The articulatory classification of the English Vowels.

Russian phoneticians suggest a classification of vowels according to the following principles: 1) stability of articulation; 2) tongue position; 3) lip position; 4) character of the vowel end; 5) length; 6) tenseness.

1. Stability of articulation. This principle is not singled out by British and
American phoneticians. Thus, P. Roach writes: "British English (BBC accent) is

generally described as having short vowels, long vowels and diphthongs". According to Russian scholars vowels are subdivided into: a) monophthongs (the tongue position is stable); b) diphthongs (it changes, that is the tongue moves from one position to another); c) diphthongoids (an intermediate case, when the change in the position is fairly weak).

Diphthongs are defined differently by different authors. A.C. Gimson, for example, distinguishes 20 vocalic phonemes which are made of vowels and vowel glides. D. Jones defines diphthongs as unisyllabic gliding sounds in the articulation of which the organs of speech start from one position and then elide to another position. There are two vowels in English [i:, u:] that may have a diphthongal glide where they have full length (be, do), and the tendency for diphthongization is becoming gradually stronger.

2. The position of the tongue. According to the horizontal movement
Russian phoneticians distinguish five classes: 1) front; 2) front-retracted; 3)
central; 4) back; 5) back-advanced.

British phoneticians do not single out the classes of front-retracted and back-advanced vowels. So both [i:] and [i] are classed as front, and both [u:] and [Y] are classed as back.

The way British and Russian phoneticians approach the vertical movement of the tongue is also slightly different. British scholars distinguish three classes of vowels: high (or close), mid (or half-open) and low (or open) vowels. Russian phoneticians made the classification more detailed distinguishing two subclasses in each class, i.e. broad and narrow variations of the three vertical positions. Consequently, six groups of vowels are distinguished.

3. Another feature of English vowels is lip position. Traditionally three lip
positions are distinguished, that is spread, neutral, rounded. Lip rounding takes
place rather due to physiological reasons than to any other. Any back vowel in
English is produced with rounded lips, the degree of rounding is different and
depends on the height of the raised part of the tongue; the higher it is raised the more rounded the lips are.

4. Character of the vowel end. This quality depends on the kind of the
articulatory transition from a vowel to a consonant. This transition (VC) is very
closed in English unlike Russian. As a result all English short vowels are checked
when stressed. The degree of checkness may vary and depends on the following
consonants (+ voiceless - voiced - sonorant -).

5. We should point out that vowel length or quantity has for a long time
been the point of disagreement among phoneticians. It is a common knowledge
that a vowel like any sound has physical duration. When sounds are used in
connected speech they cannot help being influenced by one another. Duration of a
vowel depends on the following factors: 1) its own length; 2) the accent of the
syllable in which it occurs; 3) phonetic context; 4) the position in a rhythmic structure; 5) the position in a tone group; 6) the position in an utterance; 7) the tempo of the whole utterance; 8) the type of pronunciation. The problem the analysts are concerned with is whether variations in quantity are meaningful (relevant). Such contrasts are investigated in phonology.