Myths + Phonetics Flashcards
How do linguists distinguish between different languages?
Mutual intelligibility
- when speakers of two varieties can understand each other, they are considered dialects of the same language
Modality
the medium that is used in communication
Modality of spoken language vs signed language
spoken: oral-auditory
sign: visual-gestural
Language family
languages grouped together because of an ancestral common language
What is linguistics?
- scientific study of the unconscious knowledge that language users possess
- descriptive!
what are some myths / misconceptions about languages?
- it’s easy to tell what is considered a language
- Sign languages were invented by hearing people based on spoken languages
- linguistics is about telling people the “right” way to use language
phonetics
study of language production and reception (modality)
- how we make / comprehend possible speech sounds
syntax
how sentences are formed
semantics
how meaning derives from words and sentences
pragmatics
how meaning derives from contexts
sociolinguistics
relationship between language and culture
historical linguistics
how languages change over time
articulatory vs practical phonetics
articulatory: how language is produced
practical: how to produce, perceive and transcribe
speech sounds
sounds used in human language
- different from inhaling or hiccuping
How is sound produced?
- air supply
- sound source
- filters / resonance chambers
Air supply
lungs
Sound source
vocal folds
types of voicing and position of vocal folds
- voiceless
- vocal folds spread apart
- no vibration, air pass freely - voiced
- drawn together but not tightly
- vibration - stops
- tightly closed
- no air passes
- ex/ glottal stop
Filters / resonance chambers
pharynx
oral and nasal cavity
Pulmonic
using the lungs
- egressive and ingressive
pulmonic egressive
pushing air out
- most sounds in languages
pulmonic ingressive
inhale
- exist, but usually for social meaning
ex/ gasp
glottalic
moving the closed glottis up or down
egressive: ejectives
ingressive: implosives
What are some airstream mechanisms?
- pulmonic
- glottalic
- velaric
velaric
creating suction with back of tongue
ingressive: clicks
What are the parameters for consonants?
voicing
place
manner
Nasal vs oral sounds
nasal: lowered velum
oral: raised velum
air passes only through one or the other
Stops
refers to both plosives and nasals
- produced with complete closure then suddenly open passage
fricatives
produced with narrowing in mouth but air passes continuously
affricates
plosives + fricatives
complete closure then a passage is opened slowly
vowels
produced with no obstacles in mouth, free air flow
acoustically powerful
How do we describe vowels
height
backness
roundness
tenseness
tense
- advanced tongue root
- ex/ beat
- usually high vowels
lax
- retracted tongue root
- ex/ bit
- usually low vowels
dipthongs
single vowel that involves two places of articulation
articulators of sign language
manual
- arms, hands, fingers
non-manual
- torso, head, face
Sign language parameters
- handshape
- orientation
- location
- movement
handshape
knuckles and finger configuration
ex/ fingers extended
orientation
direction the palm of hand is facing
ex/ towards chest
location
place of articulation
ex/ shoulders
movement
how the manual articulators move
ex/ upwards
