PHONETICS: BASIC

TERMINOLOGY

By Cristian Omar Torres

THE SPEECH MECHANISM

Language starts with the ear. When a baby starts to talk he does it
by imitating the sounds his mother makes. If a baby is born deaf he
cannot hear these sounds and therefore will not speak, there will be
no sounds to imitate. If speech depends on hearing, we must hear
English. However, in order to improve our pronunciation, just
hearing English is not enough; one must listen to it not only for the
meaning, but for the sound of it too.
The process of speaking begins with the air inside the speakers
chest escaping form the lungs, through the throat and the mouth,
and out into the open air. In order to convert this air coming out
from a simple sigh or a simple breathing into language sounds, we
must use our speech organs or articulators.

THE SPEECH MECHANISM

The vocal tract includes the lips, the teeth, the palate, the tongue,
the nose, and the vocal cords.

INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC
ALPHABET
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic
notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. It was devised by the International
Phonetic Association as a standardized representation of the sounds of oral
language. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language students and
teachers, linguists, speech-language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed
language creators, and translators.
The IPA is designed to represent only those qualities of speech that are part of oral
language: phones, phonemes, intonation, and the separation of words and syllables.
IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two basic types, letters and
diacritics. For example, the sound of the English letter t may be transcribed in IPA
with a single letter, [t], or with a letter plus diacritics, [tt], depending on how precise
one wishes to be. Often, slashes are used to signal broad or phonemic transcription;
thus, /t/ is less specific than, and could refer to, either [tt] or [t] depending on the
context and language.

PHONEMES AND
ALLOPHONES
All sounds, vowels and consonants, are considered phonemes. A
phoneme is the smallest sound that can make a difference in
meaning; that is, if you change the phoneme, you change the word.
For example sheep and ship.

Allophones are sounds that are perceptibly different to the original

phoneme but does NOT make a different word. For example, the
difference in pronunciation of the word water or butter in
American English and British English.

VOWELS
In English, there are around twenty (depending on the region)
different vowel sounds. Twelve single vowels or monophthongs
(also known as pure vowels) and eight combined vowels or
diphthongs.
Monophthongs or single vowels can be close or open, front or back,
short or long.
Diphthongs are combinations of two vowel sounds in one syllable
like in Spanish ai in baile in English oi in oil or the o in
home. In English spelling, the diphthong is frequently represented
by a single letter.

CONSONANTS
Some consonants are pronounced with voice and some others
without it. When our vocal cords vibrate, then we are applying
voice to a certain sound. When there is only air involved but no
vocal cord vibration, then there is no voice involved.
The IPA has twenty four distinct consonant phonemes, and the
North American English consonant inventory has twenty five.