Notice the noises that people produce around you with their own bodies. Make an inventory of human sounds using a recorder, and list them indicating what parts of the body are involved in their production. Now, make a selection of those which are produced with the vocal apparatus only. Think of one which you find particularly irritating or pleasant. Can you define it in terms of articulatory and acoustic properties?
Can you decide which ones in the inventory may be considered linguistic sounds and which ones are mere noises? Can you tell which phonemes belong to your language and which do not? Do you know if there are speech sounds which are phonemes in other languages but not in yours?
Make a list of everyday life situations in which a phonetician is useful to society.
A phonetician plays a crucial role in forensic sciences involving police investigations, working in such areas as speech enhancement and decoding, which consists in eliminating interferences which disturb recordings of human voices; tape authentication, proving whether a recording is the original or a copy; speaker analysis of recordings of an anonymous offender in order to come up with a suspect; and speaker identification, which involves the comparison of at least two voices: one recorded in connection with the crime, and another one, from a given suspect. Phoneticians are also invaluable nowadays in speech technology research in order to design products that perform man-machine communication by voice in real time. Also, in the medical field, particularly in the area of speech and language therapy. For further information, please consult the site for the British Association of Academic Phoneticians (BAAP).
How can wrong phonetic performance affect communication?
Poor articulation leads to lack of clarity, which makes understanding (from the auditory point of view) awkward, troublesome, and hard, which may, in turn, result in the listener’s lack of attention and interest in the conversation. Also, wrong phonetic articulation of sounds can cause confusion at a phonological level, therefore affecting meaning; for example, if /ɪ/ and /iː/ are not clearly pronounced, in words such as ‘thirty’ and ‘thirteen’ there is a risk of misunderstanding in a given context.
Can you now think of real-life situations in which this interfering process between the phonemes of one language and the phonemes of another can be positively exploited?
Interference between languages at the phonological level can be productively exploited in the context of humour. Consider, for example, the speeches by Manuel, a Spanish character in the British comedy Faulty Towers. Another area which benefits from this process is accent coaching, which compares and contrasts both languages in order to promote good pronunciation in the target language for various purposes (foreign language learning, acting, espionage, etc).
Foreign language learners are very much encouraged to speak the target language with a native accent. Watch a professional accent coach giving tips to English natives in order to achieve Spanish-like pronunciation at this video. What aspects of phonetics is he referring to? Does he refer to any phonological features? Can you think of any other features that can be mentioned? Who would this kind of training be useful for?
The language coach refers to the following phonetic features: (1) the fact that there are many different varieties of the language, which do not affect meaning. Bear in mind that such variations may also include suprasegmental features like intonation. (2) Explanations are given on how Spanish natives are likely to produce the following English sounds: the /r/ sound, defined as a ‘rolled r’ in Spanish; the /h/ sound, which in Spanish is a voiceless uvular fricative; and the initial /j/ sound, more like a /ʤ/ when pronounced by a Spanish native. (3) Also, the quality and quantity of two vowel sounds are mentioned: /ɪ/ – /iː/ and /e/ – /eɪ/. Phonologically, the Spanish vowel system is referred to as containing only five vowels whereas the English one consists of around 12. Finally, the suprasegmental feature of ‘delivery’ is also considered, so that Spanish is defined as a ‘syllable-timed’ language, whereas English is ‘stress-timed’. (For further details see Unit 6). This kind of training may be particularly useful for actors impersonating Spanish characters
Identification. Give the phonetic symbol for the vowel sounds in each of the following words:
| brought | vein | break | quiet | peace |
| young | toe | town | flax | cute |
| face | shoe | where | people | who |
| ant | what | word | hour | butter |
| book | school | girl |
| brought /ɔː/ | vein /eɪ/ | break /eɪ/ | quiet /aɪә/ | peace /iː/ |
| young /ʌ/ | toe /әʊ/ | town /aʊ/ | flax /ӕ/ | cute /uː/ |
| face /eɪ/ | shoe /uː/ | where /eә/ | people /iː/ | who /uː/ |
| ant /ӕ/ | what /ɒ/ | word /ɜː/ | hour /aʊә/ | butter /ʌ ә/ |
| book /ʊ/ | school /uː/ | girl /ɜː/ |
Identification. Give the phonetic symbol as required:
| Initial consonant sound | sugar, theme, shave, science, jam, school |
| Medial consonant sound | descent, adjourn, soften, future, anchor, machine |
| Final consonant sound | treasure, prison, danger, lawyer, hide, ring |
| Initial consonant sound: | /ʃ/ sugar, /θ/ theme, /ʃ/ shave, /s/ science, /ʤ/ jam, /s/school |
| Medial consonant sound: | /s/descent, /ʤ/ adjourn, /f/ soften, /ʧ/future, /k/ anchor, /ʃ/machine |
| Final consonant sound: | /ʒ/ treasure, /n̩ /̩prison, /ʤ/ danger, /j/ lawyer, /d/ hide, /ŋ/ ring |
Production. Provide one monosyllabic word, in spelling, for each of the RP English vowels, using minimal pairs where possible: /ӕ, ʌ, ɑː, e, ə, ɜː, ɪ, iː, ɒ, ɔː, ʊ, uː /. For the purposes of contrasting both languages, try and pronounce each word with the nearest Spanish vowel equivalent. For example: both RP English <pot> and <port> would be rendered as with a Spanish [o]. Now, pronounce them again with the English phonemes. Notice the differences.
For example:
Production. Provide one monosyllabic word, in spelling, for each of the English RP diphthongs, using minimal pairs where possible: /aɪ, eɪ, ɔɪ, aʊ, əʊ, eə, ɪə, ʊə/. Then, proceed as above.
For example:
Production. Provide one word in spelling for each one of the English RP consonant stops, illustrating them in different positions -i.e. initial, medial and final: /p, b, t, d, k, g, m, n, ŋ, ʔ/. Then, proceed as above.
Provide one word in spelling for each one of the English RP fricative and affricate consonants, illustrating them in different positions -i.e. initial, medial and final: /f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, ʧ, ʤ, h /. Then, proceed as above.