Chapter Two --Phonetics-2012.ppt

Chapter Two --Phonetics By Liu Donglou March 6/7, 2012 Overview Three Branches of Phonetics Speech organs Classifications of English sounds Description of consonants As human beings we are capable of making all kinds of sounds, but only some of these sounds have become units in the language system. We can analyze speech sounds from various perspectives and the two major areas of study are phonetics and phonology. Phonetics studies how speech sounds are produced, transmitted, and perceived. Three branches of phonetics Articulatory phonetics----from the speakers’ point of view, “how speakers produce speech sounds” Auditory phonetics----from the hearers’ point of view, “how sounds are perceived” Acoustic phonetics----from the physical way or means by which sounds are transmitted from one to another. Phonetics ----A branch of linguistics which studies the characteristics of speech sounds and provides methods for their description, classification and transcription, e.g. [p] bilabial, stop. Speech organs: three important areas Orthographic representation of speech sounds ---- A standardized and internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The basic principle of the IPA is using one letter to represent one speech sound. IPA is the abbreviated form of the International Phonetic Association or the International Phonetic Alphabet. International Phonetic Association is an organization founded in 1886 by a group of European phoneticians to promote the study of phonetics. In 1888, it published the first version of International Phonetic Alphabet, which, in modified and expanded form, is today the most widely used system for transcribing the sounds of a language. Diacritic: a mark placed over, under, or through a letter to show that it has a sound value different from that of the same letter without the mark. Broad transcription ---- used in dictionary and textbook for general purpose, without d