Standard Southern British English compared with General American
Pronunciation and spelling
Language is not only oral but even written. To communicate, speech (oral) is the primary way humans express. Speech is a sequence of sounds. Speech and language are linked.
Pronunciation
Necessary to understand people, to speak and to improve our skills. Pronunciation is for speech, while the spelling is for writing. We need to know both (they are closer) but:
- SSBE GA
- Secretary /sekrətəri/ /sekrəteri/
- Wonder /wʌndə(r)/ /wʌndər/
- Wander /wɒndə(r)/ /wɒndər/
- Queue /kjuː/ /kjuː/
- Maid /meɪd/ /meɪd/
- Made /meɪd/ /meɪd/
- Tear /teə(r)/ /tɛər/
In English, there are 26 letters, but 44 sounds in the language. So the number of sounds is not always the same as the number of letters, and also there isn't a correspondence between the grapheme (the letter) and a sound. Graphemes could be <a>, <u>, <ea>, and sounds are /ei/ or /a:/. It is the spelling of a sound, the letter (writing system) <..>.
The sound of speech is studied by phonetic and phonology.