Chapter 1

Question 1

What is Phonetics?

Answer 1

• It is more than: “The study of speech sounds”
• “The scientific study of speech sounds, their form (articulatory), substance (acoustic properties), and perception; and the application of this study to a better understanding and improvement of linguistic expression” (Edwards, 2003, p. 2)

Question 2

Why do we use Phonetics?

Answer 2

To transcribe exactly what is said.

• Some people are unintelligible
• Some people use English as a second language and have an accent or dialect
• Children - you must record exactly what is said by a child, not what you think they said or are supposed to say.

Question 3

Experimental Phonetics

Answer 3

• Researchers study speech sounds through this branch of phonetics.
• There is a lot to control for when doing research on speech sounds.
• We won’t be discussing this branch much.

Question 4

Articulatory (Physiological) Phonetics

Answer 4

• How speech sounds are produced by speakers
• Study of the vocal tract and articulators to describe what happens or how speech sounds are produced.

Question 5

Acoustic Phonetics

Answer 5

“The study of the physical properties of

speech sounds.”

• The study of the acoustic properties of sounds allows identification of the distinctive features of sounds.
• Primary Dimensions
• Frequency – rate of pulsation of the vocal folds
• Duration – period of time that a sound lasts
• Amplitude – amount of air pressure under vocal folds (vf) and resulting displacement of the vocal folds.

Question 6

Perceptual Phonetics

Answer 6

• Perceptual Phonetics relates to how speech sounds are heard or perceived by listeners.
• May study for example how speech sounds are heard in noisy environments.
• Discrimination is “one’s ability to identify a speech sound as being different from another speech sound”.
• Important to speech pathologists to accurately transcribe what a person says. e.g. /p/ vs. /b/ we as SLP’s need to hear the difference but so do speaker of a language when they are listener’s

Question 7

Clinical Phonetics

Answer 7

Using phonetic information to remediate unintelligible or disordered speech.

Question 8

Linguistic Phonetics

Answer 8

Focuses on analyzing and classifying sound systems within a language and the rules used for combining sounds with other sounds within a language.

Question 9

Dialectology

Answer 9

Study of causes and characteristics of speech and sound differences of spoken languages.

E.g. dialects

Question 10

Pragmatic Phonetics

Answer 10

Changes that occur as speakers adapt their speech to the perceived needs of listeners. E.g. adult – child talk

Question 11

Phonetic Transcription

Answer 11

Using the IPA to transcribe speech of any given language

Question 12

International Phonetic Association (IPA)

Answer 12

• The major and largest organization for phoneticians
• International Phonetic Alphabet

Question 13

Linguistics

Answer 13

• An area of study concerned with the nature of language and communication and the principles or rules that govern a particular language. Specifically, the systematic rules determining pronunciation, word formation and grammatical constructions within a particular language.
• Phonology is considered a branch of linguistics.

Question 14

Phonology

Answer 14

• Study of the structure and the systematic patterning of sounds along with their permissible combinations in a language.
• The rules for how these sounds are organized within a particular language.

Question 15

Orthography

Answer 15

• Study of spelling and writing systems of a language.
• A system of rules for the written and printed representation of sounds of a language including spelling of words and punctuation.

Question 16

Phone

Answer 16

Any sound that can be produced by the human vocal tract or one of many possible sounds in a language.
–Examples: clicks, raspberries, a baby cooing, the [d] in “dot”

Question 17

Phoneme

Answer 17

Speech sound in a particular language or smallest contrastive unit in a language to establish word meanings and distinguish between them. (See Week 1 Bb comparing/contrasting phone vs. phoneme)
–Examples: the phoneme /d/ distinguishes between “bea” “bead” , the /t/ & /m/ in “hat” and “ham”.

Question 18

Allophone

Answer 18

Aa variant of a phoneme; variations of phonemes used by different speakers in various phonetic contexts, however the meaning of the word is not changed.

–e.g. /t/ in the word “let” vs. “letter”
–e.g. the /p/ in pin vs. hop vs. pop
–/ӕ/ in man vs bat

Question 19

Morph

Answer 19

General term for unit of meaning

Question 20

Morpheme

Answer 20

Smallest meaningful unit in grammar of language

Question 21

Free morpheme

Answer 21

Stand alone units of meaning (think root words).

e.g “cat”

Question 22

Bound Morphemes

Answer 22

Must be connected to a Free morpheme to have meaning (prefixes and suffixes)

e.g. the /s/ must be connected to a free morpheme such as “cat” to be “cats”

Question 23

Allomorph

Answer 23

Variation of a morpheme.

For example, 3 allomorphs of the plural phoneme: cats, dogs, horses.

How are they pronounced vs. how are they spelled?

Question 24

Prevocalic Consonants

Answer 24

Consonants that come before the vowel

Question 25

Postvocalic Consonants:

Answer 25

Consonants that come after the vowel

Question 26

Intervocalic Consonants

Answer 26

Consonants that are between vowels

Question 27

Onset:

Answer 27

The consonant(s) that precede the vowel in a syllable, AKA prevocalic consonants

Question 28

Coda

Answer 28

The consonant(s) that follow the vowel in a syllable, AKA postvocalic consonants

Question 29

Open Syllables

Answer 29

Refers to any syllable that ends w/ a vowel sound. No coda is present. e.g. V & CV

Question 30

Closed Syllables

Answer 30

Refers to any syllable ending with a consonant sound(s), these syllables have a coda.

Question 31

Rime

Answer 31

Part of the syllable that includes the vowel (nucleus) & the consonant that follows it (coda)

e.g VC & CVC

Question 32

Clusters/Sequences:

Answer 32

Consonant sequences & clusters are the same.

Two or more consonant sounds produced next to each other in a word. (see p. 19 & Chapter 2 Harbers, 2013)

Question 33

•Digraph

Answer 33

Two letters together produced as one sound

Examples: th /Ɵ/, ng /ŋ/, ch /ʧ/, sh /ʃ/, oo /u/, ee /i/

Question 34

Grapheme

Answer 34

A letter or group of letters to represent one sound
–Example: /u/ as in to, too, two

Question 35

Broad Transcription

Answer 35

This term is often used to designate a transcription that uses the simplest possible set of symbols with less details and is represented by slashes or slash marks / /

Question 36

Narrow Transcription

Answer 36

This term is used to refer to more phonetic detail, either by using more specific symbols such as diacritics or a diacritic mark (e.g [:]) OR by representing some allophonic differences / p / vs. [pʰ] and this term is represented by using brackets []

Narrow Transcription - is often used in transcribing dialectical differences and phonetic distortions among speakers.