structure and functions of the speech sounds. - This branch of linguistics is called phonetics.
Phonetics is an independent branch of linguistics like lexicology or grammar. These linguistic sciences study language from three different points of view. Lexicology deals with the vocabulary of language, with the origin and development of words, with their meaning and word building. Grammar defines the rules governing the modification of words and the combination of words into sentences. Phonetics studies the outer form of language; its sound matter.Phonetics occupies itself with the study of the ways in which the sounds are organized into a system of units and the variation of the units in all types and styles of spoken language.
Theoretical Phonetics has the following branches: articulatory, acoustic,auditory,functional /phonologicalEach branch of Theoretical Phonetics investigates the appropriate aspect of speech sounds.Articulatory Phonetics investigates the functioning of one’s speech apparatus and mechanism. It is based on profound knowledge of physiology and the structure of one’s speech apparatus. While investigating the articulatory aspect of speech sounds both subjective and objective methods are employed: the method of direct observation (concerning the lips & the tongue movements) – subjective method and X-ray photography and X-ray cinematography (objective methods). Acoustic Phonetics studies the acoustic properties of sounds (quantity, timber/voice quality, intensity, the pitch of the voice and temporal factor) in terms of the frequency of vibration and the amplitude of vibration in relation to time. The analysis begins with a microphone, which converts the air movement into corresponding electrical activity. While investigating the acoustic aspect of speech sounds special laboratory equipment is employed: spectrograph, intonograph, sound analyzing & sound synthesizing machines.
Auditory Phonetics is aimed at investigating the hearing process which is the brain activity.
Functional Phonetics presupposes investigating the discriminatory (distinctive) function of speech sounds. / 2) Methods of phonetic analysis
The oldest, simplest and most readily available method is the method of direct observation. This method consists in observing the movements and positions of one's own or other people's organs of speech in pronouncing various speech sounds, as well as in analyzing one's own kinaesthetic sensations during the articulation of speech sound in comparing them with auditory impressions.
Objective methods involve the use of various instrumental techniques (palatography, laryngoscopy, photography, cinematography, X-ray photography and cinematography and electromyography). This type of investigation together with direct observation is widely used in experimental phonetics. The objective methods and the subjective ones are complementary and not opposite to one another. Nowadays we may use the up-to-date complex set to fix the articulatory parameters of speech - so called articulograph.
3) Phonetics and other sciences. General phon – studies all the sounds producing possibilities of
the human speech apparatus. Descriptive phon – gices a description of all the phonetic units of the given language, studies the contemporary phon system. Historical phon- studies changes in the phon system and stages of historical development. Comparative –studies correlation between
phon systems of two laguages. Practical phon – studies the substance, material form of phon phenomena in relation to meaning. Theoretical phon- is concerned with functioning of phon units of the language.
5) Conception of phoneme in this country. Vasiliev: “phoneme is the smallest further indivisible language unit existing in the speech of all the members of the given language community as such speech sounds wich are capable of differentiating the meaning.” So the phoneme is abstractional,
Material and functional.
4) Significance of the phoneme. Theoretical – is connected with further development of the sinchronic study and description of the phonemic system, the comparative analysis of different languages. Practical – is connected with teaching foreign languages, its applied in methods of speech correction – film doubling, translation, radio and telephone, its used in criminal investigation when we hear humans voice we can say if hes tall o short , young old what country hes from., tired or cheerful y ect.
6) Conception of phon abroad. Prague linguistic circule – idealistic conception – were interested only in its distinctive feature. Ferdinand de Saussure and L Hjelmslev – were interested in abstract view – нечтобестелесноенеимеющматериалбнойсубстанции. Americans – Bloomfield and Yakobson – minimal sound unit, denyed the abstractional aspect and material was exaggerated. Jones – originated the phisical view, phoneme I s a family of soundsmaterial aspect is exaggerated.
7.The dialectic unity
The phoneme is objective real, because it is realized in speech in the material form in speech in the material form of speech sounds, its allophones. On the other hand it’s an abstract language unit. That is why we can look upon the phoneme as a dialectical unity of the material and abstract aspects. Thus we may state that it exists in the material form of speech sounds, its allophones. Speech sounds are necessarily allophones of one of the phonemes of the language concerned. All the allophones of the same phoneme have some articulatory features in common, that is all of them possess the same invariant. That is why while teaching pronunciation we cannot ask pupils to pronounce this or that phoneme only one of its allophone.
8) Material aspect of phoneme. It exists in our speech in the form of speech sounds (we can
Hear them they can be recordered) even if we know that speech is produced by brain and movements of organs of speech here articulatory phonetics hels us.
9) Abstaract. Aspect.Ferdinand de Saussure viewed phonemes as the sum of acoustic impressions and articulatory movements. He also viewed phonemes as disembodied units of the language formed by the differences separating the acoustic image of one sound from the rest of the units. Language in his opinion contains nothing but differences. This approach is called abstractional/ abstract. / 10) Function aspect of the phoneme. Phoneme has 3 functions 1. constitutive (phonemes exist in their material form speech sounds constitute morphemes words sentences all of each are meaningful)2. distinctive (it distinguishes one word from another even whole sentences) 3. recognitive (it manifescts in the process of identificacionnative speakers can identify combination of phonemes as meaningful units.)
