English Phonetics Courses
INTRODUCTION TO PHONETICS
COMDIS 210:
Survey of Communication Disorders
Definition of phonetics (Shriberg & Kent, 1982)
• The study of the perception and production of speech sounds (phonemes).
• The study of how speech sounds are produced and what their acoustic properties are.
– Articulatory phonetics (concerned with how sounds are formed)
– Acoustic phonetics (concerned with the acoustic properties of sounds)
• Clinical phonetics involves the application of articulatory and acoustic phonetics to the study of speech sound (articulation and phonological) disorders.
Phonemes
• The smallest linguistic unit of sound that conveys meaning.
– One phoneme can change the entire meaning of a word. (e.g., bat, ham, cars, ran)
• “Speech sounds”
• Includes consonants, vowels and diphthongs
• Every language has a specific number of phonemes that are used.
• SAE uses about 40-44 phonemes
– 25 consonants
– 15 vowels & diphthongs
• Phonotactics: the rules defining permissible sequences of phonemes to form meaningful words.
– Each language has its own set of phonotactic rules.
The 3 major categories of phonemes
• Vowels
• Diphthongs
• Consonants
– Virgules (slashes) used to distinguish phonemes from letters.
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
• Universal symbol system for classifying phonemes.
• Each phoneme is represented by a single symbol from the IPA.
• The IPA is a phonetic alphabet that describes and classifies each speech sound on the basis of how and where it is produced in the speech mechanism.
Vowels
• A vowel is a speech sound that is formed without a significant constriction of the oral and/or pharyngeal cavities, and that serves as a syllable nucleus.
• The position of the tongue distinguishes among almost all of the vowels in our language.
The tongue
• Muscular organ with no internal skeleton.
COMDIS 210:
Survey of Communication Disorders
Definition of phonetics (Shriberg & Kent, 1982)
• The study of the perception and production of speech sounds (phonemes).
• The study of how speech sounds are produced and what their acoustic properties are.
– Articulatory phonetics (concerned with how sounds are formed)
– Acoustic phonetics (concerned with the acoustic properties of sounds)
• Clinical phonetics involves the application of articulatory and acoustic phonetics to the study of speech sound (articulation and phonological) disorders.
Phonemes
• The smallest linguistic unit of sound that conveys meaning.
– One phoneme can change the entire meaning of a word. (e.g., bat, ham, cars, ran)
• “Speech sounds”
• Includes consonants, vowels and diphthongs
• Every language has a specific number of phonemes that are used.
• SAE uses about 40-44 phonemes
– 25 consonants
– 15 vowels & diphthongs
• Phonotactics: the rules defining permissible sequences of phonemes to form meaningful words.
– Each language has its own set of phonotactic rules.
The 3 major categories of phonemes
• Vowels
• Diphthongs
• Consonants
– Virgules (slashes) used to distinguish phonemes from letters.
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
• Universal symbol system for classifying phonemes.
• Each phoneme is represented by a single symbol from the IPA.
• The IPA is a phonetic alphabet that describes and classifies each speech sound on the basis of how and where it is produced in the speech mechanism.
Vowels
• A vowel is a speech sound that is formed without a significant constriction of the oral and/or pharyngeal cavities, and that serves as a syllable nucleus.
• The position of the tongue distinguishes among almost all of the vowels in our language.
The tongue
• Muscular organ with no internal skeleton.