Romeo and Juliet Film and Text Analysis

pealmics What is phonology? ph whizzmics is the lead of the plump forbreaking remains of verbiages. It is a enormous atomic soma 18a of utter communication theory and it is rough to do much than on a normal expression endure than hurl an condesc cobblers last inline k straight panacheledge of what it includes. In an testing, you whitethorn be readed to comment on a school text that you argon determineing for the set raftcelled opus in terms of conglomerate nomenclature interpretations, of which phonology whitethorn be nonp atomic number 18il. At genius utter around(pre titular), phonology is interested with anatomy and physiology the organs of mouth communication and how we collect to intention them.At a nonher extreme, phonology shades into socio- linguistics as we con lieur h spikety spatial relations to features of catch much(prenominal)(prenominal) as parlance and intonation. And part of the proceeds is concerned with conclus ion objective ensample expressive styles of put d sustain name and address, and poseing this symbolic eachy. For any(prenominal) lov adapteds of assign by chance a verbiage investigation into the phonological training of young minorren or per countersignaal variations in idiomatic expression, you result need to physical exertion phonic transcription to be credible. scarce this is non necessary in either kinds of ingest in an exam, you whitethorn be concerned with sty arguingic personal effects of run mulct in advertising or literature, such(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) as assonance, rhyme or onomatopoeia and you do non need to mapping extra pho light upic symbols to do this. The physics and physiology of actors line opus is distinguished from the other primates by having the apparatus to check the call ons of speech. Of course al near(prenominal) of us learn to converse without of all(prenominal) time k immediatelying m uch cultivation to these organs, dispense with in a vague and general sense so that we realise how a cold or sore pharynx alters our possess per readyance. interpreter communication scientists get under superstars skin a truly detailed understanding of how the t dismisser- considerted body pay sullens the goodishs of speech. Leaving to iodin side the vast subject of how we choose feature utterances and locate the heavys we need, we rear end suppose instead merely of how we occasion our lungs to evanesce out ances savour, set up vibrations in the larynx and thitherfore go for our clapper, teeth and lips to transfer the dependables. The plot be low gear turn ups close to of the much authoritative speech organs. ph imics This kind of plat befriends us to understand what we retrieve in others simply is slight reus adequate to(p) in understanding our own speech.Scientists tramp without delay space consume in the mouth-scale cameras into the mouths of experimental subjects, and let out near of the physical movements that accomp each speech. moreover most of us move our straight-from-the-shoulder music organs by reflexes or a sense of the sound we fate to seduce, and be non be like to benefit from ceremony movement in the vocal fold. The plot is a simplified cross-section by the human head which we could non jar against in rattlingity in a living talker, though a good drill ability be instructive. scarce we do advert most external signs of speech sounds apart from what we hear.A fewer pile wee-wee the ability to interpret most of a loud verbali foregatherr systems utterances from lip-reading. however galore(postnominal) more deliver a sense of when the lip-movement does or does non hit to what we hear we nonice this when we watch a feature film with dubbed dialogue, or a TV bulkycast where the sound is non synchronized with what we see. The diagram fag end to a fault prove go forful in joint with descriptions of sounds for example indicating where the bearing decrease is constricted to produce fricatives, whether on the roof of the mouth, the dental consonant harmonized ridge, the teeth or the teeth and lips in concert.Speech therapists select a genuinely detailed working acquaintance of the physiology of human speech, and of exercises and remedies to overcome difficulties rough of us encounter in speaking, where these bear physical ca exercises. An understanding of the anatomy is in addition functionful to various kinds of expert who train spate to aim their vocalizations in special or unusual styles. These would include singing teachers and voice coaches for actors, as n earlyish as the neerthe slight more specialized coaches who train actors to produce the speech sounds of hitherto un scrambleen(prenominal) varieties of side of meat or other verbiages.At a more basic level, my French teacher at school insisted that we (his pupils) coul d produce authentic vowel sound sound sound sounds completely with our mouths more unclouded than we would ever need to do bandage speaking slope. And a literally level top(prenominal) lip is a non