11) Semantic method is applied for phonological analysis of both unknown languages and languages already described. The method is based on a phonemic rule that phonemes can distinguish words and morphemes when opposed to one another. It consists in systematic substitution of one sound for another in order to find out inwhich cases where the phonetic context remains the same such replacing leads to a change of meaning. This procedure is called the commutation test. It consists in finding minimal pairs of words and their grammatical forms. For example: pen-ben, gain-cane, ten-den Minimal pairs are useful for establishing the phonemes of the language. Thus, a phoneme can only perform its distinctive function if it is opposed to another phoneme in the same position. Such an opposition is called phonological. / 12) the distributional method
Distribution is a total sum of occurrences of a linguistic unit ( a phoneme, a morpheme, a word, a word combination). Distribution presupposes contexts in which a segment can be used. For example, in accordance with the distribution of the phoneme /N/ it can’t be used word initially. But we may use it word medially and word finally.
Distribution
contrastive
It is such a distribution in which allophones of different phonemes occur in identical phonetic context (cake – bake, bike – bite).
non-contrastive
complementary
It is such a distribution in which different allophones of the same phoneme occur in mutually exclusive positions ( /t/: try, at the, twice, kettle, kitten)
free variation
It is such a distribution in which different allophones of the same phoneme occur in the same phonetic context but are realized differently (let me /’lemmi/ & /’let mi/). It is determined by social and territorial stratification of language. Thus the distributional method is based on the following two laws of phonetic and allophonic distribution:
If more or less phonetically similar sounds occur in mutually exclusive positions they are called allophones of one and the same phoneme.
If more or less phonetically different sounds occur in the same phonetic contexts they are called allophones of different phonemes.
13) American based pronunciation. American English shows a lesser degree of dialect than British due to some historical factors: the existence of standard English when first English settlers came to America, the high mobility of population, internal migrations of dofferent communities. So there are 3 types of amer language – 1. the eastern type (is spoken in new England, in new york city, it bears a remarkable resemblance to southern English.) 2. The southern type (used in south and south-east of usa, it possesses a striking distinctive feature – vowel drawl.) 3. general American.(is spoken in atlantic states: new york, new jersey y etc., it’s the pronunciation standard as its language is used by radio and tv.)
15)Conversational (familiar) - this kind of English is a means for everyday communication, heard in natural conversational interaction between speakers. This style occurs mainly in informal external and internal relationships in speech of relatives, friends, well - acquainted people and so on. So this is spontaneous, colloquial, informal, everyday speech.
Informational - in press reporting, educational descriptive texts. May be represented in monologues, dialogues, polylogues. Phonostylistic characteristics: Loudness normal or increased; pauses are rather long; rhythm is stable, properly organized; falling tones on the semantic centres, falling- rising in the initial intonation groups. Academic (scientific) - style of lectures (conferences, seminars). The purpose of communication as the speaker’s aim is to attract the listener’s attention, to establish close contacts with the audience and to direct the public attention to the message carried in the contents of the text. Phonostylistic characteristics: Loudness increased; pauses are rather long; rhythm is properly organized; high proportion of compound terminal tones (high fall + low rise, fall – rise, rise-fall-rise), a great number of high categoric falls. Oratorical - this term serves for many kinds of oratorical activities (especially this style uses in political speeches). Phonostylistic characteristics: Loudness enormously increased; pauses are definitely long between the passages; rhythm is properly organized; tones mostly emphatic, especially emotionally underlined semantic centres, in non-final intonational groups falling-rising tones are frequent. Declamatory (artistic)- this is the style of declamation. This is a highly emotional and expressive intonational style, that is why it needs special training. This style can be heard on the stage, on the screen, in a TV studio, thus we see that it is always a written form of the language read aloud or recited. Phonostylistic characteristics: Loudness varied according to the size of the audience and to the emotional setting; pauses are long especially between the passages, prolonged emphatic pauses are used to underline the emphasis; rhythm is properly organized; common use of categoric low and high falls in final and initial intonation groups and on semantic centres
16)Types of sentence stress. 1.Normal (is used to arrange the sentence phonetically, to single a nuclear of the centre of the utterance – I want a blue dress) 2.Logical (when the symantic centre is shifted from the last notional word to soma other word than it’s a logical stress – the weather is nice today)3. Emphatic (stress may differ according to the degree of prominence with which the symantic sentence is pronounced, emph stress is associated with fall rise and mid and figh fall – the weather is nice today).
14. Intonation and language teaching
Prosody (Intonation) is a complex unity of sentence stress, rhythm, tempo, speech melody and voice timbre. Each syllable in a sense group is pronounced on a certain pitch level and bears a definite amount of loudness. Pitch movements are inseparably connected with loudness; together with the tempo of speech they form intonation patterns. Intonation patterns serve to actualize sense groups.
