Phonetics and Phonology

Question 1

What is phonetics?

Answer 1

Phonetics is the study of speech sounds. It concerns how sounds are produced, transmitted and received.

Question 2

What is phonology?

Answer 2

Phonology is the study of the sound system of a language.

Question 3

Place of articulation for Bilabial

Answer 3

Lip and Lip (e.g. - b)

Question 4

Place of articulation for Labiodental

Answer 4

Upper teeth and lower lip (e.g. - v,f)

Question 5

Place of articulation for Dental

Answer 5

Front teeth and tongue tip (e.g. - th)

Question 6

Place of articulation for Alveolar

Answer 6

Alveolar ridge and tongue tip (e.g. - d,t,s)

Question 7

Place of articulation for Palato-alveolar

Answer 7

Near alveolar ridge and blade of tongue (e.g. - j,ch,sh)

Question 8

Place of articulation for Patal

Answer 8

Hard plate and front of tongue (e.g. - g,k,ng)

Question 9

Place of articulation for Velar

Answer 9

Soft palate and back of tongue

Question 10

Place of articulation for Glottal

Answer 10

Glottis and vocal cords (e.g. - h)

Question 11

What is a monopthong?

Answer 11

A monopthong is a simple vowel that has the same sound throughout its pronunciation.

Question 12

What is a diphthong?

Answer 12

A diphthong occurs when the tongue starts in one place and moves to another in order to produce the vowel sound.

Question 13

What are long vowels?

Answer 13

Vowels that are ‘stretched’ in their pronunciation (e.g. - ‘ee’ sound in ‘agree’.

Question 14

What is elision?

Answer 14

Elision refers to the deletion of a sound in connected speech (e.g. - didn’t, cos, fish n chips)

Question 15

What is vowel reduction?

Answer 15

Like elision, but vowels in unstressed position are reduced to a schwa. (e.g. - ‘to’ - ‘ta’, ‘you’ - ‘ya’)

Question 16

What is assimilation?

Answer 16

Occurs when a sound changes to become more like a neighbouring sound. (e.g. - ‘bitter’ becomes ‘bidder’ or ‘butter’ becomes ‘budder’ or ‘sandwich’ becomes ‘samich’)

Question 17

What is insertion?

Answer 17

Involves the addition of sounds where they don’t strictly belong. (e.g. - ‘humbling’ becomes ‘humb-e-ling’ and ‘athlete’ becomes ‘ath-a-lete’.

Question 18

What is Stress?

Answer 18

Stress refers to the degree of strength used to pronounce a syllable.

Question 19

What is the Pitch?

Answer 19

Pitch refers to the ‘height’ of a sound in auditory terms, low to high.

Question 20

What is Intonation?

Answer 20

The pattern of pitch changes in speech/rising and falling pitch.

Question 21

What is the Tempo?

Answer 21

(or pace) concerns the speed at which we speak.

Question 22

What is the Volume?

Answer 22

The loudness

Question 23

What is articulation?

Answer 23

Where the speech happens in your mouth.

Question 24

What is the Manner of articulation?

Answer 24

The way of which the articulation is obstructed in the vocal tract when producing a consonant sound.

Question 25

What is a Phoneme?

Answer 25

A unit of sound

Question 26

How many different sounds are there in English?

Answer 26

44 different sounds