UNIVERSITE ALASSANE OUATTARA

UFR : COMMUNICATION, MILIEU ET

SOCIETE
DEPARTEMENT D’ANGLAIS

2023-2024

PHONETICS

LICENCE 1

TEACHER: Pr SEKONGO GOSSOUHON

1
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Level: Licence I
Academic year: 2022-2023
Reserved time:
First requirements: English sounds, pronunciation in English, orthographic
spelling of English words
Responsible Pr SEKONGO GOSSOUHON
Lecturer : Pr SEKONGO GOSSOUHON

The gist of this course is to introduce students with the English sounds and the way
they are actually pronounced in an accent considered as the standard for people learning or
using that language. At the end of the course, students should be capable of perfectly catching
any speech of native speakers.

Objectives of the course

At the end of this course, students must be capable of :
• Having a grasp on the different organs at state in sounds pronunciation
• Mastering the distinctive features of sounds
• Being capable of describing or identifying sounds
• Transcribing words either phonetically or orthographically.

Content
Chapter 1: The organs of speech
Here, students will be introduced with the main organs of speech that are used to
produce sounds.

Chapter 2: sounds inventory and their description

The aim of this part is to make out the distinctive features of English sounds so that they can
be not only identified but also transcribed through the agency of the RPA symbols.

Chapter 3: Phonetic transcription

The objective of this chapter is check students’ capacity to recognizing sounds to which they
are exposed through a task whereby they will be asked to represent the sounds they hear. This
exercise is twofold: first from the orthographical representation to the phonetical one and vice
versa

Pedagogic method
• Teaching activities.
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This course is given in the form of lecture with an active participation of students. Students’
concerns will also find answers as the lecture is on.

• Learning activities.
At the end of each chapter, a period will be found for students to ask questions on the chapter.
In addition, suitable exercises will be used to enforce the understanding of the passage at
stake.

• Testing.
At the end of the whole course, a home work will be given to students; be it in a form of a
questionnaire or research topic. And at the end, a final exam will be organized to assess
students understanding.

Bibliographie
I- Books and Articles
1- Baker, A., 1982, Introducing English pronunciation, Cambridge: Cambridge
University press.
2- Brown, G., 1990, Listening to spoken language, 2nd ed., London: Longman
3- Clark, J., and Yallop, C., 1995, Introduction to phonetics and phonology, 2nd ed.?
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4- Dauer, R., 1983, Stress-timing and syllable timing reanalyzed, Journal of phonetics,
vol. 11, PP51-62
5- Laver, J., 1980, The Phonetic Description of voice Quality, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
6- Peter Roach, 2003, English Phonetics and Phonology, a self-contained comprehension
pronunciation course, 3rd ed, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
7- George Yule, 2007, The Study of Language, 2nd Ed, low price editions, 8th printing.
Cambridge University Press.UK.
II- DICTIONARIES
8- Jones D., 1997, Daniel Jones English Pronouncing Dictionary, edited and revised by
P.J. Raoch and J. Hartman, 15th ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
9- Wells, J.C., 2000, Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 2nd edition, London: Longman.
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Objectives: the gist of this course is to introduce with sounds and their way they
are actually used in language. But, as English is our field of study, we’ll be
mainly concerned with the study of English sounds and the way they are
pronounced in an accent considered as the standard for people learning or using
that language.

Introduction

Phonetics can be defined as the general study of the characteristics of

speech sounds. Phonetics is made of two main branches. On the one hand, we
have the articulatory phonetics which studies the production of sounds and the
other hand, the auditory phonetics which studies speech waves. In the present
course, we’ll be interested in the articulatory phonetics which focuses on the
production of sounds.

Sounds are the results of muscles contracting. These muscles are located
in different parts of the human anatomy. In fact, muscles in the chest which are
used for breathing, produce the flow of air from the chest to the mouth. After
passing through the larynx, the air goes through the vocal tracts which end in
the mouth and the nostrils.

