Different Approaches to the Study of a Phoneme.

Identifying a phoneme as a basic and non-separable speech unit the linguists however interpret it in different ways. In the history of linguistics there can be distinguished four approaches to the study of a phoneme:

1) The Psychological approach. The followers of the Psychological school in linguistics consider a phoneme as a psychical equivalent of a sound. According to this view on a phoneme, the sounds pronounced are incomplete realizations of ideal psychical images. That’s why there is a certain contrast between the sound pronounced and its ideal image. This point of view was introduced by the founder of the Phonemic theory, Russian linguist I.A. Bodoine – de- Courtenay. He was an active adherent of the so called Psychological school in linguistics, which was quite popular at the end of 19^th century. L.V. Sherba being his student and follower (an academician afterwards) in his early scientific work was under the influence of his teacher’s views and particularly shared his view on a phoneme.

N.S.Trubetskoy, the head of the Prague linguistic school, first shared the psychological view on a phoneme, but later he admitted that a phoneme is a linguistic, non- psychological phenomenon.

2) The Functional approach. Within this theory a phoneme was considered as a minimal speech unit, distinguishing the meaning of words. Phonetic peculiarities of the sounds pronounced in reality, allophones are not analyzed in this case. The capacity of distinguishing meaning of words is the only characteristic feature of a phoneme. The well-known American linguist L.Blumfield, adherent to this approach, defined a phoneme as a bunch of distinctive features which comprise its components and take part in distinguishing meaning of words. Changing even one of these features, we change the meaning of word and its grammatical form. Functional approach completely ignores non- distinctive features of a phoneme, and thus separates a phoneme from allophones.

3) The Abstract approach. This point of view on a phoneme represents an uttermost manifestation of the Functional approach. The Abstract approach was worked out by a Swiss linguist F.-de-Sossuire. Taking unto consideration that fact, that there is nothing except differences in the language, he viewed a phoneme as an incorporeal speech unit, which is not formed with its material substance, but solely with the (differences) distinctive features which separate its acoustic image from others.

4) Physical approach. This interpretation of a phoneme was introduced by a well-known British phonetician D.Jones, who defined a phoneme as a family of sounds, consisting of the main sound, as ‘the most respectful member of the family’ and other similar sounds, which are used instead of it in certain phonetic contexts. For example, a family of the phoneme /k/ may comprise the following members:

1) aspirated and non-labialized: car;

2) aspirated and labialized: cool;

3) aspirated and palatalized: key;

4) non- aspirated and labialized: quite, school;

5) non- aspirated and non-labialized: cry.

From the given survey it can be seen that each of the existing views on a phoneme exaggerates one of its aspects and disregards the others.