vowels in spoken english
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Introduction:
This assignment will discuss the account of vowel in spoken English and describe them
according to the height of tongue, frontness and backness of tongue, lip rounding, and
tenseness of the articulators.
In English, there is no one-to-one relation between the system of writing and the system
of pronunciation. The alphabet which we use to write English has 26 letters but in
(Standard British) English there are approximately 44 speech sounds. The number of
speech sounds in English varies from dialect to dialect, and any actual tally depends
greatly on the interpretation of the researcher doing the counting. To represent the basic
sound of spoken languages linguists use a set of phonetic symbols called the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The chart below contains all of the IPA (vowels only) symbols
used to represent the sounds of the English language. This is the standard set of phonemic
symbols for English (RP and similar accents).
The colon / : / represents longer duration in pronunciation and is found in long vowels
such as / i: /, / a: /, / u: /, etc.
VOWEL: Vowel is a sound made by opening the mouth and letting air come out
centrally through the vocal tracts without any obstruction in the oral cavity. All vowels
are voiced by definition
Dictionaries say that there are 20 vowel sounds in English. Phonetically there are three
distinct kind of vowel sounds used in English: short vowel, long vowel, and diphthongs.
English VowelsQuality
Monophthongs (Pure Vowels)The organs of speech remain approximately
stationary
Diphthongs & Trip thongsThe organs of speechperform perceptible
movement
Short VowelsLax
Requires less muscular tension/ Less articulatory energy
Long VowelsTense
Requires greater muscular tension/ Greater articulatory energy
Classifying the vowels sounds of English:
The classification of vowels is based on four major aspects:
1. Tongue height - according to the vertical position of the tongue (high vowels,
also referred to as close; low vowels, also referred to as open; intermediate -
close-mid and open-mid)
2. Frontness and backness of the tongue - according to the horizontal position of
the highest part of the tongue.
3. Lip rounding - whether the lips are rounded (O-shape) or spread (no rounding)
when the sound is being made.
4. Tenseness of the articulators - refers to the amount of muscular tension around
the mouth when creating vowel sounds. Tense and lax are used to describe
muscular tension.
Front vowels
(tongue body is
pushed forward)
Central
vowels
(tongue body
is neutral)
Back vowels
(tongue body
is pulled
back)
High/close
vowels
(tongue body
is raised)
/ / see
/ / sit
/ / boot
/ / book
Mid vowels
(tongue body
is
intermediate)
/e/ bait*
/ / bet
/ / sofa**, /
/ bird
/o/ boat*
/ /
bought***
Low/open
vowels
(tongue body
is lowered)
/ / bat / / under**/ / father, /
/ sock(BrE)
*In some American accents (especially Californian English), vowel sounds in words
such as bait, gate, pane and boat, coat, note are not consider diphthongs. American
philologists often class them as tense. monophthongs (/e/ and /o/).
**/ / is used in unstressed syllables, while / / is in stressed syllables. The vowel / /
used to be a back vowel, and the symbol was chosen for this reason. This is no longer a
back vowel, but a central one.
***A considerable amount of Americans don't have the deep / / in their vocabulary,
they pronounce bought, ball, law with the deep / / sound.
According to the position of the lips:
English front and central vowels are always unrounded.
English back vowels / /, / /, /o/, / / are rounded (/ / vowel is unrounded).
Vowel Tenseness:
Tense vowels (produced with a great amount of muscular tension): / /, / /,
/ /, / /, / /. Tense vowels are variable in length, and often longer than lax
vowels.
Lax vowels (produced with very little muscular tension): / /, / /, / /, / /, / /,
/ /, / /. Lax vowels are always short.
Description of simple vowels:
1. /i:/ as in ‘ beat’, ‘mean’, ‘peace’ :
Description:
Tongue Height: nearly high
Tongue position: front
Lip rounding: spread
Tenseness: tense
/i: /: high, front, unrounded, tense.
2. / I / as in ‘bit’ ‘fin’ ‘fish’:
Description:
Tongue Height: intermediate between high and mid-high.
