Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics as a science
• The signals used to convey message in
language are speech sound, which are sounds
produced by man’s speech organs.
• General phonetics when phonetics
studies all possible speech sound that may be
produced by human beings in general
 source: Kevin Russell
Articulatory apparatus
• The study of pronunciation consists of two fields,
namely phonetics and phonology
• Phonetics refers to the study of speech sound.
• A phonetician usually works in one or more of the
following areas:
1. physiological phonetics : anatomical, neurological,
and psysiological bases of speech
2. articulatory phonetics : action and movements of
speech organs
3. acoustic phonetics : nature and acoustics of the
sound waves which transmit speech
4. auditory phonetics : speech is received by ears
5. perceptual phonetics : speech is received by brain
• Phonology is concerned with how we
interpret and systematise sounds.
• Phonology studies which sounds make a
difference in a language.
• Phonology deals with the system and patterns
of the sounds which exist within particular
languages.
• The sounds are learnt not just any sounds, but
they are produced by human beings by the
help of their vocal or speech organs.
• There are no two people who speak exactly
alike.
• Differences in pronunciation between one
speaker and another are caused by
geographical, social, and historical factors; or
they may also be caused by individual
peculiarities such as stuttering, lisping, or
other speech deficiencies.
 Pronunciation problems
• Speaking is a matter of habit
 learning of the new sound
 learning of the new vocabulary items
 learning of the unfamiliar ways of
arranging the foreign words into sentences
Imitation
Constant drill
practice
• Reasons for pronunciation problems
 the different elements found between his
language and target language
 the degree of difficulty the
degree of difference
 the same phonetic features but differ in
the distributions, e.g b, d, g are in initial and
final
• Nature of pronunciation problems
 identification of the foreign sounds
 the production of the foreign sounds by his
organs of speech
 the production of suprasegmental
features; stress, pitch, intonation, and length
 Speech sounds and their production
• Most speech is produced by an air stream that
originates in the lungs and is pushed upwards
through the trachea (the windpipe) and the
oral and nasal cavities.
• The production of a speech sound may be
divided into four separate but interrelated
process, namely:
• The initiation process
speech sounds are initiated by a pulmonic
egressive air stream
• The phonation process
the process takes place in glottis; closed glottis,
narrow glottis, open glottis
• The oro-nasal process
this is done by the velum; raised velum and
lowered velum
• The articulation process
in mouth, due to the mobility of the lips and
tongue.