Phonetics and Phonology

First Section: Phonetics and Phonology

- The Organs of Speech:

The figure shows that the entire speech apparatus is made up of a series of organs and
cavities that form a passage from the lungs to the lips and nostrils. The section of this
passage extending from the larynx upwards is called the vocal tract. When we inhale, the
air enters through the nose and/or mouth, then passes through the pharynx the larynx
and the trachea, into the lungs (consistency of two large sponges made to expand to take
in air (inhalation), and contract to let it out (exhalation). Situated within the rib cage or
thorax. The lungs themselves are incapable of any active movement, and expansion or
contraction must be carried out by the muscles that join them to the rib cage and/or by
lowering the diaphragm. Their function is that of the motor or activator that sets the
passage of air into the movement of inhalation and exhalation. When we speak, exhaling is
controlled; therefore, it normally takes longer than Inhaling.)

- Stages of production of sounds:

- Initiation: the moment when the air is expelled from the lungs. In English, speech sounds
are the result of “a pulmonic egressive airstream” (Giegerich, 1992) although that is not
the case in all languages (ingressive sounds).
 - Phonation: it occurs at the larynx. The larynx has two horizontal folds of tissue in the
passage of air; they are the vocal folds. The gap between these folds is called the glottis.
- Articulation: it takes place in the mouth and it is the process through which we can
differentiate most speech sounds. In the mouth we can distinguish between the oral
cavity, which acts as a resonator, and the articulators, which can be active or passive:
upper and lower lips, upper and lower teeth, tongue (tip, blade, front, back) and roof of
the mouth (alveolar ridge, palate and velum). Therefore, speech sounds are distinguished
from one another in terms of the place where and the manner how they are articulated.

- What is Phonetics?

Scientific study of sounds of speech. It has a long history, going back certainly to well over
two thousand years ago. Phonetics essentially seeks to trace the processes physiologically
involved in sound production. It describes the ways the sounds are produced and the
points at which they are articulated.

The central concerns in phonetics are the discovery of how speech sounds are produced,
how they are used in spoken language, how we can record speech sounds with written
symbols and how we hear and recognize different sounds.
In the 1st of these areas, when we study the production of speech sounds we can observe
what speakers do (articulatory observation) and we can try to feel what is going on inside
our vocal tract (kinesthetic observation).
The 2nd area is where phonetics overlaps with phonology: usually in phonetics, we are
only interested in sounds that are used in meaningful speech, and phoneticians are
interested in discovering the range and variety of sounds used in this way in all the known
languages of the world. This is sometimes known as linguistic phonetics.
3rd, there has always been a need for agreed conventions for using phonetic symbols that
represent speech sounds; the IPA has played a very important role in this.
4th, the auditory aspect of speech is very important: the ear is capable of making fine
discrimination between different sounds, and sometimes it’s not possible to define in
articulatory terms precisely what the difference is.

Phonetics – the study of the sounds that form human language – can be divided into three
categories. The first, articulatory phonetics, examines the speech organs and processes by
which humans produce sounds; the focus is on the speaker of language. The second,
acoustic phonetics, focuses on the sound that is produced when a person speaks; the aim
of acoustic phonetics is to understand the acoustic properties of speech, and how that
speech is perceived by the listener’s ears.

- What is Phonology?

Branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of the

 human speech, that is, the performance, the execution. The most basic activity in
phonology is phonemic analysis, in which the objective is to establish what the phonemes
are and arrive at the phonemic inventory of the language. It approaches for instance, the
different accents and variations of the pattern form. It looks at and tries to establish a
system of sound distinctions relevant to a particular language. It then seeks to determine
how the elements of this abstract system behave in actual speech. Phonology actually
delineates the functioning of sounds in particular contexts.

Some history:

- 2nd half of the 20th century: most phonology had been treated as a separate “level” that
had little to do with other “higher” areas of language such as morphology and grammar.
- 1960s, subject greatly influenced by generative phonology, in which phonology becomes
inextricably bound with these other areas.

- Types of Phonology:

-Segmental: it studies the way speech can be analyzed into discrete units, or segments,
that constitute the basis of the sound system.
-Suprasegmental in phonetics: a speech feature such as stress, tone, or word juncture that
accompanies or is added over consonants and vowels; these features are not limited to
single sounds but often extend over syllables, words, or phrases. In Spanish, the stress
accent is often used to distinguish between otherwise identical words: término means
“term,” termino means “I finish,” and terminó means “he finished.” Suprasegmentals are
so called in contrast to consonants and vowels, which are treated as serially ordered
segments of the spoken utterance. The study of stress, rhythm and intonation, which has
led in recent years to new approaches to phonology such as metrical and autosegmental
theory.

- Importance to linguistic: At a pragmatic level, the production of sounds allows the

speakers to communicate effectively between them. At a Semantic level, it allows the
speakers to get the ideas of messages or utterances. There is, of course, more
involvement, but it is important to remember that all branches of linguistics are co-
related, so one can influence another in many aspects.

