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 The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

The IPA is a conventional system for writing down speech sounds. This
is necessary because of the mismatch between sounds and written letters
in languages, which makes it difficult or ambiguous to refer clearly to
particular phones or phonemes using normal orthography. The symbols
that are circled in the table below are used to indicate consonant sounds
used in the standard varieties of English.

Full set of long and short English vowels - overview

 Basics of phonetics and phonology
Phonetics and phonology are two different levels at which speech sounds can be described,
studied and represented:

• Phonology considers

how speech sounds areused, organised and distributed within languages – it is the study of
the sound systems of languages.

• Phonetics
is the study of the acoustic detail of speech sounds and how they are actually articulated, i.e.
produced in practice by speakers of a language.

Three main areas of phonetics:

• articulatory phonetics study of the way in which speech sounds are articulated, i.e.
made or produced with the vocal organs;

• auditory phonetics study of the perceptual response to speech

sounds through ear, auditory nerve and brain;

• acoustic phonetics study of the physical properties of speech sounds;

Phones:Any sound/noise. Two phones are two different sounds that

have different phonetic characteristics. Phono: noise, sound. Phono we can say that it
concerns any acoustic generation. We must distinguish it from phoneme(phonomes)

Phonemes: is like the fundamental core of a system organization

of the pronunciation of a language, is defined minimum element. The phonemes we
define them as two sounds that produce a difference of meaning in a language (the
snap of the
is not a phoneme because it is not part of the pronunciation of words).

a phoneme is defined in opposition to all the others (i.e. for what it is not)

Allophones (of the same phoneme): two phones that never make a meaning difference in a
language;

Minimal pair: A minimum pair is defined as two words that are identical except for a
phoneme added, removed or amended.
 Example: phonemes (distinctive sounds) in English word “cat”
Replace (remove) one sound to obtain minimal pairs:
“bat”, “kit”, “cad”, “at”

Transcription: system of notation

In order to study phonemes we need to transcribe the sounds of languages and it is done
through the phonetic alphabet. Transcripts are placed in square brackets or between slash (/).
The difference to emphasize is the strict phonetic transcription and phonemic transcription:

• Conventionally

phonetic segments in square brackets [ ] = phonetic or narrow transcription

phonemes between slashes / / = phonemic or broad transcription

• English is a non-phonetic language: there is no systematic correspondence between

(written) spelling and (spoken) sound

Example: ‘-ough-’ spelling sequence

in “tough, though, thought, bough, dough”

Pronunciation and spelling in English

• Homophone words
They are words with the same pronunciation but spelling diverse

For example fair/fare, bean/been, sale/sail, cite/sight/site, seas/sees/seize

• Homograph words
They are written the same way but depending on the meaning they are pronounced
differently. There are also cases in Italian : fishing and fishing (fishing and fruit)

For example, minute, present, produce

• Homonym words
Words, group of words that have the same form in writing, same pronunciation but
untied between that they can express different meanings without conceptual ties.

For example , match, bear, can, key, light

The complexity of vocabulary (across languages)

• The Cognate words refer to those words that are seen in two somewhat similar
languages have the same origin , or are related.

Example: colour/color, centre/center (UK/US spelling), velocity, destination.

• A polysemous word is a word that has different meanings that derive from a
common origin.

Example: wood, paper, mouth, head

• False friends - example: library, magazine, stamp, form.

The case of “false friends” some English and Italian words have similar forms,
but they express very different meanings.
 Pronunciation of English – standard varieties
We see a language that reflects and manifests identity (e.g. through pronunciation),
pronunciation is more or less prestigious and well-established. English is a pluri- /
multi-centric language (not the only one!), it has a number of standard varieties with
the same status. We can see various labels such as: Received Pronunciation (RP) (cf.
"BBC English"),"Estuary English", General American (GA), "Network English", etc.in fact
it is very useful to have a standard variety of English as a target,but you don’t
necessarily have to sound exactly like a native speaker!

Vocal organs and articulators

• Articulators that are the lips, teeth, alveolar crest,

tongue, hard palate, soft palate (velum)

• Velum is a flap that can turn off the nasal tract we

can also see the end of the velum that is uvula

• Tongue that can be separated into tip, blade, front,

center, back, root

Vowels vs. consonants

• Vowels are characterized by little or no obstruction of Airstream, and are
generally expressed and in fact are differentiated by the movements of the vocal
organs (jaw position, tongue and lip shape).
Vowels differ depending on how they are arranged phonatory organs, such as
the position of the lips, tongue, jaw the combination of anatomical factors
determines the vowel emitted.

