Appunti fonologia inglese

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Lexical words are pronounced in a strong form (stressed words) in order to communicate something, on the other hand, grammatical words are pronounced softly because they only are linking elements.

Mary went to Paris

Mary went out with Paul

Mary did not answer the phone

Weak form

It is typically used when the word isn't stressed

I don't think Mary was here yesterday

No, she was here!

Compound stress

The compound phenomenon happens when we have two independent word and join them together, as they can also act as free words.

The position of stress distinguishes the real compound from a phrase:

blackbird - black bird

Stress-timed

A type of rhythm where stressed syllables tend to occur at equal intervals in time.

Mary had a little lamb

Stylistic function of phonology

• Onomatopoeia: The formation of a word from a sound associated with the thing or action being named; the formation of words imitative of sounds.
• Consonance: Correspondence

of sounds (consonants) in words or syllables; recurrence of the same or like sounds. The term has traditionally been associated to consonant repetition.

Assonance: A resemblance or correspondence of sound between syllables or word, such as the repeated vowel in easy to please. The term has traditionally been associated to vowel repetition. Consonance: associated to consonant.

Alliteration: Repetition of similar consonants sounds, the commencing of two or more words in close logical connection, with the same/similar consonant sound.

Bayer works wonders

Bring out the Best Foods and bring out the best

Flick my Bic

We mean clean

The quicker picker-upper

Fill it with the rim with Brim

A little dab'll do ya

Wassup?!

Falling intonation

Steps are never in the same level. In the video the girl compares our voice with our walking (there are always ups and downs). When we go up and down with the voice, we change the pitch. The pitch of women are different to the men's pitch.

A statement is

something certain. The falling intonation expresses finality and certainty.

Rising and falling tones

Every utterance (tone unit) has a pitch movement at the end, either rising or falling

These tones carry an extra layer of meaning, independent from the grammar of the utterance.

The first problem with rising and falling tones is hearing them. We adjust our tones subconsciously, and we "hear" the communicative effect rather than the voice pitch. (Each language has its own characteristic of intonational path).

Falling

• Proclaiming new informations
• Certainty
• Wh- questions (asking for informations)
• Finality
• A: You're tired
  B: I'm not
• A: Someone phoned
  B: Who?
• A: Are you ok?
  B: Yes
• A: When are you away?
  B: I'm away tomorrow

Rising

• Referring old informations
• Doubt and surprise
• Yes/No questions (asking for affirmative/negative expression)
• Wh- (checking) questions
• Continuing
• A: You're tired
  B:

I'm not• A: The president phonedB: Who?• A: Excuse me...B: Yes?• A: See you tomorrowB: I'm away tomorrow

Functions of intonation• Accentual functionI want to know where he's travelling to• Grammatical functionThose who sold quickly made a profit• Discourse functionShe went to Scotland

Roots and spread of American EnglishIn each settlement there were people coming from different places.A group from London, another from East England and another one fromIreland.In New York, Philadelphia and New Jersey settled people mostly fromScotland and IrelandIn general, American English only has 14/15 different vowel sounds, butBritish English has 20.Yod-dropping is a distinctive structure of American EnglishThe American English dialects reflect the differences of the people settling theUnited StatesSouthern: vowels are all very long. It's said that these people don't speakwellShift: it's a movement of one of the vowels influence all the

In written English we use punctuation to signal some things like emphasis, and the speed with which we want our readers to move at certain points. In spoken English we use sounds in ways that do not apply to individual segments but to stretches of spoken discourse from words to phrases, clauses and sentences.

Among these effects are such things as stress, intonation, tempo and rhythm, which collectively are known as prosodic features.

Stress or loudness: increasing the volume of the voice is a simple way of giving emphasis, and this is a crude measure of stress. We use stress to convey some kinds of meaning such as urgency or anger or for such things as imperatives.

Intonation is about how we say things, rather than what we are saying. Without it, it's impossible to understand the expressions and thoughts that go with words. The "melody" of someone speaking (a not known language for example) is called intonation.

It's divided into phrases, also known as "tone-units"

The pitch moves up and down, within a "pitch range". Everybody has their own, and languages too, differ in pitch range (English has a particularly wide pitch range)

In each tone unit, the pitch movement takes place on the most important syllable known as the "tonic-syllable", usually a high-content word.

