Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Browse subjects
  3. Language and Linguistics
  4. Phonetics and phonology
  5. Content listing

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

5068 results in Phonetics and phonology

Page 55 of 254

  • 1 - Speech Communication in Human Interaction

  • Klaus J. Kohler
  • Book:
    Communicative Functions and Linguistic Forms in Speech Interaction
    Published online:
    13 October 2017
    Print publication:
    26 October 2017, pp 1-17
    • Chapter
      • You have access
    • PDF
    • HTML
    • Export citation

Communicative Functions and Linguistic Forms in Speech Interaction
  • Volume 156
  • Klaus J. Kohler
  • Published online:
    13 October 2017
    Print publication:
    26 October 2017
  • Prosody is generally studied at a separate linguistic level from syntax and semantics. It analyses phonetic properties of utterances such as pitch and prominence, and orders them into phonological categories such as pitch accent, boundary tone, and metrical grid. The goal is to define distinctive formal differentiators of meanings in utterances. But what these meanings are is either excluded or a secondary concern. This book takes the opposite approach, asking what are the basic categories of meaning that speakers want to transmit to listeners? And what formal means do they use to achieve it? It places linguistic form in functions of speech communication, and takes into account all the formal exponents - sounds, words, syntax, prosodies - for specific functional coding. Basic communicative functions such as 'questioning' may be universally assumed, but their coding by linguistic bundles varies between languages. A comparison of function-form systems in English, German and Mandarin Chinese shows this formal diversity for universal functions.

Australian English Pronunciation and Transcription
  • 2nd edition
  • Felicity Cox, Janet Fletcher
  • Published online:
    21 June 2018
    Print publication:
    04 October 2017
  • Australian English Pronunciation and Transcription is the first textbook to clearly describe Australian English speech patterns. Now in its second edition, this ground-breaking work addresses speech production characteristics and provides detailed instruction in both phonetic and phonemic transcription of the dialect. Each chapter features practical exercises to allow readers to develop skills and test their knowledge as they progress through the text. These exercises are complemented by an extensive companion website, which contains valuable explanatory materials, audio examples and accompanying activities for students. A new assessment bank includes exercises of varying difficulty, allowing lecturers to build unique assessment tasks tailored to their students' needs. Drawing on their extensive experience as teachers and researchers in phonetics and phonology, Felicity Cox and new author Janet Fletcher have crafted a comprehensive resource that remains essential reading for students, teachers and practitioners of linguistics, speech pathology and language education.

  • 2 - Consonants and vowels

  • Felicity Cox, Macquarie University, Sydney, Janet Fletcher, University of Melbourne
  • Book:
    Australian English Pronunciation and Transcription
    Published online:
    21 June 2018
    Print publication:
    04 October 2017, pp 22-74

  • Summary

    Introduction

    The physical production of speech is an exceptionally complex process involving carefully controlled movement of structures such as the lips, tongue, jaw, larynx and lungs, precisely coordinated to achieve the intricately balanced timing of gestures. For most speech production the first step in executing the plan of a message formulated in the brain is to initiate the speech production process by ensuring that the lungs are inflated so that compression of lung volume creates airflow. The outward-flowing air can then be modified in a number of ways on its journey from the lungs. The first major obstacle that the airflow encounters is the larynx, which has the important biological function of managing the flow of air in and out of the lungs and protecting the lower airway from foreign matter. The larynx can variably valve the airway – from totally obstructed to fully open – and under certain conditions of airflow impedance a buzzing sound can be generated. The buzz from the larynx can be transformed into speech by the supralaryngeal structures (articulators) and spaces (cavities), which further modify the sound to create speech through processes such as noise generation and resonance. With this sequence in mind, we can identify three major processes involved in the physical production of most speech sounds:

  • • The lungs provide the energy source – the airflow: RESPIRATION

  • • The larynx can convert the energy into audible sound: PHONATION

  • • The articulators transform the sound into speech: ARTICULATION

    • Some speech sounds don't require phonation and, for such sounds, modification to the pressurised airstream from the lungs occurs mainly through activity of the articulators. There are also sounds that don't require airflow from the lungs at all. The click sounds that occur in many languages of Southern Africa are made by drawing air into the mouth. The different processes used to create speech will be detailed in this chapter. The important anatomical structures for the production of speech are referred to collectively as the vocal tract. Anatomically, the vocal tract comprises the respiratory system from the lungs, through the larynx to the nose and mouth.

  • 4 - Broad transcription of Australian English

  • Felicity Cox, Macquarie University, Sydney, Janet Fletcher, University of Melbourne
  • Book:
    Australian English Pronunciation and Transcription
    Published online:
    21 June 2018
    Print publication:
    04 October 2017, pp 103-140

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In this chapter you will be introduced to the technique for conducting a broad transcription of AusE. This type of transcription provides a general representation of the phonemes in spoken language. By convention, the broad transcription also includes the characteristic features of connected speech such as elision, assimilation, use of intrusive/linking /ɹ/, and reduced vowels, among other features to be described below.