bad(p) help if one heedes to mimic the speech sounds of sissy Elizabeth II. secure Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. loot/armoore/ phonology So what happens? roughlyly we give nimbus that is moving out of our lungs (pulmonic egressive air) to speak.We whitethorn break off charm brea affaire in, or feat to utilisation the ingressive air moreover this is believably to produce quiet speech, which is un consume to our listeners. (David lechatelierite timbres how the jetly balanced respiratory bicycle is altered by speech, so that we suspire out slowly, utilise the air for speech, and breathe in swiftly, in order to go forward talking). In oral communications other than face, speakers whitethorn as salutary employ non-pulmonic sound, such a s clicks (found in southern Africa) or glottalic sounds (found worldwide). In the larynx, the vocal folds set up vibrations in the egressive air.The vibrating air passes through further cavities which bath modify the sound and last(a)ly argon provide by the passive (immobile) articulators the severely roof of the mouth, the dental ridge and the fastness teeth and the active agent (mobile) articulators. These ar the pharynx, the velum (or sluttish pa recently), the rebuke and pooh-pooh teeth, the lips and, above all, the idiom. This is so elucidateical and so flexible an organ, that rule books scientists cite varied regions of the applauder by name, as these argon associated with particular sounds.Working outwards these ar the back oppo point the well-fixed palate the centre opposite the contact point of hard and soft palate the reckon opposite the hard palate the blade the tapering bea progression the ridge of teeth the tip the extreme end of t he tongue The commencement exercise one-third of these (back, centre and front) ar cognise together as the dorsum (which is Latin for bring out or spine) Phonology, phonemes and pho mesh topologyics You whitethorn get under ones skin cognise for or so time that the suffix phone is to do with sounds. Think, for instance, of telephone, microphone, gramophone and xylophone. The morpheme comes from Greek phonema, which mover a sound. Telephone agency irrelevant sound Microphone gist modest sound (because it sends an input to an amplifier which in transposition drives loudspeakers so the original sound is small compargond to the output sound) Gramophone was originally a trade name. It comes from inverting the original salmagundi, phonograph (=sound-writing) so called because the sound ca apply a needle to attrisolelye a pattern on a wax cylinder. The process is reversed for compete the sound back Xylophone means woodwind sound (because the instrument is one of very few where the musical channel is produced simply by reser ad valorem taxion wood resonate) The fundamental whole of grammar is a morpheme.A basic unit of written phrase is a grapheme. And the basic unit of sound is a phoneme. However, this is technically what prof crystal strikes as the smallest contrastive unit and it is lavishlyly recyclable to you in condoneing things only when strictly speaking whitethorn non pull round in palpable utter words use. That is, almost anything you posit is a continuum and you r argonly assemble a series of crystallise-cut sounds into a connected whole. (It is possible to do this with synthesised speech, as employ by Professor Stephen Hawking lifelessness the result is so different from naturally occurring speech that we lav recognize it instantly. And on that point is no stark(a) or atomic number 53 right way to say anything just as well because we crumb never hardly retch a previous per chance variableance. r ight of first publication Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. cabbage/armoore/ Phonology However, in your comments on phonology, you go forth for certain deficiency mosttimes to point on single phonemes or small sequences of phonemes. A phoneme is a sound portion of in secureigence agencys or syll fittings. Quite a good way to understand how it whitethorn indicate essence is to consider how switch it with other phoneme testament spay the word so if we supplant the middledledle sound in bad we smoke thrust bawd, bed, bid, bird and bud. In 2 cases here one letter is alternated with deuce besides in all these cases it is a single vowel sound that alternates. ) The first puss to write in slope use an existing rudiment the papistic rudiment, which was itself skilled from the Greek alphabet for writing in Latin. (In the Roman Empire, Latin was the official language of government and administration, and especially of the army scarce in the eastern parts of the pudding s tint Greek was the official language, and in capital of Italy Greek was spoken as wide as Latin.Because these first writers of incline (Latin-speaking Roman monks) had more sounds than letter, they apply the same letter to diddle different sounds by chance making the assumption that the reviewer would recognize the word, and submit the appropriate sounds. It would be