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Phonetic and phonology English II
Teacher: Carmen Contreras
Language and Speaking
Speech is divided into two parts that are language and speaking. Language refers to the
words we use and how we use them in order to share thoughts, ideas and knowledge. The
language is constituted by different rules established by a group of people. In this way, Saussure
(1981) mentions “It is both a social product of the faculty of speech and a collection of necessary
conventions that have been adopted by a social body to permit individuals to exercise that
faculty” (p.9).
As soon as we give language first place among the facts of speech, we introduce a
natural order into a mass that lends itself to no other classification. (p.9)
Language and speaking focus on different objects of studies both are complemented but
The study of speech is then twofold: its basic part-having as its object language,
psychological; its secondary part-which has as its object the individual side of
includes: articulation, voice and fluency. In addition, language and speaking work together
Name: Angie Michelle Paucar Sierra 27.087.909
Phonetic and phonology English II
Teacher: Carmen Contreras
because both are in charge of complementing language. Saussure (1981) “Doubtless the two
objects are closely connected, each depending on the other: language is necessary if speaking is
to be intelligible and produce all its effects; but speaking is necessary for the establishment of
language” (p.18). So when it comes to language and speaking, you cannot mention it
individually.
Phonetics is a system to describe and record the sounds of language. Phonetics provides a
way to develop the ear in order to study the facets of the language by means of the reference of
writings. Also, phonetics is the level that studies the smallest units of speech. Saussure mentions
that “Phonetics is a historical science; it analyses events and changes, and moves through time”
(p.33). Phonetics is responsible for studying and evaluating the constant changes of sounds.
Moreover, Hickey says “Phonetics is the study of human sounds in general without saying what
function which sounds may have in a particular language” (p.1). In this way, phonetics analyzes
Phonology studies the ways in which sounds are used in different languages to form
syllables and later words by following some system. In addition, phonology is ways in which
languages make use of sounds to distinguish words from each other. Saussure (1981) says
“Phonology is outside time, for the articulatory mechanism never changes” (p. 33).
Phonetics and phonology focus on different things, but they complement each other.
Saussure (1981) says “The two studies are distinct but not opposites, Phonetics is a basic part of
the science of language; phonology-this bears repeating-is only an auxiliary discipline and
Name: Angie Michelle Paucar Sierra 27.087.909
Phonetic and phonology English II
Teacher: Carmen Contreras
belongs exclusively to speaking” (p.33). Phonetics refers to study of language and the
The phoneme is an abstract form of a sound located in the human mind. It is the smallest
voice sound with linguistic value used for any language. Phonemes are identified with minimum
pairs of words that they are used to identify different sounds of a word. In addition, minimum
pairs are represented in separate phonemes. Delahunty, G. & Garvey, J (2010) Mention: “Pairs of
words like this are called minimal pairs, and are used to demonstrate that pairs of sounds are
used in a language to distinguish words from each other. Sound units that distinguish words from
The phone is physical realization of a voice sound in a language. It every time a voice
sound is produced it is different from the other sounds. Coxhead (2006) “A phone can be defined
as a ‘unit sound’ of a language. It is a ‘unit’ sound because the whole of the phone must be
substituted to make a different word” (p.5). Also, to write the phones are used phonetics symbols
(IPA) enclosed in square brackets. For example: [t]. the set of phones that correspond to a single
change the meaning. These two forms are connected in the same phoneme and stored in the
human mind. Delahunty, G. & Garvey, J (2010) add “Some allophones of a phoneme are in
complementary distribution, that is, they occupy different positions (contexts or environments) in
Contrastive Linguistics
Name: Angie Michelle Paucar Sierra 27.087.909
Phonetic and phonology English II
Teacher: Carmen Contreras
Contrastive Linguistics compares two or more Linguistic systems in order to study and to
describe differences and similarities of languages. The research of this linguistic model was
created in the years 40 in order to create models of teachings for students of any languages.
“Contrastive linguistics has therefore been integrated into teacher training programmers at many
universities, and course materials have been designed specifically for university level teaching”
(cf. König & Gast 2009). Contrastive analysis is performed to determine differences and
similarities between languages. It also evaluates problems that students may have in process of
learning.
In Contrastive analysis “Certain differences between two languages are connected with or
even a consequence of other differences” (König 1971: 13–14 “).When analyzing two languages
have similarities en grammatical relationship, syntactic and others. Otherwise, one of main
Linguistics at UC Davis. He is also the Emeritus Professor at the University of Cambridge and
he has held permanent positions at the University of Southern California, the Max-Planck-
Institute for Psycholinguistics, and the University of Essex. “Hawkins study has had a great
impact on the field of contrastive linguistics up to the present day. One reason is that many of the
Research centers have been created to analyze research of contrastive linguistics for
years. It has been done in order to look for new possibilities of teaching. Volker Gast mentions:
performance, thus requiring attested and, ideally, quantitative data, the use of
multilingual corpora has become an integral part of this discipline in the past two
Name: Angie Michelle Paucar Sierra 27.087.909
Phonetic and phonology English II
Teacher: Carmen Contreras
decades. Two major types of multilingual corpora can be distinguished (cf. Granger
2003a, Aijmer 2008): (i) corpora consisting of original texts and their translations,
and (ii) corpora containing original texts from different languages representing
Contrastive linguistics over years has deepened their research in translation area of texts
Structuralism is an intellectual movement that began in France in the 1950s and 1960s.
Structuralism is a response to modern literature, which had intentionally investigated the limits
of meaning and looked for stylistic effects in the deviations from all types of conventions of
language, literature, and social practices. Also, structuralism was born of Swiss linguist
Structuralism rejects the notion of literature as simulation of the world and, analyses its
experimentation with the language and codes of a culture. Saussure’s approach to language looks
at the changes which take place over time in specific languages, Saussure pursed a synchronic
Psychologically, what are our ideas, apart from our language? They probably do not
The fundamental ideology of structuralism is that the phenomena of human life, whether
language or media, are not comprehensible except through their association of relationships,
producing the sign and the system in which the sign is embedded. A sign for instance, a word
finds its meaning only in relation to or in contrast with other signs in a system of signs.
Generativism had its origins in the 1950s with the publication of Noam Chomsky’s 1957
book Syntactic structures. Also, Chomsky’s approach was a reaction to the behaviorist theory of
Therefore, generativism is a property for which human beings are biologically prewired.
which aimed to describe languages rather than explain them, surface forms rather than the
underlying cognitive system and the use of discovery procedures to ensure that linguistics was an
attempt to present directly the set of grammatical phoneme sequences would lead to
a grammar so complex that it would be practically useless. For this reason (among
Delahunty, G. & Garvey, J. (2010). The English Language From Sound to Sense. West
Lafayette, Indiana .Series Editor, Mike Palmquist
Ferdinand de Saussure (1981). Course in General Linguistics, tr. Wade Baskin, Suffolk.
König, E. & V. Gast (2009). Understanding English-German Contrasts. 2nd ed. Berlin:
Saussure’s Lectures (Classnote 4th July, 1911), Course in General Linguistics, tr. Wade