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THE SOUNDS OF LANGUAGECHAPTER 3
THE POWER OF LANGUAGE
•Humans are the only animals with complex verbal language
•What do you need to know in order to understand language?
THE POWER OF LANGUAGE
• Example: “My boyfriend and I are flying to his mother’s next week.”
• Distinct sounds
• Each word has a specific meaning
• Different tenses
• Implicit meanings
• Order of the words
THE POWER OF LANGUAGE
• This is linguistic knowledge• Most of this knowledge is unconscious and learned at a
young age during enculturation• It is intuitive and understood (most times) immediately• Words are arbitrary • Words are combinations of discrete and recombinable
sounds• Language is creative• It can discuss hypothetical or imaginary things
INTRODUCTION
• To learn a language, you must learn sound production
• Rules for producing any sound in any human language
• You must also learn phonology
• Many sounds in other languages will not be the same as those in your native language
PHONOLOGY• The study of sounds in a language
• It focuses on two differences
• 1. phonetics
• Identifies and describes language sounds
• 2. phonemics
• Analyzes the way sounds are arranged in a language
EMIC AND ETIC• Phonetic study is often etic
• Phonemic study is often emic
LANGUAGE AND SOUND
• In other words,
• Linguists describe and analyze the nature and patterning of sounds
• These patterns make the phonological system and the study of this is phonology
•When you speak you do not consciously think of sounds
• The word “debt”
• How many sounds does this have?
• How is this different from “pet”?
PHONOLOGY• A phonetic chart shows all the sounds of a language and
uses different symbols for different sounds made by the same letter
• The sounds on the chart are called phones
PHONOLOGY• A phonemic chart shows only the distinctive sounds of a
language, and all sounds made by one letter are grouped together
• The sounds on the chart are called phonemes
PHONOLOGY• If you grew up speaking one language you will probably use
the phonetic system even when learning new languages
• If you grew up speaking multiple languages, then you can use multiple phonetic systems
PHONETICS• Three types:
• 1. Acoustic• Physical properties of sounds/soundwaves
• Voice recognition, voiceprints
• 2. Auditory• How sounds are perceived and interpreted
• 3. Articulatory/Descriptive• How speech sounds are produced
• Catalogue all human language sounds
• Used in fieldwork
ROSETTA STONE
• Egyptian hieroglyphs are not pictures, they are phonemes
• https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/history/ancient-medieval/Ancient/v/rosetta-stone--196-b-c-e
ANATOMY• Three areas of importance:
• 1. Lungs
• Push air out
• 2. Larynx
• Where voice box is located and where vocal cords modify air into sounds
• 3. Supralaryngeal vocal tract
• Above vocal cords
• Where sound waves become recognizable speech sounds
LARYNX• As air moves through larynx, it passes through vocal cords
• If cords are relaxed and open, the sound is voiceless
• If cords are closed and vibrating, the sound is voiced
• Touch your throat and say “ssssss” and “zzzzzz”
• Do you feel the difference?
