Introductory lecture.

Phonetics as a branch of linguistics.

Issues of the lecture:

1) Ways to acquire good pronunciation.

2) Definition of ‘phonetics’.

3) Methods of phonetic investigation.

4) Speech organs and their functions.

5) Three aspects of a speech sound.

6) Functions of speech sounds.

7) Characteristics of speech sounds.

8) Branches of phonetics. Phonetics and phonology.

9) Phonetics and other sciences.

10) Practical application of phonetics.

Things to pay special attention:

1) The word "phonetics" is derived from the Greek (meaning ‘sound’) and is an independent branch of linguistics which is concerned with the phonetic structure of a language.

Phonetics as a science studies the human noises by which the thought is actualized in audible shape: the nature of these noises, their combinations, and their functions in relation to the meaning. Phonetics studies the sound system of the language, word stress, syllabic structure and intonation. It is primarily concerned with expression level. However, phonetics is obliged to take the content level into consideration too, because a phonetician should pay much attention to the effect which the expression unit he is examining and its different characteristics have on meaning.

2) Experimental phonetics

Quite a lot of the work done in phonetics is descriptive (providing an account of how different languages and accents are pronounced), and some is prescriptive (stating how they ought to be pronounced). But an increasing amount of phonetic research is experimental, aimed at the development and scientific testing of hypotheses. Experimental phonetics is quantitative (based on numerical measurement). It makes use of controlled experiments, which means that the experimenter has to make sure that the results could only be caused by the factor being investigated and not by some other: for example, in a test of listeners' responses to intonation patterns produced by a speaker, if the listeners could see the speaker's face as the items were being produced it would be likely that their judgements of the intonation would be influenced by the facial expressions produced by the speaker rather than (or as well as) by the pitch variations. This would therefore not be a properly controlled experiment. Experimental research is carried out in all fields of phonetics: in the articulatory field, we measure and study how speech is produced, in the acoustic field we examine the relationship between articulation and the resulting acoustic signal, and look at physical properties of speech sounds in general, while in the auditory field we do perceptual tests to discover how the listener's ear and brain interpret the information in the speech signal. The great majority of experimental research makes use of instrumental phonetic techniques, though in principle it is possible to carry out reasonably well controlled experiments with no instruments: a classic example is Labov's study of the pronunciation of / r / in the words 'fourth floor' in New York department stores of different levels of prestige, a piece of low-cost research that required only a notebook and pencil. This should be compulsory reading for anyone applying for a large research grant.

3)Instrumental phonetics

The field of phonetics can be divided up into a number of sub-fields, and the term 'instrumental' is used to refer to the analysis of speech by means of instruments; this may be acoustic (the study of the vibration in the air caused by speech sounds) or articulatory(the study of the movements of the articulators which produce speech sounds). Instrumental phonetics is a quantitative approach - it attempts to characterise speech in terms of measurements and numbers, rather than by relying on listeners' impressions. Many different instruments have been devised for the study of speech sounds. The best known technique for acoustic analysis is spectrography, in which a computer produces a "picture" of speech sounds. Such computer systems can usually also carry out the analysis of fundamental frequency for producing "pitch displays". For analysis of articulatory activity there are many instrumental techniques in use, including radiography (X-rays) for examining activity inside the vocal tract, laryngoscopy for inspecting the inside of the larynx, palatography for recording patterns of contact between tongue and palate, glottography for studying the vibration of the vocal folds and many others. Measurement of airflow from the vocal tract and of air pressure within it also give us a valuable indirect picture of other aspects of articulation. Instrumental techniques are usually used in experimental phonetics, but this does not mean that all instrumental studies are experimental: when a theory or hypothesis is being tested under controlled conditions the research is experimental, but if one simply makes a collection of measurements using instruments this is not the case.

4) A useful way to view the vocal tract is as an acoustic filter on sounds originating at the larynx: The vibrating larynx creates the buzz, and the vocal tract shape determines the way this buzz is modified. It's best to view the diagram below.

The "spectra" on the next page represents the sound waves that we interpret as the vowels [i, a, u].

Table 1. Sound production mechanism.

Literature:

1) Соколова М.А., Гинтовт К.П., Тихонова И.С., Тихонова Р.М. Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб.для студ.высш.уч.заведений. – 3-е изд., стереотип. – М.:Гуманит.изд.центр ВЛАДОС, 2003.- с.8-9.

2) Соколова М.А., Гинтовт К.П., Кантер Л.А., Крылова Н.И. Практическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб.для студ.высш.уч.заведений. –М.:Гуманит.изд.центр ВЛАДОС, 2003.- с.6-14.

3) Васильев В.А. Фонетика английского языка. Теоретический курс. - М: «Высшая школа», 1969.- С. 73-82.

4) Дикушина О.И. Фонетика английского языка. Теоретический курс. – М.: Просвещение, 1965. – С.11-24, 50-55.