Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

1. Phonetics is the study of human speech sounds. It is a branch of linguistics

studying the production, the physical nature, the perception and other
aspects of human speech sounds.
2. Three aspects of the speech sound as a physical event:
a) Physiological (the production of speech sounds by organs of articulation)
b) Aucoustic ( the transmission of speech sounds)
c) Auditory ( the perception of speech sounds)
The study of human speech sounds requires a whole scientific subject: the
science of phonetics
3. Articulatory phonetics is: the study of the way in which speech sounds are
produced (articulated) by the organs of speech.
The organs of speech are the parts of the body that are used to motify the
stream of air in order to produce different sounds
The production of different speech sounds through the use of the organs of
speech is known as articulation
An articulator is a part of the mouth, nose, or throat which is used in
producing speech
4. Passive articulators : the upper teeth, teeth ridge( lợi the alveolar ridge), the
hard palate
Active articulators: pharynx, soft palate or velum, lips, jaws, the tongue
and the vocal cords
5. Sounds produced within the larynx( thanh quản) or vocal tract( đường thanh
quản) are influenced by the shape of the pharyngeal (hầu), oral (mouth)
and nasal cavities in the vocal tract through which the air stream
passes. These cavities give sounds the resonance ( cộng hưởng).
Several kinds of resonance can be produced because the vocal tract is able
to adopt many different shapes.
The vocal tract is the air passages which are above the vocal cords and
which are involve in the production of speech sounds. The vocal tract can
be divided into the nasal cavity ( which is the air passage within and behind
the nose), and the oral cavity( which is the air passage within the mouth and
the throat). The shape of the vocal tract can be changed by changing the
position of the tongue or the lips`.
The change in the shapes of the cavities in the vocal tract causes
differences in speech sounds
6. Acoustic phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sounds as
transmitted in the form of the sound waves through the air`.
The fundermental prequency ( tan so co ban) of the sound determines the
pitch (cao do)
Three types of sound: periodic (repeating), aperiodic(random),
transient( short and momentary)
7. Auditory phonetics deals with how speech sounds are perceived by the
listener
8. Phonemics
• The study or description of the distinctive sound units (phonemes) of a
language and their relationship to one another
• Procedures for finding the phonemes of a language
• The phonemic system of a language
9. Phonology
• Phonemics
• A cover term for both phonemics and phonetics
• The establishment and description of the distinctive sound units of a
language (phonemes) by means of distinctive features
• Word-to-word relations in sentences (i.e., how sound patterns are
affected by the combination of words)
• The investigation of intonation patterns.
10. Phonetics vs. Phonology
Phonetics : Study of pronunciation / human speech sounds , The way all
speech sounds are produced
Phonology: Study and identification of the distinctive units of sound in a
language .The phonemic system (the system of distinctive units of sound) in
a language
11. Pronunciation standards
• Received pronunciation (RP)
• General American (GA)
• An accent is a particular way of pronunciation which tells the listener
something about the speaker’s background.
Chapter 2

The speech chain

• Psychological
• Articulatory / physiological
• Physical / acoustic
• (Auditory)
a) The pharynx( yếu hầu) is a tube just begins just above the larynx (thanh
quản)
b) The velum or soft palate ( vòm miệng or ngà cứng) is in the position
that allows air to pass through the nose and through the mouth. When
velum is raised, producing the oral sound. When velum is lowered,
producing the nasal sound
c) The hard palate is between the alveolar ridge and the soft palate.
d) The alveolar ridge is between the top front teeth and the hard palate.
Sounds made with the tongue touching the alveolar ridge are called the
alveolars
e) The tongue has the following parts: tip, blade, front, centre and back
f) Sound made with the tongue touching the front teeth are call dental
g) Sounds in which the lips are in contact with each other are called
bilabial, while those with lip-to-teeth contact are called labio-dental
Speech mechanism
• The most usual source of energy for our vocal activities is provided by an
airstream expelled from the lungs.
• Airstream à passes through larynx( thanh quản) containing vocal cords as a
vibrator.
• Glottis: opening between the vocal cords
• Vocal cords are apart -> glottis is open -> voiceless sounds.
• Vocal cords are pressed together -> glottis is closed -> voiced sounds.
6 States of vocal cords
- Wide apart -> voiceless consonants (e.g. p, f, s)
- Narrow glottis -> voiceless glottal fricative (h)
• Position for vocal cord vibration (touching or nearly touching) -> vibration
-> voiced
• Vocal cords tightly closed -> glottal stop / plosive (symbol ?)

