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HI-LING
LINGUISTICS IN THE HIGH SCHOOL
Module 1: Phonetics
Phonetics is the science of speech sounds, treating the smallest linguistic units. In this lesson, you will learn about the basics of phonetics, which are consonant and vowel sounds, as well as prosody. You will also get an insight into the application of the science of phonetics.​
Phonetics is the study of the physical sounds of human speech, including their production, transmission, and reception.
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In this lesson, we will learn what consonants are and how they are characterised. We will look at the vocal tract in order to understand where and how different consonant sounds are produced.
You have probably already heard about vowels, but in this lesson, you will be provided with a more in-depth explanation of what vowel sounds really are, from a scientific point of view. We will look at how they are produced at areas of the vocal tract, and how they differ between one another.
This lesson covers another important aspect of phonetics which is probably less known than the concepts of consonants and vowels. We are talking about prosody. In order to understand what the umbrella term of prosody means, we will look at the four most important notions in this field, which are stress, rhythm, speech tempo and intonation.
After having learned about the most important theoretical aspects of the science of phonetics, we think it is important to consider some more practical applications of this science. Phonetics, describing the very basic, smallest units of spoken language, is used as a component of many applications of linguistics. We will focus on two fields here: Phonetic differences between different dialects and articulatory disorders manifesting in malproduction of speech sounds.
Final Quiz
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Consonants are articulatory defined by what two characteristics?
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Which two (main) characteristics define vowels?
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Give the articulatory description of the following consonants using those two dimensions:
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[t]
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[m]
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[d]
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How are the vowels in these "minimal pairs" different?
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lick vs. leek
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sneaker vs. snooker
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Why is word-stress important in English? Give an example of two words that are distinguished only by stress.
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What is intonation and why is it important in the English language?
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Name two sounds/pronunciations which are produced differently in British Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American.
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Name three disorders concerning speech and articulation.
This solution was created by linguistics students and has not been reviewed by experts. Please use it for reference only.
This module was created by Laura Bucheli, Benita Dietsche, Rachele Fiorenza & Raffael Studer