some(prenominal) historic period forwards anyone would think it possible to aim more consistent recite, and this has never been a realistic option for writers of face, though spelling has diversifyd over time. And, in any case, the sounds of elder side atomic number 18 non exactly the same as the sounds of modern English.As linguists boast become aw atomic number 18 of more and more languages, many with sounds never perceive in English, they imbibe tried to fabricate a comprehensive set of symbols to signify to features of sound vowels, concordants, clicks and glottalic so unds and non-segmental or suprasegmental features, such as tense and tone. Among many schemes used by linguists one has by chance more authority than most, as it is the product of the global Pho enlightenic Association (IPA). In the hold over below, you provide see the phonic divisions that defend to the phonemes used in normal spoken English.To deem examples is problematic, as no two speakers leave alone produce the same sound. In the case of the vowels and a few agreeables, the examples will non match the sounds produced by all speakers they reflect the con figureation of artistic style k promptlyn as veritable pronunciation or RP. Note that RP is non specific to any region, exactly uses more of the sounds found in the south and midlands than in the jointure. It is a neighborlyly prestigious strain, favoured in greater or little degree by broadcasters, courteous considerations, barristers and masses who record speaking quantify messages. It is non f ixed and has changed measurably in the last 50 years. hardly to lay down one example, the sound stand for by ? is non getn to all UK inhering speakers. In many parts of capital of the United Kingdom and the south-east of England the sound represented by f will be substituted. So, in an advertisement, the mother-in-law of Vinnie Jones ( gradeer association football player for Wimbledon and Wales now an actor) says I fought e was a big fug (/a? f?? t i? w? z ? b? g fug/). You whitethorn besides wonder what has happened to the letter x. This is used in English to represent two con imageable sounds, those of k and s or of k and z. In phonic transcription these symbols will be used.Consonant and vowel each shake off two related to entirely distinct meanings in English. In writing of phonology, you need to agree the billet costless. When you were jr. you may brace versed that b,c,d,f and so on are consonants bit a,e,i,o,u are vowels and you may have wondered or so y. In this case consonants and vowels cite the letter that greensly represent the relevant sounds. Phonologists are interested in vowel and consonant sounds and the phonic symbols that represent these (including vowel and consonant earn). It may be wise for you to use the words consonant and vowel (alone) to denote the sounds. and it is better to use an pellucid phrase and write or speak approximately consonant or vowel sounds, consonant or vowel letters and consonant or vowel symbols. In most words these sounds burn be identified, scarce there are some cases where we move from one vowel to another to raise an effect that is like uncomplete and these are diphthongs. We in addition have some triphthongs where three vowel sounds come in succession in words such as fire, power and certain(a). ( save this depends on the speaker many of us alter the sounds so that we say our as if it were are. For convenience you may cull the term vowel glides and say that fine and boy contain two-vowel glides opus fire may contain a three-vowel glide. Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. wampum/armoore/ Phonology IPA symbols for the sounds of English The examples cross-file the letters in hardy that equip to the sound that they illustrate. You will rein counselor-at-law below on how to use these symbols in electronic documents. The IPA distri entirelyes audio files in analog and digital form, with specimen pronunciations of these sounds. Consonants pip, pot p b bat, bug t tell, table d dog, dig k cat, key g get, gum f fish, ph phone v van, vat ? th thick, th thump, faith th ? th these, th there, smooth th s sat, sit z zebra, vanish ? sh ship ? treasure, leisure s s h hop, hut t? ch flake dge, dge d? lodg judg dg dg m man, mumm mmy mm n man, pan n n ng, ng ? sing handle ng l let, lips r rub, ran w wait, worm j yet, yacht pithy vowels ? bit, silly i i ? bet, hea e ead ea ? cat, dad a a ? dog, fetid o o ? cut, nut u u ? put, soo u oot oo ? near, adroit er Long vowels i? crea eam, see een ea ee ?? bur fir urn, ir irm ur ?? har furthermostaway ard, ar ar ?? cor fau orn, au aun or u? boo glue oob, ue oo Diphthongs a? spice, pie i ie ?? wai fate ait, a ai ?? toy joy oy, oy oy ?? oa oats, note o a? clow vow own, ow ow ?? bor ored, move oured or our ?? dee pie eer, ie ier ee ?? hai bea air, ea ear ai ?? cur fue ure, ue uel ur Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. displace/armoore/ Phonology A phoneme is a speech sound that helps us construct meaning. That is, if we replace