Pronunciation: an acquired skill

Pronunciation: an acquired skill

Two points by way of conclusion.

Firstly, the structures described above are universal in humans: whatever the race or speech-community, the speech organs are the same. There are of course differences in the size and even precise shape of particular parts of the vocal tract, but differences between individuals in a given speech-community are greater than the average differences between one community and another.

It follows from this that the pronunciation difficulties experienced by people learning a foreign language are due to psychological factors, not to anatomical ones. After the age of 10 or so, most people find it difficult to break away from their native sound system. So someone who finds French r, German ü or Spanish j troublesome doesn’t have anything wrong with their uvula, tongue or velum (or at least this is highly unlikely): it’s just that their brain is finding it hard to adapt to new articulatory habits. A person’s knowledge of his or her mother tongue is in no way congenital. Had you been kidnapped at the age of six months and brought up in France, Germany or Spain - or China or the Amazon Basin for that matter - you’d be speaking the local language in a totally “native-like” manner ... and no doubt having problems with English. 

Humans have a complex system of using sounds to produce language. The study of linguistic sounds is

called Phonetics. Phonology is the study of systems of sounds, often the sound system of a particular

language.

Phonetics

Linguistic sounds are produced by pushing air from the lungs out through the mouth, sometimes by way

of the nasal cavity. The movement of the air can then be manipulated by the anatomy of the mouth and

throat to produce different sounds. In actual writing, the same sound may often be spelt different ways.

Consonants

Consonants are produced by restricting and then releasing the flow of air in three ways: vibrating the

vocal cords, changing the part of the anatomy which restricts the air flow, and changing the extent to

which the air flow is restricted. Consonants with relatively little vibration of the vocal cords are called

voiceless consonants. Consonants with relatively more vibration of the vocal cords are called voiced.

Consonants fall into the following categories, depending on what part of the anatomy is used to restrict

the air flow:

Labial                Air flow is restricted with the lips.

Dental                Air flow is restricted with the teeth.

Labiodental        Air flow is restricted with the top teeth on the bottom lip (if both lips are used the sound

                          is called bilabial).

Alveolar         Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the hard plate (alveolum) behind the top

                      front teeth.

Palatal           Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the soft palate behind the alveolum.

Velar             Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue far back in the mouth.

Glottal           Air flow is restricted by tightening the folds in the vocal cords (glottis).

Consonants can also be categorised by the extent to which the air flow is restricted:

Stop               Air flow is stopped and released quickly.

Fricative         Air flow is released gradually.

Affricate         Air flow is stopped and released gradually.

Nasal             Air flow is channeled through the nasal cavity.

Liquid             Air flow is channeled around the sides of the tongue.

Glide              Air flow is only partially restricted (these sounds are often called semi-vowels).

Some languages have other categories, but only the ones above are the only ones that occur in English.

Individual consonants can be made up of nearly any combination of the features above. For instance, [b]

is a voiced labial stop and /s/ is a voiceless alveolar fricative.

Vowels

Vowels are produced by directing the flow of air into different parts of the mouth. They can be adjusted

by changing the position of the tongue, by rounding of the lips, and by the degree of opening of the

mouth. All vowels are voiced.

The position of the tongue can be described in terms of how far forward the tongue is and how high it is.

Vowels are categorised as follows, depending on the position of the tongue:

Front         The tongue is in the front of the mouth.

Central       The tongue is further back in the mouth.

Back          The tongue is in the back of the mouth.

High           The tongue is high in the mouth.

Mid            The tongue is lower in the mouth

Low            The tongue is low in the mouth.

All vowels can be described in terms of their location on both vertical and horizontal axes. A look at the

Spanish vowel system demonstrates this. Examine the underlined vowels and the descriptions of them

below:

Niño “boy” High Front Vowel Burro “donkey” High Back Vowel

Jose Mid Front Vowel Jose Mid Back Vowel

Mar “sea” Low Central Vowel

If you pronounce the High and Mid Back Vowels, you will find that you round your lips. These are called rounded vowels.

