General Human Language Features

• Communication is a universal phenomenon involving interaction and transmission of information, with oral and sign language being different systems.
• Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used by a social group for cooperation.

General Human Language Features

• Vocal-Auditory Channel: Human language is primarily transmitted through speech (vocal) and received through hearing (auditory).
• Broadcast Transmission: Speech sounds radiate in all directions, enabling anyone nearby to hear.
• Directional Reception: Humans can identify a sound's origin and the speaker's location.
• Total Feedback: Speakers can hear and internally monitor their speech, allowing for real-time self-correction.

Properties of Language

• Discreteness: Language is composed of distinct, separate units that can be combined to create meaning.
• Transitoriness: Also known as Rapid fading, spoken language signals are ephemeral and quickly dissipate once produced.
• Interchangeability: Speakers and listeners can switch roles freely during communication.
• Productivity: Language users can create and understand an infinite number of novel utterances.
• Arbitrariness: There is a lack of inherent connection between a word's form and its meaning.
• Duality of Patterning: Language works on two levels: a small set of basic sounds without meaning can be combined to form meaningful words and sentences.
• Semanticity: Each linguistic element conveys a particular concept, object, or idea.
• Displacement: Language allows communication about things not immediately present, like past events or future scenarios.
• Cultural Transmission: Language is learned and passed on through social interaction rather than biological inheritance.
• Reflexivity: Language can refer to and describe itself.

Linguistics

• Linguistics is the study of language, its properties, and specific language characteristics.
• Semantics: The area of linguistics focused on meaning.
• Pragmatics: The area of linguistics that puts meaning into context.
• Sociolinguistics: The social element of language and its role in identity.
• Psycholinguistics: Focuses on where and how language happens
• Computational Linguistics: Focuses on how to use computers to understanding human language
• Historical Linguistics: Focuses on the study of how languages change over time
• Morphosyntax (Grammar): Focuses on word and sentence construction, combining morphology and syntax.

Phonetics

• Phonetics is the study of the production and perception of speech sounds
• It is the systematic study of how humans make and hear sounds using vocal organs, especially for oral language.
• It provides a system for objectively describing and recording language sounds.

Production of Speech Sounds

• The articulatory system and its functions, and the description of the sounds.
• Segments: Pieces that compose a continuous sound.
• Phonemes and Symbols: Abstract units serving as the basis of speech, represented in written form.

Areas of Study in Phonetics

• Articulatory Phonetics: How language is physically produced by the vocal apparatus.
• Acoustic Phonetics: How speech manipulates sound waves.
• Auditory Phonetics: The hearing of speech sounds and speech perception.

Phonology

• The study of how languages treat speech sounds.
• The formal study of the sound systems (phonologies) of languages.
• The ways in which languages use sounds to distinguish words from each other.

Objects of Study in Phonology

• Allophones: Different realizations of phonemes.
• Syllables: Units with a center having little or no obstruction to airflow.
• Suprasegmentals: Stress, loudness, tone, intonation, pitch, length, and juncture patterns.
• Connected Speech: Natural speech flow.
• Accent and Dialects: Different ways of pronouncing or structuring a language.
• Study of Phonemic System: Phonological representations (allophones).
• Phoneme Sequences and Syllable Structures: Restrictions and regularities in a language.
• Suprasegmental Phonology: Prosodic features, stress, and accent intonation.
• Aspects of Connected Speech: Phenomena in natural speech.
• Varieties of English Pronunciation: Accents and dialects.

Speech Chain

• Production → Comprehension → Response

Speech Sounds

• Also known as segments, are individual sounds that make up spoken language and they are the smallest discrete units of speech.
• Consonants: Production involves some obstruction of the airflow (voiceless).
• Vowels: Sounds allow airflow with little or no obstruction (voiced).

Mechanisms of Speech Production

• Airstream: The initiation of speech sounds.
• Phonation: Air passes through the larynx, with vocal cords controlling the phonation process.
• Resonance: Air can pass through the oral or nasal cavity (resonators) after the larynx.
• Articulation: The process of distinguishing speech sounds in the mouth.
• Initiator: Pulmonic (Lungs, chest muscles, and trachea), glottalic (Larynx by closing the vocal folds), and velaric (oral cavity uses suction).
• Phonation: Vibration of vocal folds produces a voiced sound (closed), while no vibration produces a voiceless sound (open).
• Resonance: Air flows through the oral or nasal cavity, changing the quality or voice color.
• Articulation: The process to distinguish the speech sounds, as it occurs in the mouth.

What’s a Phoneme?

• The smallest unit of sound in a language that can change the meaning of a word.

Type of Sounds

• Vocalic
• Monophthongs: Pure vowels with a single vowel sound (13 sounds). Production lets air flow without obstruction.
• Diphthongs: Two vowels in the same syllable (8 sounds).
• Triphthongs: Three vowels together produced rapidly (5 sounds).

Details of Articulation

• Rounded vs Spread Lips

Class 7

• 26 letters in the alphabet.
• 5 vowel letters (-AEIOU)
• 21 consonant letters (-BCDFGHIJKLMNPQRSTWXYZ)
• More than 40 vowel and consonant sounds
  • 13 vowel sounds
  • 8 diphthong sounds
  • 24 consonant sounds
• The sound of letters does not always match the spelling
• Allograph: One sound may have different spelling
• Homophones: Two words may have the same pronunciation but different spelling

Phonetic Transcription

• Method of representing the spoken sounds of a language
• Every speech sound must be identified as one of the phonemes
• It is written with the appropriate symbol

Description of Vowel Sounds

• Tongue Backness:
  • Front vowels: The front part of the tongue is raised
  • Central vowels: The body of the tongue is raised towards the palate
  • Back vowels: The back part of the tongue is raised
• Tongue Height:
  • Open vowels: The lower jaw is down; the tongue is down.
  • Close vowels: The lower jaw is up, the tongue is up

The lips

• Rounded lips: The corners of the lips are brought towards each other and the lips pushed forwards.
• Neutral lips: The lips are not noticeably rounded or spread.
• Spread lips: The corners of the lips moved away from each other, as for a smile.

Class 8

• Short and long vowel sounds
• • Spoken English contains 6 short vowel sounds
• • A short vowel has a quick sound
• Long vowels often occur in stressed syllables of the word

Class 9 - Minimal Pairs

• Are paris of sounds that differ in only one sound in the same position where this changes the meaning of the word

Accent

• How words are emphasized in the language
• It includes differences in vowel and consonant sounds, intonation, rhythm, and stress
• Does not affect grammar or vocabulary

Dialects

• A variety of languages that includes differences in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.
• Speakers of different dialects may use unique words, expressions, and sentences structures