Tongue position: front
Lip rounding: spread
Tenseness: lax
/ I /: high, front, unrounded, lax
2. /e/ as in ‘bet’ ‘men’ ‘yes’ :
Description:
Tongue Height: between mid-high and mid-low
Tongue position: front
Lip rounding: slightly spread
Tenseness: lax
/e/: mid-low, front, unrounded, lax
4. The / / as in ‘bat’ ‘man’ ‘gas’:
Description:
Tongue Height: intermediate between mid-low and low
Tongue position: front
Lip rounding: slightly spread-neutral
Tenseness: lax
/ /: low, front, unrounded, lax
5 . /a:/ as in ‘card’, ‘half’, ‘pass’
Description:
Tongue Height: low
Tongue position: not fully back
Lip rounding: neutral
Tenseness: tense
/a: /: low, back, unrounded, tense
6. / / as in ‘pot’ ‘gone’ ‘cross’
Description:
Tongue Height: intermediate between mid-low and low.
Tongue position: not fully back
Lip rounding: slightly rounded
Tenseness: lax
/ /: low, back, rounded, lax
7. / / as in ‘board’, ‘torn’, ‘horse’:
Description:
Tongue Height: closer to mid-high
Tongue position: back
Lip rounding: fully rounded
Tenseness: tense
/ /: mid-high, back, rounded, tense.
8. / / as in ‘put’ ‘pull’ ‘push’:
Description:
Tongue Height: just above mid high
Tongue position: between back and centre
Lip rounding: rounded
Tenseness: lax
/ /: mid-high, back, rounded, lax
9. /U:/ as in ‘food’, ‘soon’, ‘loose’:
Description:
Tongue Height: nearly high
Tongue position: back
Lip rounding: rounded
Tenseness: tense
/U: /: high, back, rounded, tense.
10. The / /as in ‘but’ ‘some’ ‘rush’:
Description:
Tongue Height: lower than mid-low
Tongue position: central
Lip rounding: neutral
Tenseness: lax
/ /: mid-low, back, unrounded, lax
11. / / as in ‘bird’, ‘fern’, ‘purse’:
Description:
Tongue Height: between mid-high and mid-low cardinal vowels, nearer to the latter.
Tongue position: centre
Lip rounding: neutral
Tenseness: tense
/ /: mid-low, back, unrounded, tense.
This vowel is known as the hesitation sound, usually spelt as ‘er’ or ‘ir’.
12. The schwa / / as in ‘about’ ‘oppose’ ‘perhaps’:
Description:
Tongue Height: half away between high and low
Tongue position: central
Lip rounding: neutral
Tenseness: lax
/ /: mid, central, unrounded, lax
Diphthongs: is a contour vowel—that is, a unitary vowel
that changes quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a
smooth movement of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in
the English words eye, boy, and cow. This contrasts with "pure"
vowels, or monophthongs, where the tongue is held still, as in the
English word papa."
English has eight diphthongs : / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, / / , / /,/ /
Description of English diphthongs
your tongue
moves to:
your tongue
moves to:
your tongue
moves to:
Presenting diphthongs - similarities and differences
The English language has twenty vowel sounds. The first 12 of the English vowel sounds
are MONOPHTHONGS. The tongue stays at ONE fixed location in the mouth to produce
each.
Sounds 13 to 20, the next eight English vowel sounds, are DIPHTHONGS. They present
greater difficulty to people learning English because the tongue travels between two fixed
locations. It is important to know exactly what to do with the speech organs (i.e. the
position of the tongue, lip-shape & tension, size of mouth opening) in each location and
the manner and direction of the movement.
THE FIRST THREE DIPHTHONGS have the vowel sound in
"pit" or "if" as the FINISHING POSITION. To make this sound, tongue has to be
high and towards the front of your mouth and your lips kept relaxed.
13) as in day, pay, say, lay. The starting position is
with tongue in mid position at front of mouth as in "egg", "bed" or "Ted". Therefore you
move the tongue up to make the diphthong.
14) as in sky, buy, cry, tie. The starting position is ,
the same sound as in "car" or the noise "ah" which you make when you open your mouth
at the dentist's. To make the diphthong you need a big jaw movement, less opening as
you move the tongue up and front.
15) as in boy, toy, coy or the first syllable of soya. The starting
position is , the sound in "door" or "or". Your tongue needs to be
low, but you need to pull it back and make your mouth round. To make the diphthong,
you relax the lip rounding and move your tongue forward and up.
THE NEXT THREE DIPHTHONGS have the neutral "schwa" vowel sound
, which occurs in grunting noises and the weak forms of "the" and "a", as the FINISHING POSITION. To make the neutral vowel sound keep your tongue fixed in the centre of your mouth, lips fairly relaxed and just grunt!
