Fonologia inglese

ENGLISH PHONOLOGY

1.BASIC TERMINOLOGY AND CONCEPTS:

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Phonology:​ is concerned with the linguistics system of a language → the patterns of sounds

that occur in a particular language and the way in which sounds represents differences of

meaning languages.

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It’s the study of the sound system​ → how phonemes can combine in a particular language

and the restriction that there are on these combinations.

It studies the way native speakers organize and store the knowledge of the sounds of their

own language that enables them to use it appropriately on all occasions.

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Phonetics:​ it’s the study of phonemes (

= minimum unit of sounds​ ).

It’s about the physical nature of human speech sounds irrespective of which language is

being spoken.

It deals with the anatomy and physiology of speech and studies the whole mechanisms

involved in the production and reception of speech

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● Articulatory phonetics: studies the way in which speech is produced → therefore

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the articulators​ we use.

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● Acoustic phonetics: investigates the physical properties of speech sounds as

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waves which are transmitted from a speaker → it focuses on the sound waves

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● Auditory phonetics: deals with the way in which speech is perceived and processed

by the brain of the hearer

This three main areas closely interact in the communication processes between the speaker

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and the hearer. These communication processes represent the speech mechanism​ , which

consists of three main stages:

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1. The production​ of speech sounds which are articulated in the vocal apparatus of the

speaker

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2. The transmission​ of the acoustic signal through the air

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3. The reception of speech sounds by the listener

These stage are controlled by the brain which gives specific orders which will be executed

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by the organs of speech​ to produce the sounds.

Speech production​ depends on three main systems:

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1. the respiratory → respiration

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2. the phonatory → phonation

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3. the articulatory → articulation. ​

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Ladefoged adds a fourth process, called oro-nasal w

hich depends on the status of the

velum.

Respiration:​ a certain amount of airflow is required to generate sounds → this airflow may

be egressive or ingressive, depending on the direction it follows:

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● Ingressive → the air flows into the vocal tract → the air pressure inside the vocal tract

is lower than the air pressure outside the vocal tract

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● Egressive → the air flows out of the vocal tract → the air pressure inside the vocal

tract is greater than the air pressure outside of the vocal tract

Speech is almost exclusively egressive → the source of energy for speech production is the

air that comes mostly from the lung as we exhale.

An ingressive air stream is more involuntary and especially common when sobbing or being

out of breath.

Phonation:​ is the effect that the different positions of the vocal cords have on speech and

it’s produced by the larynx.

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Larynx: is a casing made of cartilage and muscle around the windpipe (trachea)

which contains the vocal cords (folds). It’s made of three parts:

● Thyroid cartilage ​

● Arytenoid cartilage → control the movements of the vocal cords

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● Vocal folds → can be arranged in different ways in relation to each other and

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to the gap between them, called the glottis.

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The vocal folds can be closed (they separate the pharynx from the trachea) or open

(breathing is permitted).

When the air pressure below closed vocal folds is high enough the vocal folds are forced

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open → T

he vocal folds then spring back closed under both elastic and aerodynamics

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forces → Pressure builds up again → the vocal folds open again and so on as long as the

vocal folds remain closed and a sufficient sub-glottal pressure can be maintained.

The folds stretch across the larynx and can assume the following six position:

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1. Closed glottis: the vocal cords are shut tight together and completely obstruct the

airflow → can be heard as an interruption of sound when it occurs between vowels

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2. Open glottis (voiceless): the vocal cords are wide apart and the airs flows freely

through the glottis producing voiceless speech sounds

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3. Vibrating (voiced): the vocal cords are held loosely together, but not stop the flow of

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air completely → t

he air pushes the cord apart and equalizes the air pressure for a

short time, then the pressure and the muscular tension used to hold the vocal cords

apart drop, and the vocal cords snap back together again this way produces vibration

which is what produces voiced speech sound ​

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4. Whisper: the vocal cords are brought together, but do not vibrate → the arytenoid

cartilages are held apart in a way that leave a gap through which air can escape

without producing any vibration of the vocal cords.

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5. Murmur (breathy voice): the vocal cords are kept apart, but closer together than for

voicelessness, so the vibration which is caused is different from voicing

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6. Creak: sounds like a succession of glottal stops during which the arytenoids are

pressed together while the front portions of the vocal folds slowly vibrate

creaky voice:​ creak combined wit voice

↳​

Articulation:​ the organs of speech which constitute the articulatory system and are

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responsible for articulation also constitute the vocal tract​ (linguistic term used to refer to the

organs which are located after the larynx).

