Phonetics is the study of speech

sounds.
It deals with the physical properties that sounds
have and how one hears and interprets them.

• Knowing a language includes knowing the

sounds of that language.
 Identity of speech sounds
The science of phonetics aims to describe all the sounds
of all the world’s languages
Articulatory Phonetics : I is concerned with the
transformation of aerodynamic energy into acoustic
energy. Here, Aerodynamic energy means airflow
through the vocal tract.
Auditory Phonetics : It is a branch of phonetics
concerned with the hearing of speech sounds and with
speech perception. It deals with how listeners percieve
the sounds of language.
Acoustic Phonetics : It is the study of sound waves
made by the human vocal organs for communication
and a technical area of linguistics.
 The Phonetic Alphabet
 IPA : International Phonetic Alphabet.
 In 1888 the International Phonetic Alphabet was
invented in order to have a system in which there
was a one-to-one correspondence between each
sound in language and each phonetic symbol.

* Someone who knows the IPA knows how to pronounce any

word in any language.
 Two pronunciation criteria in
vowels
Monophthong Diphthongs
 A vowel that has a single  A sound formed by the
perceived auditory combination of two
quality known as vowels with or without
Monophthongs They are consonants in a single
twelve in numbers. syllable, in which the
Ex: See, unique, feel, little sound begins as one
vowel and moves
towards another. They
are eight in numbers
Ex: Coin, Loud, and side
 Sounds Mispronounced
 We know that there are forty four speech sounds in the English
language even though there are only twenty six letters in it.
Because of the misconception, most of the Indian students fail to
get acquainted with the right English pronunciation and accent.
 For instance, pronounce the following words:
1. Cat 2. Keen 3. Occasion 4. Chemistry
Here, the /k/ sound is used for c, k in keen, cc in occasion, and ch
in chemistry. In English, different alphabets can give the same
sound. It is also possible that the same alphabets in English
give different sounds in words.
For ex: Chemist and character impact ch as /k/
Whereas
Chest and cheese impact ch as /ts/
You have now understood that alphabet is different from sound.
Therefore, let us stop mistaking at least on this front, and
master these forty four sounds straightaway.

Silent Letters
In English language, the pronunciation of several words requires the
silencing of certain letters at the beginning, within or at the end.
Theses letters are known as silent letters.
Non-Silent Letters
 There are also words in which a certain letter has to be
pronounced but we wrongly choose not to pronounce
it. Ex: Nouns like ‘resume’ and ‘pune’
 Homophones
 ‘Homo’ means ‘same’, and ‘phone’ means ‘sound’ or ‘voice’.
Obviously, homophones are words that have similar
pronunciation but differ in meaning. They sometimes may
have identical or different spellings .
Ad: Short form of an advertisement
where as
Add : To make an addition

Meat : the flesh of an animal

Where as
Meet: to come together
 Homonyms
 A Homonym is one from a group of words that have
the same spelling and pronunciation but different
meanings.
Ex: The word ‘alight’ is pronounced , however , it has got
two meanings. The first meaning is ‘to get down’ and
the other meaning is ‘on fire’. Similarly, the word ‘bear’
means ‘a large, furry, wild animal’ as well as ‘to carry’.
 Aspiration
 A very simple meaning of aspiration in phonetics is a
forceful release of air. In the production of certain
sounds there is an accompanying burst of air coming
out of the mouth.
 For example, in words like ‘ten’ and ‘pen’, the sounds
/t/ and /p/ are aspirated. In English, /p, t, k/ are
aspirated in the initial position of a stressed syllable.
 For example, In the word ‘paper’, the first /p/ sound in
‘paper’ is aspirated because it is in the initial position
of a stressed syllable whereas the second /p/ is not
aspirated. Vocalised sounds receive a higher aspiration
than the unvocalised sounds.
 Pronunciation of “The”
 The definite article, the, is pronounced in two ways,
unstressed before a vowel sound – thee; unstressed
before a consonant sound, -th uh. However, to suggest
the uniqueness of something, the stressed
pronunciation thee is preferred.
 Let us look at the examples foe the different
pronunciation of the:
 The (thee) apple is with Samyukta.
 The (th uh) computer was a great help to the (thee)
instructor.
 And, now we present to you, the( thee) Sachin
Tendulkar!
 Words ending ‘age’
 All the words ending in- age do not exhibit similar
pronunciations. Most of the single syllable words
ending in –age have its pronunciation.
Ex: ‘sage’ , ‘rage’ and ‘stage’.
• If there is stress on the ending in a polysyllabic (more
than two syllables) word, the pronunciation as above is
retained For ex: ‘Assuage’
• If the ending is unstressed, it is pronounced for
Ex: ‘Cottage’
• A few polysyllabic words with unstressed –age ending
display the pronunciation ex: ‘barrage’
 Some plural forms
 Plural forms of nouns in english have irregular
pronunciation. For instance, ‘hooks’ is pronounced as
/’huks/ but ‘trees’ is pronounced as /’tri:z/. The
instances below demonstrate the phenomenon clearly:
 1. After the following sounds we pronounce ‘s’ as /s/:
/p/ - stops /s/; /t/ - bats /s/; /k/ - walks, hooks /s/ ; /o/ -
cloths /s/; /f/- laughs, graphs /s/.
2.In all other cases we pronounce ‘s’ as /z/: trees, feels /z/,
hogs, bags /z/, breathes /z/ except when the word ends
with one of these sounds /ts, d3, s, z,f,3/.
3. When the plural form/present tense marker ends with
‘es’ and ends with the sounds /tf, d3, s, z, f, 3/ , the
pronunciation is always /iz/: watches, foxes, clothes,
judges, bushes, boxes /iz/.