Table of Contents

How are vowels described? Explain using the vowel chart quadrilateral. ................................... 1

How are vowels described? Explain using the vowel chart quadrilateral.

Vowels are sound produced with little restriction or obstruction of the flow of air from the lungs out of the mouth and/or the nose. The vowel quality depends on the shape of the vocal tract as the air passes through. Different part of the tongue may be high or low in the mouth; the lips may be spread or pursed ; the velum may be raised or lowered. Here, I would like to explain how are described using the vowel chart quadrilateral whose design used is the one recommended by the International Phonetic Association.

Close

Front 1

Central

Back 8

Closed-mid

Open-mid

Open

Figure Q

The vowels in the Figure Q are called primary cardinal vowels which are the vowels that are most familiar to European language speakers. Cardinal vowels are printed within square bracket [ ] to distinguish them from English vowel sounds. Cardinal vowel no.1 has the symbol [

] and is defined as teh vowel which is as

close and as front as it possible to make a vowel without blocking the flow of air enough to produce friction noise like s and f. The most open and back vowel that is possible to make is cardinal vowel no.5 and has symbol [ ]. Cardinal no.4 [

] is fully open and front while no.8 [ ] is fully

close and back. It is then possible to put in the intermediate points (vowels no. 2,3,6 and 7) after establishing the extreme points. When we are familiar with these extreme vowels, we have learned a way of describing, classifying and comparing vowels. For instance, we can say that the English vowel

(the vowel in 'cat') is not as open as cardinal vowel no.4 [ ].

We have now looked at how we can classify vowels according to their tongue height and their frontness or backness. Another important variable of vowel quality is lip-position. Although the lips can have different shapes and positions, we will consider only three possibilities which are. a) ROUNDED, where the corners of the lips are brought towards each other and the lips pushed forwards. This is most clearly seen in cardinal vowel no.8 [

].

b) SPRGAD, with the corners of the lips moved away from each other, as for a smile. This is most clearly seen in cardinal vowel no.1 [ ]. c) NGUTRAL, where the lips are not noticeably rounded or spread. The noise most English people make when they are hesitating (written 'er') has neutral lip position.

We must be noted that the quadrilateral vowel chart is an example of extreme sounds. These standard sounds will vary widely among dialects and are typically not pronounced as well they are spelled. For example, the word 'chip'. The vowel are pronounced differently an UK and North American English. The British tend to voice the vowel in 'chip' as cardinal vowel no.4 [

]. While North Americans tend to voice

the vowel in 'chip' as cardinal vowel no.1 [ ]. What the quadrilateral vowel chart does is give us a standard that we can use to describe differences in sounds used between varying dialects. Its primary use one of comparison and reference.