THE THEORY OF PHONETICS

COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Attendance
Participation
Home assignment
Project
Reports for seminars
Continuous assessment + final exam

What is GOOD PRONUNCIATION?
Ways to acquire good pronunciation:
Ear training
Imitation
Overcoming of the native tongue interference
Memory work
Theoretical knowledge
Is it possible to acquire native-speaker-like pronunciation?

What science is PHONETICS?
What does it study?
Phonetics as a science is concerned with 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

METHODS OF INVESTIGATION
1. The direct observation method :
by ear
by sight
by muscular sensation
2. The linguistic method (to determine in what way all phonetic features are used in a language to convey a certain meaning)
3. The experimental method (use of special apparatus or instruments)
the laryngoscope, the artificial palate, the kymograph, the magnetic tape recorder, the oscillograph, the spectrograph, X-ray photography, slow motion films, speech synthesizers

Branches of Phonetics
Phonetics:
Sociophonetics
Psychophonetics
- Russian phonetics
- Theoretical phonetics
- Practical/ applied phonetics
suprasegmental/
segmental
Phonetics
Experimental/comparative
Special /general
Articulatory/
Acoustic/
Auditory
Descriptive/ historical
phonology

PHONETICS VS. PHONOLOGY
Nikolay Sergeevich Trybetskoy
Phonetics is a biological science, and is concerned with the physical and physiological characteristics of speech sounds.
Phonology is a linguistic science, and is concerned with the social functions of different phonetic phenomena. Phonology is a convenient term to indicate that section of phonetics in which the social functions of speech sounds are discussed.

PHONETICS and other sciences

Practical application of
phonetics
teaching correct pronunciation and eliminating dialect features from the pronunciation;
logopedics and curing speech defects;
teaching normal oral speech to deaf & dumb people;
devise alphabets for unwritten languages & spelling reforms;
technical acoustic & sound technology;
information & communication, cybernetics.

SPEECH SOUNDS and their aspects
Speech sounds are of a complex nature and have three different aspects:
1.ACOUSTIC
SPEECH SOUNDS = sound waves.
They are characterized by musical tone/ pitch, intonation, voice timber, intensity, stress/ accent, duration/ length.
2. BIOLOGICAL
SPEECH SOUNDS = phenomena resulting from the activities of the speech organs (anthropophonics).
3. LINGUISTIC
SPEECH SOUNDS = articulatory, acoustic, auditory and functional phenomena

Functions of speech sounds:
1. constitutive
– they constitute the material forms of mophemes, words & sentences;
2. distinctive
– they differentiate mophemes, words & sentences (e.g. zero-oppositions; miminal pair ).
3. recognitive
– the use of the right allophones in the right places facilitates normal recognition, and, consequently, understanding, of speech.

THE PROBLEM OF THE PHONEME
L.V.Shcherba: the phoneme may be viewed as a functional, material and abstract unit.
V.A.Vassilyev: the phoneme is the smallest (i.e. further indivisible into smaller consecutive segments) language unit (sound type) that exists in the speech of all the members of a given language community as such speech sounds which are capable of distinguishing one word of the same language or one grammatical form of a word from another grammatical form of the same word".

Concise working definition
(by V.A.Vassilyev)
“The phoneme is a minimal abstract linguistic unit realized in speech in the form of speech sounds opposable to other phonemes of the same language to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and words.”

ASPECTS OF THE PHONEME

PHONEME,SPEECH SOUND, ALLOPHONE

Classification of allophones

FUNCTIONS OF THE PHONEME
Are the functions of the phoneme related to the functions of the speech sounds?
Constitutive (e.g. think)
Distinctive (e.g. think-thing)
Recognitive (e.g. [tınk])

MAIN TRENDS IN THE PHONEME THEORY
1) Mentalistic/ psychological
2) Functional
3) Abstract
4) Physical
5) Cybernetic

MENTALISTIC/ PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW
GENERAL IDEA
- The phoneme = "mental image", or psychical image of a sound.
- Allophones of the phoneme are varying materializations of it.
- There’s a discrepancy between an intended sound and the one actually pronounced.
REPRESENTATIVES
I.A.Baudauin de Courtenay, E.D.Sapir, Alf. Sommerfelt (phonemes = "models which speakers seek to reproduce“), N.S.Trubetskoy’s (phoneme = sound image/ the intention to pronounce a sound but later phoneme = a language, not psychological unit).
CRITICISM
It is definitely not possible to establish such ideal sounds which do not exist in reality (Bloomfield and his followers, D.Jones)
PHONEME ASPECT?
- ABSTRACT

FUNCTIONAL VIEW
GENERAL IDEA:
The phoneme = the minimal sound unit by which meanings may be differentiated without much regard to actually pronounced speech sounds.
Distinctive features of the sound make up the phoneme corresponding to it (ladder: lenisness distinctive only in the third sound [d], otherwise latter).
Non-distinctive features are extracted from the phonemes thus divorcing the phoneme from actually pronounced speech sounds.
REPRESENTATIVES:
N.Trubetskoy, L.Bloomfield, R.Jakobson, M.Halle.
PHONEME ASPECT?
FUNCTIONAL

ABSTRACT VIEW
GENERAL IDEA
A stronger form of the "functional" approach.
Phonemes = essentially independent of the acoustic and physiological properties associated with them, that is of speech sounds.
Phonemes = conceptions existing in the mind but not in human speech, speech sounds being only phonetic manifestations of these conceptions.
REPRESENTATIVES
F. de Saussure, L.Hjelmslev and his associates in the Copenhagen Linguistic Circle, H.J.Uldall and K.Togby.
PHONEME ASPECT?
ABSTRACT AND FUNCTIONAL

PHYSICAL VIEW
GENERAL IDEA
- The phoneme = a "family" of related sounds satisfying certain conditions:
The various members of the "family" must show phonetic similarity to one another;
No member of the "family" may occur in the same phonetic context as any other.
- The phoneme = a group of articulatorily similar sounds without any regard to its functional and abstract aspects.
CRITICISM
it is not easy to see how sounds could be assigned to the same phoneme on any other grounds than differentiating between words?
REPRESENTATIVES
D.Jones, B.Bloch and G.Trager
PHONEME ASPECT?
MATERIAL

CYBERNETIC VIEW
GENERAL IDEA
The phoneme cannot be perceived by means of direct observation; therefore it is a construct.
Subject of the "two-level theory of phonology“: theoretical phonology ("the study of the nature of phonological reality“), and general phonology ("typology of concrete phonological systems“),
The "construct" requires a special conceptual apparatus in order to be cognized.
CRITICISM
Phonemes can be perceived and are daily perceived by members of the same linguistic communities (alphabets).
Separate phonemes can be recognized (the Cockney dialect: [aı] instead of [eı], shift the [h]-phoneme in initial positions of words: [iz], [еэ] for his, hair, and [hea] for air).
REPRESENTATIVES
S. K. Showmyan.
PHONEME ASPECT?
ABSTRACT

Linguistic transcription
BROAD
(phonemic)
1 symbol = 1 phoneme
e.g. /pen/
NARROW
(allophonic)
1 symbol = 1 allophone
e.g. [pen]

Test on the lecture
1) What is a phoneme?
2) Name a phoneme!
3) What approach to the phoneme do you share?
4) How many phonemes are there in English?
5) Spell and transcribe in English the proper name Хрущев. How many phonemes and morphemes did you use?
6) Who is this man?