INGLESE 1 - The sound system of English - prof. Newbold, Appunti di Lingua Inglese

Scarica INGLESE 1 - The sound system of English - prof. Newbold e più Appunti in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! 1° LEZIONE: Obiettivi del corso: - acquisire consapevolezza del sistema che regola i suoni dell’inglese - migliorare la propria pronuncia in inglese - familiarizzare con “the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)” THE SOUND SYSTEM - but what is a system? - a complex whole; - a set of connected things or parts; - an organized body of material or immaterial things. LANGUAGE AS SYSTEM a communication system organised in subsystem: - lexis (vocabulary); because language is nothing without words - grammar (syntax, morphology); how words are put together - their order and construction - sounds (e.g phonology, intonation, ecc) - writing (e.g spelling) THE SOUND SYSTEM It has 3 subsystem: - phonemes: the building blocks of the language - stress: it’s a tool by which we give prominence to sounds; - stress timing: is the rhythm of the language plus: intonation: not what you say, but how you say it; 80% of the meaning can be translated by the intonation, it is a higher level of organization. Siti utili: To transcribe texts into the IPA: http://www.photransedit.com/online/text2phonetics.aspx To type using the IPA: http://ipa.typeit.org 5 STATEMENTS: do you agree with them? 1 English is a musical language.→ No, english ends with consonants and it is not so musical 2 English is easier to speak than it is to understand. Yes/No → english is easy to understand and my problem is speaking but when you speak you control the speed and it can be difficult to understand the various accent 3 American English is very different from British English. Yes/No→ it is very different but if you know english you can understand also American English very well 4 Everyone speaks their own variety of English. → Yes, because we all have different voices and accents 5 There are hundreds of different sounds in English. → Yes, there are if everybody can speak their own type of english; but also no, there aren’t, because there is a limited number of sounds in english: the number of sounds in english is 44; → 44 phonemes. ! The spelling system does not work in english. Some words may sound the same but they can actually be spelled very differently. There are: Homophones = words spelled the same way but with different meanings (pronunciate alla stessa maniera); Homographs = words written the same way but with different meanings (scritte alla stessa maniera); THE VOWELS (vocali) IN ENGLISH: (there are 20 vowels in English and only 5 letters that represent them) → Over the period 1400-1700 the pronunciation of English vowels changed. - long vowels tended to move upwards - spellings did not change to reflect those moves. It doesn't accommodate these changes. - the phenomenon is known as ‘The Great Vowel Shift’ GHOTI: parola inventata per mettere in evidenza le incongruenze che ci sono nella pronuncia dell’inglese. E’ una forma alternativa di fish, in quanto è anch'essa pronunciabile come /ˈfɪʃ/. Infatti essa si compone di: gh, pronunciato /f/ come in enough /tʌf/; o, pronunciato /ɪ/ come in women /ˈwɪmɪn/; ti, pronunciato /ʃ/ come in nation /ˈneɪʃən/. → for George Bernard Shaw this aquatic creature could be a GHOTI. SOUNDS AND SPELLINGS: English is not a ‘phonetic’ language because there are 44 sounds and only 26 letters. A phonetic language is a language in which you can look at a written word and know how to pronounce it. Or you can hear a word and know how to spell it. BUT 80% of spellings are regular (= rule bound) example: p = /p/; ph = /f/; SPELLING RULES: A good rule: Monosyllabic words ending in a single consonant preceded by a single vowel double the final consonant to form the participle. sleep sleeping slip slipping beat beating hit hitting is adopted, I despair (rinuncio) of conveying my ideas of this subject with sufficient clearness upon paper’. → He concludes that the alphabet is not suitable for conveying the sounds of English. The IPA: The International Phonetic Alphabet