SPEECH ORGANS FOR ARTICULATION

SPEECH ORGANS FOR ARTICULATION

a.  THE LIPS. These are too familiar to need further comment, and the involvement of the upper and lower lip in sounds like [p] and [b] is also very obvious. (Details about exactly what happens will be provided later.)

b. THE UPPER FRONT TEETH. These are involved for example in the production of [t] and [ð] (as in thin
and this), for which the tongue comes into contact with the back of the teeth. As the tongue is the moveable organ
which initiates the contact, it is said to be an active articulator, and the teeth, which don’t move, are a passive articulator.
The lower teeth and the remaining upper teeth don’t appear to have any role in language.

c. THE ALVEOLAR RIDGE. Place the tip of your tongue against the rear of your upper front teeth. Then
draw it slowly backwards along the roof of the mouth. You’ll notice that there is a bulge or ridge just behind the teeth,
after which the roof of the mouth rises in quite a steep, domelike way. This bulge is the teethridge - in phonetics morecommonly called the alveolar ridge or alveolum. It’s an important passive articulator for sounds like [t], [d], [s] or [z].
Again the tongue is the active articulator.

d. THE HARD PALATE. This is the steeply rising section of the roof of the mouth behind the alveolar ridge. It serves as a passive articulator in sounds like the h of huge.

e. THE SOFT PALATE or VELUM. If you continue to run your tongue backward along the roof of the mouth(as far back as it can go) you will come to a point where the hard bone of the palate gives way to soft tissue. This section of the roof of the mouth is accordingly known as the soft palate, or, more commonly, the velum. The back of the tongue comes into contact with the velum for consonants like [k] and [g].
The velum is an important organ of speech because it’s moveable and its movement controls the entrance to the nasal cavity. (That’s why it’s soft not hard: it consists of muscle tissue.) Raising the velum so that it’s pressed against the rear wall of the throat has the effect of closing off the nasal tract, so that air is diverted into the mouth.
If you want to breathe through your nose, you have to lower the velum
Nasal consonants like [m] or [n] and nasalized vowels are articulated with the velum lowered. For non-nasal sounds
(that’s the vast majority), the velum must be in the raised position, so that the airstream passes into the mouth. Note that the velum can’t block the entrance to the oral cavity, even when it’s lowered. So even for nasal sounds, some air enters the mouth.

f. THE UVULA. This is the extreme tip of the velum, and isn’t directly involved in the closure of the nasal cavity:  it dangles down instead of being pressed against the rear wall. Some r sounds in French and German are made by vibrating the uvula.

The tongue.

The tongue has long been thought of the speech organ par excellence, even though its biological role lies in tasting and swallowing, not in vocalizing. In many languages the word for “tongue” and the word for “language” are one and the same (French langue, Spanish lengua, Russian iazyk for instance, or tongue in Biblical and Shakespearean English). In actual fact the larynx is also important, as we have seen - but as people are much less conscious of it, it seems to haveattracted less attention.

Anyway, the tongue is certainly involved in the articulation of a large number of sounds, just a few of which have been mentioned above. Its versatility is due to the fact that it consists entirely of nerve and muscle tissue, so it is highly flexible and mobile. ,the tongue is not thin and flat (even though it may feel that way), but has a considerable amount of depth or body.
It’s convenient to consider the tongue as consisting of a number of different sections. As there are no clear
cut-off points on the tongue itself, these division are somewhat arbitrary, and can vary from one authority to another.

But most phoneticians distinguish between the TIP, the BLADE, the FRONT (not a good name, as it’s more like the middle than the front!), the BACK and the ROOT. These articulate against different parts of the roof of the mouth, giving sounds like the s of so (with the blade), the sh of shall (with the front), and so on.

 The pharynx

Even more so than roof of the mouth and tongue, the term throat is somewhat vague and general. (Should it be taken as including the larynx, for example?) Consequently throat isn’t a word that’s used much by phoneticians, who prefer more specific terms. Larynx is one which you already know, and another - not to be confused with it - is PHARYNX.
This designates the tubular cavity bounded by the larynx, the root of the tongue and the soft palate,
 the pharynx is a kind of crossroads: air passes through it from the lungs to the nasal cavity;
food passes through it from the mouth to the oesophagus or food-pipe.

On the face of it, this mingling of food passage and airway sounds a rather unsatisfactory arrangement. And in fact in animals the larynx is situated higher up, so that it’s linked directly with the nasal cavity: no danger of choking for our dumb friends. But a high larynx is much less efficient for the articulation of speech sounds. It looks as though the “low-slung” human larynx has been favoured by evolution, as it allows better vocal communication. That the occasional unfortunate individual should choke to death is presumably a price well worth paying! Incidentally human babies have a high larynx, which “migrates” downwards during the first months of life: a nice example of “ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny”.

In some non-European languages, the rear wall of pharynx serves as a passive articulator. The root of the tongue is pulled back towards it, causing a constriction used for certain characteristically “guttural” sounds in Arabic or Hebrew.

