Phonetics and Phonology 101

Question 1

Native speaker

Answer 1

Someone who speaks English as their mother tongue

Question 2

Non-native speaker

Answer 2

Someone who uses English as a second language or is a learner of English as a foreign language.

Question 3

Phonetics

Answer 3

The study of the articulation (and the acoustic and auditory perception) of speech sounds.

Question 4

Phonology

Answer 4

The study of phonemes i.e. which sounds differentiate meaning in a language.

Question 5

Linguistics

Answer 5

The general study of language

Question 6

Linguist

Answer 6

A specialist in linguistics

Question 7

Phonetician / Phonologist

Answer 7

Terms used for linguists who studies phonetics / phonology.

Question 8

Articulations

Answer 8

The movements of tongue, lips and other speech organs.

Question 9

Articulatory phonetics

Answer 9

Area of phonetics focused on articulations.

Question 10

Acoustic phonetics

Answer 10

Area of phonetics focused on the physical nature of the speech signal

Question 11

Auditory phonetics

Answer 11

The study of how the ear receives the speech.

Question 12

Psycholinguistics

Answer 12

The formulation of speech message in the brain of the speaker and the interpretation in the brain of the listener.

Question 13

Segmentation

Answer 13

Dividing up the flow of speech into smaller parts / speech sounds

Question 14

Segments

Answer 14

The smaller sound units (roughly corresponds to vowels and consonants)
(Segments have no meaning isolated but combine to form words.

Question 15

Minimal pair

Answer 15

Two words distinguished by a single speech sound. (e.g., man and pan)

Question 16

Minimal set

Answer 16

A set of words distinguished by a single sound (replacing the initial consonant, the vowel or the final consonant)

Question 17

Phonemes

Answer 17

The smallest units of sound which can be used to differentiate meaning.

Question 18

Phonemic inventory

Answer 18

In English GB = 20 vowels and 24 consonants

Question 19

Idiolect

Answer 19

A single persons speech

Question 20

Allophone

Answer 20

The phonetic variations of a phoneme (Allophones are what creates different pronunciations - of the same phoneme)

Question 21

List the linguistic hierarchy

Answer 21

Sentence
Clause
Phrase
Word 
Morpheme
Phoneme 
Distinctive feature

Question 22

Describe the consonants of English GB:
Fortis - ?
Lenis - ?

Answer 22

Fortis: A strong voiceless articulation
Lenis: A weak potentially voiced articulation

Question 23

Describe the three groups of vowels in English GB:

• Checked steady-state vowels
• Free steady-state vowels
• Free diphthongs

Answer 23

Checked steady-state vowels: Short, represented by a single symbol e.g. /i/
Free steady-state vowels: Long, have tongue movement, represented by a symbol plus a length mark
Free diphthongs: Long, have tongue movement (sometimes lip movement), represented by two symbols

Question 24

Syllable

Answer 24

Loose definition: “a unit larger than the phoneme but smaller than the word.”
(Svarende til det danske “stavelser”)

Question 25

What does a syllable typically contain?

Answer 25

A vowel at its nucleus (center) and one or more consonants either side of the vowel at its margins (edges)

Question 26

Accent vs dialect?

Answer 26

Accent is geographical, dialect is reginal or social.

Question 27

Regional vs. social variation

Answer 27

Variation in dialect based on region (where someone lives) vs. based on social aspects (age, gender, education, social class etc.)

Question 28

Prestige accent

Answer 28

Accent associated with high status, education and wealth. Also referred to as “Queens English” spoken by a small number of people.