• Consonants are characterized by obstructed airfstream and can be:

Voiced that is, it does not involve the vibration of the vocal cords (such as the
letter S). They are articulated by narrowing of the airflow in various ways and at
specific points of the vocal tract.
 Voiceless that does not involve vibration of the vocal cords (like letter S). They
are articulated by the narrowing of the airflow in various ways and at specific
points of the vocal tract.

They are identified by three factors whose combination determines

pronunciation of one or other consonant:

• PLACE place of articulation

• MANNER way of articulation
• VOICE sound or deaf.

We therefore find the three factors, according to the place and manner of articulation
and the narrowing of the air flow that involves deafness or sonority, I have the
pronunciation of the word.

The consonant system of English

Place refers to which part of the vocal tract is occluded

PLACE --→ The place of articulation corresponds to the columns

1. BILABIAL/LABIAL
It means that to produce these consonants the lips are sealed (P-B)
2. LABIODENTAL
The lower lip goes under the upper frontal teeth (F-V)
3. DENTAL
The tip of the tongue goes to touch the upper frontal teeth, exists only in English does
not exist in Italian
4. ALVEOLAR
When the tip of the tongue rests on the alveolar kiosk (T-D). The tip touches the gums
of the upper frontal teeth
5. POSTALVEOLAR
 The tongue touches the back of the kiosk (SC)
6. VELAR
We use soft palate (C(calcium) (glue) or G(cock) (Kick) K-G)
7. GLOTTAL
At the base of the throat (H aspirated). The restriction at the level of the vocal cords.

• Manner refers to the degree of occlusion in the vocal tract.

Example: Manner contributes to the difference between [t] and [s]: although both
are produced with the tongue against the alveolar ridge, in [t] the flow
of air is stopped completely for a while, but for [s] the airflow is only
restricted producing a hissing sound

1.PLOSIVE/STOP
The air flow is stopped for a short time and released: P B T D K G

2. NASAL
The soft palate lowers and the air conveyed towards the nose, as a cold (mother). The
way through the nasal cavity or nostrils

3. FRICATIVE
The flow is limited, conditioned and created turbulence, there is a rustle F V S Z ( pink,
what, the S as if it were a mosquito, like turbulence).

4. AFFRICATE
Combination of an occlusive (plosive) and fricative ( hello, sky, judge, yellow are
affricated because they are fusion of the two: C sound and SC come together in C of
children
Voice
refers to the activity of the vocal cords as the sound is being made (they either vibrate
or stay still)

Gemination

The difference between English and Italian is that in Italian gemination occurs only at
consonant phonemes (ball:. Pala, fate:done) have different meanings and
pronunciations.

In English, there is no gemination of consonants, regardless from the possible doubling

in spelling but there is never a difference in pronunciation. The gemination then shifts
on the vowels has therefore a phonological value the doubling of the pronunciation of
the vowel phonemes, the phonological value ie plays a role and produces a difference
in meaning.

In standard English and in varieties, the duration of vowels determines a difference

between two words that become a minimum pair. Vowel and non consonant
gemination has phonological value and distinguishes words from others.

1 Ship: ʃIp (scip)

2 Sheep: ʃi:p-> i elongated (sciip)

The s elongated is a SC (ski), the P phoneme bilabial occlusive deaf, in between the I in
capital letters in the first case is a short pronunciation, in the second case is an
elongated i(i:)

1 Rip: Rip (rip)

2 Reap: re:p-> i stretched (riip)

The first has a short i pronunciation, the second lengthened. If in Italian we decide to
pronounce the extended vowels we are in the presence of allophoric variant, a different
way of pronounce but it has no phonological value. If gemination is applied to
consonants the meaning is different.
 Vowel system of standard standard Italian
vs.
British English

In Italian there are 7 vowels:

A I U, then the others give rise to 2 open pronunciations closed O E. To pronounce the
words correctly in Italian you have to pronounce the vowels correctly. In British
English the pure vowels are 12 but for we need a good pronunciation.

Diphthongs
A combination of two vowel phonemes (help, garlic) two vowels then join. Italian has 4
diphthongs, English instead 8, of these eight some include in first and second position
one of the 5 vowels absent in Italian.

Frequent Pronunciation Problems in English for

native speakers of Italian

Accent, i.e. the syllable which carries the primary stress in a word (we ignore
secondary stress here,although it is very important, too), is of great importance in
English pronunciation. In some cases the position of the primary stress in a word can
determine a difference in terms of part of speech and/or lead to a distinction in
meaning (and hence translation into another language), as in the following examples:
 Based on The Language of Speech and Writing
Sandra Cornbleet and Ronald Carter
London: Routledge (2001)

Introduction

Reflection on the nature of speech and writing, and on the similarities and differences
between them, in any language, but especially in English the "text" refers to both
written and spoken language (enunciation). Think about how language changes, e.g.
depending on who uses it, when, in what communicative situations, for what purposes,
etc. - sociolinguistics.