Remember the difference: the larynx is a cartilaginous box immediately above the trachea; the pharynx is the cavity or“crossroads” above the larynx.

Speech organs for pronunciation ;The larynx -Voicing

Speech organs for pronunciation ;The larynx -Voicing

The statement above that the airstream “emerges from the trachea (windpipe) into the throat” is actually an oversimplification Before the air reaches the “throat”, it has to pass through one of the most important speech organs, the LARYNX. It’s at this point that the first possibilities occur of modifying the airstream and generating sound.
The larynx can conveniently be thought of as an irregularly-shaped, hollow box made of cartilage, which sits on top of the trachea. (This is reflected in the non-technical name for it: the “voice-box”.) The front of the larynx can easily be seen and touched: it forms the projection an inch or two below the chin, known as the “Adam’s apple” (more prominent in males than in females - hence presumably the name).
Across the interior of the larynx are stretched two horizontal sheets of muscle tissue. When these are relaxed and wide apart, then the air is free to pass between them. This is how they are held for normal respiration. But if they are brought together with their inner edges in close contact, then air is prevented from entering or leaving the lungs: the only way in or out is through the larynx cavity, which is now sealed off . This is the configuration for swallowing:it prevents not only air but, more importantly, foreign bodies from getting into the lungs.
A third possibility The sheets of muscle are again in contact, but very loosely this time, instead of
being pressed firmly together . As a result, air is able to pass through, but not freely: it has to force
its way, so to speak. This sets the inner edges of the muscles into vibration, and this vibration causes a disturbance in the airstream - i.e. a sound wave. The sound is greatly amplified by the resonance of the mouth and throat cavities, and the result is: the human voice. As a consequence, the inner edges of the muscles stretched across the larynx are known as the vocal folds (alternatively vocal cords or, occasionally, vocal lips). Say aaah, for instance: the sound you’re producing is amplified vocal fold vibration. In essence, the vibration is similar to the effect which you get by folding over a piece of thin paper and blowing between the edges.
The space between the vocal folds is known as the GLOTTIS.

The vocal folds also control the pitch of the voice. As with the strings of a musical instrument, the greater the tension, the higher the pitch. The larynx is provided with a number of muscles which, together with the vocal fold muscles
The larynx and vocal folds of women and children are smaller than those of adult males: hence the difference between soprano and bass voices. When a boy’s voice “breaks” at puberty, this is due to a rapid increase in the size of the larynx. Subtle and complex adjustments of the glottis give rise not just to “normal” voice at a range of pitches, but also to such varied vocal effects as stage whisper, falsetto or so-called “breathy voice”. But it’s worth remembering that voice is a only secondary adaptation of the “vocal” folds, despite the name. (After all, other mammals and even reptiles have a larynx too.) Biologically the primary function of the larynx in general and the vocal folds in particular, is to serve as a valve for the lungs. As has been mentioned already, it’s advisable to close the glottis firmly when swallowing - we all do so instinctively in fact. A second important reason for having a larynx is that the closed vocal folds, by holding back the airstream, can
create a firm column of air in the chest, against which we can push during various kind of physical exertion. Weightlifting, defecation and childbirth all involve a tightly closed glottis!

Voicing

Although it’s merely a biological by-product, the importance of voice for languages can’t be overestimated. All vowel sounds are normally uttered with the vocal folds in vibration (i.e. they are voiced) and so are around half the consonants.
Take [s] and [z], for instance. As we’ll see in more detail later, for both these sounds there is a constriction of the airflow just behind the upper front teeth. The difference between them is that [s] is voiceless (vocal folds held apart in the  position and the airstream able to pass between them unhindered) whereas [z] is voiced, with the vocal folds in  position and consequently in vibration. You should be able to spot the absence or presence of voicing easily enough if you say [s] ... [z] ... [s] ... [z] loudly several times in alternation. The difference becomes even more obvious if you place your fingers firmly over your ears while doing so.
The same relationship exists between the th in thin and the th in this. This time, unfortunately, the spelling doesn’t show any difference. But by repeating these two words in alternation you should be able to tell that in the case of thin we have a voiceless th and in the case of this a voiced one. The phonetic alphabet uses a separate symbol for each: [t] (read “theta”) for the th of thin and [ð] (read “thorn”) for the th of this. (Apologies for the fact that the name “thorn” actually begins with voiceless [t]. Perhaps ill-advisedly, the [ð] symbol is called after a letter of the Old English alphabet.)