    Broad transcription does not attempt to record allophonic variation that occurs in speech, nor does it attempt to describe the complexity of a speaker's idiolect, which instead requires detailed narrow transcription (to be discussed in Chapter 5). In contrast, broad transcription represents the broad classes of speech sounds – in other words, the phonemes used to differentiate words. Some contextual variation is transcribed but only if the context promotes the substitution of one phoneme for another. For instance, a word like uncool may be perceived to contain an /n/ or an /ŋ/ depending on how much the tongue dorsum gesture for /k/ in cool overlaps with the tongue tip gesture for the preceding nasal consonant in un. If the modification to a sound does not involve a substitution of this kind, the shades of variation are ignored in broad transcription as only symbols for phonemes can be used. For instance, in the word triumph the nasal /m/ is typically produced as a labiodental [ɱ] in anticipation of the following labiodental fricative /f/. It is not necessary to capture this detail in the broad transcription but it is required in the narrow transcription (see Section 5.2.6).

    It is very important to be aware that coarticulation (the influence of speech sounds on each other) is fundamental to the speech-production process. The extent and degree of coarticulation is determined by many factors, including rate of articulation, prosodic context, requirements of the specific communicative context, the tolerance of the dialect to particular processes, and individual speaker preference. Stylistic factors, such as the speaker's judgement about the formality of the interaction or perception of the listener's ability to comprehend, also fundamentally affect the nature of the connected speech processes. In natural unguarded speech, the speaker embraces connected speech processes to produce an efficient and effective spoken output. Such speech-production strategies are essential for natural speech and should never be considered as laziness.

  • 3 - Syllables, word stress, sentence stress and intonation

  • Felicity Cox, Macquarie University, Sydney, Janet Fletcher, University of Melbourne
  • Book:
    Australian English Pronunciation and Transcription
    Published online:
    21 June 2018
    Print publication:
    04 October 2017, pp 75-102

  • Summary

    Introduction

    As we have seen in previous chapters, it is possible to identify and describe individual speech sounds, called segments, but these only occur in real language when they are part of larger chunks of speech in conjunction with rhythm, stress and intonation. These features form the prosody of the language and include a range of small low-level units hierarchically connected to large higher-level units. Prosodic features are suprasegmental; that is, they comprise elements that can extend across individual segments but nonetheless have a profound effect on how segments are realised. In speech each sound occurs as a constituent of a syllable. In English, syllables form the most basic element of the prosodic hierarchy. Prosodic constituent structure is considered hierarchical because it is possible to analyse large units like the intonational phrase (roughly corresponding to the root sentence level) into increasingly smaller units. The intonational phrase can be divided into smaller individual intermediate phrases that dominate phonological words, which are made up of feet comprising syllables. The prosody of language is important for conveying meaning. It encodes rhythm and melody, giving each language its characteristic cadence.

    Syllables

    Syllables have psychological reality as identifiable units in the language. It is possible to count the number of syllables in a word and we can usually (although not always) identify where one syllable ends and the next one begins. Syllables are the units that carry stress, and in languages like English, intonational prominence is also associated with stressed syllables.

    The identification of syllables relies on our response to sonority. Sonority is the relative loudness of individual segments and contributes to perceived prominence. The loudest and most prominent part of a syllable is the sonority peak. Each syllable has just one such peak. Syllable boundaries fall at points of weak sonority.

    The syllable is a structural unit containing sequences of consonants (C) and vowels (V). The CV (consonant followed by vowel) structure is considered the basic phonological syllabic unit. Most syllables comprise either a single vowel on its own or one that is surrounded by consonants, either to the right or the left, or on both sides of the vowel, though the characteristics and number of consonants that are permitted are dictated by the phonology of each particular language.

  • 5 - Narrow transcription of Australian English

  • Felicity Cox, Macquarie University, Sydney, Janet Fletcher, University of Melbourne
  • Book:
    Australian English Pronunciation and Transcription
    Published online:
    21 June 2018
    Print publication:
    04 October 2017, pp 141-168

  • Summary

    Allophonic variation and narrow Transcription

    The transcriptions considered in Chapter 4 are broad transcriptions because they provide the minimum phonetic detail necessary to distinguish words. In the present chapter, we will discuss narrow transcription, the type that contains allophonic phonetic variation and some detail of idiolectal/stylistic production. Allophonic detail is often (but not always) predictable from context. Some of the variations are obligatory but many are at the discretion of the speaker. The important allophones of English will be summarised at the end of the chapter. Narrow transcription is always enclosed in square [] brackets and is often referred to as phonetic transcription.

    In this chapter, we will provide a set of guidelines for transcribing the major allophones and variants that occur in AusE. These guidelines should not be considered ‘rules’, but they do outline possible stylistic and contextual variation. It is important to be aware that applying these guidelines recklessly will likely result in deficient narrow transcription. Speakers change their productions in various ways, at various times for a range of purposes, and they also differ from each other in their precise speech production strategies. Speakers vary the pronunciation of the same word in different contexts. Our guidelines for transcription simply suggest the most common pronunciations. It is the transcriber's task to listen carefully to the spoken utterance before making decisions about the speaker's actual production. Many transcribers prefer to make an initial broad transcription and then supply the narrow transcription detail once they have confidence in their first-pass broad transcription. Narrow transcription can only be accomplished with reference to actual speech data (such as the sound files that accompany this book). The solutions to the exercises in this chapter are based on the audio examples provided on the Australian English Pronunciation and Transcription website: http://www.cambridge.edu.au/academic/ companion/austenglish/. Note that the vowel transcriptions in this chapter use the IPA and therefore knowledge of the HCE system is essential, as it more accurately reflects the IPA symbol selection for AusE vowel productions than the alternative MD system (see Chapter 6 for comparison of the HCE and MD systems for transcribing details AusE vowels).

Page 55 of 254