People typically learn to speak first, and only later (e.g. through formal teaching and
practice) acquire writing skills, the transition from speech to writing, in this order, is
common to:

- Individuals, language users

- Language systems (exclusively spoken languages)

In many societies, writing performs more "important" or "official" functions, unlike the
word the ways in which we must express feelings and emotions in speech vs. writing.
Devices and typical features of voice writing (vis-à -vis):

- Volume, height, rhythm/rhythm, pauses, body language, irony, sarcasm, rhetorical

questions, repetitions, backchanneling, etc.
-False starts, hesitations, fillers, reformulations, etc.

The speech is a continuum:

-Informal face-to-face conversation (small talk)
- Remote speaking (e.g. recorded Whatsapp notes)
- Official speeches (carefully planned and prepared, written for reading aloud, e.g. high-
profile political statements)

Connections and convergence between word and writing (e.g.emoticon) and Language
Levels (both written and spoken):
- Vocabulary / Lexis
- Grammar/ morphology
- Syntax
- Semantics
- Pragmatism
- Type of text / genre
- Register (colloquial, informal, formal, etc.) - refers to the
functional and communicative role of language (appropriateness)
-Style (quality and properties of a text reflecting the above)

Think about the features of spoken language in a range of communicative situations:

o Phone call
o TV or radio broadcast of a sporting event
o Conversation between two people
o Multi-party conversation (over the dinner table, at a bar, etc.)
o Talk shows (overlaps, interruptions and turn-taking)

Functions of language with respect to the key elements of the communicative

exchange

Focus on (Main) function

Producer / Expressive
Issuer
Receiver Persuasive
Channel Phatic
Message / Informative
Content

The nature of speaking

Speech involves a complex combination of elements, including Sounds (phonemes),

there are various sophisticated physiological and cognitive processes, e.g. cocktail
party effect, the Intonation patterns: rising (questions, giving the word to the
interlocutor) vs. fall (instructions, end of turn), the Rhythm we see that English is a
language in time of stress (vs. syllable-timed). Stress within a sequence of words can
change, depending on what you want to express, e.g.

-"What did you say?"

- "What did you say?"
To maintain the rhythm, English uses weak and strong forms of many words, e.g." It
was a wonderful surprise!", "What time did they leave last night?". There is much more
to say than face-to-face or small conversations speak, The importance of the face in
oral / spoken language, the words of content vs. grammatical words, grammatical
categories, aka parts of speech (pos). Language evolves over time, people develop the
ability to speak and write:

-For individuals: from childhood to youth, adulthood, old age

- For languages as systems, historically (diachronically)

Pronunciation of English – combinations of words

Let’s look at typical word-combination phenomena in Italian first:

1) “ed era”, “ad andare” (both in spelling and in pronunciation)

2) “per iscritto”, “in Ispagna” (again, both in spelling and in pronunciation)
3) “sai che or’è?” “com’è andato l’esame?” / “come t’è andato l’esame?”
4) “(bn)giorno” “(bn)sera”

Similar phenomena also take place in spoken English: individual

words are pronounced “differently” in certain combinations:

A) articles: “a new plan” / “an ambitious plan” “the man” / “the old man”
B) prepositions, e.g. “to” (weak forms)
C) “I saw him walking with them”
D) “I went to the cinema and then home”

The nature of writing

Wide range of settings, activities and objectives, e.g. technical reports, essays at
university, shopping or to-do list, scientific articles, menus, advertising, novels, labels
on bottles and products, etc. In this variety of written language makes it difficult to
accurately and comprehensively define what is writing; mostly transactional the key
elements of writing (among others):

-spelling, punctuation marks, capitalization conventions

(+ see list on slide 4 above)
- layout, handwritten or not, font, size, typography, etc.

• For many people, writing is more complex and challenging than

talk (especially in an L2), the connection with grammatical terminology, i.e.
metalanguage, intersemiotic combinations (e.g. comics, memes, subtitles, etc.)
The writing is (typically):
-permanent
- distant
- asynchronous
- planned
- tends towards a formal register (otherwise it is often spoken
captured/written language) - dictation case,
also for L2 training
- used to be (mostly) linear and autonomous, but now much less
so, e.g. because of social media and digital communication + form
filling with a mixture of predetermined information (provided) and
added text

slide da consultare:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14jF8zMWH1W5k8P7YGaImxjRtzo-uASnE?
hl=it