Phonetics

English pronunciation

Learning Objectives

1. Understanding the concept of ‘Acceptable English pronunciation’

2. Knowing ‘Phonetics Transcription ‘and phonemic symbols of English.

3. Understanding sound and spelling mismatch in English.

4. Identifying speech sounds of English.

5. Knowing pronunciations guidelines related to consonants, diphthongs and vowels.

6. Understand the concept of mother tongue influence

English pronunciation

In order to speak correct English, correct pronunciation should be used, by being careful
one’s speech habits simple mistakes in speaking can be avoided. Learning appropriate
pronunciation techniques gives one confidence to avoided common lapses and errors in
speaking.

Interestingly, there is no such thing as a ‘correct pronunciation’ because there is no one right
way of speaking. The pronunciation of English varies from one country to another.

Acceptable pronunciations

There are marked pronunciation features associated with English spoken in important English
speaking countries like United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada and Australia.
Even within the United States there are variations between England, Scotland, Wales and
Northern England. One particular accent called Received Pronunciation (RP) has come to be
accepted as the standard in the United Kingdom. Thus, it is the better to consider
pronunciation in terms of ‘acceptable pronunciation words and ‘unacceptable pronunciations’
rather than correct or incorrect pronunciations. Acceptable pronunciations are clearly
intelligible to all the ordinary people.

It is difficult to understand for us to learn correct English pronunciations without learning the
basics of phonetics. Phonetics is the branch of linguistic science that deals with
pronunciations. However, here the word phonetics refers to the study of English speech
sounds.
Basics in Phonetics

In order speak correct English; one should have some idea of English phonetics. However
the language has 44 speech sounds and twenty six alphabets. This means to that there is no
one to one correspondence between the letters and sounds in English as it is in many Indian
languages. This is the reason why many Indians find it difficult to learn English
pronunciations.

What is phonetics?

Phonetics is the systematic study of speech and the sounds of language.

Articulatory Phonetics - describes how vowels and consonants are produced or “articulated”
in various parts of the mouth and throat.

Acoustic Phonetics - a study of how speech sounds are transmitted: when sound travels
through the air from the speaker's mouth to the hearer's ear it does so in the form of vibrations
in the air.

Auditory Phonetics - a study of how speech sounds are perceived: looks at the way in which
the hearer’s brain decodes the sound waves back into the vowels and consonants originally
intended by the speaker.
Speech organ. Speech organs, or articulators, produce the sounds of language.
Organs used for speech include the lips, teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate, velum (soft
palate), uvula, glottis and various parts of the tongue. They can be divided into two types:
passive articulators and active articulators.
Vowels and Consonants (en/bg)

Classifying the Vowels Sounds of English

The classification of vowels is based on four major aspects:

Tongue height - according to the vertical position of the tongue (high vowels, also
referred to as close; low vowels, also referred to as open; intermediate - close-mid and
open-mid)

Frontless vs. backness of the tongue - according to the horizontal position of the highest
part of the tongue.

Lip rounding - whether the lips are rounded (O-shape) or spread (no rounding) when
the sound is being made.

Tenseness of the articulators - refers to the amount of muscular tension around the
mouth when creating vowel sounds. Tense and lax are used to describe muscular
tension.

Classifying the Consonants Sounds of English According to the Manner and Place of
Articulation
According to the manner of articulation (how the breath is used) the consonants are:
stops, also known as plosives, fricatives, affricates, nasals, laterals, and approximants.
Nasals, laterals and approximants are always voiced; stops, fricatives and affricates can
be voiced or unvoiced.

Bilabial: where lips come together as in /p-b/. examples are: /bat/, /pat/

2. Labio-dental: where lower lip and the upper teeth come together as in /f-v/
examples are: /fan/, /van/

3. Dental: where tip of the tongue meets the upper teeth as in /Š – †/

4. Alveolar: where tip touches alveolar ridge as in /t-d,s-z,n,l,r/ examples are: /tap/,
/dip/ and /zip/ etc.

5. Palato–Alveolar: requires two points of contact: tip close to the alveolar ridge
which front of the tongue is concave to the roof of the mouth as in /S – 3, t‰ – d½ /.
Examples are: /ship/, /chip/ and /jug/

6. Palatal: front of the tongue approximates to the hard palate. It is possible to have
palatal plosives, fricatives, laterals and nasals but in English only palatal sound is
voiced, semi-vowel /j/. as in /yes/

7. Velar: where back of the tongue meets the soft palate. In English, we have four
velars as / k,g, ÷,w/. Examples are: /kick/, /whip/ etc.
The actual sound produced, such as a simple vowel or consonant sound is called phone.

Examples of words having Different letters representing same sound

sound Examples
/S/ See, censor, miss
/SH/ Shoe, chef, mention, precious, tension, passion
/Z/ Zoo, Season
/K/ Kill, chemistry, call, sick
/EE/ Meet, key, deal, seize, recast
/OO/ Zoo, movie, soup, true
/AH/ Market, fast, clerk, aunt

Example -02

Examples of words having same letters Representing Different sounds.

