Mastering English Phonology: A Comprehensive Analysis
English Phonological System: Models and Learning Techniques
This essay explores the English phonological system, dividing the topic into five parts. First, we will distinguish between phonetics and phonology, focusing on vowels and consonants. Second, we will describe segmental (vowel and consonant systems) and suprasegmental features (stress/accent, rhythm, and intonation). Next, we will introduce the importance of a pronunciation model. Then, we will focus on teaching and learning pronunciation, considering perception and discrimination, and production and assessment. Finally, we will present some common pronunciation problems for Spanish speakers.
Phonetics vs. Phonology
Phonetics is the science concerned with the study of speech processes, including the perception, transmission, and reception of speech sounds from acoustic and physiological viewpoints. Phonetic categories can be applied to language analysis but exclude linguistic considerations. In contrast, phonology aims to discover the rules that organize sounds into a language system. As Pike stated, “Phonetics gathers raw material, phonology cooks it.”
Both sciences require a human being with an intact auditory mechanism and a functioning speech apparatus. The speech mechanism organs and cavities can be divided into:
- Lungs.
- Resonators: pharynx, mouth, and nose.
- Articulators: tongue, palate, teeth, lips, and vocal folds.
From a phonetic point of view, vowels and consonants are distinguished by their articulation and associated patterns of acoustic energy. Vowel sounds are produced with a relatively unimpeded airstream, meeting a stricture of open approximations. Consonants, however, may meet a stricture of:
- Complete oral closure (plosives, nasals, and affricates).
- Partial oral closure (lateral).
- Close approximation (fricative).
In a phonological definition, we distinguish vowels and consonants by how these units are used in the structure of spoken language. Vowel sounds are generally syllabic, while consonant sounds are non-syllabic; vowel sounds are central, and consonant sounds are marginal in the structure of the syllable.
Received Pronunciation (RP)
RP (Received Pronunciation or General British) has traditionally been the model chosen to study English, due to the following advantages:
- Its wide intelligibility in all English-speaking communities.
- It represents no regional characteristics.
- It enjoys social prestige (though some young people reject it).
- It has been described thoroughly, and there is much material to teach.
Segmental and Suprasegmental Features
After defining phonetics and phonology, we will concentrate on the segmental and suprasegmental features of speech. To develop the segmental features, we will examine the vowel and consonant systems. Next, the suprasegmental features will be analyzed, considering stress/accent, rhythm, and intonation.
Segmental features are discrete units identified in the stream of speech. Their articulatory phonetic description may reference six main factors:
- Air stream: The source and direction identify the basic class of sound. Most speech sounds are produced using pulmonic egressive air. Non-pulmonic sounds include clicks, implosives, and ejectives.
- Vocal folds: The variable action of the vocal folds must be considered, particularly the presence or absence of vibration. Voiced sounds are produced when the vocal folds vibrate; voiceless sounds are produced when there is no vibration, the folds remaining open. Other vocal fold actions are sometimes referred to, e.g., the closed glottis used to produce a glottal stop.
- Soft palate: Its position indicates whether a sound is nasal (lowered position) or oral (raised position).
- Place of articulation: It refers to the point in the vocal tract at which the main closure or narrowing is made, such as at the teeth, lips, etc. Secondary articulations may need to be considered, e.g., /w/ which is velarized-bilabial.
- Manner of articulation: It refers to the type of constriction that takes place at any place of articulation.
- The position of the lips is especially important when describing vowels (rounded or spread).
Consonants are normally described with reference to seven criteria: air stream source, air stream direction, vocal folds, soft palate, energy, place of articulation, and manner of articulation.
In English, it is important to distinguish between lenis and fortis consonants. The difference between them seems related to that between voiceless and voiced. However, it is better to use the former terms because lenis consonants are devoiced after and before pauses and after and before fortis consonants, but even in this case of devoicing, they do not shorten the previous vowel. Moreover, /p, t, k/ are strongly aspirated in accented syllables, weakly aspirated in unaccented or final positions, and totally unaspirated after /s/. The lack of plosion typical of Spanish learners of English may make these phonemes sound as their lenis counterparts to English speakers /b, d, g/.
