Chapter 3

The sounds of language

 Introduction

• I take it you already know

• Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
• Others may stumble but not you
• On hiccough, thorough, lough and through.
• Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
• To learn of less familiar traps?
• Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
• That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
• And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead
• For goodness sake don’t call it “deed”!
• Watch out for meat and great and threat
• (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
 Cont…

• •The sounds of spoken English do not match up, a lot

of the time, with letters of written English.
– e.g. Bernard Shaw’s ‘ghoti’ (tough/ women/ nation)
• •One solution is to produce a separate alphabet with
symbols that represent sounds; it is called the phonetic
alphabet.
• •In this chapter, we will look at how these symbols are
used to represent both the consonant and vowel
sounds of English words and what physical aspects of
the human vocal tract are involved in the production of
those sounds.
 Phonetics

• •Phonetics —The general study of the characteristics

of speech sounds.

• •There are 3 kinds of phonetics:

• 1- articulatory phonetics, the study of how speech

sounds are made, or articulated.
• 2- acoustic phonetics, which deals with the physical
properties of speech as sound waves in the air.
• 3- auditory phonetics which deals with the perception,
via the ear, of speech sounds.
 Voiced and voiceless sounds

• •The air is pushed out by the lungs up through the trachea

(or windpipe) to the larynx. Inside the larynx are your vocal
folds (or vocal cords), which take two basic positions:

• •1 .When the vocal folds are spread apart, the air from the
lungs passes between them unimpeded (no vibration).
Sounds produced in this way are described as voiceless.
(ssss / ffff)

• •2. When the vocal folds are drawn together, the air from
the lungs repeatedly pushes them apart as it passes
through, creating a vibration effect. Sounds produced in
this way are described as voiced. (zzzz/ vvvv)
 Place of articulation

• •Most consonant sounds are produced by using

the tongue and other parts of the mouth to
constrict, in some way, the air is passing in the
oral cavity. The terms used to describe many
sounds are those which denote the place of
articulation of the sound: that is, the location
inside the mouth at which the constriction takes
place. The phonetic alphabet symbols will be
enclosed within square brackets [ ].
 Bilabials

• •Bilabials--sounds formed using both (= bi)

upper and lower lips (= labia). The initial
sounds in the words pat, bat and mat are all
bilabials. They are represented by the symbols
[p], which is voiceless, and [b] and [m], which
are voiced. We can also describe the [w]
sound found at the beginning of way, walk
and world as a bilabial.
 Labiodentals

• •sounds formed with the upper teeth and the

lower lip. The initial sounds of the words fat and
vat and the final sounds in the words safe and
save are labiodentals.
• •They are represented by the symbols [f], which
is voiceless, and [v], which is voiced.
• •Notice that the final sound in the word cough
and the initial sound in photo, despite the
spelling differences, are both pronounced as [f].
 Dentals

• •These sounds are formed with the tongue tip

behind the upper front teeth. E.g. thin, bath,
three, teeth. The symbol used for this sound is
[θ], a voiceless dental

• •The voiced dental is represented by the

symbol [ð]. This sound is found in common
words like the, there, then and thus. It is also
the middle consonant sound in feather and the
final sound of bathe.
 Alveolars

• •These are sounds formed with the front part of

the tongue on the alveolar ridge, which is the
rough, bony ridge immediately behind and above
the upper teeth. E.g. the initial sounds in top, dip,
sit, zoo and nut .
• The symbols for these sounds are – [t], [d], [s],
[z], [n]. Of these, [t] and [s] are voiceless whereas
[d], [z] and [n] are voiced.
• •Other alveolars are the [l] sound found at the
beginning of words such as lap and lit, and the [r]
sound at the beginning of right and write.
 Palatals

• •Sounds produced with the tongue and the

palate (the hard part in the roof of the mouth
behind the alveolar ridge) are called palatals.
Examples of palatals are the initial sounds in the
words shout and child, which are both voiceless.
• The “sh”sound is represented as [ʃ] and the “ch”
sound is represented as [ʧ]. So, the word shoe-
brush begins and ends with the voiceless palatal
sound [ʃ] and the word church begins and ends
with the other voiceless palatal sound [ʧ].
 Cont…

• •One of the voiced palatals, represented by the symbol

[ʒ], is not very common in English, but can be found as
the middle consonant sound in words like treasure and
pleasure, or the final sound in rouge. The other voiced
palatal is [ʤ],which is the initial sound in words like
joke and gem. The word judge and the name George
both begin and end with the sound [ʤ] despite the
obvious differences in spelling.
• •One other voiced palatal is the [j] sound used at the
beginning of words like you.
 Velars

• • Sounds produced with the back of the tongue

against the velum (the soft area behind the
palate) are called velars. There is a voiceless velar
sound, represented by the symbol [k], which
occurs not only in kid and kill, but is also the
initial sound in car and cold. Despite the variety in
spelling, this [k] sound is both the initial and final
sound in the words cook, kick and coke.
 Cont…

