of speech sounds also got major impetus in this period. Present research primarily aims to analyze spontaneous speech from the point of view of pronunciation, acoustic properties, and speech perception. The research topics are investigated at the department of phonetics: the study of the role of the vocal cords in the production of speech; the analysis of speech sounds and of the effect they have on each other; the description of the variability of vowels, of consonant complexes, of the inner temporal structure, and of the properties of voicing assimilation; the development of a model predicting the length of speech sounds; and the description of the dependencies between speech melody and sentence type. The results of applied research are the systems transforming written text into speech that have been developed. It has become possible to determine the identity of a person to a high degree of efficiency by means of the phonetic analysis of his/her speech. The development of speech perception diagnostics is capable of analyzing the speech perception and comprehension abilities of children between 3 and 13 counts as a significant achievement. It is used by several thousand experts in the country to determine a child’s readiness for school or for children struggling with a speech defect or learning difficulties. The study of speech sounds, which are utilized by all human languages to represent meanings, is called phonetics, which is concerned with describing the speech sounds occurring in a language of the world. So the first job of phonetician is 14 trying to find out what people are doing while they are talking as well as listening through speech. As the study of the components of English dealing with sounds, Phonetics and Phonology provide the basis for an objective understanding of the spoken language. They’re also useful for describing other aspects of the language, particularly word structure, grammar, semantics and pragmatics. They can help us to understand the differences between spoken and written forms of the language. Finally, they provide us with a tool for describing the differences among varieties of the language. Phonetics is the attempt to record and describe the sounds of language objectively. It provides a valuable way of opening our eyes - and ears to the many nuances of language that we take for granted, while Phonology concerns itself with the ways in which a given language shapes sounds into distinctive categories of perception. Through phonology, we can begin to see the way in which language is rule-governed. In reality, many sounds occurring in speech are not easily found in language this leads to fail to contribute to adequate analyses. Movements of the articulators give the basic for physiological description, but this data has been modified by the acoustic feature of the sounds and by the function which they perform in speech systems. Briefly, phonetic classifications are based on a limited number of sounds; different kinds of sound data have contributed to the analysis and classification of sounds. Learning about the sound structure of language requires covering a lot of ground. Some of the key topics are the anatomy, physiology, and acoustics of the human vocal tract; the nomenclature for the vocal articulations and sounds used in speech, as represented by the International Phonetic Alphabet; hypotheses about the nature of phonological features and their organization into segments, syllables and words; the way that features like tone align and spread relative to consonants and vowels; the often-extreme changes in sound of morphemes in different contexts; the way that knowledge of language sound structure unfolds as children learn to speak; the variation in sound structure across dialects and across time. 2.2 Phonetic Aspects Producing speech involves the lungs, the larynx, the oral cavity and sometimes the nasal cavity. The sounds are produced by modulating the airflow from the lungs as it makes its way to the outside world. The air stream can be stopped or impeded before getting out the mouth. Each of these modulations will produce a distinct speech sound. In the oral cavity, the tongue, because of its remarkable flexibility, is the major modifier. The vocal tract consists of a sound source (vocal cords) and two resonating chambers (the oral and nasal cavities). On the basis of how they are produced, we distinguish between consonants and vowels and deal with each class of sounds separately. 2.2.1 Articulatory Phonetics The vocal tract can be considered a single tube extending from the vocal folds to the lips, with a side branch leading to the nasal cavity. The length of the vocal tract 15 is typically about 17 centimeters, though this can be varied slightly by lowering or raising the larynx and by shaping the lips. The pharynx connects the larynx (as well as the esophagus) with the oral cavity. The oral cavity is the most important component of the vocal tract because its size and shape can be varied by adjusting the relative positions of the palate, the tongue, the lips, and the teeth. - Speech Articulation The smallest units of speech sounds are called phonemes. One or more phonemes combine to form a syllable, and one or more syllables to form a word. Phonemes can be divided into two groups: vowels and consonants. Vowels are always voiced. There are approximately 12 different vowel sounds used in the English language. Discrepancies usually are due to disagreement over what constitutes a pure vowel sound rather than a diphthong (a combination of two or more vowels into one phoneme). Consonants involve rapid and sometimes subtle changes in sound. Consonants may be classified according to their manner of articulation as plosive (p, b, t, etc.), fricative (f, s, sh, etc.), nasal (m, n, ng), liquid (r, l), and semivowel (w, y). Consonants are more independent of language than vowels are. - Vocal Tract Resonances: Formants Phonemes are distinguished from one