was introduced in 1886 (a hundred year after John Walker) by a group of European linguists. The aim was to provide a tool for describing the sounds of human languages; each sound is given its own symbol. Today there are 107 symbols, as well as more than 50 diacritics (= segni diacritici), which are placed below, above, or next to a symbol to add further information about the sound. The Latin alphabet was used to provide the basis for symbols, which make the IPA “euro-centric”. So the transcriptions of some words (e.g /bed/) look similar to the traditional spellings of the word. This can lead to confusion! The need for the IPA: IPA transcriptions show irregularity/unpredictability of spellings: through though cough /θruː/ /ðəʊ/ /kɒf/ → these words are similar: they all end in -ough. But in each transcription, the final sound is different: “through” and “though” both end with vowels: “through” with a long vowel, “though” with a diphthong; “cough” ends with a consonant. → we can’t see it when we look at the words as they are spelled, but we immediately see the differences when we use the IPA. es. love cove move /ˈlʌv/ /kəʊv/ /muːv/ es. blood good mood /blʌd/ /ɡʊd/ /muːd/ PRODUCING SOUNDS: Most of the world’s languages are pulmonic egressive. Sounds are produced as the speaker expels air from the lungs. PRODUCING CONSONANTS: We use our vocal cords and our articulators to produce consonants. A consonant is a sound (a phoneme) produced when the air flow (= pulmonic egressive flow) is blocked or obstructed and it is not constant. The blockage is created by the movement of articulators. → are those parts of the mouth which move in the production of consonants es. lips, teeth but also and especially the tongue: it is the major articulator. Consonant sounds can be identified by referring to the place (where) and manner (how) of articulation. Number of consonants: 24. 1° category of consonants phonemes: plosives consonants (= consonanti occlusive) When you pronounce a plosive consonant there is a sudden relief of air → the obstruction is caused by the two lips which are then opened and the sound is released. There are 6 plosives in English: 1) /p/ bilabial, unvoiced es. pig (unvoiced = no vibrations of the vocal cords) 2) /b/ bilabial, voiced es. bear (voiced = the vocal cords vibrates) 3) /t/ alveolar, unvoiced es. town 4) /d/ alveolar, voiced es. desk 5) /k/ velar, unvoiced es. cat, king → represented especially by the letter C. 6) /g/ velar, voiced es. goat Voiced and Unvoiced; Fortis and Lenis: The distinction between voiced and unvoiced does not always seem to correspond to reality. In initial and final position /b/ /d/ and /g/ do not seem to have much voicing (or vibrations). But /p/ /t/ and /k/ seem to be produced with greater force. To reflect this, some linguists prefer the terms fortis (= strong) and lenis (= weak) to replace unvoiced and voiced. 2° category of consonants phonemes: fricatives consonants (= consonanti fricative) They are different in their manner of production because, unlike plosives, we can hang on to them and we don’t have to release them: they can last a long time. There are 8 fricatives in English: 1) /f/ labiodental, unvoiced es. flag, fox, phonology, photograph 2) /v/ labiodental, voiced es. voice 3) /θ/ dental/interdental, unvoiced es. thing, think, three (“th” is a single phoneme) 4) /ð/ dental/interdental, voiced es. this, that, those // → we have 2 phonemes composed of the same letters. TIPS: The words beginning unvoiced dental are what we call “lexical words”, words which have meaning (nouns, verbs, adjectives). The words beginning voiced dental are words which are not lexical (grammar words or functional words). 