LANGUAGE DIALECTS AND VARIETIES: STANDARD ENGLISH AND RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION

1.

What is meant by language?

Unitary system of linguistic communication within which number of varieties coexist.

A language is s system bigger than a single dialect or variety. These varieties are mutually intelligible.

2.

• Accents: Way we pronounce a language

• Dialects: Cover grammar and vocabulary variation + shades of geographical implications and connotations.

• Varieties: is more neutral (politically correct) and has a wider scope: includes grammar, vocabulary, and
pronunciation

• Regional variations: involve differences between one place an another and Social variations:
deferent social groups (profession, age, gender, religion, individual)

• Basilect: associated with the broadest local accents, often associated with working-class, or less
privileged in terms of education.

• Acrolects: are associated with more prestige in terms of education, wealth.

3. Evidence of existing varieties

Lexical differences

• Tap - faucet
• Petrol - gas

Differences in pronunciation

• Tomato
• Banana

Differences in syntax

• Present perfect/ Simple past

PS: Varieties are constantly influencing each other, with borrowing both ways across the Atlantic
and nowadays via the Internet.

4. Standard English

Refers to written language: grammar and vocabulary, no pronunciation

David Crystal says: standard says which way is correct and which is not.

Angles saxons,... produced different kinds of English, coexisting in the same land.
Norman Conquest:
5. Importance of London
Standard English originates around London, whitin the triangle Ox - cambridge - London
Why London and 15 century? Because London was densely populated
The language spoken by aristocracia become prestigioso, ademas la gran cidad atraía
comerciantes, etc, por lo que el lenguaje obtiene funciones comerciales, políticas, etc y se
extiende.

La imprenta extiende el idioma, era necesario tener un standar para poder extenderlo y que la
gwnte lo entendiera. Por ejemplo para Church, había muchas palabras similares, pero tuvieron
que desaparecer y quedarse con una de forma estandar.

6. Nowadays

Different varieties are accepted. Before Europe Universities used to favour British Eglish. The
model should be the one that you hear most often.

7. Received Pronunciation (RP)

En 1780 aprox se empieza a tener una conciencia de la pronunciación “correcta”. Se asocia

también con la clase social de cada uno. Las escuelas publicas adoptan esta variedad (RP).

La BBC instaba a sus presentadores a hablar con este acepto, en señal de prestigio.

It is a social accent, prestige accent.

Hoy en día mucha gente habla RP independientemente de su clase, ademas se han aceptado
otras variedades y el término RP ha cambiado a NRP (Non-Regional Pronunciation), que quiere
decir que es un acento correcto independiente de la localización.

Las diferencias entre variedades de inglés están básicamente en las vocales.

www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.php
miércoles 14 de octubre de 2009

UNIT 1. LANGUAGE: SPEECH AND WRITING

1. Sounds: graphemes and transcriptions. The development of the IPA alphabet.

Language is a system os linguistic communication

Humans first learn to communicate by using the spoken language.
Apart from speech language need a system of representation.

2. Speech and writing forms

Existen inconsistencias entre las realizaciones del habla y sus representaciones ortográficas,
debido al abandono del “Runic Script” y la adopción del alfabeto Romano.

3. Terms

- Grapheme: Orthographic representation of the sound. «What we find in the words»

/i:/ <ee,ea,ei,ie>;

- Phonetic representation: the representation of the speech form of a word.

4. Phone, phoneme, allophone, diacritic:

- Phone: All possible sounds we can produce. The are infinite.

- Phoneme: Those sounds relevant for the meaning of the word. They are limited and can change
the meaning of the word.
- Allophones: different realisations of the same phoneme. E.g. (p in ‘speak’, ‘pen’ & ‘stop’). Depend
on their position in speech.
- Diacritics: Give extra infotmation about how certain phonemes are produced, but they are not
phonemes.
- Examples:
- Length: ‘tea’, half length ‘feet’
- Aspiration: ‘place’
- Aspirations and round: ‘corner’
- Segment: each of the units that make up a syllabe.
- Segmental phonetics: Studies these minimal pairs.

5. The IPA: General Principles

• Widely accepted.
• Based on articulatory principles.
• Simplified: uses one sign per distinctive sign.
• Homogeneous signs for all languages.
• Letters from the Roman alphabet as far as possible.
6. Cardinal Vowels
Daniel Jones: «Artificial set of vowels used as reference, to define other vowels. Don’t belong to
any particular language. Represent
the range of vowels that humans
can produce».

They are defined on a physiological

basis depending on the shape and
position of the tongue, to be
precise, on the highest point of the
tongue in the mouth.

First defined [i] as the vowel

produced with the front of the
tongue as close as possible to the
roof of the mouth without producing
friction.