another by the resonances of the vocal tract. The peaks that occur in the sound spectra of the vowels, independent of pitch, are called formants. Just three formants are typically distinguished. - Vocal Tract Models Though the exact shape of the vocal tract is quite complex, many of its most prominent features can be recreated with simple models. The resonances of a closedopen cylinder of 17 centimeters occur around 500, 1500, and 2500 Hz, which are close to the formant frequencies of the vowel sound. Models composed of two cavities with a connecting constriction can approximate the formants associated with several consonant sounds. - Prosodic Features of Speech Prosodic features are characteristics of speech that convey meaning, emphasis, and emotion without actually changing the phonemes. Pitch, rhythm, and accent. - Physics Review To fully understand the various acoustical aspects of sound production, it is generally necessary to use powerful mathematical methods such as calculus. However, it is possible to understand a great deal about the physical aspects of sound production with just a few simple concepts. The study of how the vocal tract produces the sound of language. First of all, the air-stream provided by the lungs undergoes important modifications in the upper stages of the respiratory tract before it requires the quality of a speech sound. In the larynx with the action of the vocal cords the sounds can be voiced or voiceless. After the larynx the air-stream is subjected to further modifications as being released according to the position of the soft palate which results in nasal sounds if the nasal cavity is used or oral sounds if the nasal cavity is not used. We also have different speech sounds depending on the disposition of the speech organs in the mouth i.e. the 16 shape of the lips (rounded or unrounded) the part of the tongue which is raised (front, central or back) the place of articulation that we have different consonants. Three goals in articulatory phonetics introduce: • the ways in which the sounds of English are produced; • an alphabet which will allow us to refer to individual sounds; • and develop a system for classifying speech sounds on the basis of how they’re produced. - The oral and nasal cavities are a very important part in producing speech sounds. - The pharyngeal cavity is a part between oral and nasal areas which begins just above the larynx. - The soft palate (velum) is one of the articulators that allow air to pass through the nose or through the mouth. Sounds produced with the air that passes through the nose are called nasal; and if through the mouth are called oral. The soft palate can be touched by the tongue in making velar sounds. - The hard palate is the roof of the mouth. The hard palate is just behind the alveolar ridge. - The alveolar ridge is one of the articulators which are between the top front teeth (bony tooth ridge) and the hard palate. The alveolar ridge is in the anterior section of the mouth. Sounds produced by raising the front part of the tongue to the alveolar ridge are called alveolar sounds. - The tongue is an important articulator and it can be moved into different places and different shapes. - The teeth (upper and lower) are immediately behind the lips. The tongue is in contact with the upper teeth for many speech sounds. - The lips are one of the articulators in producing speech sounds. The lips can be pressed together in producing bilabial sounds; can be brought into contact with the teeth in producing labiodentals; can be rounded or spread to produce lip-shape vowel sounds. - The larynx is an independent articulator used in speech. - The Jaws are also called articulator. The jaws cannot themselves make contact with other articulators, and in speaking they move a lot. 2.2.2 Acoustic phonetics- the study of physical characteristic of the sound: + Sound quality: we hear a variety of vowels and consonants + Pitch: the pitch of a sound is that auditory property that enables a listener to place it on a scale going from low to high. We appreciate the melody or intonation of the utterance + Loudness and intensity: is proportional to the average size, amplitude, the size of the variation in air pressure that occurs. We will agree that some sounds or syllables sound louder than others. + Length: some sounds will be appreciably longer to our ears than other + sound waves: variations in the air pressures that occur very rapidly one after another when we are speaking + Frequency: is a technical term for an acoustic property of a sound. The number of complete repetitions (cycles) of variations in air pressure occurring in a second (hertz) 17 2.2.3 Auditory phonetics The study of the way listeners perceive the sounds of language. The ability of distinguishing different sounds are normally gained over a long period of time and conditioned by the experience of handling the language: the hearing mechanism plays an important part in monitoring the speech. Those who are born deaf or became deaf before the acquisition of speech habits are rarely able to learn normal speech. Similarly, a severe hearing loss later in life is likely to lead to a deterioration of speech. 