Chapter Two
Speech Sounds


As human beings we are capable of making all kinds of sounds, but only some of these sounds have become units in the language system. We can analyze speech sounds from various perspectives and the two major areas of study are phonetics and phonology.

Practically consonants may be produced at any place between the lips and the vocal folds.

Eleven places of articulation are distinguished on the IPA chart:

It was changed to its present title of the International Phonetic Association (IPA) in 1897.

One of the first activities of the Association was to produce a journal in which the contents were printed entirely in phonetic transcription.
2.1 Consonants

In the production of consonants at least two articulators are involved.

For example, the initial sound in bad involves both lips and its final segment involves the blade (or the tip) of the tongue and the alveolar ridge.


The distinction between vowels and consonants lies in the obstruction of airstream. As there is no obstruction of air in the production of vowels, the description of the consonants and vowels cannot be done along the same lines.
the articulators may close off the oral tract for an instant or a relatively long period; they may narrow the space considerably; or they may simply modify the shape of the tract by approaching each other.





Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Postalveolar (PalatalAlveolar) Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal
To begin with, any sign has a meaning that can be found in a dictionary, this is the denotative meaning.(p.132)
在正式英语文体中，一般不能只用逗号来连接两个 立句，否则就是“逗号错误”（Comma splice）。不过 下 述三种情况，“逗号错误”可以接受： 1、两个独立句很短，尤其是其主语相同。如英语中一 句很有名的话：I came, I saw, I conquered. 2、如果两个较短的独立句之间表示对比关系，尤其是 当其中一个是肯定句，另一个是否定句时，如： It's not a comet, it's a meteor. Some students find writing easy, some find it extremely difficult. 3、反意问句，如：You saw that movie last night, didn't you 尽管如此，在正式语体，还是应尽量避免这种逗号句。

Phonetics studies how speech sounds are produced, transmitted, and perceived.



Articulatory Phonetics is the study of the production of speech sounds. Acoustic Phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds. Perceptual or Auditory Phonetics is concerned with the perception of speech sounds.

• Stop (or Plosive)
– Oral & Nasal
• • • • • •
Fricative (Median) Approximant Lateral (Approximant) Trill Tap or Flap Affricate

The place of articulation refers to the point where a consonant is made.


Its main principles were that
there should be a separate letter for each distinctive sound, and that the same symbol should be used for that sound in any language in which it appears. The alphabet was to consist of as many Roman alphabet letters as possible, using new letters and diacritics only when absolutely necessary.

Phonology is the study of the sound patterns and sound systems of languages.
It aims to „discover the principles that govern the way sounds are organized in languages, and to explain the variations that occur‟. In phonology we normally begin by analyzing an individual language, say English, in order to determine its phonological structure, i.e. which sound units are used and how they are put together. Then we compare the properties of sound systems in different languages in order to make hypotheses about the rules that underlie the use of sounds in them, and ultimately we aim to discover the rules that underlie the sound patterns of all languages.
1.2 The IPA

In 1886, the Phonetic Teachers‟ Association was inaugurated by a small group of language teachers in France who had found the practice of phonetics useful in their teaching and wished to popularize their methods.

1. How speech sounds are made
1.1 Speech organs
Position of the vocal folds: voiceless
Position of the vocal folds: voicing (initial & the widest aperture)
On most occasions “rose” means more than a flower, it also triggers many associations mostly good ones such as love, fragrance, passions and beauty.(p.132) The way a speech community rounds off its numbers is not haphazard, rather, it is explainable as interplay between language and culture.(p.136)
The idea of establishing a phonetic alphabet was first proposed by the Danish grammarian and phonetician Otto Jespersen (1860-1943) in 1886, and the first version of the International Phonetic Alphabet (the IPA chart) was published in August 1888.