- Difference: On the one hand, phonetics describes the physical realization of

sounds. It studies the physiological processes involved in sound production. Phonology, on
the other hand, looks at the behavioral patterns of sounds in actual speech, their
realizations in different environments, whatsoever these may be. Phonetics is thus
concerned with sound production while phonology studies sound behavior in realization.
Adeyanju (2003) expatiates on the difference. This is in terms of phonetics being
concerned with providing the set of features, which can describe the sounds of a language
 while phonology provides the information that has to do with the functional patterning of
the sounds in the language. He thus views phonetics as providing the raw materials for the
description of the speech sounds production while phonology is about the organization of
the sound patterns in the language. Essentially then, we could safely say that phonetics
describes the production process involved in physical sounds while phonology describes
the environmental factors that shape these sounds in particular points of occurrence.

Second Section: The History and Scope of Pronunciation

Pronunciation, unlike grammar and vocabulary, started to be studied and understood at

the beginning of the twentieth century. The field of modern language teaching has
developed two general approaches to the teaching of pronunciation:

 Intuitive-Imitative Approach: being used before the late 19 th century. It depends on

the learner’s ability to listen and imitate the rhythms and sounds of the language
without the intervention of any implicit information.

 Analytic-Linguistic Approaches: Use information and tools for teaching pronunciation.

It focuses on the sounds and rhythms of the target language. It complements the
method before mentioned. The Reform Movement was the first linguistic or analytic
contribution to the teaching of pronunciation. It emerged in the 1890s. This
movement was influenced by phoneticians who formed the International Phonetics
Association in 1886 and developed the International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA). It
resulted from the establishment of phonetics as a science dedicated to describe and
analyze the sound system of languages. A phonetic alphabet made possible to
represent the sounds of any language visually and accurately.

- In the 1940s and 1950s, the Audiolingual and Oral Approach was developed thanks to the
Reform Movement. The teacher models a sound or word and the student imitates it. The
usage of a phonetic alphabet was important to demonstrate the articulation of sounds.
- In the 1960s, the Cognitive Approach took place influenced by the transformational-
generative grammar by Chomsky, and the Cognitive Approach by Neisser. It expresses
language as a rule-governed behaviour rather than habit formation. It deemphasized
pronunciation in favor of grammar and vocabulary because nativelike pronunciation was
an unrealistic objective, and time would be better spent on teaching grammatical
structures and words.
- In the 1970s. various methods and approaches were placed pronunciation either at the
forefront of the instruction, as in the Reform Movement; or at the backstage, as in the
Direct Method. Other methods either ignored pronunciation, as in the Cognitive
Approach, or taught pronunciation through imitation supported by analysis and linguistic
information as in Audiolingualism.
- Pronunciation teaching today: The Communicative Language Teaching, also called the
Communicative Approach, took hold in the 1980s and is currently the dominant method in
language teaching. It holds that the primary purpose of language is communication.
 - Various approaches for learning pronunciation today:

 The Direct Method gained popularity in the late 1800 and early 1900. Pronunciation is
taught through intuition and imitation. The students imitate a model, which can be the
teacher or a recording, and try their best to approximate the model though imitation.
 Silent Way: It is called silent way because the teacher speaks as little as possible
indicating though gestures what students should do. This method is characterized by
the attention paid to accuracy of production of both sounds and structures of the
target language.
 Community Language Learning: In here, students sit around a tape recorder and
practices what the teacher asked them to do. Once they produce the sentence
fluently, it is recorded.

Third Section: Factors that Influence Learning a New language:

The teaching of pronunciation is not exclusively a linguistic matter, and we need to

take into consideration such factors as the learner age, exposure to the target
language, amount and type of prior pronunciation instruction, and perhaps most
importantly, their attitude and motivation to achieve intelligible speech patterns in the
second language. The first factor that we are going to talk about is AGE. It is a widely
held belief that adults are unable to reach perfect or targetlike pronunciation in a
second language, compared to children, for example. “You can’t teach an old dog new
tricks” Right? However, 1969 researches now state that an early childhood exposure
to the foreign language does not guarantee acquisition of nativelike pronunciation
since one also must consider other factors, like the amount and quality of the second
language input, and the opportunity for authentic output as well. This research
highlights an important period of human life, called critical period, which represents
the biologically determined period of life which maximal conditions for language
acquisition exist. This hypothesis claims that after this critical period (after puberty),
the individual will be incapable of achieving native like pronunciation. Moyer (1999)
suggests that the later the learner starts to learn, the more nonnative his or her
pronunciation will be.
Although, not all researchers agree with this hypothesis. The critical period ignores
many other factors, like the exposure to the target language, attitude and type of
motivation, etc. On the other hand, cognitive scientists say that the idea of an adult’s
brain becoming unable of producing new sounds is erroneous, since the brain retains a
measure of flexibility throughout its life.
However, there is no doubt that adults will acquire sound differently than children. As
Jacobs said, “Biological factors impose limitations much the same as psychological and
sociocultural factors, but none of these variables in isolation impose an absolute upper
bound (limit) on second language acquisition”.
Another factor related to Age is the auditory perception that diminishes over time.
Another factor is the EXPOSURE TO THE TARGET LANGUAGE
According to many language-learning theories (Potovsky, Asher, Krashen), learners
acquire language primarily from the input they receive.
In this case, we as teachers should try to maximize students’ exposure to the
language. Studies indicate that focusing on listening discrimination of problematic
sound contrasts can me productive. For example, Japanese learners receiving
extensive training in /r/ vs /l/ sounds.
The optimal case of exposure is early total immersion because once a phonetic
category has been established in childhood, this one is not forgotten.