2.3 The production of speech sounds From the technical, signal-oriented point of view, the production of speech is widely described as a two-level process. In the first stage the sound is initiated and in the second stage it is filtered on the second level. This distinction between phases has its origin in the source-filter model of speech production. (source from http://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/phonetic/EGG) The basic assumption of the model is that the source signal produced at the glottal level is linearly filtered through the vocal tract. The resulting sound is emitted to the surrounding air through radiation loading (lips). The model assumes that source and filter are independent of each other. Although recent findings show some interaction between the vocal tract and a glottal source. This theory of speech production is still used as a framework for the description of the human voice, especially as far as the articulation of vowels is concerned. From the linguistic phonetic point of view, the production of speech is regarded as a superposition of initiation, phonation, articulation and prosodic organization processes. An overview of the physiological constraints on speech production will be given later in this section. The organs involved in the production of speech are depicted in the Fig below: (source from http://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/phonetic/EGG) 18 In this section, we study the behavior of our vocal mechanism. Despite the fact that there are many aspects of this system that we do not completely understand (particularly around the vocal folds), our ability to conduct experiments with our own speech mechanism allows us to quickly verify much of its behavior. 1. Lungs serve as an air reservoir and energy source. 2. The Larynx and the Vocal Cords: - The larynx contains the vocal folds. - The vocal cords consist of folds of ligament extending from the thyroid cartilage in the front to the arytenoids cartilages at the back. - The space between the vocal folds, called the glottis, is controlled by the arytenoids cartilages. - For normal breathing, the arytenoids are spaced well apart. They come together when sound is produced. - The vocal cords may be closed, blocking the flow of air, and then opened suddenly to produce a glottal stop. - For unvoiced consonants, the folds may be completely open (such as when producing ``s'', ``sh'', and ``f'' sounds) or partially open (for ``h'' sounds). - Voiced sounds are created by vibrations of the vocal folds. - The rate of vibration of the vocal cords is determined primarily by their mass and tension, though air pressure and velocity can contribute in a smaller way. - Normal speech varies over an approximate range of one octave. Typical speech center frequencies are 110 Hz (men), 220 Hz (women), and 300 Hz (children). - During a ``normal'' mode of vibration, the vocal cords open and close completely during the cycle and generate puffs of air roughly triangular in shape when air flow is plotted against time. - A ``breathy'' voice quality is produced during an open phase mode of vibration, such that the folds never completely stop the air flow through them. - A minimum of air passes through the folds, in short puffs, when producing a ``creaky'' voice. - Feedback from the vocal tract has little influence on the vibrations of the vocal folds (in contrast to the lips and horn interaction of the brass musician). - For normal vocal effort, the waveform of the air flow is roughly triangular in shape over time. This produces a ``buzz'' sound which is rich in harmonics, falling off in amplitude. - Unvoiced consonants make extensive use of broadband noise, caused by turbulent air flow through a constriction in the vocal tract. When we speak we make sounds that are the result of muscles contracting. We use the muscles in the chest to produce all speech sounds with the flow of air from the chest to the mouth. In the larynx muscles produce many different modifications when the flow of air passes through the mouth into the atmosphere. Muscles can produce changes in the shape of the different parts of the vocal tract. To study how speech sounds are produced it is necessary to become familiar with phonetic aspects: articulatory, acoustic and auditory phonetics. 19 2.4 The Speech Chain When we are speaking, a number of activities involve one part of the speaker and another one of the listener. In the first place, the formulation of the concept will take place at a linguistic level, i.e. in the brain. The first stage may be said to be psychological. + Psychological stage -What happens to those activities? -How does the activity occur from speaker? -How does the activity transmit to listener? • Speaker: Language is as tool to do something. Before speaking you must have the idea. How can you form or get the idea?
. Idea
“you’re beautiful” Ex: By seeing By smelling
idea
“good smell” By hearing
idea
“good sound” By tasting
idea
“ sweet, sour, hot, bite, “ By touching
idea
“smooth, event, Speaker codes the idea in the brain and then forms the idea by five senses. Since we’ve got the idea in the brain, what happens next, what’s activity? The nervous system transmits the message to the so-called ‘organs of speech’ producing a particular pattern of sound. This stage may be said to be articulatory or physiology, stage 2. + Physiological stage Nervous system will carry the message from the brain to the mouth. The brain orders the mouth speaking. When the order comes to the mouth, the mouth is working then varying air pressures coming out with different levels (low/high), physical stage, and stage 3. + Physical stage: The movement of our organs of speech will create disturbances in the air, or whatever the medium may be through which we are talking; these varying air pressures may be investigated and they constitute the third stage in our chain, the physical or acoustic. • Listener: + Physiological stage: Since communication generally requires a listener as well as a speaker, these stages will be reversed at the listening end: the reception of the sound waves by the hearing apparatus, physiological. At this stage the nervous system carries the message to the brain. + Psychological stage: Psychological stage is the transmission of the information along the nervous system to the brain, where the linguistic interpretation of the message takes place (psychological). Phonetic analysis has often ignored the role of the listener. But any investigation of speech as communication must ultimately be concerned with both the production and perception ends. A number of phonetic features, e.g. stress, must be defined in different terms according to whether the emphasis is laid on the speaker’s 20