There exist a large number of muscles that can produce changes in the
shape of the vocal tract. These muscles correspond to what we call organs of
speech or articulators, hence, the name of the branch as articulatory phonetics.

I- The organs of speech

The organs of speech are the different organs or muscles which are used
to produce the sounds in languages. These organs are represented in the figure
below:
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FIGURE1: THE ARTICULATORS

1.1- The pharynx

The pharynx is a tube which begins just above the larynx. It’s about 7cm
long in women and 8cm in men. The pharynx is divided into two parts at its top.
One part being the back of the mouth and the other is the beginning of the way
through the nasal cavity.

1.2- The soft palate or velum

This organ allows air to pass through the mouth and the nose. It is one of
the articulators that can be touched by the tongue. During speech, it is often
raised so that air cannot escape through the nose.
1.3- The hard palate

The hard palate is often called the roof of the mouth we can feel its
smooth curved surface with the tongue.

1.4- The alveolar ridge

It is located between the upper teeth and the hard palate. Its surface is really
much rougher and is covered with ridges.
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1.5- The tongue

The tongue is a very important articulator and it can be moved into many
different places and shapes. It is usual to divide the tongue into different parts;
such as front/ tip, the back and the root.

1.6- Lips

They constitute an important set of articulator in sounds production, as it

can be seen in the second part of the course.

1.7- The larynx

Made of different parts, the larynx has several important functions in

sounds production. Its main structure is made of two large cartilages. Inside the
box made by these cartilages, are the vocal folds/cords, which are two thick
flaps of muscles rather like a pair of lips. At the top, the vocal folds are joined
together and fixed to the inside of the thyroid cartilage. At the back, they are
attached to a pair of small cartilages called the arytenoids cartilages, so that if
the arytenoids cartilages move, the vocal folds move too.

But, the arytenoids cartilages can move so as to move the vocal folds
apart or together. The term glottis is used to refer to the opening between the
vocal tracts:

- Wide apart, the vocal folds are set in a position to enable normal
breathing. They are also in this position when we are producing a
voiceless consonant
- Narrowed glottis produces fricative sounds
- When the edges of the vocal folds touch each other or nearly touching,
the vocal folds vibrate.
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II- Inventory and description of sounds

English sounds are made of various phonemes which can be clustered into
two major groups; vowels and consonants.

2.1- vowels

Vowels can be defined as sounds in which there is no obstruction of air as

it passes from the larynx to the lips. Vowel sound types are described in term of
three variables: tongue height, frontness or backness and lip rounding. There
exist three types of vowels.

2.1.1- pure or cardinal vowels

Pure vowels are those which are relatively short. Their production is made
without interference of other vowel-sound. (cf table above).
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[ i ] high front like in sea, cream, three...

[I] lowered high front like in ink, fish ship...

[e ] mid front like in leg, penny, letter, nest
[] lowered mid front like in bird, earth, dirty
[æ] low front like in hat, hand, map
[] mid low central like in a balloon, a cactus, amater
[Λ] low central like in but, stump, bunker
[u:] high back rounded like in moon, rude, youth, goose

[ʊ]lowered high back rounded like in wood, a rook, a bull, a cook

[ɔ] mid back rounded like in thought, a call, a walk, a storm

[D] lowered mid back rounded like in god, dog, John, lot, knots, shop

[ɑ:] low back unrounded like in heart, harp, arm

2.1.2- Diphthongs

Diphthongs are sounds which consist in a movement or a glide from one

vowel to another. However, diphthongs are independent unitary sounds
characterised by the presence of a transient state, thus contrasting with the
steady state of pure vowels. Their total number is eight. They can be grouped
into three groups as follows:
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Diphthongs