5) /s/ alveolar, unvoiced es. sun, ceiling 6) /z/ alveolar, voiced es. zoo 7) /ʃ/ post-alveolar, unvoiced es. show, shop 8) /ʒ/ post-alveolar, voiced es. television, pleasure, garage → (NOT COMMON IN ENGLISH) 3° LEZIONE: 3° category of consonants phonemes: affricates consonants (= consonanti affricate) They are different because they are made of two consonants put together. Affricates combine a plosive with a fricative. There are just 2 affricates in English: 1) /tʃ/ unvoiced, post-alveolar affricate es. church 2) /dʒ/ voiced, post-alveolar affricate es. jeans, Japan, Germany 4° category of consonants phonemes: nasals consonants (= consonanti nasali) There are 3 nasals in English: 1) /m/ bilabial es. mum → is produced when we simply close our mouth and start to make a noise and the only exist is the nostril; 2) /n/ alveolar es. night, nice, knight → is produced when we open the mouth a little bit and put the tongue behind the teeth; 3) /ŋ/ velar es. ring, sing, thing, song → is produced with the tongue going back in the mouth; we can find this phoneme only at the end of certain words. 5° category of consonants phonemes: other consonants (there are other 5): 1) /l/ is an alveolar lateral. Lateral means that the air is expelled on the side of the tongue, laterally. However, the place of articulation changes according to the distribution, before or after a vowel. Diphthongs are vowels in movement. They start somewhere and then go somewhere else. → the movement may be towards the centre (centring) or towards the high or close position (closing).→ two types: centring and closing. /eɪ/ → eight, aim, name, great, say, weigh, wait, grey. /əʊ/ → go, know, goat, bone (o + silent e), sew, toe, though. /aɪ/ → why, buy, tie, sigh, night, height, guide. /aʊ/ → house, towel, now, plough. /ɔɪ/ → boy, choice. /ɪə/ → fear, near, here (but not in “there”), queer. /eə/ → air, hair, tear, share, prayer, where. /ʊə/ → tour, poor (least common) → there is a sort of interchangeability here within diphthong and long vowel. 5° LEZIONE: TRIPHTHONGS: We don’t count them as single vowels, but as double-vowels (=2 vowels). A triphthong is a closing diphthong followed by the centring vowel /ə/. es. fire → faɪə → aɪ diphthong + ə eɪ + ə player əʊ + ə lower aɪ + ə higher aʊ + ə power ɔɪ + ə loyal → the ə makes the closing diphthongs go towards the centre and they become centring triphthongs. The most common vowel in English: is the mid-central vowel /ə/, also known as schwa (20° VOWEL). In this sense, it is the most important sound in English. In another sense, it is the least significant, since it is never stressed. STRESS: WHAT IS IT? → it’s easy to recognize in English which syllables are stressed, but it’s harder to define the stress Two ways of looking at the stress: 1. from the point of the production (what happens when we produce sounds) 2. from the point of the perception (what happens when we hear sounds) From a perspective of production: stress is about pronouncing a syllable with greater muscular effort. From a perspective of perception: stress is about noticing that a syllable has greater prominence. → features of prominence are: loudness, length, pitch and quality. A stressed syllable is louder, longer and higher than an unstressed syllable. → Stress is a comparative phenomen → stress exists when compared with lack of stress. The stress can be fixed and can be movable. - fixed in a word on a certain syllable and it doesn't change. - movable in a sentence to give more meaning to it. WORD STRESS: → almost all bi-sillabyc nouns have the stress on the first syllable. → a lot of bi-sillabyc verbs have the stress on the second syllable, but there are also plenty that have the stress on the first syllable. ex. of nouns ex. of verbs teach|er ar|rive stu|dent en|joy jack|et en|ter win|dow stud|y ex. of words with 3 syllables el|e|phant ex|cit|ing en|gi|neer UNSTRESSED VOWELS: - The most common unstressed vowel is schwa /ə/ ex. teacher = | tiːtʃə | - Another common unstressed vowel is the short /ɪ/ ex. jacket = | dʒækɪt | → at the end of the word it is usually transcribed as /i/ ex. happy = | hæpi | - We can also find diphthongs in unstressed syllables ex. window = | wɪndəʊ | The ' indicate where the stress is. The longer the word, the more alternative are possible: enjoy ɪn'dʒɔɪ en'dʒɔɪ elephant 'eləfənt 'elɪfənt exciting ɪk'saɪtɪŋ ek'saɪtɪŋ engineer endʒə'nɪa endʒɪ'nɪə → the differences are in the UNSTRESSED syllables so they are irrelevant to word recognition: it is the rest of the word that we have to understand. The alternatives