To make a complete description of the English pure vowels, it is necessary to explain:
- Height of the tongue.
- Part which is highest.
- Position of the lips.
- Opening between the jaws.
- Position of the soft palate.
- Action of the vocal cords.
As the position of the soft palate is always raised and the vocal folds are vibrating, it is not necessary to add these two factors to the following descriptions. A full description for /i:/ would be as follows: “Between close and half-close, centre of front, the lips are spread or neutral, and the opening of the jaws is from narrow to medium.”
By examining the precise quality and quantity of these twenty vowels, four types can be distinguished:
- Monophthongs-Short: /ɪ, e, æ, ʌ, ʊ, ə/
- Monophthongs-Between short and long: /ɑː/. It is long when followed by /b, d, g, dʒ, m, n, ŋ/.
- Monophthongs-Long: /iː, ɑː, ɔː, uː, ɜː/
- Diphthongs-Long: /eɪ, aɪ, ɔɪ, aʊ, əʊ, eə, ɪə, and ʊə/
The thirteen long vowels retain their full length in accented open syllables and when followed by lenis consonants. They are half long when unaccented, accented and followed by a fortis consonant, and when accented and followed by an unaccented syllable in the same word. Thus, the vowels in “see” and “learned” will be fully long, while the last vowel in “seminar”, the diphthong in “lake”, and the first vowel in “harder” are half-long ones.
Suprasegmental Features: Stress, Rhythm, and Intonation
When pronouncing the segments of spoken language, speech is altered in some ways. The voice force may change, producing a whole range of effects. The basic psychoacoustic properties of sound are the source of the main linguistic effects: pitch and loudness. These effects combine with those arising out of the distinctive use of speed and rhythm and are called prosodic or suprasegmental features.
Stress/Accent
Stress is considered the prominence with which one part of a word or a longer utterance is a starter of pitch movement or has the potential to be one. Though stresses are normally in a fixed position in a word, their position is unpredictable in the sense that there is no single position where the main stress of a word can be expected (e.g., ‘answer, a’bove, mana’gerial, ‘micro,second). However, some generalizations about endings in words stress and compound accentual patterns exist, for example:
- Abstract nouns ending in –ion: syllable preceding the ending.
- Stress before adjectival –ic: ‘phoneme, pho’nemic.
- Stress before nominal –ity: u’nanimous, una’nimity.
- Unchanged with –ite: ‘Reagan, ‘Reaganite.
Words formed by adding to a word in common use a prefix having a distinct meaning of its own very usually have two stresses (e.g., ánti’climax, archi’bishop). Some common words in English have two stresses (e.g., amen, hullo, thirteen). These numbers and a few words are subject to rhythmic variation, for example: ,thir’teen but ‘thir,teen ‘shillings, ,after’noon but ‘after,noon ‘tea, Princess Vic’toria but a ,royal prin’cess.
Rhythm
Variations in tempo provide our second suprasegmental feature. It is possible to speed up or slow down the rate at which syllables, words, and sentences are produced to convey several kinds of meaning from urgency to emphasis. Pitch, loudness, and tempo together enter into a language’s expression of rhythm. Languages vary greatly in the way in which rhythmical contrasts are made. English makes use of stressed syllables produced at roughly regular intervals of time and separated by unstressed syllables; what Pike termed a “stress-timed” or isochronous rhythm. This means that when two accented syllables are separated by unaccented ones, these tend to be compressed and quickened, thus the time between each beat will be approximately the same as the time taken by two consecutive accented syllables. Closely connected with rhythm is pause. Our students must be taught to use a vowel of central quality or a lengthened “m” to fill these gaps.
Intonation
Different levels of pitch (tones) are used in particular sequences (contours or tunes) to express a wide range of meaning. Intonation performs a wide range of functions:
- Emotional: Intonation works with attitudinal meanings, from excitement to boredom. Prosodic and paralinguistic features provide the basis of all kinds of vocal emotional expression.
- Grammatical: Intonation plays an important part in the identification of major units such as clauses and sentences, and several contrasts, such as questions and statements, may rely on intonation.
- Information structure: Intonation conveys a great deal about what is already known in an utterance.