Yet another voiceless/voiced pair is [p] and [b]. Try saying [apa] and [aba] in alternation. In both cases there’s a momentary blockage of the airstream between the lips when the consonant is made. What makes the difference between them is voicing (present for [b], absent for [p]).
In fact almost all consonants come in voiced and voiceless pairs - an ingenious use of a single feature (voicing) in order

THE VOCAL TRACT`S ROLE IN ARTICULATION

THE VOCAL TRACT`S ROLE IN ARTICULATION

Languages can basically be thought of as systems - highly complicated ones - which enable us to express our
thoughts by means of “vocal noises”, and to extract meaning from the “noises” (speech sounds from now on!) that are made by other people. Linguistics is the study of the nature and properties of these systems, and its various branches focus on different aspects of the communication process.

Phonetics is the branch concerned with human speech sounds, and itself has three different aspects:

• Articulatory Phonetics (the most anatomical and physiological division) describes how vowels
and consonants are produced or “articulated” in various parts of the mouth and throat.

• Acoustic Phonetics (the branch that has the closest afnities with physics) studies the sound
waves that transmit the vowels and consonants through the air from the speaker to the hearer

• Auditory Phonetics (the branch of most interest to psychologists) 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.
Closely associated with Phonetics is another branch of linguistics known as Phonology. This focuses on the way languages use differences between sounds in order to convey differences of meaning between words, and how each language has its own unique sound pattern. Phonology is really the link between Phonetics and the rest of Linguistics.

In the Phonetics component of ML109 you’ll be concentrating on Articulatory Phonetics, and thinking about the physical basis of speech sounds.

Warning. The word phonetics is often incorrectly used to refer to the symbols of the International Phonetic
Alphabet (the IPA). So people say: “How is this written in phonetics?”, “It was all in phonetics, so I couldn’t
understand it”, or “Dictionaries use phonetics to show pronunciation”. This isn’t how the term should be used. As has been explained, Phonetics is a branch of Linguistics, not an alphabet. So the right thing to say is: “How is this written in phonetic script?”, “It was all in phonetic transcription”, or “Dictionaries show pronunciation by using the phonetic alphabet”.You will of course be introduced to the IPA
Its symbols are identied by square brackets: [p], [u], [ð], etc. Ordinary letters and spellings, on the other hand, will always
be given in italics. As you see, some of the phonetic symbols are the same as ordinary letters, but others will benew to you.

Speaking and breathing

All speech sounds in all languages are produced by modifying ordinary respiration. In quiet breathing, air enters and leaves the lungs without any obstruction, passing freely through the throat and mouth (or nose). If, however, the tongue or some other organ is placed in the path of the airstream, this free passage of air is disturbed; the air from the lungs may be set into vibration or the flow momentarily interrupted. For example, the lips close and briefly cut off the airstream for [p] and [b]. Any such disturbance generates a sound wave - a ripple effect that travels through the air between speaker and hearer(s) and is then interpreted as a particular speech sound. Articulatory phonetics studies the variousways in which airstreams can be “interfered wit ”.
First, we normally speak only while breathing out. It’s also quite possible to speak while breathing in
(for example when counting and not wishing to pause to draw breath), but this is an inefficient, awkward way of making sounds and therefore not a regular feature of any language. In some speech-communities, though, people use “ingressive air” as a conventional means of disguising their voices.

Second, there are various ways of making speech sounds with air that doesn’t originate in the lungs. The disapproving noise conventionally represented as tut tut! is an example. Some languages make regular use of “click” sounds like this one, as well as other “non-pulmonic” sounds that from our point of view seem even more exotic.

Third, if we used the same breathing rhythm for talking as for just breathing quietly, we’d have to pause for breath every couple of words. (Try it and see.) In speech, quite complex adjustments of the chest muscles and diaphragm are constantly being made in order to slow down the airstream and hold it back as it leaves the lungs.

ARTICULATION OF VOWELS 

VOWELS differ from CONSONANTS in that very little exhaled air is obstructed during
their production. Consequently they form a continuum of sounds rather than being neatly
divisible into separate units whose location in the mouth can be easily pinpointed. Consonant
sounds adjacent to vowels can affect the tongue position used on those vowels (and the
reverse is somewhat true as well); thus, two vowels perceived as being identical may in fact
be produced with different tongue shapes owing to the articulatory characteristics of the
surrounding sounds.