Chapter 3 : The classification of the english speech sounds

Vowels
• A vowel is defined as a voiced sound in which the air has a free passage
through the mouth,and does not produce any audible friction.
• Pure vowels / monophthongs
• Diphthongs
• Triphthongs
English pure vowels / monophthongs
• Definition: an unchanging sound in the pronunciation of which the organs
of speech do not perceptibly change the position throughout the duration of
the vowel in a syllable.
Principles of vowel classification :

• The raised part of the tongue

• Front vowels: front of tongue raised in direction of hard palate – /i:/ ; /ɪ/ ;
/e/ ; /æ/
• Central vowels: center of tongue raised toward palate - /ɜː/ ; /ə/ ; /ʌ/
• Back vowels: back of tongue raised in direction of soft palate - /u:/ ; /ʊ/ ; /
ɑː/ ; / ɔː/ ; / ɒ/
• The height of the raised part of the tongue
• Close / high vowels: 1 part of tongue comes close to palate without
touching it, and air passage is narrow, but not so much as to form a
consonant. - /i:/ ; /I/ ; /u:/ ; /ʊ/
• Mid—open / mid-close vowels: tongue half way between its high and low
position /e/ ; /ɜː/ ; /ə/ ; / ɔː/
• Open / low vowels: 1 part of tongue is very low & air passage is very
wide /æ/ ; /ɑː/ ; /ʌ/; / ɒ/
• The lip shape
Rounded: lips drawn together -> opening between them are more or less
round /u:/ ; /ʊ/ ; / ɔː/ ; / ɒ/
• Neutral: lips are not noticeably rounded / spread - /ɜː/ ; /ə/ ; /ʌ/ ; /ɑː/
• Unrounded (spread): lips may be spread to leave a long narrow opening
between them • /i:/ ; /I/ ; /e/ ; /æ/
• The vowel length
• Long vs. short
• Long vowels: /i:/ ; /u:/ ; /ɜː/ ; / ɔː / ; /ɑː/
Dipthongs
Triphthongs
• The most complex English vowel-type sounds
• A glide from 1 vowel to another and then to a third one
• Composed of closing diphthongs + /ə/
E.g. layer, liar, royal, hour, lower
/leɪ.ə/ /laɪ.ə/ /rɔɪ.əl/ /aʊə/ /ləʊ.ə/

Consonants
• A sound in the production of which an obstruction is formed in the mouth
by the active organs of speech.
Phụ âm
• Một âm thanh trong quá trình sản xuất tắc nghẽn được hình thành trong
miệng bởi cơ quan hoạt động của lời nói.
Principles of consonant classification :

• The place of articulation

1. Labials (/lip sounds)
- Bilabials (2 lips) /p/ /b/ /w/ /m/
- Labio-dental (lower lip against upper teeth) /f/ /v/
2. Dentals (tip of tongue against upper teeth) /θ/ / ð/
3. Alveolars (tip/blade of tongue against teeth ridge) /t/ /d/ /n/ /l/ /s/ /z/
4. Palato-alveolars (sounds which have alveolar articulation together with a
simultaneous raising of the main body of the tongue towards the roof of the
mouth) /tʃ/ / dʒ/ / ʃ/ /r/
5.Palatal (tongue against hard palate) /j/
6. Velars (back of tongue against soft palate) /k/ /g/ /ŋ/
7. Glottals (sounds articulated in the glottis) [glottis: the opening between
the vocal cords] /h/
• The manner of articulation
1. Plosives (/stop/explosive sounds) (air stream is completely stopped for a
moment, after which it is allowed to rush out of the mouth with an
explosive sound) /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/
Distribution: in initial/medial/final position
2. Fricatives (sounds formed by a narrowing of the air passage at some
point so that the air in escaping makes a kind of hissing) /f/ /v/ /θ/ / ð/
/s/ /z/ / ʃ/ /ʒ/ /h/
/ʒ/ only in medial position
/h/ in initial and medial position
3. Affricatives (a combination of a plosive consonant with an immediately
following fricative / ʃ/ or /ʒ/.
/tʃ/ / dʒ/
4. Nasals (all the air from the lungs escapes down the nose & not through
the mouth at all) /m/ /n/ /ŋ/ (only medially & finally)
[letters] –ng
anger [ˈæŋɡə] hang/er [ˈhæŋə]
Finger [ˈfɪŋɡə] sing/er [ˈsɪŋə]
5. Laterals (the sound formed by the tip of the tongue firmly pressed against
the teethridge/teeth so that the air can escape at one or both sides of the
tongue)
/l/
like /laɪk/ title /ˈtaɪ.təɫ/

clear /l/ dark (ɫ)

6. Rolled (tip of tongue vibrates in the airstream)
/r/ [only occurs before a vowel]
7. Semi-vowel (a gliding sound) /w/ /j/
• The state of vibration of the vocal cords
• Voiced (when vocal cords are vibrating) /b/ /m/ /w/ /v/ /d/ /n/ /l/ /z/ /r/ /
ð/ /dʒ/ /ʒ/ /g/ /ŋ/ /j/
• Voiceless (when vocal cords are not vibrating) /p/ /f/ /θ/ /t/ /s/ /tʃ/ /ʃ/ /k/ /h/
Syllabic consonants
• The syllabic consonant is a combination of a vowel and a consonant in one
sound.
[l]̩ [m ]̩ [n ̩] [ɹ]̩
E.g. bottle [ˈbɒtl]̩ muddle [ˈmʌdl]̩
complaints [km ̩pleɪnts] problem [ˈprɒblm ]̩
Garden [ˈɡɑːdn ]̩ even [ˈiːvn ]̩
Literal [litɹl ̩]̩ national [næʃn ̩ l]