1. An Introduction to English
Phonetics and Phonology

2. Speech Mechanism
• Speech as the main means of communication is the
result of a complicated series of events, which involves
the speaker and the listener. On the part of the speaker,
speech activities involve the following stages:
 Psychological stage: the process during which the
concept is formed in the speaker’s brain. Then, through
the nervous system this concept is transmitted to the so-
called “organs of speech”, where the articulators work to
utter what has been chosen in the mind of the speaker
 Physiological stage: The organs of speech produce
sounds
 Physical or acoustic stage: the movements of our organs
of speech create disturbances in the air and these
varying air pressures may be investigated

3. Speech Airstream Mechanism
• Airstream mechanisms: Communication by
means of speech is impossible without air
 The source of energy for our vocal activity is
provided by an air stream expelled from the
lungs
 The air stream undergoes important
modifications in the upper stages of the
respiratory tract before it acquires the quality of
a speech sound.

4. Different types of air- stream (AS)
• Pulmonic AS: is the air pushed out from the lungs. This kind
of AS is called Pulmonic Egressive AS mechanism
(PEASM). The majority of sounds used in languages of the
world, including all the sounds in English, are produced by
PEASM.
• Ingressive AS mechanism (IASM): It is the air- stream from
the outside moving into the mouth, through the throat into
the lungs. We cannot speak with IASM though we can
produce some sounds with it to show cold, pain, etc. but it
is not speech sound.
• Oral AS (OASM): a kind of AS moving within the mouth. We
cannot speak with OASM though we can make sounds like
clicks.
• Pharyngeal AS: AS in the throat or sound made in the
throat, not speech sound

5. Phonetics
Branch of Linguistics which deals with speech sounds in terms of
 articulatory phonetics: deals with the way in which speech
sounds are produced. Sounds are usually classified according to
the position of the lips, the tongue, how far open the mouth is,
whether or not the vocal cords are vibrating, etc.
 acoustic parameters: deals with the transmission of speech
sounds through the air. When a speech sound is produced it
causes minor air disturbance (or sound waves).
 and auditory phonetics: deals with how speech sounds are
perceived by the listener. For example, a listener may perceive:
 Differences in aspiration, i.g. between the aspirated /p/ of pit and
the unaspirated /p of tip
 Other differences in sound quality, e.g. between the clear /l/ of
light and the dark /l/ of hill

6. Phonology
English phonology is the description of the
system and patterns of the English sounds.
It involves studying the English language to
determine its distinctive sounds to establish
a set of rules that describe changes in the
sounds when they occur in different
r e l a t i o n s h i p s w i t h o t h e r s o u n d s

7. Phonology and its basic units of
study
• Phonemes: the basic sound units of languages: the
smallest segments of sounds that can be distinguished
by their contrast within words. English is considered to
have 44 phonemes: 24 consonants and 20 vowels
• Allophones: the different phonemes that are derived from
one phoneme are called the allophones/ allophonic
variants of that phoneme: e.g. /i/ in bean and bead
• Minimal pair/ set- contrastive analysis of phonemes: Two
words being identical in every way except for one
distinctive sound (phoneme) that occur in the same
place in the string. E.g. bear and pear

8. Phonetics vs Phonology
 Related but distinctly different branches
 Both concerned with speech sounds (not other kinds of sounds we
make)
Phonetics:
 Study of the actual manifestations of speech sounds
 Provision of information related to articulatory
features and acoustic properties for phonological research
Phonology:
 Cognitive science: study of native speakers' knowledge of the
sound systems of their languages
 Phonology = Functional Phonetics (ie. related to behaviour of
speech sounds in systems)

9. Thanks for
attendance & listening!