Closing

Centring

Ending in I ending in u

Ending in 

I e u eI aI ɔI u au

/I/like in theatre, fear, tear

/ e / like in tear, share, despair

/u/like in skua, fuel, a duel, a poor

/ eI / like in taste, a sailor, a race

/ aI / like in to lie, a pine, like

/ ɔI/ like in a point, a foil a boy

/u/ like in a goat, a rose, a note, a toast

/au / like in cow, a cloud, proud, an owl

2.1.3- Triphthongs
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The most complex English sounds of the vowels type are triphthongs. A
triphthong is a glide from one vowel to another then to a third, all produced
rapidly and without interruption. They can be looked on as being composed of
the five closing diphthongs with  added on the end. Thus we have:

eI+  = eI like in layer, player

aI +  = aI like in fire, liar

ɔI +  = ɔI like in loyal, royal

 u + =  u  like in lower, mower

au+ = au like in power, hour

2.1.4- Minimal pairs

Minimal pairs are set of two close sounds but which differ in meaning.
Their bad reading can give right to a confusion in words meaning.

i:/I eat; it; ease/is; bean/bin

e / æ expensive/expansive ,end/and, pet/pat

e/ɒ pet/pot

e / eI test/taste, sell/sail

æ / Λ batter/ butter, cap/cup

œ / ɑ: cap/carp, had/ hard

ɑ:/ : heart/hurt

D /ɔ: cock/cork, spot/ sport

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ɔ /  u off/oaf, cost/coast

eI / aI ace/ice, pain, pine

2.2- Consonants

Consonants are sounds in which the movement of air from the lungs is
obstructed as a result of narrowing or a complete closure of the air passage. The
obstruction may occur at any of a large number of places such as lips, teeth ridge
or further in the mouth. English consonantal sounds are most easily described in
terms of three variables:

(i) voicing
(ii) place of articulation

(iiï) manner of articulation

(i)- voicing

Voicing is the variable caused by the setting in motion of the vocal

cords which are thin strips of membrane in the throat. If these cords vibrate as
a sound is produced, the sound is said to be voiced, as in the production of

b, d, g, v, ð , dʒ , m, n, ŋ, l, r, w, j. This vibration is felt when a hand is

placed on the outside of the throat as the sound is uttered. If the vocal
cords do not vibrate as a sound is produced, this sound is said to be
voiceless, as in p,t,k,f, ϴ,s ∫ t∫,s .

(ii)- Place of articulation

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The place of articulation describes the point at which the articulators
actually touch, or are at their closest. The most important places for the
production of English sounds are listed in the table below:

Articulators Examples
Bilabial Upper lip + lower lip [p, b, m]
*
Dental Teeth + longue [ө, ð]
Labio-dental Lower lip + upper teeth [f v]
Alveolar Alveolar (teeth) ridge + longue [t d s z r 1 n]
Palato-alveolar Join of Hard palate and alveolar [∫ t∫ dʒ ʒ ]
ridge + tongue
Palatal Hard palate + tongue [j ]
Velar Soft palate + longue [k g]
Glottal Vocal cords [h ]

Table 2: table displaying points of articulation

(iii) - manner of articulation

The manner of articulation describes the type of obstruction caused by

the narrowing or closure of the articulators. We have plosive stops,
fricatives, affricates, nasals, laterals, flapped, approximants, glide and
aspirated sounds as shown in the table below:

Movement of articulators examples

Stop (plosive) Complete closure [p b t d k g]
Affricate Closure, then slow separation [t∫ dʒ]
Fricative Narrowing, resulting in audible [fv ð,ϴ, s z, ʒ]
friction
Nasal Complete closure in mouth, air [m n ŋ ]
escapes through nose
Lateral Closure in centre of mouth, air [1, r]
escapes down sides
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approximant Slight narrowing, not enough to [w j ]
cause friction

Table 3: different manners of articulation.

(iv) Identification of sounds

Any English sound can be described and identified according to the equation
below:

Voicing + place of articulation + manner of articulation

e.g. [s] is a voiceless alveolar fricative

[ dʒ ] is a voiced palato-alveolar affricate

In your practice you will notice that “w” occurs twice, as a velar and also as a
labial. This is because it is technically a labial-velar approximant, with a double
place of articulation.