Unit 3: Phonology

 

UNIT 3: Phonology

Phonology is the field of linguistics that is responsible for studying the sounds that make up a language from its smallest phonetic components. The phoneme is recognized as the smallest unit of sound. Which, therefore, means that it has meaning. To better understand the importance of a small and apparently insignificant phoneme, we must pay attention to the following example:

The word computer is a noun in singular form, if we add an S to the end of the same word: computers, we will get a new form of a noun that expresses that it is in plural. So, the simple sound S has meaning and therefore it is considered as a phoneme.

All sounds that can fulfill a differentiating function are classified as phonemes.

Because the English language has 26 letters and we can find approximately 44 sounds that are unique and different, these small units of sound help us identify words that may sound quite similar but have a totally different meaning.

To represent the sound of each phoneme in writing, the use of different letters, symbols, or combinations of the two is used. These written representations of the sounds of the English language are known as phonemic symbols and at the same time each one of these expresses only one phoneme. Generally, we can find them distributed in the phonemic chart:

International Phonetic Alphabet

 

Retrieved from: https://gaschrodinger.blogspot.com/2019/08/introduccion-al-ipa-para.html

 

As we can see in the previous picture, the phonetic table is divided into two large groups:

The first one corresponds to the group of vowel sounds. There are long and short vowels for example in the words sheep and eagle. The vowel sound is long /i:/. While in the words Ship and Busy. The vowel sound is quite similar to the previous one, but this one is short-lived /ɪ/. 

Within the same group, in the upper right part of the table are the diphthongs. Look at the following examples, these are words that contain diphthongs: plane, train, say, boy, coat.

Look at the following video for more information about English vowel sounds pronunciation (IPA):

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69DwHUg2f7s

The second group that belongs to the consonants, it is distributed in unvoiced sounds and voice sounds. Look at the following videos:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNrloK1KA0c

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdzkav3nDEo

Sentence stress

Word stress corresponds to the greatest intonation that we give to certain syllables within a single word. This intonation makes the words sound correct. In sentence stress, the speaker usually intones words with different types of emphasis. Those that are considered more important are pronounced with greater voice force, this is called primary or main stress. Other words are pronounced with secondary stress, this is a pronunciation with a slightly lighter emphasis than the previous one.  And finally, we can also find words within the sentence that are unstressed.

Generally, primary and secondary stress is given to content words, words that carry meaning and therefore give an important contribution to the meaning of the sentence. While structural words, normally are not stressed. These ones are little words that simply help the sentence sound grammatically well organized. However, there are exceptions when the speaker considers that these words are important to the meaning of the sentence. When this happens, it is known as contrastive stress. All these examples are characteristics of connected speech, they are ways of making the spoken language sound rhythmic by emphasizing those words that are most relevant to build meaning of sentence. Within connected speech we have contractions that are certain abbreviations that are created by joining two words and merging their pronunciation to make it shorter. In addition, there are weak forms that correspond to the forms of words that do not carry stress. All these aspects help us to pronounce sentences with rhythm.

Finally, we are going to review what linking means. Linking is the union of sounds between two words, the midpoint of the union is called word boundaries. This is possible when a word ends in a consonant and the next word begins with a vowel. What happens is that their sounds are merged in order to avoid lossing rhythm in pronunciation.

Look at the following videos for more information about word and sentence stress:

Word stress:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-sOjBpYJCM

Sentence stress:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnJCKda4oWU

Glossary:

Intonation: It is the action of varying the tone of voice when speaking to express or highlight something.

Stress: It is to put emphasis or a greater tone of voice on certain syllables within a word.

Rhythm: It is the art of pronouncing a sentence causing all the words to have a harmonic connection in their sound.

Voce sounds: These sounds are caused by the vibration of the vocal cords.

Unvoiced sounds: Refers to the sounds that are produced without voice.

Bibliography:

• Eleanor Collier,  and F. (2013). Phonology – All About Linguistics. Retrieved October 24, 2020, from Wordpress Encyclopedia website: https://all-about-linguistics.group.shef.ac.uk/branches-of-linguistics/phonology/

• SkillsYouNeed.com. (2017). Listening Skills | SkillsYouNeed. Retrieved October 24, 2020, from Skills You Need website: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/listening-skills.html