- Textual: Prosodic coherence is an important element in the construction of larger stretches of discourse.
- Psychological: It helps to organize language units into “chunks” which are more easily perceived and memorized.
- Indexical: Intonation helps to identify people as belonging to different social groups and occupations.
As regards the tunes, I will describe the ones that pupils must know:
- Tune 1: Falling. It is used in:
- Statements: Paris is the capital of France.
- Question tags which merely seek for confirmation: You know him, don’t you?
- Commands: Shut the door!
- Wh-questions: Where does he live?
- Alternative or dual questions take rising intonation on the first element and falling on the second. E.g. Do you want black or white coffee?
- Tune 2: Rising. It is used in:
- Yes/No questions: Have you been here long?
- Polite requests: Do shut the door. Pass me the bread, please.
- Utterances containing an element of protest or surprise: That was not my idea. Be quiet.
- Echo questions. They’ve won. Really?
- Tune 3: Falling-rising. It is used in sentences where something is left unspoken (warning, threat, contrast, etc.).
- Contrast: I cannot do it now (perhaps later).
- To denote a warning or a threat: Do not be so sure. And if you don’t…
Choosing a Pronunciation Model
After considering the segmental and suprasegmental features of speech, we will analyze the choice of a model of pronunciation. After having chosen British RP or General British as a basic model, it is necessary to consider the performance targets and pronunciation goals. Some factors are concerned with students’ age, natural ability, motivation, and objectives set out by the educational powers-that-be.
The lowest requirement can be described as one of minimum general intelligibility, i.e., one which possesses a set of distinctive elements corresponding in some measure to the inventory of the RP phonemic system and capable of conveying a message efficiently —given that the context of the message is known and that the listener has had time to tune in to the speaker’s pronunciation. On the other hand, there is high intelligibility, i.e., a form of speech whose acceptability is so high that the native listener may not identify it as non-native. It is important to make students become near-intelligible English speakers.
According to Gimson (1985): “The foreign teacher (…) has the obligation to present his students with as faithful a model of English pronunciation as is possible. In the first place, and particularly if he is dealing with young pupils, his students will imitate a bad pronunciation as exactly as they will a good one.”
Teaching and Learning Pronunciation
To reach these aims, it is essential to focus on teaching and learning pronunciation. For this purpose, I will explain the concepts of perception and discrimination; and, second, production and assessment. As regards teaching and learning pronunciation, teachers must use activities such as songs and rhymes, generally speaking. In the same way, meaning and contextualized practice activities involving repetition will be very useful. However, it is necessary to say that students must be aware of the English pronunciation features. Thus, they must be able to perceive and discriminate sounds. In order to do so, some exercises can be used such as: listening for a specified word; write the word you hear; same or different?; how many times did you hear it?; which order?; which sound?; odd one out?
It is important that pronunciation teaching does not concentrate only on the production of individual sounds. It is also important to give our pupils training in suprasegmental features. English is a “stress-timed” language, i.e., stressed beats occur at roughly equal intervals of time, regardless of how many syllables there are between each beat. This can be shown by clapping the strong beats in songs, rhymes, and jazz chants. Moreover, different words can be also stressed in the same sentence to see the effect, e.g., What do you do? I’m a computer programmer. What do you do?
Another way to develop awareness of the role of intonation is to exploit the use of various sounds used in spoken language that are not words. Such sounds are often used to express approval, disapproval, interest, etc. Games are also interesting like “Getting warmer!”, a finding game where one member of the class is chosen to try to find one hidden object, the rest of students may help him/her to find it by saying “warmer” or “colder”.
After analyzing perception and discrimination, I will develop the concepts of pronunciation and assessment in relation to pronunciation. Firstly, it must be said that pronunciation work does not mean that pronunciation learning is automatically integrated within our lessons in account of two reasons:
- Real integration must be consistent and planned. The mere repetition of a correction does not lead to a perfect production.
- Students must integrate pronunciation into their learning. They must be encouraged to accept the role of self-monitor.
