PHONETICS

What is phonetics?

• It’s a discipline in linguistics which deals with the transcription of sounds.

• The units are called phonemes. • There are three kinds of phonemes:– Vowels.– Consonants.– Diphthongs (union of two vowels in the

same syllable).

What phonetics exercises will be important for the exam?

• Identify phonemes with graphemes (letter or letters which represent a phoneme in ordinary writing).

• -ed endings.• Plural and 3rd person singular –s

endings.

VOWELSVOWEL GRAPHEMES EXAMPLES

/ i: / -ee-, -ea- tree, seat.

/ ɪ / -i- sit,

/ ʊ / -oo-, -u- good, would, could, should

/ u: / -oo-, -u-, -oe- foot, rule,

/ e / -e-, -ea-, -ai- bet,

/ ə / -er, -or endings, and many other unstressed vowels.

father, conductor, alive

/ ɜ : /-ir-, -ur-, -or-, -ear- in stressed syllables.

bird, world, earth,

/ ɔ : / -oor, -or-, -al- door, more, talk

/ ɑ / -o-, -a- pot, stop, want

/ æ / -a- cat, bag,

/ ʌ / -u-, -o- cup, love,

/ a: / -ar-, -as- car, cart, class

DIPHTHONGSDiphthong Graphemes Examples

/ ɪə / -ea-, -ee-, year, beer, clear

/ eə / -air-, -eir, –ere- chair, where, there, their

/ ʊə / -ure-, -our- (not very common. It can be substituted by the vowel / ɔ: /

pure, tour

/ əʊ / -o- (generally in monosyllables ending in –e), -ow

tone, vote, throw

/ aʊ / -ou-, -ow- loud, vow, out

/ eɪ / -a- (generally in monosyllables ending in –e), -ay-, -ey-

lane, mate, change, way

/ aɪ / -i- (generally in monosyllables ending in –e), -i-,

five, mice, light

/ ɔɪ / -oy-, -oi- choice, voice

CONSONANTS

• There are two types of consonants: voiced and unvoiced, depending on whether the vocal cords vibrate or not.

• UNVOICED: / p /, / f /, / t /, / θ/, / tʃ /, / k /, / ʃ /• VOICED: / b /, / v /, / d /, / ð /, / dʒ /, / z /, / ʒ /, / g /,

/h /, /m/, / n /, / ŋ /, / r /, / l /, / w /, / j /

Unvoiced consonants

Consonant Graphemes examples

/ p / -p- please

/ t / -t- tea

/ f / -f-, -gh- four, enough, laugh

/ k / -c-, -k-, -ch- cake, architect

/ θ / -th- thing, through,

/ tʃ / -ch- cheese, much

/ ʃ / -sh-, -ch-, -s-, -ss-, -tion

ship, machine, sure, mission

Voiced consonants 1The consonants in this slide are similar to the ones we find in Spanish. Their

graphemic correspondance is regular.

Consonant Graphemes examples

/ b / -b- big

/ d / -d- day

/ g / -g- go

/ m / -m- maniac

/ n / -n- navy

/ l / -l- long

Voiced consonants 2

Consonant Graphemes examples

/ v / -v- have, vibrate

/ h / -h- help,

/ ð / -th- they, there, bathe

/ dʒ / -j-, -g-, -d- Japan, ginger, soldier

/ ŋ / -ng-, -nk- sing, drink, doing

/ ʒ / -s-, -ss- pleasure, measure

/ w / -w- (only before vowel; when after vowel is generally / ʊ / )

white, wolf

/ j / -y- young, yellow