Basic Considerations When Trying to Identify Vowels

 Tongue height: How high up or low down is the tongue? Note the difference between
[hi] (high) and [hɑ] (low).
 Tongue position: Is the highest part of the tongue toward the front or the back of the
mouth? Again, note the difference between [hi] (front) and [hu] (back).
 Lip position: Are the lips rounded (puckered)? Are they relaxed and flat, or are they
somewhat spread? Note the difference between [hu] (rounded) and [hɛ] (unrounded).
 Gliding: Does a vowel’s quality remain fairly constant throughout its articulation, or does
the tongue’s position change significantly during pronunciation? Many English vowels
are glided, such that what may seem to a native speaker to be one vowel is actually a
continuous movement through two or more vowel qualities in rapid succession. Compare
the common greeting, [hɑⁱ] (glided), with the southern equivalent of the same greeting,
[ha], (constant or pure).
 Voice Quality: What quality of sound accompanies the vowel? Is it voiced or voiceless,
short or long, nasalized or not, breathy or laryngealized (somewhat like a creaky door)?
In the past, the variety of vowel sounds has been conceived in terms of an inverted
trapezoidal grid within the mouth that represents degrees of tongue height and positions in
the front, middle or back of the mouth.
So, when we talkabout a vowel being close, open, front, central, or back, we are talking about the sound of thevowel and only approximately about tongue position.

[ɪ], [e], [ɛ], [æ], [o] and [ɑ] are the vowels in English which are most frequently glided. The
[ɪ], [ɛ] and [æ] are most often followed by an offglide into an [ə] and thus become [ɪᵊ], [ɛᵊ]
and [æᵊ]. The [e] is influenced by an offglide into [i] when it becomes [eⁱ]; and the [o] is
influenced by an offglide into [u], as is the [ɑ], thus making them [oᵘ] and [ɑᵘ] respectively.
[ɑ] is also influenced by an offglide into [i], making it [ɑⁱ]. The [u] is frequently preceded by
an [ɪ] or an [i] onglide. One of the best ways to practice producing pure vowels (i.e. vowels
with no glide) is to say them while looking in your mirror. Any movement of the lips or jaw
is evidence that gliding is taking place.

Hints for Producing Unglided Vowels

 Say [ʔoʔoʔoʔoʔoʔoʔoʔo] without allowing any part of your mouth to move. Use your
mirror so you will be able to notice any perceptible lip or mouth movement into an [oᵘ]
glide. Do the same thing with [ʔeʔeʔeʔeʔeʔeʔeʔe] and the other vowels we tend to glide,
again not letting your lips or tongue position change. This time watch for any jaw
movement.
 If you speak a dialect that has an [ⁱu] on-glide, it will show up immediately using this
technique.
 Try saying a very long [ooooooooh] or [eeeeeeeeh], ending by blowing an [h] instead
gliding.

STOPS IN ARTICULATION

STOPS IN ARTICULATION

A STOP occurs when the exhaled air is completely blocked for a brief moment at the point of
articulation. It cannot get out through either the nose or mouth. The major stops are [b] & [p]
(bilabial), [d] & [t] (alveolar), [ɡ] & [k] (velar), and [ʔ] (glottal). There are voiced and
voiceless stops.
1. Voiced Stops [b], [d] and [ɡ]
A voiced stop requires the vocal folds to vibrate as air passes over them. This means that
there is air movement but all exits are closed. As the voiced stop is produced, air fills the oral
cavity (cheeks, back of mouth) momentarily. Then it is released.
English speakers vary greatly in the amount of voicing they give to the voiced stops in their
language. As you pronounce the following words, pay attention to the rumble in your throat.
Place your fingers on your larynx or cover your ears. You will be able to feel and hear the
vibration in your throat.
2. Exaggerate the Voicing of the Initial Stops in Each Word
Barry’s ball-batting’s better.
Dotty doesn’t dance divinely.
Gary got good grades.
Oral Exercises
Repeat the following words, going across each row first, and then down
each column.
Drill 5
beer bale Bash bore
deer dale Dash door
gear gale Gash gore
Voiceless Aspirated Stops [pʰ], [tʰ] and [kʰ]
In linguistics ASPIRATION means a puff of air. A stop is ASPIRATED when there is a
slight puff of air immediately following the release of the stop. English speakers control
aspirated stops very naturally at the beginning of words, so this is no problem for them. Say
the following words while holding the back of your hand in front of your mouth and notice
the puff of air that follows the release of each stop.
Pare tare Care
Aspiration is written phonetically by a raised “h” immediately following the stop. [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ].
[pʰæɹ] [tʰæɹ] [kʰæɹ]

