Phonetics as a branch of linguistics

The muscular sensation is developed by constant and regular practice in articulating various sounds. A trained phonetician should be able to pronounce sounds of a given quality (e.g. an open back unrounded vowel, a trilled [r], a fronted [k], etc.), as well as to recognize, by means of means of his highly developed muscular sensation the exact nature of the articulation of any speech sound that

he hears.

2. The aim of the linguistic method of investigation of any concrete phonetic phenomena, such as sound, stress, intonation or any other feature, is to determine in what way all of these phonetic features are used in a language to convey a certain meaning. An accurate phonetic analysis (made either by ear or by means of some instruments or apparatus) is of no use whatever unless it serves as a clue that will help to interpret the linguistic function of a phonetic phenomenon.

The linguistic method, therefore, is of paramount importance.

3. The experimental method is based, as a rule, upon the use of special apparatus or instruments, such as the laryngoscope, the artificial palate, the kymograph, the magnetic tape recorder, the oscillograph, the intonograph.

Special laboratory equipment, such as kymograph, spectrograph, oscillograph and intonograph help to obtain the necessary data about prosodic properties of speech sounds.[6]

3. HISTORY OF PHONETICS

The term phonics during the 19th century and into the 1970s was used as a synonym of phonetics. The use of the term in reference to the method of teaching is dated to 1901 by the OED.

Phonics derives from the Roman text The Doctrine of Littera, dubious – discuss which states that a letter (littera) consists of a sound (potestas), a written symbol (figura) and a name (nomen). This relation between word sound and form is the backbone of traditional phonics.[7]

Phonetics was studied as early as 2500 B.C. in ancient India, with Pāṇini's account of the place and manner of articulation of consonants in his 5th century BC treatise on Sanskrit. The major Indic alphabets today order their consonants according to Pāṇini's classification.

The Ancient Greeks are credited as the first to base a writing system on a phonetic alphabet.

Modern phonetics began with Alexander Melville Bell, whose Visible Speech (1867) introduced a system of precise notation for writing down speech sounds.

History of English pronunciation:

English consonants have been remarkably stable over time, and have undergone few changes in the last 1500 years. On the other hand, English vowels have been quite unstable. Not surprisingly, then, the main differences between modern dialects almost always involve vowels.[8]

Around the late 14th century, English began to undergo the Great Vowel Shift, in which the high long vowels [i:] and [u:] in words like price and mouth became diphthongized, first to [əɪ] and [əʊ] (where they remain today in some environments in some accents such as Canadian English) and later to their modern values [aɪ] and [aʊ]. This is not unique to English, as this also happened in Dutch (first shift only) and German (both shifts).

The other long vowels became higher:

[e:] became [i:] (for example meet),

[a:] became [e:] (later diphthongized to [eɪ], for example name),

[o:] became [u:] (for example goose), and

[ɔ:] become [o:] (later diphthongized to [oʊ], for example bone).

Later developments complicate the picture: whereas in Geoffrey Chaucer's time food, good, and blood all had the vowel [o] and in William Shakespeare's time they all had the vowel [u], in modern pronunciation good has shortened its vowel to [ʊ] and blood has shortened and lowered its vowel to [ʌ] in most accents. In Shakespeare's day (late 16th-early 17th century), many rhymes were possible that no longer hold today. For example, in his play The Taming of the Shrew, shrew rhymed with woe æ-tensing is a phenomenon found in many varieties of American English by which the vowel /æ/ has a longer, higher, and usually diphthongal pronunciation in some environments, usually to something like [eə]. Some American accents, for example that of New York City, Philadelphia, or Baltimore make a marginal phonemic distinction between /æ/ and /eə/ although the two occur largely in mutually exclusive environments.

The bad-lad split refers to the situation in some varieties of southern British English and Australian English, where a long phoneme /æ/ in words like bad contrasts with a short /æ/ in words like lad.

The cot-caught merger is a sound change by which the vowel of words like caught, talk, and tall (/ɔ/), is pronounced the same as the vowel of words like cot, rock, and doll (/ɒ/ in New England /ɑ:/ elsewhere). This merger is widespread in North American English, being found in approximately 40% of American speakers and virtually all Canadian speakers.

The father-bother merger is the pronunciation of the short O /ɒ/ in words such as "bother" identically to the broad A /ɑ:/ of words such as "father", nearly universal in all of the United States and Canada save New England and the Maritime provinces; many American dictionaries use the same symbol for these vowels in pronunciation guides.[9]

III. CONCLUSION

As we have already above mentioned, language as “the most important means of human intercourse” exists in the material form of speech sounds. It cannot exist without being spoken.

Linguistic is composed of some units, which are divided into significant and non - significant ones. The whole system of relation of linguistic units forms a system of a language. Languages differ in systems and structures.

Phonetics is concerned with the human noises. Phonetics studies the sound system of the language that is segmental phonemes, word stress, syllabic structure and intonation.

However, phonetics is obliged to take the content into consideration. It is primarily concerned with expression level.

As we know, only meaningful sound sequences are regarded as speech.

Phonetics has two main divisions: phonology, the Study of sound patterns of languages, of how a spoken language functions as a "code", and the study of substance, that carries the code.

Human speech is the result of a highly complicated series of events. The formation of the concept takes place at a linguistic level, that is in the brain of the speaker. This stage may be called psychological. Human brain controls the behaviour of the articulating organs which effects in producing a particular pattern of speech sounds. This second stage may be called physiology cat. The movements of the speech apparatus disturb the air stream thus producing sound waves. Consequently the third stage may be called physical or acoustic. The last stages are the reception of the sound waves by the listener's, hearing physiological apparatus, the transmission of the spoken message.

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