The sound produced at the larynx can be modified by altering the shape of the vocal tract:

1. By opening or closing the velum

2. By moving the tongue

3. By moving the lips and the jaw

The vocal tract is made up of the following parts: ​

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● Pharyngeal cavity: the space above the larynx → the pharynx is its main organ

which can be modified causing a change in the quality of the sounds produced by

contracting the muscles around it and by moving the tongue backward

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● Nasal cavity: the space inside the nose → the nose can pass through the nose

when the velum is closed ​

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● Oral cavity: the space inside the mouth → is made up of the following organs of

speech

○ Tongue

○ Upper and lower lips

○ Upper and lower teeth

○ Roof of the mouth

○ Jaw ​

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● Lungs, bronchial tube, muscles of the ribs, part of the wind pipe → respiratory system

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● Larynx → phonatory system ​

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● Nose, lips, teeth, tongue roof of the mouth, jaw, uvula → articulatory system.

Tongue, lips and roof of the mouth deserve particular attention given that they are

made up of other sub-parts whose involvement in sp causes the production of a

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specific sound type → the tongue is divided into five main zones (tip, blade, front,

back, root)

When this part are used in combination with other areas of the oral cavity above the tongue

they create different sounds. The upper and lower lips are elastic and are moved by the

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muscles around the mouth to assume three main position: neutral, rounded and spread.

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The roof of the mouth is made up of the alveolar ridge, hard palat, soft palat (

v

elum

) and

uvula.

THE INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ASSOCIATION AND THE INTERNATIONAL

PHONETIC ALPHABET

Towards the end of the 19th century scholars felt the need for some kind of system in which

symbol equalled one sound

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1886 → I

nternational Phonetic Association​ (as Dhi Fonètik Ticerz’ Asòciécon) founded by a

group of European phoneticians in France.

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1888 → t

he International Phonetic Association​ (standard transcription of language) was

published.

The basic principle was to have a different symbol for every distinguishable sound.

The alphabet was created because the Roman alphabet with 5 vowels does not

adequately represent all the vocal sounds in English. Furthermore the English ​

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spelling system does not correspond to the sounds of the English language → in fact

the same combination of letters has many different pronunciations.

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1889​ → Association Phonètique des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes

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1897 → International Phonetique Association

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1886 →​ Dhi Fonètik Ticer, the first journal of the association was published. The journal was

published as far as possible in phonetic script.

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1971 → Phonetic script gave way to traditional orthography ​

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The most famous supplement is Principles of the International Phonetics Assosiation which

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included the famous transcription of The North Wind and the Sun i

n about 50 languages

around the world.

The first alphabet which was used was a modification of the 1847 alphabet by Isaac Pitman

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and Alexander J. Ellis. Since its first publication the International Phonetic Alphabet h

as

always been subject to critical review and changes.

The idea behind this alphabet is that each distinguishable sound present in a language is

given its own symbol and that the whole range of available phonetic symbols constitutes the

phonetic alphabet of that language.

Some symbols are the same as the letters of the alphabet, but others had to be invented to

cope with the range of sounds present in the language. Vowel sounds, especially, had to be

new symbols → the five traditional vowel letters of the alphabet would would not suffice to

cover the worldwide vowel sounds system.

In terms of transcription, there are variants which are usually based on the transcriber’s

needs, aims and competence: ​

● [Narrow transcription]: captures as many aspects of a specific pronunciation as

possible and ignores as few details as possible. It takes into account as many

phonetic details as possible → it describes sounds on the basis of their

articulatory/auditory identity (regardless of their function in a language).

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Encodes more information about the phonetic variations of the specific allophones

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(= a variation of the same phoneme → It doesn’t change the meaning of a word, but

it may make it sound intelligible). It’s rarely representative of all speakers of a

language and it involves a larger number of symbols which may be unfamiliar to

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non-specialists → I

t allows linguists to make detailed analyses of language variation.

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● /Broad transcription/: ignores as many details as possible, capturing only enough

aspects of a pronunciation to show how that word differs from one language to

another. It gives as few details as possible → it describes only those sounds which

have a linguistic function (the more noticeable phonetic feature).

The IPA system for transcribing the sounds of a language is also effective when describing

and/or learning the varieties of a language. Varieties can be classified according to the

following parameters: ​

1. Phonetic realization → the pronunciation of a sound which may or may not appear

in the same lexical set in different varieties

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Hit, Fish, Kiss → these words are a good way to distinguish Australian and

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New Zealander → AUS: feesh NZ: fush.

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2. Lexical distribution → the same individual words belong to different lexical sets in

different varieties.