POINTS OF ARTICULATION

POINTS OF ARTICULATION

In the production of consonants, the place where the airstream is stopped or
impeded is called the POINT OF ARTICULATION. That is the point where
some part of the lower mouth touches or comes near to some part of the upper
mouth.
1. BILABIAL: A sound made using both lips (p, b).
2. LABIODENTAL: A sound made using the lower lip and upper teeth (f, v).
3. INTERDENTAL: A sound made when the tongue tip is placed between the upper and
lower teeth (“th” as in “thin” and “then”).
4. ALVEOLAR: A sound made when the tongue tip makes closure with the alveolar ridge
(the gum ridge behind the upper front teeth) (t, d).
5. PALATAL: A sound made when the tongue makes closure with some point on the hard
palate (s, z).
6. VELAR: A sound made when the back of the tongue makes closure at or near the velum
(k, g).
7. UVULAR: A sound made when the airstream causes the tip of the uvula to move
(French “r”).

THE GLOTTAL STOP

THE GLOTTAL STOP

The glottal stop [ʔ] deserves special discussion since it is not truly a vocal sound but rather a
phenomenon. When the glottis closes completely so that no air can flow into or out of the
lungs over the vocal folds, a glottal stop has occurred. They are frequent in English but are
never included in the spelling of English words. Consequently, many English speakers are
not even aware that they have been producing glottal stops all their lives. You produce one
every time you hold your breath (as when you go under water) for even a millisecond. There
is a glottal stop at the beginning of most English words beginning with a vowel. There is a
glottal stop in the middle of the expression “uh-oh” (an interjection when something goes
wrong). There is also a glottal stop in the middle of the negative expressions “huh-uh” and
“hmm-mm.” Glottal stops are very common in English, but we seldom notice them because
their presence or absence never determines the meanings of words. Consequently, they are
not included in the English writing system.
However, there are some languages in which they are very important since two words can be
exactly alike except that one contains a glottal stop and the other one does not. In Tabasco
Chontal of Mexico, for example, [tʰi] means maybe and [tʰiʔ] means mouth.

CONSONANTS & VOWELS

CONSONANTS & VOWELS

Human speech sounds fall into two categories: CONSONANTS and VOWELS. With
consonants, the airstream from the lungs is at least partially obstructed; with vowels, the
mouth is open and the tongue is not touching the roof of the mouth, the teeth, or the lips.
Thus vowels have a steady, uninterrupted airstream flowing out of the mouth from the lungs.
Since there is virtually no restriction in the flow of air with the production of vowels, they are
made by manipulating the internal shape of the mouth with the position of the tongue and the
shape of the lips.
For instance, when we say “ee” as in “sheep,” the tongue is high and to the front of the
mouth, and the lips are relaxed and unrounded. When we say “oo” as in “boot,” the tongue is
high and to the back of the mouth, and the lips are rounded. When we say “a” as in “pat,” the
tongue is low and to the front of the mouth. In English, vowels produced by the back of the
tongue are accompanied by rounded lips (there is one exception), and those produced by the
front of the tongue with unrounded lips. This is not necessarily the case in other languages.
Accents fall on vowels, not on consonants.

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1. AIR MECHANISM: Where does the air originate? The lungs, the larynx, or the mouth?
In what direction does the air move? Is it pushed out through the mouth or nose
(egressive), or is it sucked in (ingressive)?

2. VOICING: Air coming up from the lungs can be made to cause the vocal folds in the
larynx to vibrate. If they vibrate, a “voiced” sound is produced. If not, “voiceless” sounds
occur. If you’re wondering if a sound is voiced or not, put your fingers on your LH’s
throat (if allowed). If you can feel it vibrating it is voiced.

3. STOPS: Stops occur when the airstream’s flow is completely impeded momentarily at
some point in the mouth or throat.

4. ASPIRATION: A puff of air immediately following the release of a stop.

5. FRICATIVES: Fricatives occur when the airstream’s flow is greatly impeded (but not
completely) on its way through a restricted passage in the mouth or throat.

6. AFFRICATES: An affricate is a stop that is released into a fricative.

7. NASALS: Nasal sounds occur when the airstream passes through the nasal cavity.

8. LATERALS: Laterals occur when the center of the tongue makes closure against the
roof of the mouth and the air flow passes around the sides of the tongue.