will always concern unstressed syllables and never stressed syllables. STRESS MARKS: A word with more than one syllable will always have a stressed syllable (monosyllabic = no stress). This should be indicated in transcriptions by a primary stress mark, to the upper left of the stressed syllable: ex. | 'tiːtʃə | A long word (e.g. a word with four syllables) may have two stresses, one of which is less prominent. In this case, the less prominent stressed syllable will be indicated by a secondary stress mark to the lower left of the syllable: ex. | 'heliˌkɒptə | FACTORS AFFECTING POSITION OF STRESS: 1. the grammatical category compare subject (N) and subject (V) → sub|ject (N) - sub|ject (V) 2. the morphological structure of the word compare history and historical → his|to|ry - his|tor|i|cal 3. the number of syllables the more syllables, the greater the chance of secondary stress 4. the phonological structure of the syllables strong syllables are usually stressed; weak syllables are always unstressed Grammatical categories: - Compounds ex. typewriter walking stick department store In compounds, the stress goes in the first part of the word. In this case, the stress can change and manipulate the meaning. - Word class (N+V) pairs export (n) export (v) object (n) object (v) protest (n) protest (v) record (n) record (v) Stress and suffixation: There are 3 basic patterns: 1. The stress does NOT move when you add these suffixes: -able, -age, -al, -en, -ful, -fy, -ing, -ish, -less, -ly, -ment, -ness, -ous, -y. ex. comfort comfortable 2. The stress is in the suffix when you add these: -ee, -eer, -ese, -ette, -esque. ex. Japan Japanese 3. The stress moves within the stem (or base) when you add these: -eous, -graphy, -ial, -ic, -ion, -ious, -ive. ex. climate climatic 6° LEZIONE: SYLLABLES: Interlude: writing system → interlude about the connection between writing and sounds - writing system and phonology. auxiliaries must, can, do, have prepositions to, for, from, of conjunctions and, but adverbs there verb be was, were → In connected speech, as soon as we follow these words by e.g a noun, the pronunciation changes. Examples: Word Strong form Weak form a eɪ ə the ðiː ðə some sʌm səm for fɔː fə can kæn kən must mʌst məs you juː ju/jə he hiː hi there ðeə ðə STRONG FORMS: When do we use them? 1. when a word is ‘quoted’ ex. “And” is a conjunction ex. Tonolo’s is the place for cakes in Venice → underlining function 2. when a word is contrasted ex. I go to and from the station every day 3. at the end of a sentence ex. Who’s this cup of tea for? ex. Where are you from? A / THE + VOWEL: When “a” is followed by a word beginning with a vowel (and sometimes “h”), it becomes “an”: an artist an Englishman a/an historian When “the” is followed by the vowel /i:/ or /ɪ/ the strong form is used: the Englishman / ðiː ˈɪnglɪʃmən / the evening / ðiː ˈiːvnɪŋ / MOVEABLE STRESS: sentence stress Stress can vary within the sentence. → the speaker decides where they are going to put the stress. This phenomenon is traditionally known as sentence stress (as opposed to word stress). Roach calls it tonic stress (since it is a feature of intonation). The sentence stress carries the information focus of the sentence (the most important word of it). It is usually the last lexical word of the tone unit. Compare: - What are you thinking? - What are you thinking of doing? - What are you thinking of doing after the lesson? 8° LEZIONE: STRESS TIMING: French is a syllable-timed language, because each syllable takes the same time to pronounce (like italian). English is a stress-timed language, because the rhythm comes from the regular repetition of stressed syllables. STRESS TIMING VS SYLLABLE TIMING: Languages seem to have characteristic rhythms: in a syllable-timed language, the rhythm comes from the regular repetition of syllables. ex. ME AND YOU AND HIM AND HER (each syllable takes up the same length of time) In a stress-timed language the rhythm comes from the regular repetition of the stresses: ex. ME and YOU and HIM and HER (each stress unit takes up the same length of time) A stress unit = is a stressed syllable followed by one or more (or maybe none) unstressed syllable STRESS UNITS: Unit 1 Unit 2 Come here Come up here Come over here Come up over here Come along over here = it takes the same amount of time to say all these phrases. The more unstressed syllables there are attached to the stressed syllable, the more difficult it is to say and to hear and understand the words. But if we don’t understand the words in the middle we don’t lose very much information: the unstressed words are not important. 