Theoretical Phonetics of the English Language

Transcription features in English phonetics

The Phonological Analysis of English Speech Sounds

• The phoneme, its definition, aspects and functions.
• The phoneme theory.
• Methods of phonological analysis.
• Modifications of phonemes in speech.
• Sound interchange.
• Types of transcription.

The Phonological Analysis of English Speech Sounds

• Speech sounds are studied both by phonetics and phonology, but phonetics studies them as articulatory and acoustic units whereas phonology studies them as functional units which serve people for communicative purposes.

The Phonological Analysis of English Speech Sounds

• In connected speech a sound is generally modified (видоизменять, трансформировать)
• 1) by the neighbouring sounds;
• 2) by its position in a word or a phrase;
• 3) by prosodic features: stress, melody, the tempo of speech

The phoneme, its definition, aspects and functions

/pil/ - /spil/ - /slip/ - /´slipə/

pill – spill – slip – slipper

The various /p/-sounds differ in the manner of articulation and the acoustic qualities. But they do not differ phonologically. If one of them is substituted for another, the meaning of the word will not change.

The Phonological Analysis of English Speech Sounds

pill – bill

/p/ /b/

pill – mill

/p/ /m/

The substitution of one sound for the other will change the meaning of the word and effect communication.

The phoneme, its definition, aspects and functions

• That’s why /p/ and /b/ are different elements of the English phonetic system, they are different phonemes.
• And the various /p/-sounds in the words pill – spill – slip – slipper are positional variants or allophones of the phoneme /p/.