PHONETICS PROCEDURES

PHONETICS PROCEDURES

1. Watch your LANGUAGE HELPER’s (LH) mouth. Get close! How does their tongue
move? How far does it come forward or go backward? How rounded are their lips?
2. Listen intently. You will not be able to produce a sound until you hear it right.
3. English is “lip lazy.” We tend to glide into our vowels (more about this later) thereby
producing more than one vowel sound. Many languages shape their vowels before they
say them, producing what we call pure vowels. Concentrate on producing pure vowels.
4. Isolate those sounds you find difficult, and set up drills. If possible, find words where the
difficult sounds occur at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of words. The
exercises on the following pages will demonstrate this.
5. Record your LH reading children’s stories slowly and with feeling. That kind of reading
highlights individual sounds.
6. Record yourself trying to read the same stories. Doing so enables you to compare your
pronunciation with that of your LH.
7. You must learn to listen to yourself speak, and then self-correct.
8. Don’t be confused by the way a language is written. Often, letters in the alphabet cover
more than one sound. Remember, English has twenty-six letters which, alone or in
combination with others, represent forty-four sounds.
9. When you sat down at your table, you found a small mirror along with your notebook.
Whenever necessary, use it during the session to see what’s going on in your mouth.

Aspiration (phonetics)

 Aspiration (phonetics)

In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ([pʰɪn]) and then bin ([bɪn]). One should either feel a puff of air or see a flicker of the candle flame with pin that one does not get with bin. In most dialects of English, the initial consonant is aspirated in pin and unaspirated in bin.

“Phonetics training” has one target: you; that is, your ears and mouth. The goal is to finetune
your hearing and to help you regain as much conscious control of your vocal apparatus
as possible. “Pronunciation practice” has an altogether different target: your new language,
specifically the unfamiliar sounds. The goal is mastery – hearing those sounds correctly and
producing them accurately. Phonetics training precedes pronunciation practice and helps you
bring more in ear-sensitivity and mouth-control to that practice.
On the following pages you will find new terminology, discussions, suggestions and
exercises that will assist you as you embark on your attempt to help your mouth “get it right.”
This will be your exposure to phonetics itself.

IPA SYMBOLS & ENGLISH EQUIVALENTS

Symbol Description English Equivalent
1 pʰ voiceless bilabial aspirated stop “p” in pill
2 tʰ voiceless alveolar aspirated stop “t” in till
3 kʰ voiceless velar aspirated stop “k” in kill
4 p voiceless bilabial stop “p” in spill
5 t voiceless alveolar stop “t” in still
6 k voiceless velar stop “k” in skill
7 b Voiced bilabial stop “b” in bill
8 d Voiced alveolar stop “d” in dill
9 ɡ Voiced velar stop “g” in gill
10 ʔ glottal stop glottis closure between
“uh” & “oh” in “uhoh”
11 ɸ voiceless bilabial fricative no equivalent
12 β Voiced bilabial fricative no equivalent
13 f voiceless labiodental fricative “f ” in fan
14 v Voiced labiodental fricative “v” in van
15 θ voiceless interdental fricative “th” in thin
16 ð Voiced interdental fricative “th” in then
17 x voiceless velar fricative no equivalent
18 ɣ voiced velar fricative no equivalent
19 s voiceless alveolar grooved fricative “s” in sip
20 z voiced alveolar grooved fricative “z” in zip
21 ʃ voiceless palato-alveolar grooved fricative “sh” in ship
22 ʒ voiced palato-alveolar grooved fricative “s” in measure
23 ɬ voiceless lateral fricative no equivalent
24 ɮ voiced lateral fricative no equivalent
H voiceless glottal fricative “h” in heap
26 L voiced lateral approximant “l” in log
27 M voiced bilabial nasal “m” in mode
28 N voiced alveolar nasal “n” in node
29 ñ voiced palato-alveolar nasal “ny” in canyon
30 Ŋ voiced velar nasal “ng” in sing
31 ɹ voiced alveolar approximant “r” in run
32 ɾ voiced alveolar flap “dd” in buddy
33 R voiced alveolar trill no equivalent
34 ʀ̥ voiceless uvular trill French “r” in très
35 ʀ voiced uvular trill French “r” in rue
36 tʃ voiceless palato-alveolar affricate “ch” in choke
37 dʒ voiced palato-alveolar affricate “j” in joke
37 j / w voiced palatal approximant/voiced labial-velar approximant “y” in yell/
“w” in well

