CHAPTER II REVIEW OF THE RELATED THEORIES
B. The Concept of Phonetics
2. The Concept of Phonetics : English Language
Phonetics is concerned with describing speech. There are many different reasons for wanting to do this, which means that there are many kinds of phoneticians. Some are interested in the different sounds that occur in languages. Some are more concerned with pathological speech. Others are trying to help people speak a particular form of English. Still others are looking for ways to make computers talk more intelligibly or to get computers to recognize speech. For all these purposes, phoneticians need to find out what people are doing when they are talking and how the sounds of speech can be described.
Phonetics is the study of human sounds in general without reference to their systematic role in a specific language. Phonetics is divided into three types according to the production (articulatory), transmission (acoustic), and perception (auditive) of sounds. While phonology is the study of phones or speech sound, while grammar is the study of meaningful units of sound system and their arrangement into larger utterance.14
Phonetics is the study of speech sounds which concerns with the actual physical sounds as it is spoken by human speech organs, while phonology concerns with rules of speech sound structure of language. That a common characterization of the difference between phonetics and phonology is that phonetics deals with “actual” physical sounds as they are manifested in human speech, and concentrates on acoustic waveforms, formant values,measurements
14Raymond Hickey, Phonetics and Phonology (a brief introduction), (Duisburg:
University of Duisburg and Essen, 2004), p.2.
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of duration measured in milliseconds, of amplitude and frequency, or in the physical principles underlying the production of sounds, which involves the study of resonances and the study of the muscles and other articulatory structures used to produce physical sounds. On the other hand, phonology, it is said, is an abstract cognitive system dealing with rules in a mental grammar:
principles of subconscious “thought” as they relate to language sound.15
The following symbols are mainly adopted from the International Phonetic Alphabet, which are widely used in the world but adjusted here for easier typing.
a. Consonant Sounds
Consonants are sounds made by blocking the flow of air coming out from them lungs.Sound produce without this blockage are vowels. The blockage of air maybe accompanied by vibration of the vocal chords, in this case the consonant is voiced, if there no vibration of the vocal chords, the consonant is unvoiced.16
Table 2.
Consonants Sounds
No Symbols Key-words
1 /p/ Park
2 /b/ Be
3 /f/ Face
15J.Sutomo, English Phonological Processes A Study of Generative Phonology Threory, (Semarang :University Stikubank Press,2012), p.2.
16Mark Hancock,Pronunciation Games,(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p.4.
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4 /v/ Very
5 /t/ Time
6 /d/ Dog
7 /θ/ thing
8 /ð/ these
9 /tʃ/ question
10 /dʒ/ juice
11 /s/ See
12 /z/ Zoo
13 /ʃ/ Shoe
14 /ʒ/ vision
15 /k/ Cat
16 /g/ Go
17 /m/ make
18 /n/ name
19 /ŋ/ Sing
20 /h/ Here
21 /l/ Live
22 /r/ Ride
23 /w/ went
24 /j/ yellow
(Mark Hancock, Pronunciation Games,University of Cambridge, p.3)
18 b. Vowel Sounds
Vowel are articulated in manner different to that of consonant, the articulators are far enough apart to allow the airflow to exit unhindered, that is with open approximation. Moreover vowels are produced in a smaller area of the vocal tract-the palatal and velar regions which means that the consonantal place specification are also inappropriate .17
The writer concludes that a vowel is defined as a voiced sound in forming which the air issues in continous stream through the pharynx and mouth.
Table 3.
Vowels Sounds
No Symbols Key-words
1 /ɪ/ Pit
2 /e/ Ped
3 /æ/ Pat
4 /ʌ/ Putt
5 /ɒ/ Pot
6 /ʊ/ Put
7 /ə/ about
8 /ɪː/ Key
9 /ɑː/ Car
10 /ɔː/ Core
11 /uː/ Coo
12 /ɜː/ Cur
(Cornelia & Carmen, Phonetics and Phonology, University of Oldenburg)
17Mike Davenport and S.J.Hannahs, Intoducting Phonetics and Phonology, (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2005), p.38.
19 c. Place of Articulation
1). For a bilabial sound, the active articulator is the bottom lip, and the passive articulator is the top lip.There is at least one further English phoneme which to an extent fits under this heading: this is the approximant /w/ in wet. In producing [w], the lips are certainly approximated, though not enough to cause friction or obstruct the airflow; but you should be able to feel that the back of your tongue is also bunched up.
2). For labio-dental sounds, the active articulator is again the bottom lip, but this time it moves up to the top front teeth. Note that these sounds are labio- dental, while /w/ and /_/ are labial-velar, because in the first case, articulation takes place only at a single location, while in the second, there are two separate, simultaneous articulations.
3). The active articulator is part of the tongue; to avoid confusion, places of articulation where the tongue is involved are therefore generally called after the passive articulator. For the two dental fricatives, it follows that the passive articulator is the top front teeth; the active articulator is the tip of the tongue. The tongue itself is conventionally divided into the tip (the very front).
4). Alveolar sounds are produced by the tip or blade of the tongue moving up towards the alveolar ridge, the bony protrusion you can feel if youcurl your tongue back just behind your top front teeth.
5). Postalveolar sounds are produced with the blade of the tongue as the active articulator, and the adjoining parts of the alveolar ridge and the hard palate as the passive one.
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6). Palatals are produced by the front of the tongue, which moves up towards the hard palate. We have so far encountered two palatal sounds : the approximant /j/ in yes, and the voiceless palatal stop [c] in kitchen.
7). For velar sounds, the active articulator is the back of the tongue, and the passive articulator is the velum, or soft palate.
8). Glottal sounds are in the minority in articulatory terms, since they do not involve the tongue: instead, the articulators are the vocal folds, which constitute a place of articulation as well as having a crucial role invoicing.18