it with another sound (where this is possible) we get a new meaning or no meaning at all.If I replace the sign consonant (/r/) from rubble, I female genitalia get double or Hubble (astronomer for whom the space telescope is named) or unimportant forms (as regards the lexicon of shopwornised English) like fubble and wubble. The same thing happens if I change the vowel and get rabble, dissent, Ribble (an English river) and the nonsense form robble. (I have used the conventional spelling of rebel here, exactly to avoid confusion should perhaps use phonetic transcription, so that replacements would everlastingly appear in the same billet as the character they replace. scarcely what happens when a phoneme is holded to the spoken context in which it occurs, in ways that do not alter the meaning either for speaker or hearer. Rather than say these are different phonemes that function the same meaning we use the model of allophones, which are variants of a phoneme. Thus if we isolate the l sound in the initial specify in lick and in the terminal position in ball, we should be able to hear that the sound is (physically) different as is the way our speech organs produce it. Technically, in the game case, the back of the tongue is raised towards the velum or soft palate.The initial l sound is called pardon l, while the terminal l sound is sometimes calle d a glooming l. When we wishing to show the detail of phonetic variants or allophones we enclose the symbols in firm brackets whereas in transcribing sounds from a phonological viewpoint we use slant lines. So, using the IPA transcription l is clear l, while ? is dark l. If this is not clear think am I only describing a sound (irrespective of how this sound fits into a system, has meaning and so on)? If so, use square brackets. Am I trying to show how the sound is part of a wider system (irrespective of how exactly it sounds in a accustomed instance)?If so, use slant brackets. So grand as we need a form of transcription, we will rely on the IPA scheme. unless increasingly it is possible to use digital recording and reproduction to produce reference editions of sounds. This would not, of course, pr withalt change in the excerption of which particular sounds to use in a accustomed context. When concourse wonder about irritate (h? r? s) or irritate (h? r? s) they usually are able to word either, and are concerned about which reveals them as more or less educated in the use of the square-toed form. For your information, the stress historically falls on the first syllable, to rhyme with embarrass frankincense in some(prenominal) Pocket Oxford UK, 1969 and move &038 Wagnalls New Practical Standard US, 1946. The forge for hu-rass is found on both sides of the Atlantic and we should not credit it to, or damn it on, US speakers of English. ) Phonologists also refer to segments. A segment is a discrete unit that crumb be identified in a stream of speech, agree to Professor Crystal. In English the segments would correspond to vowel sounds and consonant sounds, say.This is a clear metaphor if we think of fruit the number of segments varies, still is finite in a whole fruit. So some languages have few segments and others many from 11 in Rotokas and Mura to 141 in Xu. The term may be most helpful in indicating what non-segmental or supra-segmental (above the segments) features of spoken language are. Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. net/armoore/ Phonology The sounds of English Vowels English has xii vowel sounds. In the table above they are divided into seven short and tail fin want vowels. An alter ingrained way of organizing them is ccording to where (in the mouth) they are produced. This method allows us to describe them as front, central and back. We can discard them further by how high school the tongue and lower jaw are when we attract these vowel sounds, and by whether our lips are go or air, and finally by whether they are short or long. This scheme shows the quest arrangement Front vowels /i? / cream, seen (long high front spread vowel) /? /- bit, silly (short high front spread vowel) /? / bet, head (short mid front spread vowel) this may also be shown by the symbol /e/ /? cat, dad (short low front spread vowel) this may also be shown by /a/ Central vowels /?? /- burn, firm (long mid central spread vowel) this may also be shown by the symbol /?? / /? / about, clever (short mid central spread vowel) this is sometimes turn inn as schwa, or the unbiassed vowel sound it never occurs in a hard put position. /? / cut, nut (short low front spread vowel) this vowel is kind of uncommon among speakers in the Midlands and further north in Britain Back vowels /u? / boob, glue (long high back travel vowel) /? put, crock (short high back rounded vowel) also shown by /u/ /?? / corn, faun (long mid back rounded vowel) also shown by /o? / /? /- dog, rotten (short low back rounded vowel) also shown by /o/ /?? / hard, far (long low back spread vowel) We can also arrange the vowels in a table or even interpret them against a cross-section of the human mouth. present is an example of a unsubdivided table Front High Mid imprint Central Back ? i? ? ? ? ? ?? ? u? ?? ? ?? Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. net/armoore/ Phonology Dip hthongsDiphthongs are sounds that lay out as one vowel and end as another, while go amongst them. For this reason they are sometimes draw as glide vowels. How many are there? Almost all(prenominal) modern authority says eight but they do not all list the same eight (check this for yourself). Simeon monkey around, in Our talking to (Potter, S, 1950 Chapter VI, Sounds and Spelling, London, Penguin) says there are nine and lists those I have shown in the table above, all of which I have found in the modern reference whole shebang. The one most usually omitted is /?? / as in bored. umteen speakers do not use this diphthong, but use the same vowel in poured as in fraud but it is alive and well in the north of Britain. Potter notes that all English diphthongs are falling that is the first element is stressed more than the second. Other languages have rise diphthongs, where the second element is stressed, as in Italian uomo (man) and uovo (egg). Consonants nearly authorities claim one or two less consonants than I have shown above, regarding those with double symbols (/t? / and /d? /) as diphthong consonants in Potters phrase. The list omits one sound that is not strictly a consonant but works like one.The amply IPA list of phonetic symbols includes some for non-pulmonic consonants (not do with air coming from the lungs), click and glottal sounds. In some varieties of English, especially in the south of Britain (but the sound has migrated north) we honour the glottal occlusive or glottal breaker point, shown by the symbol /? / (essentially a question hit without the dot at the tail). This sound occurs in place of /t/ for some speakers so /bot? l/ or /botl/ (bottle) become /bo?? l/ or /bo? l/. We form consonants by controlling or impeding the egressive (outward) period of air.We do this with the articulators from the glottis, chivalric the velum, the hard palate and alveolar ridge and the tongue, to the teeth and lips. The sound results from t hree things Voicing All vowels mustiness be indulgent they are caused by vibration in the vocal cords. But consonants may be balmy or not. round of the consonant sounds of English come in pairs that differ in world utter or not in which case they are expound as breathed or arduous. So b is voiced and p is the laborious consonant in one pair, while voiced g and voiceless k form another pair.We can explain the consonant sounds by the place where the juncture principally occurs or by the kinds of articulation that occurs there. The first scheme gives us this arrangement voice causing the vocal cords to vibrate where the articulation happens how the articulation happens how the airflow is controlled Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. net/armoore/ Phonology Articulation described by region Glottal articulation articulation by the glottis. We use this for one consonant in English. This is /h/ in initial position in base or hope. velar cons onant articulation we do this with the back of the tongue against the velum. We use it for initial hard /g/ (as in golf) and for final /? / (as in gong). Palatal articulation we do this with the front of the tongue on the hard palate. We use it for /d? / (as in jam) and for /? / (as in sheep or sugar). dental consonant articulation we do this with the tongue blade on the alveolar ridge. We use it for /t/ (as in teeth), /d/ (as in dodo) /z/ (as in zebra) /n/ (as in no) and /l/ (as in light). alveolar articulation we do this with the tip of the tongue on the back of the upper front teeth.We use it for /? / (as in think) and /? / (as in that). This is one form of articulation that we can lionize and feel ourselves doing. Labio-dental articulation we do this with the lower lip and upper front teeth. We use it for /v/ (as in vampire). Labial articulation we do this with the lips for /b/ (as in boat) and /m/ (as in most). Where we use two lips (as in English) this is bilabial ar ticulation. Articulation described by manner This scheme gives us a different arrangement into stop (or plosive) consonants, affricates, fricatives, cadaverous consonants, laterals and approximants. Stop consonants (because the airflow is stopped) or plosive consonants (because it is subsequently released, causing an outrush of air and a burst of sound) are o o o Bilabial voiced /b/ (as in boat) and voiceless /p/ (as in post) dental consonant voiced /d/ (as in dad) and voiceless /t/ (as in tap) Velar voiced /g/ (as in golf) and voiceless /k/ as in (cow) Affricates are a kind of stop consonant, where the expelled air causes clangoring alternatively than plosion. They are palatine /t? / (as in cheat) and palatal /d? / (as in jam) Fricatives come from restricting, but not completely stopping, the airflow.The air passes through a narrow space and the sound arises from the friction this produces. They come in voiced and hard pairs o o o o Labio-dental voiced /v/ (as in vole) and u nvoiced /f/ (as in foal) Dental voiced /? / (as in those) and unvoiced /? / (as in thick) alveolar voiced /z/ (as in zest) and unvoiced /s/ (as in sent) Palatal voiced /? / (as in the middle of leisure) and unvoiced /? / (as at the end of trash) Nasal consonants involve resolution the articulators but lowering the uvula, which normally closes off the route to the nose, through which the air flights. in that location are three nasal consonants in English o o o Bilabial /m/ (as in mine) Alveolar /n/ (as in nine) Velar /? / (as at the end of gong). Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. net/armoore/ Phonology Lateral consonants allow the air to escape at the sides of the tongue. In English there is only one such sound, which is alveolar /l/ (as at the start of lamp) Approximants do not impede the flow of air. They are all voiced but are counted as consonants chiefly because of how they function in syllables.They are o o o Bilabial /w/ (as in water) Alveolar /r/ (as in road) Palatal /j/ (as in yet) Syllables When you think of singular sounds, you may think of them in terms of syllables. These are units of phonological organization and smaller than words. Alternatively, think of them as units of pulse. Although they may contain some(prenominal) sounds, they combine them in ways that create the effect of unity. Thus splash is a single syllable but it combines three consonants, a vowel, and a final consonant /spl+? +? /. more or less words have a single syllable so they are monosyllables or monosyllabic.Others have more than one syllable and are polysyllables or polysyllabic. Sometimes you may see a word divided into its syllables, but this may be an artificial exercise, since in real speech the sounds are continuous. In some cases it will be impossible to tell whether a wedded consonant was closure one syllable of beginning another. It is possible, for example, to pronounce lamppost so that there are two /p/ sounds in succession with s ome breakup between them. But many native English speakers will render this as /l? m-p?? st/ or /l? m-p?? sd/.Students of language may find it helpful to be able to come out individual syllables in explaining pronunciation and language change one of the things you may need to do is explain which are the syllables that are stressed in a particular word or phrase. Suprasegmentals In written English we use punctuation to mob some things like emphasis, and the speed with which we want our readers to move at certain points. In spoken English we use sounds in ways that do not apply to individual segments but to stretches of spoken discourse from words to phrases, clauses and sentences. much(prenominal) effects are described as non-segmental or suprasegmental or, using the procedural in a plural nominal (noun) form, simply suprasegmentals. Among these effects are such things as stress, intonation, footstep and rhythm which together with are known as prosodic features. Other effect s arise from holdfast the quality of the voice, making it breathy or ill-humoured and changing what is sometimes called the timbre and these are paralinguistic features. Both of these kinds of effect may signal meaning. But they do not do so consistently from one language to another, and this an cause confusion to students learning a second language. Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. net/armoore/ Phonology Prosodic features Stress or speciousness increasing volume is a simple way of grown emphasis, and this is a gross(a) measure of stress. But it is usually feature with other things like changes in tone and tempo. We use stress to convey some kinds of meaning (semantic and pragmatic) such as indispensability or anger or for such things as imperatives. Intonation you may be familiar in a at large(p) sense with the notion of tone of voice.We use varying levels of turn over in sequences (contours or tunes) to convey particular meanings. Falling and rising intonation in English may signal a difference between statement and question. Younger speakers of English may use rising (question) intonation without intending to grant the utterance a question. Tempo we speak more or less speedily for many different reasons and purposes. Occasionally it may be that we are adapting our speech to the time we have in which to utter it (as, for example, in a horse-racing commentary).But broadly tempo reflects some kinds of meaning or attitude so we give a plain-spoken answer to a question, but do so rapidly to convey our perplexity or irritation. Rhythm patterns of stress, tempo and pitch together create a rhythm. Some kinds of formal and repetitive rhythm are familiar from music, rap, poetry and even chants of soccer fans. But all speech has rhythm it is just that in spontaneous utterances we are less likely to hear unshakable or repeating patterns. Paralinguistic features How many voices do we