Symbol Description of vowel English Equivalent

1 I close front unrounded vowel “ee” in beet

2 ɪ near-close front unrounded vowel “i” in bit
3 E close-mid front unrounded vowel “a” in bait
4 ɛ open-mid front unrounded vowel “e” (unglided) in bet
5 Æ near-open front unrounded vowel “a” in bat
6 ə mid central unrounded vowel “u” in but
7 ɯ close back unrounded vowel no equivalent
8 U close back rounded vowel “oo” in boot
9 ʊ near-close back unrounded vowel “oo” in book
10 O close-mid back rounded vowel “oa” (unglided) in boat
11 ɔ Open-mid back rounded vowel “ou” in bought
12 ɑ Open back unrounded vowel “o” in blot

PHONETICS

PHONETICS 

When you speak a foreign language, your pronunciation is not a factor of
fluency…unless...you speak so poorly no one can understand you. But your pronunciation is
the first thing native speakers notice; in spite of dialectical differences, they are all agreed on
what is acceptable speech. When you speak their language, is your speech
acceptable? This should be possible – after all, we all possess the same kind
of vocal “hardware” (mouth, tongue, teeth, lips, nose, etc.), and can produce
the same sounds. So, “I can’t make that sound” is not really the case. Yes
you can! And why would you not want to?
Becoming aware of what your mouth is doing in the pronunciation of words is the first step
toward becoming a better speaker of another language as you learn it. As you pronounce each
of the following words in the right column, pay attention to how the initial consonant of each
word is being produced.
PHONETICS is the linguistic discipline which addresses the recognition, production and
recording of the different speech sounds. Questions like “How and where are those sounds
produced?”, “Are there different categories of sounds that share certain features?”, and “How
can they all be written?”…these questions come to mind.
Focus on what happens to the air when you produce (and hold) the initial consonant of each
of these words.
There are about 700 speech sounds in the world. When you were born, you were able to
produce any of them, but since you only needed a few, your mouth locked onto those sounds
it needed to make you sound like everyone else around you. Even though you are still able to
produce those hundreds of other speech sounds, you are no longer working with a “clean
slate.” This is where phonetics training comes in along with the practice necessary to result in
good pronunciation.
VOICED sounds occur when the vocal folds in the larynx (i.e. the GLOTTIS) are close
together and vibrating. VOICELESS sounds occur when the vocal folds are apart and are
stationary.
Practice turning the voicing on and off without stopping the flow of air. 

Nasality in consonant articulation

Make the sound represented by <m> in the word Pam and continue it
for some seconds. As you continue it, pinch your nose and observe what
happens to the sound. It should stop immediately. This shows that air was
flowing through your nose as you produced this sound. Now try the same
little experiment with the <n> of pan and the <ng> of pang. You should find
that the air flows through the nose in these two cases also. Sounds in which
air flows through the nose are called nasal sounds. The air is allowed into
the nose by lowering the velum, the soft palate at the back of the mouth.
English has three main nasal sounds:

[m]                       Pam             clammy              mat

[n]                        pan              clannish              Nat

[N]                       pang             clingy

 PRONUNCIATION

Depending on the language we can have several intermediate tongue heights.

 Englishhas three heights: high, mid and low, whereas French has two intermediate tongue heightswith a total of four tongue heights: high, mid high, mid low and low.The part of the tongue involved in the production of a vowel can also be illustratedwith the examples above. 

If you say [i:] and then [u:] just after it, you almost have the feelingthat you are moving your tongue backwards. This is because [i:] is a front vowel, and [u:] isa back vowel, or in other words, the highest point in the pronunciation of [i:] is the front ofthe tongue, whereas the highest point in [u:] is the back of the tongue. 

Length

As you may have seen, there are two types of [i] sound in English placed in two
different positions. However for the purpose of description, what is relevant is not the
difference of position but that of the perceived length of the vowel. Thus it is said that [i:] is
a long vowel and [H] is a short one. The same is valid for [u:] / [T], [2:]/[?], [N:]/ [P].
Symbols for long vowels all have a colon.
Phonologically, one can establish the rule such as only long vowels may be the last
sound of a syllable, whereas short vowels are always followed by at least a consonant. If we
take away the final [t] from court, [kN:] is a possible syllable (core) whereas [kP] could not
possibly occur. (Exceptions from this are the three short vowels that occur in completely
unstressed syllables, [sHtH, HntT, swet?] city, into, sweater).
 Rounding
Vowels may also be different from each other with respect to rounding. If you
compare [i:] in [tRi:z] cheese with [u:] in [tRu:z] choose, you will see that not only is [i:] a
front vowel and [u:] a back vowel, but [i:] is also unrounded where [u:] is rounded. When
pronouncing [u:] your lips are rounded, but when pronouncing [i:] the corners of the mouth
are much further apart.