Phonetics: The Sounds in Speech

Phonetics: The Sounds in Speech Speech to Print; Moats; Ch. 2

Vocabulary Review • Phonetics: the study of the production and perception of speech sounds. • Phonemes: the building blocks of words; smallest units of sound. • Phonemic Awareness: the ability to attend to, think about and intentionally manipulate the individual phonemes in spoken words and syllables.

Phonemic Awareness • Why is phonemic awareness so important in beginning reading acquisition? • C:\Users\nv67666\Dropbox\NORA\Courses I Teach\RE 3030\Class 2\English Phonemes.pdf • Metalinguistic: the ability to “think about and reflect on the structure, form, and use of language.” • Phonemic Awareness is a metalinguistic skill. • Our brains are wired, and we are taught, to pay attention to the meaning of messages between speakers, not to the specific sounds in words, so our knowledge of phonetics tends to be tacit or implicit. This is why learning (and teaching) linguistic concepts can be so difficult for us.

Phoneme Awareness Continued • Let’s practice… • Count the number of phonemes in the words. • ice ___ choose____ mix____ soothe____ • sigh____ sing____ pitched____ her____ • day____ thorn____ straight____ boy____ • aide____ quake____ measure____ shout____ • Did the spellings of the words have any affect?

The Trouble with phonemes • Coarticulation: individual sounds (phonemes) overlap in speech. That is, they are coarticulated in an unbroken stream. • Coarticulation is why the grapheme p (phoneme /p/) represents the various sounds in picture, spider, and stoop. • Also think about short vowels. Depending on the consonants that follow, slight phonetic variations can occur. Examples: cat, stand. • Despite variations, we are able to categorize, and generalize, sounds. This is called categorical perception. This also occurs with the variations in font used for writing graphemes.

More Trouble • Many children who enter kindergarten may know letter names, but they are not aware of the purpose of those letters. They are not aware that the letters represent the segments of their own speech. These children do not have knowledge of the alphabetic principle(understanding that there are systematic and predictable relationships between written letters/graphemes and spoken sounds/phonemes). • This is precisely why we must be prepared to explicitly teach phoneme awareness.

ARTICULATION • Speech sounds are produced with movements of the tongue, lips, and throat. Air is pushed up from the lungs through an opening in the vocal chords (the glottis) and then through the throat, mouth, and nose. • Consonant production= more obstructed air. Consonants can be referred to as “closed” sounds. • Vowel production= less obstructed air. Vowels can be referred to as “open” sounds.

A Closer look at Consonants • Place of Articulation refers to where the sound is made (position of the lips, teeth, and tongue in the front, middle, or back of the mouth.) • Bilabial consonants are made by bringing both lips together (b, p, m) • Labiodental consonants are formed with the upper front teeth on the lower lip (f, v) • Interdental consonants are made with the tongue between the teeth (/th/ voiced; /th/ unvoiced) • Alveolar consonants are made with the tongue placed above the backside of the teeth (t, d, n, s, z) • Velars are formed with the tongue against the soft palate in the back of the throat (also called the velum) (k, g, /ng/) • Palatals are made with the front part of the tongue on the hard palate (roof of the mouth) (/sh/, /zh/, /ch/, /j/, /y/) • You can refer to p. 31 of Speech to Print for a diagram of places of articulation of sounds.

Consonants • Manner of Articulation refers to how the sounds made (production of airflow through the mouth. • Distinguishing features of how sounds are made include voicing, continuancy, and nasality… • Voiced or unvoiced consonants refers to the vibration of the vocal chords (/z/ vs. /s/; /v/ vs. /f/; /j/ vs. /ch/) • Stops or continuants refers to how much breath we use (/p/ and /k/ vs. /m/ and /s/) • Nasality refers to if air is pushed out of the mouth or out of the nose (/m/, /n/, /ng/)

Consonants: Manner of Articulation continued… • Stops are short in duration when spoken in isolation. They cannot be slowed down and glided into a vowel when blending phonemes. Example: add /d/ to the beginning of ate. • Continuants can be blended without a break. Example: add /m/ to the beginning of an. (/m/, /n/, and /ng/ are technically considered stops by linguists because the air flow is obstructed in the mouth. However, because the sounds can continue as long as breath is available, for teaching purposes they can be considered continuants.) • Fricatives are continuants (/f/, /v/, /th/ voiced and /th/ unvoiced, /zh/, /sh/, /z/, /s/, /h/) that create a lot of friction as air is partially obstructed and forced out of a narrow space in the mouth. Can be voiced or unvoiced. • There are only 2 affricates in English (/ch/ as in etch which is unvoiced and /j/ as in edge which is voiced.). They are a sequence of a stop followed by a continuant with the release of air, but are noncontinuant sounds.

Consonants: Manner of articulation continued… • Liquids are /l/ and /r/. These are problematic sounds because they have no clear beginning or ending point in articulation. They are also later developing sounds for children. The /r/ has a different articulation depending on whether it is in the beginning of a word or follows a vowel (examples: rabbit; solar). • Liquids are voiced in most positions, but if they follow a voiceless consonant in a blend, they may be unvoiced (examples: plant; branch). • Semivowels ( or glides) have vowel-like qualities. They always occur right before vowels (/w/, /wh/, /y/, /h/). They do not, however, form the peak of a syllable. Glides are never followed by another consonant, nor are they ever the final sound in an English word (boy; how). • Syllabic consonants are liquids (/l/, /r/) and nasals (/m/, /n/) that can make up a separate syllable (mitten; letter; rhythm).

Some more consonants…

VOWELS • English has 15 vowel sounds • Open and unobstructed • No syllable can be without a vowel • The vowel is the nucleus of the syllable which is formed with consonants surrounding a vowel • Let’s play with the vowel chart (also on p. 40 of Speech to Print) • Place the vowels… long e, short i, long a, short e, short a, long i, short o, short u, aw, long o, oo, long u

More about vowels • Diphthongs shift (or glide) positions in the mouth as they are articulate (/oi/, /oy/, /ou/, /ow/). • Vowels in unstressed syllables are often reduced to a schwa (alone, effect, definition, commence, upon). The schwa can not easily be sounded out for spelling. • The terms short and long vowels are not used in phonetics, just phonics. Linguists use the terms lax and tense. Long /tense vowels are spoken with more tension in the tongue than short /lax vowels.

Independent Practice • Complete this exercise with your group… • Below are spelling errors (followed by correct spellings) made by 6th grade students. Match the spelling errors to the type of error they represent: • WOSUT/wasn’t CLORER/color INGLISH/English • LEDR/letter SINGIG/singing SGARY/scary • STASUN/station FOWD/food • a.Nasal omission or deletion b.Liquid confusion • c.Voiced/voiceless stop substitution d.Fricative substitution e.Flap for a medial stop • f.Back vowel substitution g.Front vowel substitution h.Oral (nonnasal) for a nasal

Phonetics: The Sounds in Speech