Suprasegmental

Last Thrusdays class we saw the sound stress and how this stress affects the pronounciation of a whole word. The title of this unit that we started last Thrusday is Suprasegmental, so what is suprasegmental? Suprasegmental is a vocal effect that extends over more than one sound segment in a expression, such as pitch, stress, or juncture pattern. We first learned to divide the word into syllable in order to identify which syllable was the one which was stressed. The syllable which is stress is known as strong and is marked with a big circle over it. While the syllable that is not stress is known as weak and it´s also marked, but with a smaller circle. We worked with words with two syllables such as:

1. actor : /ˈæk.tər / 6. attic : /ˈæt.ɪk/

2. about : /əˈbaʊt/ 7. attach : /əˈtætʃ/

3. affair : /əˈfeər / 8. attempt : /əˈtemp t/

4.asset : /ˈæs.et/ 9. ambush : /ˈæm.bʊʃ/

5.attack : /əˈtæk/ 10. amount : /əˈmaʊnt/

We learned that when we are looking up a word in the dictionary the stress is marked by an apostrophe and not by the circle that I mentioned earlier. The apostrophe is placed at the beggining when the stress goes on thefirst vowel, but if the firstone is weak then it goes right after the first vowel.
As we can see from the words listed above, all of them start with the letter ¨a¨. And if we really pay attention we can notice that if the word´s fist syllabe is the one which is stress then the phoneme is /æ/ and if the word ¨a ¨ is not stress then is represented by the phoneme /ə/.
If you want more information on stress you can take a look at this site: http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/linguistics/russell/138/sec3/stress.htm

Stress in syllables

As last class, today we continued working the stress in different words. In three, four and five syllables with the stress in the beginning, and in the middle also. We have to remember that the stress is in English language, what is the accent for the Spanish language. It is the part you pronounce loudly, making emphasis.

But more specific, we worked with nouns and came clear with some rules:

• In two syllables words, the stress goes for most of the times, in the first part. (i.e. holly, signal, scholar) But there are some exceptions to this rule. (i.e. cigar)
• In three syllables words, the stress goes also for most of the times, in the first part. (i.e. preference, energy, signature).
• In three, four and five syllables ending with –sion/-tion, the stress goes right before this. (i.e. restriction, celebration, elimination).
• In four syllables ending with –ity, the stress goes in the second. (i.e. humidity, community, security). When the ending is in five syllables words, the stress goes in the middle (i.e. opportunity, university).

We worked with adjectives too, in which you normally stress the root. In example, the roots of the words beautiful and horrible, are beauty and horror. So, the stress goes in beautiful, horrible.

We also have to remember that the pronunciation of prefixes and subfixes is weak. (i.e. compare, console)
However, with –ic/-ical, -cial/-tial, -cient/-tient, -cious/-tious, you stress the syllable before the suffix. It doesn’t matter how many syllables it has. In example we have the words:

Theoretical
Superficial
Artificial
Efficient
Patient
Supersticious
Delicious

Native speakers stress the sounds naturally, but we have to make a huge effort in order to get a better pronunciation of the language. If you want to improve yours, go to this page, listen to the audio and try to do some activities by yourself.

If you need more help to understand what stress is and how it works, or maybe you have missed classes, you can access to this websites. They are clear and easy to understand, with tips that will make you feel a little bit confident when you are speaking.

Sounds of English
How to Improve

In the last part of the class, we had an activity. Making the difference between the stress in nouns, adjectives and when you are referring a person. (i.e.)

Noun- Photograph
Adjective- Photographic
Person- Photographer

I have to make clear that, for every rule, there are always exceptions. This is just a guide for us to pronounce stress easily.

Diphthongs

The previous class we saw what diphthongs are. By then we all knew what a monothong is (the sound of the simple vowels). Diphthongs, on the other hand, are sounds made by a combination of these solo vowels. We learned the eight diphthongs that exist in the English Language, which are:

/eɪ/ as in say,

/əʊ/ as in phone,

/aɪ/ as in tie,

/aʊ/ as in cow,

/ɔɪ/ as in boy,

/ɪə/ as in pier,

/eə/ as in hair

/ʊə/ as in tour.

Click here to have a clearer idea how they sound.

A dipthong is represented, as seen above, with a combination of the vowels that are involved in producing the sound. Diphthongs may be difficult for us as second language learners because the way they are pronounced involves a sudden change in the position of the tongue and a change in the shape of the mouth. So in order to have a better pronunciation of the language we have to practice them so our muscles become use to the movement we make when we pronounce them. Here you will find how our mouth, lips and tongue are when we produce these sounds, also the different ways to pronounce them, in a British accent or in American.

Pronunciation - BBC Learning English

The BBC has a web site devoted to pronunciation and how the sounds of English are produced with detailed explanations of each of the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that are used in English.

I suggest you go to this valuable website, watch, and listen carefully to the explanations given for the sounds that you find most difficult to produce or identify.

Valuable Vowels

So far, we have only concentrated on consonant phonemes featured in the English language. Without vowels, however, it would be very dificult to communicate (although current 'text-speak' tries to achieve it!). So let's have a look at what these vowels are all about.

We all know (hopefully!) that there are 5 vowels in the alphabet: a, e, i, o and u. In the phonemic system of English, however, there are 20 vowels, which can be divided into monothongs and dipthongs. Let's focus on the monothongs for the moment.

There are a twelve monothongs in English. To hear the monothongs and see the symbols which represent them, click here to watch a video produced by podcastsinenglish.com.