Intonation is a language universal. There is wide agreement among Russian linguists that on perception level intonation is a complex, a whole, formed by significant variations of pitch, loudness and tempo closely related. Some Russian linguists regard speech timbre as the fourth component of intonation. According to R. Kingdon the most important nuclear tones in English are: Low Fall, High Fall, Low Rise, High Rise, and Fall-Rise.
The sense group is a group of words which is semantically and syntactically complex.
In Phonetics actualized sense groups are called intonation groups.
Intonation patterns containing a number of syllables consist of the following parts:
-the prehead
-the head (the 1st accented syllable)
-the scale (begins with the 1st acc.syll.)
-the nucleus (the last acc.syll.) – is the most important part of the intonation pattern.
-the tail – conveys no particular information
The parts of intonation patterns can be combined in various ways expressing different meanings and attitudes.
The more the height of the pitch contrasts within the intonation pattern, the more emphatic the intonation group is. The number of possible combinations is more than 100. But not all of them are equally important. That’s why the number may be reduced to fewer combinations that are important. Thus Prof. O’Connor gives 10 important tone-groups. Each intonation group has a communicative center (a semantic center). It conveys the most important piece of information. which is usually something new. The terminal tone arranges the intonation group both semantically and phonetically.
The functions of intonation:
- constitutive (it presupposes the integrative function on the one hand when intonation arranges intonation groups into bigger syntactic units: sentences, syntactic wholes and texts)
- delimitative (it manifests itself when intonation divides texts, syntactic wholes and sentences units that is intonation groups).
- distinctive It is realized when intonation serves:
→ the actual meaning of a sentence (the semantically-distinctive function)
→ the speaker’s attitude to the contents of the sentence, to the listener and to the topic of conversation (the attitudinally-distinctive function)
→ the style of speech (the stylistically distinctive function)
the syntactically distinctive function (one and the same syntactic unit may be divided into a different number of intonation groups. This division may be important for the meaning).
→ the function of differentiating between the theme and the rheme of an utterance.
The rheme is the communicative center of an utterance. The theme is the rest of an utterance.
Each component of intonation has its distinctive function.
We should give preference to J.D.O.’ Connor and G.F. Arnold’s system, which has no fever then ten different nuclear tones. It’s quite sufficient for teaching pronunciation even to high-levelled learners. All the relevant pitch changes in the pre-nuclear part are indicated by arrows placed before the first stressed syllable instead of an ordinary stress-mark:
That isn’t as simple as it
Sounds
We believe it’s clear that this system deserves recognition not only because it reflects all relevant variations of the two prosodic components of intonation but also because it serves a powerful visual aid for teaching pronunciation / 17) Vowel length in modern English is not distinctive or its irrelevant. Quality is more important. Vowel length may be different it depends on the position of a vowel in the word. [ka:- ka:d- ka:t] Vowels is the longest in its final position. It’s a bit shorter before a voice
consonant, the shortest is before voiceless consonant.
18)Int patternThe sense group is a group of words which is semantically and syntactically complex.
In Phonetics actualized sense groups are called intonation groups.
Intonation patterns containing a number of syllables consist of the following parts:
-the prehead
-the head (the 1st accented syllable)
-the scale (begins with the 1st acc.syll.)
-the nucleus (the last acc.syll.) – is the most important part of the intonation pattern.
-the tail – conveys no particular information / 19) Types of pauses They can be short long and very long. 3 types: 1.syntactic (separate syntactic units, passages, phrases and intontat groups.) 2. Emphatic (emphasize this o that part of utterance. She is…the most charming girl)3. hestitation (are used in spontaneous speech to gain some time and think the are cold embarrassing in linguistics).
20)Accentual phonemes (word stress)
The word-stress fulfills the following functions:
- constitutive (helps to organize sound continuum into words)
- recognitive (helps to identify syllables as an accentual pattern of a word)
- distinctive (helps to distinguish the meanings of words: a present – to present)
→ compound adjectives: absent-minded, dark-eyed
→ phrasal verbs: to get on, to give up
The nature of Word Stress is very complex. Word Stress presupposes such factors as: force, tone, length, vowel color. In such European languages as Russian, German, French, English stress has a dynamic nature (a force character). Musical/ tone word stress may be found in Chinese, Japanese. According to the place of word stress it may be free or fixed. Fixed stress falls on a particular syllable in a polysyllabic word.
-the last syllable in French
-the last but one syllable I Polish
-the first syllable in Finish and Czech.
Russian and English have free word stress. The opposition of the stress may change to distinguish different parts of speech and members of paradigms (‘object – to ob’ject)
21) Types of transcription. Allophonic – is based on 1 symbol per allophone and provides a special sign, [] are used here. The text is very different to read in this transcr but its more comfortable for teaching purposes. Its easer quiecker more convenient to write by hand.
Phonetic – is international transcr it has symbols that stand for phoneme in different languages.
Is uses the fewest possible symbols and simpliest shapes. Letters are from latin alphabet.
23) Conversational (familiar) - this kind of English is a means for everyday communication, heard in natural conversational interaction between speakers. This style occurs mainly in informal external and internal relationships in speech of relatives, friends, well - acquainted people and so on. So this is spontaneous, colloquial, informal, everyday speechGrammar level –