Letters Examples
/S/ Sell, busy, pleasure, pension
/T/ Tell, mention, culture
/CH/ Chef, chemical, rich
/E/ Pet, decent, decay

Phonetic Transcription

Phonemic symbols of English are a reliable guide to the English pronunciation. It is, thus, the
writing of language by means of separate symbol for every sound. A phonemic symbols or
pronunciations symbol represents each English sound. As the letters of English Alphabet can
be poor guide to pronunciation, it is advisable to learn the phonetic symbols of English
because these symbols are reliable guide English pronunciation. Knowledge of these symbols
is useful in referring to a dictionary to find out a pronunciation of any key word. Every good
dictionary contains a list of these pronunciation symbols. Phonetic transcription can be
defined as a kind as a kind of alphabetical writing in which each letters represent at least one
sound.

Consonant sounds

A consonant sounds may be defined as a speech sounds that is produced with stoppage of air.
For example to say word ‘paper’ our lips try to stop air from passing through while producing
the sound ‘p’ . the voice or breath is consonants is partially hindered by the tongue, teeth ,
lips or other organs of articulation. There are 24 consonants in English. These consonant
sounds are classified according to the nature of constriction as plosives, affricates, nasal
consonants, lateral consonants and fricatives.
Consonants symbols

Phonemic symbols Examples

1 p Paper, pipe plastic, upper, accept, couple cup ,cap
2 B Bulb, base, absorb , carbon, cable, mob, cab
3 t table, start, top, pot, take, cat
4 d Design, data, develop, crude, tend, blend, doll
5 k Kick, cast, chemist, accurate, act, block,
6 g Give, graphite, ago, against, diagram, organic
7 ʧ Chance, rich, beach, discharge, feature, launch
8 ʤ Judge, adjust, bridge, magic, charge

9 f Fast, feature, filter, flash, draft

10 V Very, variant, velocity, vertical, give
11 ϴ Theory, thermal, thrust, faith, both, earth,
12 ơ Brother, gather, feather, further, mother
13 s Simple, sea, mass, ask, assembly
14 ʃ Shift, pressure, ash, nation, crush, emission

15 z Zero, design, physical, positive, result, busy

16 3 Vision, pleasure, treasure, leisure, measure
17 m Machine, emission, automatic,
18 n New, number, anode,
19 η Evening, bearing, distinguish, building
20 h Handle, hardware, heavy, height
21 l Level, call,
22 r Role, red, correct
23 w Water, weaver, wonder
24 j Yes , you, year, your
There are 20 vowel sounds. Vowel sounds are classified as pure vowels and diphthongs.
There are 12 pure vowels and eight dipthongs. Pure vowels are further classified as long
vowels and short vowels.

Long vowels symbols

Phonemic symbols examples

1 i: Easy, feel, free, seize, ceiling
2 u: Shoe, fool, true, coup, truth
3 Ʒ: Firm, birth, hurt, curt, curl, burn
a: Art, farm, part, fast, aunt
Ͻ: Fought, port, sport, form, sought

Short vowels symbols

Phonemic symbols examples

1 e Pet, said , led, men
2 d Hot, shot ,pot
3 A Hut, shut, cut, bood
4 ae Hat, cat bat
5 ∂ Ago, about, announce
u Wood, food, book
Problem sounds and differences in English

1. Sound and Spelling Mismatch

Look at the words below

Chef, chemistry, movie, soup, true, character, busy, nature, sign

Notice some discrepancies I their spelling and sounds?

There are many words in the english language where the spellings may not be match with
their pronunciation. The reason for this is galore.

Pronunciations guidelines

Following spelling too closely may result in mistakes while pronouncing consonants sounds.
Remember the following simple guidelines.

1. The spelling may confuse you because it has three different sounds. ʧ, k and S.

CH pronounced as ʧ

Examples..chain, chair, chairman, chalk, chamber, cherish, champion, preach

2. CH pronounced as ‘k’

Character, cholera, chord, chorus, chromatic, chronic,

2. Ch pronounced as a ‘s’

Chauffer, chef, charin, chiffon, chauvinist, chivalry,

4.G pronounced as g gadget, gallant, galaxy,

5. G pronounced ʤ -cage, gelatin, gem, gender, gene, general.

6. G pronounced as a Ʒ -Firm, birth, hurt, curt, curl, burn

7. ‘T’ pronounced as a ʧ -nature, future, culture,

8. ‘S’ pronounced as a z- busy, these, rays, lease, cause, bacause

Minimal pair- A minimal pair is group of words that differ from each other only in one
sound. Like the words ‘fill’ and ‘till’ differ only in one consonant sound but they mean
different things. Ship-sip, said-shed, so-show, sank-shank, seal-zeal

Exercise

1. Explain what ‘acceptable English pronunciation’ is.

2. Describe ‘phonemic transcription and phonetic symbol of English.
3. Discuss English speech sounds.
4. Describe pronunciation guidelines related to consonants, diphthongs and vowels.
5. Write short note on the following.

1. Phonetic transcription, 2. English Consonants 3. Vowel sounds 4. Diphthongs.