• •The voiced velar sound heard at the beginning of words

like go, gun and give is represented by [ɡ]. Also in bag, mug
and, despite the spelling, plague.
• •The velum can be lowered to allow air to flow through the
nasal cavity and thereby produce another voiced velar,
represented by the symbol [ŋ], typically referred to as
“angma.” In written English, this sound is normally spelled
as the two letters “ng.” So, the [ŋ] sound is at the end of
sing, sang and, despite the spelling, tongue. It occurs twice
in the form ringing. Be careful not to be misled by the
spelling of a word like bang – it ends with the [ŋ] sound
only. There is no [ɡ] sound in this word.
 Glottals

• •There is one sound that is produced without the

active use of the tongue and other parts of the mouth.
It is the sound [h] which occurs at the beginning of
have, house, who and whose. This sound is usually
described as a voiceless glottal.
• •The “glottis” is the space between the vocal folds in
the larynx. When the glottis is open, as in the
production of other voiceless sounds, and there is no
manipulation of the air passing out of the mouth, the
sound produced is that represented by [h].
 Manner of articulation

• Describe the same consonant sounds in terms

of how they are articulated.
• We need it in order to differentiate between
some sounds which we have placed in the
same category earlier.
– E.g. [t] and [s] sounds are both voiceless alveolar
sounds. How do they differ? In the manner (way)
they are produced ( [t] is a stop sound and [s] is a
fricative )
• •Stops--[p], [b], [t], [d], [k], [ɡ] are all
produced by some form of “stopping” of the
air stream (very briefly) then letting it go
abruptly. This type of consonant sound,
resulting from a blocking or stopping effect on
the air stream, is called a ‘stop’.
– E.g. [t] sound in a word like ten is a voiceless
alveolar stop.
 Cont…

• • Fricatives--[f], [v], [θ],[ð],[s], [z], [ʃ], [ʒ], [h]

involves almost blocking the air stream and
having the air push through the very narrow
opening. As the air is pushed through, a type of
friction is produced and the resulting sounds are
called ‘fricatives’. The usual pronunciation of the
word fish begins and ends with the voiceless
fricatives [f] and [ʃ]. The word those begins and
ends with the voiced fricatives [ð] and [z].
 Cont…

• •Affricates-- If you combine a brief stopping of

the air stream with an obstructed release which
causes some friction, you will be able to produce
the sounds [ʧ] and [ʤ]. These are

• called affricates and occur at the beginning of the

words cheap and jeep. In the first of these, there
is a voiceless affricate [ʧ], and in the second, a
voiced affricate [ʤ].
 Cont….

• •Nasals-- Most sounds are produced orally, with

the velum raised, preventing airflow from
entering the nasal cavity. However, when the
velum is lowered and the air stream is allowed to
flow out through the nose to produce [m], [n]
and [ŋ], the sounds are described as nasals.
These three sounds are all voiced. The words
morning, knitting and name begin and end with
nasals.
 Cont…

• •Liquids--The initial sounds in led and red are

described as liquids. They are both voiced. The [l]
sound is called a lateral liquid and is formed by
letting the air stream flow around the sides of the
tongue as the tip of the tongue makes contact
with the middle of the alveolar ridge. The [r]
sound at the beginning of red is formed with the
tongue tip raised and curled back near the
alveolar ridge.
 Cont…

• •Glides--The sounds [w] and [j] are described

as glides. They are both voiced and occur at
the beginning of we, wet, you and yes. These
sounds are typically produced with the tongue
in motion (or “gliding”) to or from the position
of a vowel and are sometimes called semi-
vowels.
 cont..

• •The glottal stop, represented by the symbol [ʔ],

occurs when the space between the vocal folds
(the glottis) is closed completely (very briefly),
then released.
– E.g. Oh oh! / Uh-uh (meaning “no”)
– in place of “t” when they pronounce Batman quickly.
– You can also produce a glottal stop if you try to say the
words butter or bottle without pronouncing the “-tt-”
part in the middle, a characteristic of Cockney
(London) speech (e.g. Harry Potter)
 Cont…

• •If, however, you are someone who pronounces the word

butter in a way that is close to “budder,” then you are
making a flap. It is represented by [D]or sometimes [ɾ].This
sound is produced by the tongue tip tapping the alveolar
ridge briefly.
• Many American English speakers have a tendency to “flap”
the [t] and [d] consonants between vowels so that, in
casual speech,
– E.g the pairs latter and ladder (do not have distinct middle
consonants. )
– Nor do writer and rider,
– metal and medal.
- play-dough instead of Plato
 Vowels

• •While the consonant sounds are mostly articulated

via closure or obstruction in the

• vocal tract, vowel sounds are produced with a

relatively free flow of air. They are all
• typically voiced. To describe vowel sounds, we consider
the way in which the tongue
• influences the shape through which the airflow must
pass. Refer to pg. 54 (look at the chart and the
examples)
 Diphthongs

• •In addition to single vowel sounds, we regularly

create sounds that consist of a combination of
two vowel sounds, known as diphthongs.
• •Our vocal organs move from one vocalic
position [a] to another [ɪ] as we

• produce the sound [aɪ], as in Hi or Bye.

• •Refer to pg. 55 for examples
 Cont…

• •You may not make a significant distinction between

the central vowels [ə], called

• “schwa,” and [ʌ], called “wedge.” If you’re trying to

transcribe, just use schwa [ə]
• •unstressed vowel (underlined) in the everyday use of
words such as afford, collapse,

• photograph, wanted, and in those very common words

a and the.
Vowel Chart