TOMATO → /tomAto/ (BrE)

→ /tomEto/ (AmE)

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3. Phonotactic distribution → the way phonemes can co-occur in words

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Mary, merry, marry → are homophonous in some AmE dialects but are

clearly distinct in BrE

4. Phonemic systems​ → the minimum number of symbols needed to transcribe that

variety ​

The most important point to remember is the rather obvious-seeming fact that the number of

phonemic symbols must be exactly the same as the number of phonemes we decide exists

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in the language → There is a fixed number of “keys” you can press and nothing else (Roach)

2.THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN ENGLISH

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American English is a​ G

ermanic language​ which belongs to the Indo-European language

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family.​ More specifically it’s a West Germanic language​ which derives from the Germanic

dialects brought to Britain by the Jutes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Frisian during the

5th and 6th centuries.

Although by mediaeval times an early form of English had replaced the original celtic

language of Britain, at the time of Elizabeth I there were no more than seven million native

speakers there were no more than 7 million native speakers. Only by the opening of the 19th

century that the number of native speakers of English increased exponentially to about 350

milion. ​

The​ first permanent of English speakers who arrived in the USA reached Jamestown in

1607 establishing the first successful English colony near Chesapeake Bay. The settlers,

who were mainly from the London area, kept strong ties with their origins and spoke varieties

of English which were close to the emerging London standard → this explains for example

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the loss of <r> after the vowels and before consonants in words such as card and word

.

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The second​ wave of English speakers were also characterized by a non-rhotic accent and

came from East Anglia and reached Massachusetts Bay → the non-rhotic accent is still a

feature of the speech of the people from that area.

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The third wave arrived in Delaware, Philadelphia, New York and New England from Ulster in

1724 → they were descendants of the scots who had previously migrated to northern Ireland

and spoke an archaic form of Scots English. This accent was rhotic and had an extremely

important impact on the developing of AmE → the Scot-Irish soon spread throughout the

Mid-Atlantic, Southern, Northern and West US where r-pronouncing is still present.

AmE was deeply influenced by the initial dialect boundaries and although many original

boundaries broke down, new one arose and dialect mixing intensified.

Four main dialects of AmE are usually identified by the literature :

● Southern

● Northern

● Midland

● Western

The first three were largely influenced by the main waves of English speakers from

Southeastern England and East Anglia in the 17th century and from Scotland, Ireland,

Northern England in the 18th century. The fourth dialect was created by the merging of the

other three which tended to move westward as America expanded towards the Pacific

Coast.

Clear cut boundaries do not exist in real life though → during the 20th century people from

the Midlands and the northern areas migrated to the south, influencing the language spoken

there.

It must be highlighted that it was not only England which influenced the directions of English

in the USA:

The Spanish had occupied large parts of the west and south-west.

The French were present in the northern territories and throughout the middle

regions (Louisiana).

The Dutch were in New York and the surrounding area.

Large numbers of Germans began to arrive at the end of the 17th century, settling

mainly in Pennsylvania.

There were numbers of Africans entering the south as a result of slave trade.

In the 19th century a massive number of people migrated to America in order to

escape revolution, famine and poverty in Europe, mainly Irish, Italians, Germans and

Central Europe Jews.

Within one or two generations of arrival, most of these immigrant families had come

to speak English through a natural process of assimilation → massive growth in

mother-tongue use of English.

Nowadays English has became the language of the world considering that:

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● First language: USA, Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South

Africa ​

● Official language of over 70 countries (Ghana, Nigeria, India, Singapore…)

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● Special role in teaching in over 100 countries even if it doesn’t have official status.

This level of reach can be attributed to two main driving forces: Great Britain and USA. First

it was thanks to Britain exploration policy based on sending explorer that spread English

around the World. Second it’s thanks to America’s industrial, economic and military power

that this spreading still continues.

BrE has traditionally enjoyed more prestige than AmE for two reasons:

1. The imperialism of Great Britain

2. The long tradition of publishing textbooks and dictionaries and marketing them all

over the world. ​

Received pronunciation (RP) is the model of pronunciation of BrE and it has its origin in the

South East of England. It’s restrictive, being used only by the 3-5% of the population of

England.

Although RP is widely understood it is not widely produced → most people talk a

variety of regional English or a mixture of standard and regional English. Mostly SE

(standard English = RP) is found in print. On this basis we may define SE of an

English speaking country as a minority variety.

Actually, in the 19th century the USA overtook GB thanks to their growing economic power

and the majority of the world’s 240 million English speakers are American who speak english

with American pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Furthermore, American influence is

manifested in virtually every walk of life.

There is a list of domains within which English has become the leading language:

● Politics:​ thanks to the legacy of the British Empire and the League of Nations →

English still plays an official role in the proceeding of most major international political

gatherings.