These patterns of pitch variation are essential to a phrase's meaning. Changing the intonation can completely change the meaning.

Rhythm

Patterns of stress, tempo and pitch together create a rhythm. Some kinds of formal and repetitive rhythm are familiar from music, rap, poetry and football fans chants. But all speech has rhythm, but it's just that in spontaneous utterances we are less likely to hear regular or repeating patterns.

Paralinguistic features

Other effects arise from altering the quality of the voice, making it breathy or husky mad changing what is called "timbre".

Both of these kinds of effect may signal something. We are used to "putting on" silly voices for comic effects or in play. We use it speaking to babies. Such effects are sometimes described as changing timbre or voice quality. (Speaking to girlfriend) Both prosodic and paralinguistic features may signal meaning. But they do not do so consistently from one language to another. Italian is a phonetic language, the grapheme-phoneme dichotomy is practically non-existent. English is irregular and full of exceptions to its rules because of historical reasons. Consonant sound

- pip, pop

- bat, bug - tell, table - fish, phone, enough - van, vat, Stephen - sit, city - zebra, exam, easy - hop, hut Homonyms

Items spelt and pronounced in exactly the same way:

• Rose
Homographs

Items spelt in the same way, but pronounced differently:

• Rows
Pronouncing dictionaries

Pronunciation means how we say words. Most people speak the dialect of standard English with an accent that belongs to the part of

The country they come from or live in. Learners of British English commonly hear RP (received pronunciation), which is an accent often used on the BBC and other medias, but it is also common to hear a variety of regional accents of English from across the world.

How we use spoken stress and rhythm is also an important part of pronunciation. There are also common patterns of intonation in English which enable us to give special emphasis to particular words or sentences.

The first 14 edition of the EPD (English Pronunciation Dictionary) covered only British English. The 15th edition (1997), published by Cambridge university, introduced American pronunciation. The changes in the 16th edition (2003) were relatively small. The 17th (2006) has continued the slow evolution, with the addition of further words.

Why is a pronunciation dictionary useful?

• More words than general dictionaries, because there are no definitions. It can include first names, last names, company names, geographical

names, trademarks etc...• More pronunciation variants. It can list more ways to pronounce the same word. It can explain how to pronounce a word in a sentence.• More precise transcriptions. It can use additional symbols to give more detailed information on pronunciation.• More authority. We can expect that it will contain fewer errors in transcription than a general dictionary.

Whose pronunciation is covered?• For British English, the EPD follows the pronunciation of those newsreaders on BBC radio and tv who speak with an English accent (not Scottish, Welsh or Irish). The authors call this model "BBC English".• For American English, the EPD follows the accent of professional voices on news programs on American national tv networks (CNN, ABC, NBC, FOX). This model is called "Network English".• This definition of pronunciation models makes a lot of sense. Almost all speakers of English watch tv, therefore the "tv accents" are very understandable.

They are also the easiest to learn, because tv networks like BBC World or CNN International are widely available and the sound quality on tv is excellent.

List of proper names that you can look up in a pronouncing dictionary, but not in a general one:

• Scorsese
• Adidas
• Beckham
• Nike
• Schwarzenegger
• Daniel

Daniel Jones was a British phonetician who devised the system of Cardinal vowels.

Scotland >>> Scottish English

Wales >>>

Ireland >>> different shades of English

English is a very fragmented reality

Received Pronunciation RP: also known as Standard English, BBC English, Oxford English, the Queen's English is:

• An accent, not a dialect
• Standard English (grammar and vocabulary)
• Neutral, non-regional accent
• Social accent
• Education, power, authority, responsibility
• The most studied in the world, the less spoken in UK
• Phonemic transcription (you find this one in the IPA transcription)

Something is changing

RP has changed

The way people speak has changed dramatically over the last 50 years. Now, people are speaking in a more relaxed, modern RP.

The Royal Family

Language is not an ideal entity, it is always a result of the society. If the society changes, language changes following the society. The Queen changes the way she speaks during the years. In the first TV broadcast of 1957, she used a very controlled accent. But in the 2015 one, she was more relaxed and touched more.