9° LEZIONE: PROSODY AND CONNECTED SPEECH: Prosody refers to a number of features such as stress, rhythm and intonation. These phenomena are related to connected speech, such as syllables, words, phrases and especially longer utterances or chunks of speech. Prosody includes pitch, loudness, speed and the use of pauses. This aspect of phonology (greater than the single ‘segments’ which are phonemes) is known as suprasegmental phonology. But connected speech also involves the way phonemes are reduced or adapted to enable a smooth transition from one sound to another. We have already seen vowel reduction with weak form. It is now time to look at other ways in which phonemes are adapted to ensure a seamless flow of speech. How fast is connected speech? In normal speech, people average 125 words/minute We can understand up to around 500 words/minute (= for English) CONNECTED SPEECH PHENOMENA (3): 1. elision, when a phoneme is elided or disappears. ex. Next please! / nekspliːz / → “t” is omitted 2. liaison or linking, when a phoneme is added. ex. Wait for a moment! / weɪt fər ə məʊmənt / → the linking “r” is added to separate the two schwa vowel. 3. assimilation, when a phoneme is modified. ex. I’m still in bed /aɪm stɪl ɪm bed/ ELISION: - loss of plosives Next please! /- t / I don’t know /- t / Fish and chips/- d / Stand there /- d / - loss of weak vowel today, police, potato / t(ə)ˈdeɪ /, / p(ə)ˈliːs /, / p(ə)ˈteɪtəʊ / - abbreviated form (?) ex. I’d like a cup of tea → not really an elision but an agreed abbreviation. LIAISON (OR LINKING): - Linking / r / → we use it to separate words Car alarm / kɑːr əlɑːm / - Intrusive / r / → we use a r when its not indicated by the spelling Law and order / lɔːr ən ɔːdə / - Intrusive / j / My arm! / mɑɪ j ɑːm / - Intrusive / w / Go away! / gəʊ w əweɪ / → they separe words that begin and end with a vowel. ASSIMILATION: It occurs when a phoneme is changed by a neighbouring phoneme. - regressive assimilation occurs when a phoneme is transformed by a following phoneme. (right to left assimilation) !!! - progressive assimilation occurs when a phoneme is transformed by a preceeding phoneme. (left to right assimilation) HIGH RISE INTONATION: → Also known as uptalk or upspeech. → The phenomenon in which the speaker seems to be asking himself/herself a question (=rising tone); in recent years it has been widely researched. ex. So we decided to go to the ↗ zoo, and it was really ↗ interesting. → it is particularly associated with young people. Interpretations: it shows insecurities, because the speaker wants confirmation or it shows a strong desire to include the listener, or simply a way of pausing/slowing down. 11° LEZIONE: NEW SYMBOL: ʔ → glottal stop → it’s an allophone of the phoneme / t / VARIETY IN THE SOUND SYSTEM: Types of variation: - Diachronic (over time) / Synchronic (over place) - Personal variation - Social variation - Intra-national variation - International (between nations) - Native / non-native DIACHRONIC VARIETY: The sounds of a language vary over time. → this is a diachronic variation. In the past there was a closer relationship between spelling and sound than the one there is today. The vowel system changed radically in the period 1450-1700 (the Great Vowel Shift), with vowels typically raised (feet) or diphthongized (house). The phrase “It’s time to go now”, before the GVS would have sounded something like: / ɪts tiːm tʊ g ɔː nuː / PERSONAL VARIATION: Factors affecting personal variation - and making us all unique: - pitch and intonation → how high is your voice - voice quality → how nasal/breathy, etc is your voice - vowel and consonant