AMOUNT AND TYPE OF PRIOR PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION

Assuming that we are dealing with students who had a prior instruction in
Pronunciation, we need to examine it. For example, a student who had a repetition
instruction to a student who had a whole lecture dedicated to pronunciation. But is
also important to recognize that in any scenario, we could find pronunciation errors
and the technique we use to face them must be based on our students and their
problematics.

Aptitude, Attitude and Motivation.

Are some students more capable of acquiring a good pronunciation than others?
According to Carroll, we can find four traits when it comes to language aptitude:

1. Phonemic coding ability: The capacity to discriminate and code foreign sounds such
as they can be recalled.
2. Grammatical sensitivity: The ability to analyze language and figure out rules.
3. Inductive language-learning ability: The capacity to pick up language through
exposure.
4. Memory: The amount of routine learning activity needed to internalize something
new. (Grammar, lexicon, new sounds, etc.)

Guiora notes that personality, or Language Ego, in his words, is at the core of the
language-learning process, since this implies learning a whole new set of language
systems. Schumann, following Guiora footsteps, states that ego permeability (capacity
of adaptation) and personality factors are the core of a second-language acquisition.
Schumann’s Acculturation model (1986) delineates the role that social and affective
variables may play in language acquisition. It notes that affective variables are more
important that sociocultural ones in determining the acquisition process of a learner.
For Schumann there are two types of successful acculturation:

> Integrative motivation: the desire to be socially integrated in the target culture.
> Assimilative motivation: the desire to become a member of the target speech
community.
(Graham 1985)
 Lukmani (1972), states that the intensity of the motivation is as important as the type
of motivation to learn a new language.
> Instrumental motivation: learning a second language to attain a goal. (Job promotion
for example) (A learner with this motivation may achieve a better pronunciation than
someone with the other two types of motivation).

Fourth Section: The Role of the Native Language when Learning a New Language

Whether students are from a homogeneous language group (EFL) or from a diverse language
background (ESL) is important consider their native language as it appears to determine the
process of phonological acquisition of a second language.

Different hypothesis and theories: the role of first language in phonological acquisition of a second
one.

1. The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis.

Second Language acquisition is filtered through the first language, that is to say it is easy to
acquire what is similar to our native language by comparing both. But this theory failed to predict
the degree of difficulty learners would experience. (There are a weak and a strong version of this
theory).

2. Error Analysis and Avoidance.

Banathy and Madarasz complement the Contrastive Analysis with an Error Analysis, which can tell
us the intensity or difficulty or the size of the problem when it comes to learning a new language
(if it is related to the first language, if there are any specific problems with the second language,
etc). The avoidance come when the learner uses less a word that is difficult for them, this is a
systematic absence.

3. The Interlanguage Hypothesis.

This term refers to the linguistic codes of second language learners that reflect unique systems. Is
all based on first language structures, second language input, language universals and
communicative strategies. Universality of phonological acquisition is stablished.

4. Markedness Theory.

Proposes that in every Linguistic opposition and in any pair of opposites there is one marked
(more specific, more limited, later required) and another one unmarked (more neutral, basic,
more universal, first required). This is helpful to explain phonological differences among
languages.
Fifth Section: Discussion Around Englishes

In this section a discussion was held around the norms and models of English (There are some docs
attached to read which supported our discussion).

Some concepts are:

Models: are basically the variations of a language has. In the case of English we can mention
American English, British English, Indian English, etc. They can be classified in three groups: Inner
Circle: considers the countries in which English is spoken natively (ENL) such as Canada, Australia,
USA, England, etc. Also the Outer circle is part of this category which involves countries that use
English as the second language (ESL) as in the case of Germany, India, some countries in South
Africa, etc. Finally, the Expanding Circle considers countries like Chile, China, Korea, etc. whereby
English is spoken for a little amount of the population and it is used for certain purposes (traveling,
business, etc.)

Norms: among the variations before mentioned, we can have some rules that a specific language
has because of social convention, acceptability, usage, for mentioning a few ones. It is interesting
because usually people tend to speak (in terms of dialect) the way of people with more social
prestige have. Thus, the norms are leaned forward, in terms of usage, to that speech community.

Standardization: It is the process in which the different norms of different varieties of a language
are codified. This means, a compilation of norms of usage is made, and then, the codification starts
by creating guides of usage of a language, dictionaries, and so on.

Dialects: the variations of a language that a language has in a specific country or territory.

Lingua Franca: The language in common used for people who speak different languages.