SOUNDS
• Phonemes are the particular sounds that speakers and listeners recognize as distinct from other sounds
• This gives different sounds different meanings
• Compare:• /b/ and /p/• Put your hands on your ears and say these sounds out loud• /b/ causes vibrations and is called voiced (others: /d/, /z/, /v/,
/j/)• /p/ does not and is called voiceless (others: /t/, /s/, /f/)
ARTICULATION ABOVE LARYNX• After air moves through larynx, it goes to the nose and
mouth, where it can be modified and articulated
• The position of the tongue and lips can change sounds
• Articulation is
• Place: where the air is being modified
• Manner: how the air is being modified
ARTICULATION ABOVE LARYNX• Phonetic charts are important in understanding different
languages
• There are different spellings and symbols for different sounds in different languages
• International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was used to have one unique symbol for each sound
• This was modified to the American Usage System (AUS)
• Both charts are used
VOWELS AND CONSONANTS• These are shown on every phonetic chart
• Vowels have less constricted air flow and consonants have more constricted air flow
• Let’s practice pronouncing different ones
VOWELS AND CONSONANTS: ARTICULATION• “Bilabial Stop”
• Bilabial (with both lips)
• Stop (stop the air and then let it out)
• “B,” “P”
• Turn to pg. 57-59 and look over articulation places and manners
• Practice:
• Alveolar nasal “N”
• Palatal approximate “J”
• Velar stop (plosive) “K,” “G”
VOWELS AND CONSONANTS: ARTICULATION• Be familiar with the terms for place and manner
VOWELS AND CONSONANTS: ARTICULATION• Generally, consonants are sounds made by constricting the air
stream and vowels are made by not constricting the air as much or at all
• Phonetic charts are not as helpful for vowels
• We look at ways air streams can be modified• Height of tongue
• How high tongue is in mouth: “ee” sound tongue is high, “ah” sound is low
• Place of tongue
• How far forward or back tongue is in mouth: “ee” sound tongue is forward, “oo” sound tongue is back
• Rounding of lips
• Holding lips in rounded or flat position: “oh” sound versus “ee” sound
VOWELS AND CONSONANTS: ARTICULATION• These are guidelines
• Different dialects and accents can make these sound differently
BEYOND PHONETIC CHARTS• Phonetic charts show the basic sounds, or segments, of
language
• But language can further modify sounds
• These are called suprasegmentals are have their own special symbols in a phonetic chart
• Nasalization: sound goes through nasal cavity and not mouth
• Pitch: high or low “notes”
• Clicks: air released inward (symbol is ! In Kung)
• Lengthening: holding sound for longer period of time
ASSIGNMENT• Article on Click Languages
• Video Log on Click Languages• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c246fZ-7z1w
•
PHONEMICS• In order to really understand and speak a language, you need
to also know how the sounds are used
• Phonemics/phonology analyzes the way sounds are arranged and what sounds are important in a language
• Phonemics can give you an insider (emic) view of a language
PHONEMICS• Phoneme is a sound that functions to distinguish one word
from another
• Example: “t” and “d” are different sounds, and also distinguish the word “tie” from the word “die”
• This is also a minimal pair, or a pair of words in which one difference in sound makes a difference in meaning
• This is how to identify phonemes
PHONEMICS• Allophones are another type of phoneme; they are a group
of sounds that together form a single phoneme
• Each allophone is a separate unit but all together they make up a phoneme
• Wherever you find allophones in a language, there is a good chance you will also find a pattern that defines how and where they are used in a language
• Example:
• [ph] (aspirated p sound) usually occurs at the beginning of words
• [p] (unaspirated p sound) usually occurs in the middle of words
PHONEMICS• Example:
• [ph] (aspirated p sound) usually occurs at the beginning of words
• [p] (unaspirated p sound) usually occurs in the middle of words
• Aspirated Unaspirated
• Peak Speak
• Pool Spool
• Pend Spend
• Pun Spun
PHONEMICS• The previous example is one of complementary
distribution (the different variations, or allophones, are distributed between different words)
• Conditioned variation means variation in allomorphs happens because of the sounds around them
• Sometimes this can be social
• Men and women can pronounce words differently (example, pg. 69)
• Even if two languages have the same phones, they may not group them into phonemes and allophones the same way
• How does “ng” sound in our language? Where is it found in a word?
• How do you pronounce ngoma (drum)? Why is this difficult?
PARALANGUAGE• Paralanguage refers to anything that is communicated
alongside language
• Voice cues
• Intensity
• Penmanship
• Emoticons
• USING ALL CAPS
• One must learn how to use these properly as well
VOICE QUALITY AND INTONATION• AKA tone of voice
• Most commonly noticed type of paralanguage
• What does it mean when you whisper?
• What does it mean if you whine?
• How do you talk to a baby?
• Trend of ‘rising intonation’ (began with “Valley Girl”): voice goes up at the end of a sentence
• How can this be confusing with meaning?
SOUNDS: TONE• Pitch of voice can also convey meaning
•What are the differences between these:• She went to class.• She went to class?
• In tone languages, changing voice pitch changes meaning of the word
• Example: Nupe (African):• Bá: high tone = “to be sour”, mid tone = “to cut”, low tone =
“to count”
• Example: Thai:• Nâa: tone falls on second vowel = “face”• Nˇaa: tone rises on second vowel = “thick”