LECTURE NOTE #2 LORENZO, VIVIAN IRISH M.

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS TOPIC: PHONETICS

Reference: Jeffries, Leslie (2006) Discovering Language: The Structure of Modern English. Palgrave Macmillan.
New York. USA.

Phonetics- the study of sounds that human beings used to communicate through language.
Acoustic Phonetics- -is concerned with investigating how sounds of speech are transmitted through the air between speaker and
hearer.
Auditory phonetics- is concerned with how hearers receive the sound and decode it.
Articulatory Phonetics-how the speaker creates the sound.
Transcriptions- Phonetic raw material of human speech enclosed in [ brackets]
Transcriptions of sounds as they are uttered , as exactly as possible in a written form
/slashes/ are used to enclose the transcriptions that represent the sounds of a particular language,
its phonology, usually in slightly less detail, but demonstrating the patterning of sounds in that
language.
VOCAL APPARATUS
Lungs- where the production of human sounds originates.
Egressive Pulmonary Airstream Mechanism- articulation of sounds through an outgoing breath.
In other words the speech sounds of most human languages are made as we breathe out. Once the air has left the lungs it
travels up the trachea and leaves the body through the mouth, and sometimes also through the nose. On the way it may be modified
by a number of the vocal organs that are the subject of this section. These modifications are responsible for making the egressive
airstream sound differently, depending on where the airflow is restricted and by how much. In addition to their linguistic function,
the vocal organs have primary functions, that are related to the basic survival of human beings, such as breathing, eating and
drinking. The linguistic functions are very specialised now but they evolved much later than the survival functions and are
therefore secondary features.
LUNGS TO LARYNX
The vocal organs include the lower parts of what is primarily a breathing apparatus. The lungs take in air, release oxygen
into the bloodstream and expel what is left, mainly carbon dioxide. This expelling of what is effectively waste material is the
egressive pulmonary airstream mentioned above. The potential for these waste gases to be made into speech sounds as they leave
the body has been exploited by the human race in a range of ways, as later sections of this chapter will demonstrate. Before the
expelled gases leave the body through the mouth and nose they pass through the larynx. This is a ‘box’ made of cartilage that
contains two folds of flesh known as the vocal folds. The latter are joined together at the front of the larynx, at the point where
the cartilage walls meet. This intersection of the sides of the larynx is visible on the outside of the throat as the Adam’s apple.
Towards the rear of the larynx the vocal folds are attached by muscles to the arytenoid cartilage, and this mechanism can pull
them close together (for example when straining to lift a heavy box) or keep them apart, as in quiet breathing. The vocal folds
also have more specialised linguistic and musical functions, such as voicing and, related to this, the ability to change pitch when
singing and to add intonation to speech. At the top of the trachea there is a flap of cartilage called the epiglottis, which deflects
food down the oesophagus and into the intestine. This prevents us from choking, except when small particles of food go ‘down
the wrong way’ – that is, escape the epiglottis and enter the trachea. The combined apparatus of the vocal folds and the arytenoid
cartilages and muscles is known as the glottis.

THE ORAL AND NASAL CAVITIES

Above the larynx there is a muscular tube known as the pharynx, which leads to the back of the mouth. The pharynx is able to
contract, thus ‘squeezing’ the airflow and causing a class of sounds known as pharyngeals. These occur in Arabic and other
languages, but not in English. Once past the pharynx the egressive airstream has a choice of direction. From here the air can
escape through the mouth or the nasal cavity (Figure 1.4). When the sounds to be made are not nasal in tone the velum or soft
palate is pulled back to make contact with the back of the pharynx, thus cutting off the nasal cavity route. Some speech sounds
exploit the resonance of the cavity behind the nose to make them distinctive. Some people have a quite nasal tone of voice, and
people affected by a cold may temporarily have this vocal tone. No further modifications of the airstream are possible within the
nasal cavity, which operates merely as a large resonating chamber
If the velum cuts off the nasal escape route the air has to leave through the mouth. A number of parts of the mouth are
used to modify the sound of the passage of air: the uvulum, velum, palate, alveolum, teeth, lips and tongue.
-The pharynx does not play a part in English sounds, though its capacity to contract does feature in Arabic.
-The uvulum is a fleshy protuberance hanging from the back of the velum. It is often confused with the epiglottis. There are no
uvular sounds in English, though in other languages it causes a sound by vibrating as the air leaves the glottis, as with the French
‘r’.
-The velum can be raised or lowered to cut off air or allow it to flow freely through the nasal cavity. It is lowered in the production
of English nasal sounds such as /m/ and /n/, and is also used in a number of non-nasal English

sounds, including /k/ and /g/. It is situated at the point at which the back of the tongue makes contact with the roof of the mouth.
The velum is sometimes also known as the soft palate and you can find yours by running the tip of your tongue back from the
teeth and across the hard palate until you feel the bone give way while the flesh continues. The fleshy ‘dome’ with no bone
behind it is the velum. In front of the velum is the hard palate, which is a bony structure and therefore has no independent
capacity for movement or flexing. However its role in speech production is very important as the body of the tongue can press up
into the palate, constricting the airflow as it does so. The palate is significant in English sounds such as /j/, which is usually spelt
as a ‘y’ (as in yacht), and /ʃ/, which is spelt as ‘sh’ (as in shower). The front of the palate dips down towards the teeth and forms
a platform known as the alveolar ridge. Like the palate, being a bony structure it cannot move or flex on its own, but it is the
place where the blade of the tongue makes many of the most common sounds of English, including /t/, /d/, /s/ and /z/. The tongue,
as already noted, can be used in a number of ways to make contact with other articulators. It has four significant areas that can be
placed against the upper parts of the oral cavity. These areas are the tip, blade, body and root of the tongue . The tip of the
tongue is protruded between the teeth to produce the interdental ‘th’ sounds in English (as in this and thigh). It can also make
contact with the back of the teeth to produce the Italian /t/ and /d/ sounds, which are described as dental and are subtly different
from their English equivalents. Moreover it can ‘tap’ the alveolar ridge to form a rolled ‘r’ sound of the kind common in Spanish.
In addition there is a set of speech sounds (not used in English) known as retroflex, where the tip of the tongue is curled back to
tap the back of the alveolum. These sounds are found in most of the languages of India, and thus also in Indian accents of English.
Other parts of the tongue are used to make speech sounds in different ways. The blade of the tongue can be raised to meet the
alveolar ridge and produce a great many English consonant sounds, including /t/, /d/, /s/ and /z/. The body and root of the tongue
can be raised towards the palate and the velum respectively, to form either a complete closure or a partial closure.