In the early stages of learning, learners depend on teachers for information about the critical sounds of English. However, they will acquire some discriminatory skills in order to develop their own internal criteria of what is acceptable and what is not. This exposure must be enjoyable and motivating: games, songs, rhymes, short dialogues, or interesting topics will provide the necessary input. The output, their production, must be evaluated. Therefore, students must be taught to learn how to learn pronunciation. One way of helping them is to make acts of monitoring and self-evaluation an integral part of work inside and outside the classroom. Kenworthy (1983) suggests three possible ways of doing this:
- Record or ask for a repetition of a speaking activity. Repetition is probably best used for short exchanges or chunks of speech. As students know what they have to say, they will develop self-monitoring and evaluation skills.
- Oral homework can be introduced after the first step. They can be asked to record a description of a place or a person, to speculate about what happened next with a photograph, or to give their opinion.
- Track students’ progress. Students will be given activities that require their best pronunciation, such as voicing-over a short video or film sequence. They will be aware of their knowledge and progress while motivating them.
Pronunciation Problems for Spanish Speakers
Once I have dealt with the teaching and learning of pronunciation, I will consider the last part of the topic, problems for Spanish speakers and correction. In order to do so, I will follow Windsor Lewis, O’Connor, and Kenworthy’s list, distinguishing high and low priority problems. In primary education, high priority problems will be the main focus, i.e., problems that may cause low intelligibility. I will distinguish the following aspects:
Consonants
- High priority problems:
- /b/ and /v/ are confused.
- /θ/ and /ð/ are confused.
- /g/ must always be plosive and not fricative.
- /s/ and /z/ are confused.
- /h/ is pronounced as /x/.
- /ʃ/ is pronounced as /s/.
- /j/ is pronounced as /dʒ/.
- /p,t,k/ are not aspirated in initial position.
- /t/ is dental in Spanish.
- Consonant clusters in general.
- Low priority problems:
- /ʒ/ and /dʒ/ are replaced by /ʃ/ or /tʃ/.
- /r/ is not dropped in final position and it is pronounced with a trill.
- /l/ is always clear.
- /ŋl/ is pronounced as /ngl/.
- /s/ instead of /z/ in plurals.
Vowels
- High priority problems:
- /iː/ and /ɪ/ are confused. The former is used.
- /æ/, /ʌ/, /ɑː/ are all confused. /ʌ/ is used.
- /ɒ/, /əʊ/, /ɔː/ are all confused. /o/ is used.
- /ɜː/ is replaced by its spelling.
- No quantity distinction
- Low priority problems:
- Pronunciation of Spanish vowel + /r/ : /ar/ /or/.
- /uː/, /ʊ/.
- /ɑː/, /æ/.
Stress
- Spanish students are not used to accentuate three- and four-syllable words on their first syllables.
- English derivatives do not always follow the patterns of their roots, e.g., ‘person but per,sonifi’cation.
- No secondary stresses in Spanish.
Rhythm
- Rhythm in Spanish is roughly syllable-timed, thus there is none of the variation in length which results in English from the grouping of syllables into rhythm units.
- Use of weak forms.
- Use of gap fillers.
Intonation
- Spanish tend to use a very narrow pitch range.
- Spanish final falling pitch movements are not low enough.
- Spanish do not use rise-fall tunes.
Conclusion
To sum up, this essay has described the English phonological system. For that purpose, I have dealt with the concepts of phonetics and phonology, examining the vowel and consonant distinction. Secondly, I have considered the segmental features (vowel and consonant systems) and the suprasegmental features (stress/accent; rhythm and intonation) of speech. Thirdly, I have examined the choice of a model of pronunciation in order to develop the students’ skills. Next, I have considered how to teach and learn pronunciation, focusing on perception and discrimination, and production and assessment. And finally, some problems for Spanish speakers have been presented.
Bibliography
- Baker, Ann. Tree or Three? An Elementary Pronunciation Course. Cambridge: C.U.P., 2006 (2nd ed.).
- Baker, Ann. Ship or Sheep? An Intermediate Pronunciation Course. Cambridge: C.U.P., 2006 (3rd ed.).
- Baker, Ann. Introducing English Pronunciation: A Teacher’s Guide to Tree or Three? and Ship or Sheep? Cambridge: C.U.P., 2006 (2nd ed.).