Asignatura: Fontica y fonologa del ingls.

Profesor: Daro Barrera.

UNIT 2: ACOUSTICS.

THEORY.

1.Voiced and voiceless sounds.

Vibration of vocal folds:

Cycle of vibration of the vocal folds is a follows:
First the vocal folds are together, and stop the airflow.
Air from beneath pushes up between the folds, forcing them apart near the middle.
A burst of air flows through, but this begins to be cut off as the folds recoil back to the closed position.
As the opening gets smaller, the rapid airflow through the narrowing gap leads to suction which helps to complete
the closure rapidly and effectively.
Once the folds are closed completely, the cycle of folds begin again, and the folds are forced to be opened again.

2.Observing vocal fold vibrations.

The laryngograph:
It works by passing a tiny high frequency electric current across the larynx from one fold to the other. The degree of
contact between the folds controls the current, which can be measured and turned into a waveform showing the vibration.

The stroboscope:
The vibrating vocal folds can be filmed, but a very high film speed is needed to show the details of vibration. An
alternative is to use a stroboscope a flashing light of the sort used to slow down or freeze the appearance of rotating
machinery together with a suitable camera.

3.Whisper.
When we whisper a sound, there is vocal fold vibration and so no musical pitch. But whisper is not the same as
voicelessness. To whisper a sound, we make a narrow opening between the folds and the air flows noisily through that
opening. The noise from airflow takes the place of the tone produced by voicing, and it's applied to just those speech
sounds that would normally be voiced.

4.Acoustic representations.
The sounds of speech are made by changes to air pressure that are caused by airflow through the vocal tract. As the air
moves, it causes perturbations, which the ear picks up. The ear converts physical movements in the air into electrical
signals that are sent to the brain, which is where processing of the other kinds occurs.
Technology makes it possible to convert these changes of air pressure into pictures; and being static and upchanging,
these pictures allow us to examine more of the detail of talk as it happened. This kind of phonetics is known as acoustic
phonetics.

Waveforms: Are a kind of graph. Graphs have an x-axis, which runs horizontally, and a y-axis, which runs vertically. In
waveforms os speech, the x-asis represents time and it's usually scaled in seconds or milliseconds, while the y-axis shows
(to simplify a great deal) amplitude, a representation of loudness.

Spectogram: Are a pictures of speech. Provide more complex information than waveforms.

Periodic waves: A wave that has a pattern that repeats regularly in time is called periodic. One period of a simple (sine)
wave contains one upwards-and-over excursion, and one downwards-and-up-again excursion, returning to the zero line.
The source of periodic waveforms in speech is voicing.
The number of repetitions (or cycles) where vocal folds make per second is termed the frequency measured in Henz.
In spectograms, periodic signals have two important visual properties. First, there are striations which correspond to the
opening of the vocal folds. Voicing is seen in regular spikes in a waveform, and corresponding regular striations in a
spectogram.
Secondly, there are darker horizontal bands running across the spectogram known as formants. Formants are named
counting upwards. Formants are natural resonances. Each configuration of the vocal tract has its own natural resonance.
The vocal tract exhibits similar properties: then the sound wave from the vocal fold passes through the vocal tract, some
parts of the acoustic signal are made louder, and some quieter. The frequencier which get amplified are the natural
resonances of the vocal tract, and are determined by its size and shape.

Aperiodic waves: Not all sounds have periodic waveforms. A waveform that does not repeat along the time axis is termed
aperiodic, sounds with aperiodic waveforms strike us as the 'noises' rather that tones.
In practice, however, the periodic tones encountered either in speech or music are not sine waves (or pure tones), but
complex periodic tones. The waveform of a complex tone is periodic, and the period and corresponding frequency can be
calculated.

Transient sounds: Transient sounds are aperiodic sounds which come and go quickly. Tongue or lips coming apart as
someone starts to speak. In a waveform, transients show up as a spike. On spectograms, they appear as dark vertical lines
which last only a short time.

TEAM WORK.

GROUP: ELEVEN (11)

MEMBERS: Ana Len Gmez, Andrea, Jos Mara Vzquez Linares.

1, 2 y 3. The sound wave below is ____________________ because _____________

1) periodic because it repeats regularly in a period.
2) Aperiodic because not all the sounds have a periodic waveforms.
3) Mixed.

4. Which part of the sound wave below has more amplitude? B

5. There are two sound waves below. Which has a lower frequency and why? A because it have less repetitions
per second.
6. Locate the first and second formants of the spectogram.

7. Look at the words below. Which words are pronunced with /s/ and which with /z/? Put then in the chart.

/s/ Hiss, piece, laptops.

/z/ cheese, muzzle, rose,

8. Give the phonetic symbols for the first sound in the following words. The first word is done as an example.

a. city /s/
e. physics / /
i.pneumonia / /
1. quick / k /
b. cake / k/
f. shoot / /
j. zone / ts/
n. what /w /
c. thick //
g. Thames / /
k. usually / /
 o. wrist / /
d. choice / /
h. knee / /
l. jug / /
p. there / /

9. Following is a list of idioms and expressions written in phonemic script. Put them in standard orthography.

1. /t hv wnz nmb/ to have once number.

2. /stt dk/ sitting duck
3. /t dp ba/ to drop by
4. /ht e/ hotter
5. /t ki de/
6. /bdz v fe/
7. /izi dz t/
8. /t ut lan/
9. / wat elfnt/
10. /t kt no as/
11. /fl v binz/
12. /wns n blu mun/
13. /t ut biz/
14. /wn f od/
15. /t bit bat b/
16. /epl fulz de/
17. /klad nan/
18. /t et pkt/