16) as in beer (the drink), pier, hear. The starting position is
as in "if" or "pit" with tongue front and high and lips relaxed.
17) as in bear (the animal), pair and hair. The starting position is
as in "egg" or "bed" with tongue in mid position at front of mouth. To make the diphthong, using a small controlled movement, pull your tongue slightly back from mid front to the mid central position in your mouth.
18) as in "tour", "poor" (talking posh!) or the first syllable of
"tourist". The starting position is with tongue pulled back but small mouth aperture as in "hook", "book" or "look".
To make the diphthong, this time the small controlled tongue movement goes from the back position to the mid central position, losing the lip rounding and relaxing your mouth from the tight starting position.
THE LAST TWO DIPHTHONGS have the back vowel (tongue
pulled back but small tight mouth aperture as in "hook", "book" or "look") as the
FINISHING POSITION.
19) as in "oh", "no", "so" or "phone". The starting position is the
neutral vowel sound, also known as "schwa” , which sounds like a
grunt, as in the weak form of "the" or "a". To start in this way, the tongue should be fixed
in mid central position in your mouth with lips relaxed. To make the diphthong, it is a
short controlled movement in the opposite direction of 5) above: from the centre to the
back moving your relaxed lips into a tighter small round aperture. Your cheeks should
move in a bit!
20) as in all the words of "How now brown cow!". The starting
position is the vowel sound as in "at" "bad" or "rat" with tongue front
but also low (i.e. mouth open). To make the diphthong the journey for your tongue from
front low (mouth very open) to back high (small tight mouth aperture) is a very long
excursion. Your jaw will move a lot too.
What problems do Bangladeshis face while
pronouncing vowels and why?
Each sound of a language has a fixed manner and place of articulation. A native speaker
of any language acquires the habit of pronouncing each sound through constant exercises
of the organs of speech in his or her childhood. Like wise Bengali speakers habituate
Bengali Sounds. So they face some difficulties with pronouncing English sound
especially with vowels.
Simple vowels are classified according to the position of the tongue. The route, the
tongue takes in making a succession of vowel sound can be roughly plotted.
In Bengali there are 7 distinct simple vowel sounds; in English there are 12.
The position of English and Bengali vowels is in relation to each other. An analysis shows
that only in 2 cases, ( and ) do the Bengali and English
sounds coincide, though is so close to the English as, for all
practical purposes, to be accepted as similar.
Very often Bengali speakers equate the three English sounds , , with a
simple Bengali sound a. so they confuse the hearer by doing that.
In Bengali there is no vowel which is long in nature. So it is difficult for
Bangladeshi to differentiate the pronunciation between ‘lip’and’leap’.
Bengali speaker often pronounce only the first part of the diphthongs. they stick at
the first position except in the case of / /, / /, / / as they in Bengali
bornomala. i.e. they say /mek/ instead of /meIk/
Bengali does not use stress to anything like the same extent as English. Bengali
words are not usually stressed in isolation and there is no parallel in Bengali for
the group of monosyllables having weak and strong forms. So it is hard for
Bangladeshi to pronounce words with stress.
A teacher should first know the problem area of the learners. Teacher can first teach
them the sounds with all possible distinction. Then s/he would make them practice the
sounds again and again through:
Providing Worksheets
This will help them to clarify their ideas of sounds
Prepare Materials for repetitions
It will help them to know more about the sounds and by repeating they may
acquire perfection
Making them reading aloud
It may help the teacher if there anything is wrongly pronounced so that s/he
can correct it.
Giving them a sound song/rhyme
So that learners can really train their speech
Recording the sounds
It’s good to record the learner’s sound and play back their voices
Making them aware of place of articulation
Thus they will be able to differentiate the sounds according to the tongue
movement.
Differentiate the meaning with or without stress
So learners will get concern about stressing.
This is how an EFL teacher can make the English vowel system easier to the learners.
But as we know teaching is a creative process where a teacher can be the best guide by
her creativity. Teachers of EFL have a great advantage of using internet for the materials
and they can utilize it. So learners will get the taste of the variety in materials. An EFL
class must be communicative. So that the learners can enjoy learning English sounds and
correct them by practicing.
So at first know the problems of learners, then prepare materials according to the learners
needs, and then make it clear to them. A teacher of EFL should be friendly enough to
stand the mispronunciation of the learners so that the correction won’t hurt their self
esteem.
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