Just as we learnt that the production of consonant sounds can be explained by what we do with our mouth, we can also analyse vowels according to the position of the tongue and the lips. It's worth pointing out at this point that it is, in fact, what we do with our organs of speech which distinguishes vowel and consonant phonemes. Whilst consonant phonemes involve some form of blockage within the vocal tract, vowels are sounds produced when the air is free to flow without obstructions.

With vowels, we do not talk about place and manner of articulation, nor of voiced and voiceless sounds. Instead, we focus on the horizontal and vertical position of the tongue, and the shape of the lips.

Let's think about the lip shapes first of all. Take a minute to go and stand in front of a mirror, and repeat these words: tea, two. What happens to your lips?

You should notice that when you say the word tea, your lips are spread, almost as if you are smiling.

tea

When you say two your lips should make a small 'o', almost like a kiss! In this case, we say the lips are rounded.

two

We also need to consider the position of the tongue if we want to know how vowel sounds are produced. In terms of the horizontal position we can say the tongue is in the front, central or back position. Let's return to the examples of tea and two. When you say tea, you should notice that your tongue touches the back of your lower teeth. When you say two, you should feel that the tongue is much further back in your mouth.

Regarding the vertical position, we can note changes both in the proximity of the tongue to the palate and the openness of the jaw. Let's take a different example this time - and I recommend you stand in front of the mirror for this one. We'll use the words beat, bet, bat. When you say beat, you should notice that the tongue is very close to the palate, and the jaw is almost closed. When you say bet, you should notice that your tongue is much closer to the bottom of your mouth, and the jaw is slightly more open. When you say bat, the tongue is right in the bottom of your mouth, and the jaw is very open. We describe vowels produced with a low tongue and open jaw as open. Vowels produced with a raised tongue and a closed jaw are called close.

The International Phonetic Association has developed a chart which represents the vowel phonemes according to their position, as can be seen in the diagram on the left. It's worth noting that not all of the phonemes shown are recognised as Standard English.

It is also necessary to point out that the positions shown are what could be considered as 'perfect' pronunciation of the phonemes. In reality, however, the positioning differs from person to person, and according to their accent.

To learn a little more about how the vowel sounds of English are produced, take a look at www.soundsofenglish.org, and click on the vowel pairs in the column on the left.

Classifying Consonants: How sounds are made

So far, we have learnt how to use phonemic transcripts, but what good is that if we don't know how to make the sounds each symbol represents?

To start thinking about how different sounds are made, we can consider an strange phenomenon. Even when we can hear no noise, we can often tell what a person is saying just by looking at their mouth; in other words, we are able to lip read, just as many people with hearing difficulties do. But how does this work?

We have all learnt, albeit subconsciously, from our contact with spoken language that certain mouth shapes produce certain sounds. We can describe how we make sounds by saying what we do with out lips, teeth and tongue, and how the air is released. To be able to explain sounds in a more 'scientific' manner, however, it's useful to know a little bit about the anatomy of our mouth and throat.

The diagram of the vocal tract on the right (from the University of Indiana) shows the main organs of speech. To learn more about the organs of speech, I highly recommend that you play with the RSC's interactive website.

The International Phonetic Association has developed a system of describing sounds using terminology based on the organs of speech. If we take the phoneme /b/ as an example, we know that to make this sound we start with our upper and lower lips together. We then let the air out in a rapid burst, rather like a little explosion. According to the IPA description, /b/ is a bilabial plosive.

The term bilabial refers to the place of articulation. According to the standard English consonant phonemes, there are 10 places of articulation. These are:

• bilabial (both lips together)
• labio-dental (upper teeth touch lower lip)
• dental (tongue between teeth)
• alveolar (tongue on alveloar ridge)
• post-alveolar (tongue just behind the alveolar ridge)
• palato-alveolar (tongue between alveolar ridge and palate)
• palatal (tongue on palate)
• velar (tongue on velum)
• glottal (using the glottis)
• labial-velar (lips together and tongue close to velum).

We saw that /b/ is also described as a plosive. This refers to the manner of articulation. There are six manners of articulation commonly found in English. These are:

• Plosive (a total blockage followed by a quick release of air, like an explosion)
• Fricative (a slower and restricted release of air - think of friction)
• Affricate (a combination of the previous two, air is initially blocked then released with restrictions)
• Approximant (a near but not total blockage of airflow)
• Nasal (the air comes out of the nose)
• Lateral (air escapes from the sides of the mouth, such as in the phoneme /l/)

In addition to the place and manner of articulation, we can say that a consonant is voiced or voiceless. Put your fingers on your Adam's apple for a moment and say something. Can you feel the vibrations? That's because your vocal chords are being used. If a sound is voiced, it is because the vocal chords are used. But we don't always used our vocal chords to make consonant sounds - in fact, almost half of the consonant phonemes in English are voiceless, meaning that there is no movement made in our larynx.

You may come across some classifications which refer to aspirated and unaspirated sounds rather than voiced and voiceless. This can be a little confusing, as generally voiced sounds are unaspitated and voiceless ones are aspirated. Aspiration refers to the airflow that is produced, and there's an easy test we can do to find out if a phoneme is aspirated or not. Put your hand, or even better, a sheet of paper, in front of your mouth. Now make the sound /b/. Does it move? Now make the sound /p/. Did you notice the difference? /b/ is an unaspirated sound, and the paper shouldn't have moved. /p/, on the other hand, is aspirated, and the paper should have moved a lot.

To see a chart of the phonemes of English and their respective classifications, click here. The consonants on the left side of each column are voiceless, whilst those on the right are voiced. Please note that this table, produced by the IPA, features phonetic symbols, so there might be some that you are not familiar with.