He did the same for [a], pronounced when the back of the tongue is in the highest point and it is
lowest in the mouth. These two vowels were used as hinges for the others

7. Phonetic Transcription

Broad: gives phonetic information.

Time: /taım/
Narrow: Gives more phonetic detail.
Time: /thaım/
UNIT 2
1. PHONETICS. PHONOLOGY

Phonetics: linguistic science wich studies speech sounds regardless of language: the way in which
they are produced, perceived, their physical characteristics, etc.
It’s the basis of phonological analyses.

Phonology: Different languages operate different distinctions and structure in different ways the
more or less common stock of sound tha can be found in various languages.
Studies the sound patterns of a particular language by determining which are significant.

2. Articulatory, Acoustic and Auditory phonetics

Articulatory phonetics: Studies the way in which humans beings articulate the sounds they make
use of in verbal communications. Focuses on the speaker.
Based on the data provided by other sciences, among the most important are human anatomy and
physiology.

Acoustic Phonetics: Studies the physical parameters of speech sounds, as:

- Amplitude or intensity perceived as loudness
- The frequency perceived as pitch
- Duration

Auditory phonetics: Studies the perception of sounds by our auditory apparatus and the
transformation of the info into a neural sin which is sent to the brain (focuses on the listener.)
The human ear can only hear sounds having certain amplitude and frequencies. If the amplitude or
the frequency are lower than the range perceptible, by the ear, the are simply not heard. If the are
higher, the sensation they give is of pain.
miércoles 21 de octubre de 2009
UNIT 3/4

The Speech Mechanism

Source of energy for our vocal activity is provided by an air-stream expelled from the lungs.
First in the trachea it passes through the larynx, which contains the vocal folds

In the middle of the vocal folds it’s the glottis.

- Biologically: It prevents the entry into the trachea of any foreign body.
- For Speech:
- The vocal folds may be closed in such a way that friction is produced (voiced
sound).
- The glottis may be open and no friction is made (voiceless sound).
- The glottis may be held open in such way that, when air stream is expelled
through with sufficient energy, there is audible glottal friction.

- For Speech
Vocal folds: Closed → friction → voiced sound
Air escapes through the nose (nasal sound) and the mouth.

Phonation Types:

Voiceless: Glottis wide open, air-stream passes through with the minimal obstruction
Voiced: vocal folds closed → friction, vibration.

Consonants: Place of articulation

To form consonants, air-stream through the vocal tract must be obstructed in some way.
The primary articulators that can cause an obstruction in most languages are:

- Lips
- Tongue tip and blade (tip, blade, front, back)
- Back of the tongue
Starting from he outer end of the vocal tract, the places of articulation are the following:
Places of articulation (passive & active):

Bilabial:In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. As in

“pie, buy, my”.

Laviodental: Articlated with the lower lip and the upper front teeth. As in “five”, “violent”.

Dental: Tongue tip or blade and upper front teeth. As in Thy, thigh.

Alveolar: Tongue tip or blade and alveolar ridge. As in Tie, die, night, sight, lie, ...

Palato-alveolar: Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near
or touching the back of the alveolar ridge. As in “Show, treasure” /ʃ/ /ʒ/

Palatal: Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised
against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). As in Young /j/

Velar: Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft
palate. As in hack, hug, hang. /h/, /g/, /ŋ/
Manner of articulation

The type of obstruction to the airflow that is formed.

The articulators:

• May close off the tract: plosives, nasals

• May narrow the space considerably: fricatives
• May simply modify the shape of the track by approaching each other: approximants

- Plosives

- Articulatory closure in the mouth

- Soft palate is raised so nasal tract is blocked off
- When the air is released there is anoise called plosion. This may be followed by a
-h like sound known as aspiration.
- T, d, p, b, k, g.

- Nasal
- Complete closure in the oral cavity
- But the soft palate is down, so the air is allowed to scape through the nose.
- M, n, ŋ; as in map, hang, nap.

- Fricatives
- Close approximation of 2 articulators.
- The air-stream is partially obstructed so te air scapes with difficulty, producing a
hissing sound.
- F, v, θ, đ, h, s, z, ʃ, ʒ.

- Approximant
- An articulator is closer to another, but without the tract being narrowed to such an
extend that a turbulent airstream is produced.
- E.g. Yatch /j/ : front of the tongue raised towards the roof of the mouth, but
no friction is produced.
- E.g. W
- Lateral approximant: E.g. Long /l/ > center of the tongue is closed to the roof of the
mouth, but the sides of the tongue are lowered so the the air can escape along the
sides of the tongue.
Articulation of Vowels

• Articulators do not come very close together

• Passage of air-stream relatively unobstructed.
• Sounds specified in terms of:

• Position of the highest point of the tongue (back/ front)

• Distance between surface of tongue and mouth roof (close/ open)
• Position of the lips (round/ neutral/ spread)