Acknowledgements

Roach Peter, English Phonetics and Phonology, Cambridge university, 2000.

The University of California. www.phonetics.ucla.edu

Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org

Personal notes from the course in English phonetics and phonology of the Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción dictated by the professor Jorge Lillo.

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Weak forms.

When we talk about weak forms in the phonetics of English this regards a series of words which have one pronunciation (strong) when isolated, and another (weak) when not stressed within a phrase.

Weak forms are usually distinguished by a change in vowel quality from a border position on the vowel quadrilateral to a central position. The vowel in a weak form is usually the schwa (ə). Weak forms are pronounced more quickly and at lower volume in comparison to the stressed syllables. They are also not central to changes in intonation.

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To know more and have detalled information click on

English Syllable and stress.

In English, we do not say each syllable with the same force or strength. In one word, we accentuate ONE syllable. We say one syllable very loudly (big, strong, important) and all the other syllables very quietly. So the accentuation of a syllable is the stress.

The syllables that are not stressed are ‘weak’ or ‘small’ or ‘quiet’. Native speakers of English listen for the STRESSED syllables, not the weak syllables. If you use word stress in your speech, you will instantly and automatically improve your pronunciation and your comprehension.

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Diphthongs

In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, "diphthongos", literally "with two sounds," or "with two tones") is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement or glide from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. While "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, are said to have one target tongue position, diphthongs have two target tongue positions.

If you want to know more about diphthongs click on it. and you will see nice pictures explaninig the positions of these.

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Consonant sounds.

A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence.

If you want to listen the consonants sounds just click on it

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Vocalic sounds.

The vocalic sounds are sounds that are produced without an obstruction in any part of the vocal tract of the airstream coming from the lungs. Another quality is that all vocalic sounds are voiced it means that vocal folds vibrates. the picture below shows a chart with the vowels of British English .

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If you want to listen American and British vowels click on Here.

The sounds of English.

When we start talking about sounds we've got a variety of them, but What does sound make different among others? We can find different aspects as the quality, the length, position of the organs of speech. However this is not very helpful because a sound with the same quality, length and position of the organs in one language can have other different maening in any other language. So the sounds that we look for are sounds that when they get togehter broadcast a meaningful message that is understood by speakers of this.

The English language has got sounds as other languages which are divided in: Vocal sounds, consonants sounds, diphtongs.

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Resonators.

The resonators are cavities where there airstream that is coming from the lungs is blocked completely or partially by the active articulators giving them to the airstream special qualities in the release, these are acoustic qualities.
The resonators can be: nasal cavity, oral cavity, pharyngeal cavity. In red is indicated the nasal cavity, which helps in the production of nasal sounds. In green colour is indecated the oral cavity, which is very important because the most part of the sounds are produced in this area and finaly the pharyngeal cavitywhere the sound that comes from the lungs is afected by this. Increasing its sound.