differences → it depends on where exactly and how you pronounce your sounds; and how long you make the vowels SOCIAL VARIATION: You adapt the way you speak to your interlocutor(s): - Accommodation → the phenomena of adapting the way you speak to the way your group or interlocutor speak. Can be convergent or divergent ( = adapting the way you speak so it’s different from the interlocutor’s). - Level of formality. INTRA-NATIONAL (REGIONAL) VARIATION: → In the UK there is no “standard pronunciation”. RP = “received pronunciation” (also known as the Queen’s English, Oxford English, BBC English, etc) is spoken by about 2% of the population. Most people in England have regional accents, e.g. northern, or south west. Some metropolitan areas (e.g Liverpool, Birmingham) have distinctive accents. Dialect is manifested, not so much by lexis or structure, but especially by accent. Today the most common accent/variety appears to be Estuary English. ESTUARY ENGLISH: Features of Estuary English: glottal stop replaces / t / water → / wɑːʔə / (wo-ah) / l / → / u / meal → / miːu / (the l is vocalized and become a vowel) word final / i / → / i: / pity → / piʔiː / (pi-ih) yod (/ j /) coalescing tune → / tʃuːn / → t + j = tʃ REGIONAL VARIATION: the British Isles ➢ North of England - vowel changes / ʌ / → / ʊ / cup / ɑː / → / a / bath / eɪ / → / ɛ / train ➢ Scotland - fronting of the back vowel / u: / look, moon - trilled / r / - velar fricative / x / loch ➢ Wales - velar fricative / x / Ystrad fach - voiceless lateral / l / Llanilltud ➢ Ireland - loss of interdental fricative I think …. / θ / → / t / INTERNATIONAL VARIATION: THE US There is no supra-regional accent such as RP in the UK. Traditionally there are said to be 3 main dialect zones: north east, southern and the rest (‘General American’). One of the main dialect features is the presence or absence of post vocalic (‘rhotic’) / r /. It is absent in north-east and southern varieties. FEATURES OF US (GA) PRONUNCIATION: Main features: - post vocalic / r / → bird - / ɑ / → hot, got, cough - / æ / → France, bath - loss of diphthong / ɪə /, / eə /, / ʊə / - voicing / t / → / d / New York City - yod / j / dropping → ‘nu iork’ and not ‘nuj iork’ Pronunciation of individual words: leisure, missile, route, tomato, vase Stress: address, cigarette, laboratory, magazine, weekend, advertisement, capillary ONGOING CHANGE: (Vowel Shift) Another chain shift of the vowel system may be in progress in the UK, with a general lowering of the front vowels: / ɪ / → / e / / e / → / ɛ / / æ̃ / → / a / 12° LEZIONE: THE PHONOLOGY OF ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA: ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE : 7+ billion inhabitants: how many of them speak English? 2 billion speak english. But how many speak English as their first language (= native language)? 350m+ As a second language 400m+ As a foreign language 1.000m+ Today, most interactions in English are between non-native speakers! THE NEW ENGLISHES: VOWELS A number of varieties of English (African, West Indian, S. and S.E. Asian) show similar tendencies: - shortening of long vowels - loss of distinction between long and short - avoidance of central vowels / ə / and / ɜː / → schwa more like / a / - diphthongs / əʊ / and / eɪ / become monophthongs / o / and / ɛ / in words like so, great, etc. THE NEW ENGLISHES: CONSONANTS - interdental fricative / θ / and / ð / replaced by other sounds, especially / t / and / d / - loss of distinction between voiced and unvoiced plosives, due to lack of aspiration - final stop consonants (p, b, t, d, k. g) may not be released - consonant clusters may be reduced: mus instead of must, or broken up by vowels (epenthesis): againest instead of against ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA: - usually intended as a NNS (non-native speaker) - NNS interaction - may be used intra-nationally on internationally FEATURES OF ELF INTERACTION: accomodation making your lingua franca sound more like your interlocutor’s collaborative speaking asking your interlocutor for help linguistic creativity inventing new words that you don’t know