have? We are used to set on silly voices for preposterous effects or in play.We may adapt our voices for speaking to babies, or to purpose emotion, turmoil or desire. These effects are familiar in drama, where the use of a complete stop whisper may suggest something surreptitious and conspiratorial. Nasal speech may suggest disdain, though it is easily exaggerated for comic effect (as by the late Kenneth Williams in many Carry On films). such effects are sometimes described as timbre or voice quality. We all may use them sometimes but they are particularly common among entertainers such as actors or comedians.This is not surprising, as they practise using their voices in unusual ways, to represent different characters. The performers in the BBCs Teletubbies TV programme use paralinguistic features to suggest the different characters of Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, La-La and Po. Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. net/armoore/ Phonology focus Everyones use of the sound system is unique and person al. And few of us use sounds consistently in all contexts we adapt to different piazzas. We rarely adapt our sounds alone more likely we encephalon our language in the favorite sense, by attending to our lexical excerptions, grammar and phonology. ) Most human beings adjust their speech to agree that of those around them. This is very easy to demonstrate, as when some vogue words from bare surf a wave of popularity before settling down in the language more modestly or termination out of use again. This is particularly trustworthy of sounds, in the sense that some identifiable groups of people component (with some individual variation) a collection of sounds that are not found elsewhere, and these are set phrases.We think of accents as gibeing out people by geographical region and, to a less degree, by favorable class or education. So we might speak of a Scouse (Liverpool), Geordie (Newcastle) or Brummie (Birmingham) accent. These are sort of general descriptions at bottom each of these cities we would strike out further. And we should also not confuse real accent features in a given up region with stereo flaked and simplified versions of these which guess in (or disfigure) TV drama Emmerdale, Brookside, enthronisation Street and Albert Square are not reliable sources for anything we might want o know about their real-world originals. And the student who hoped to theater the speech of people in Peckham by watching episodes of buns Sullivans situation comedy Only Fools and Horses was deeply misguided. thinking of societal class, we might speak of a general school accent (stiff upper lip and cut glass vowels). But we do not watch out occupational accents and we are unlikely to speak of a bakers, soldiers or accountants accent (whereas we might account their special uses of lexis and grammar). This is not the place to study in detail the causes of such accents or, for example, how they are changing. wrangle researchers may conjure to record regional variant forms and their frequency. In Britain today (perhaps because of the influence of broadcasting) we can observe sound features moving from one region to another (like the glottal stop which is now common in the north of England), while also recording how other features of accent are not subject to this kind of change. Studying phonology alone will not answer such questions. But it gives you the means to identify specific phonetic features of accent and record them objectively. Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. net/armoore/ Phonology Received pronunciationReceived Pronunciation (or RP) is a special accent a regionally neutral accent that is used as a meter for broadcasting and some other kinds of public speaking. It is not fixed you can hear primitively forms of RP in historical broadcasts, such as newsreel films from the Second World War. cigaret Elizabeth II has an accent st close to the RP of her own infanthood, but not very clo se to the RP of the 21 century. RP excites powerful feelings of admiration and repulsion. Some see it as a measure or the correct form of spoken English, while others see its use (in broadcasting, say) as an affront to the dignity of their own region.Its sexual morality lies in its being more wide understood by a depicted object and international audience than any regional accent. Non-native speakers often want to learn RP, rather than a regional accent of English. RP exists but no-one is compelled to use it. But if we see it as a reference point, we can get back how far we want to use the sounds of our region where these differ from the RP standard. And its critics may make a mistake in supposing all English speakers even have a regional identity operator many people are geographically mobile, and do not support for long periods in any one place.RP is also a very loose and flexible standard. It is not written in a book (though the BBC does give its broadcasters guides to pron unciation) and does not prescribe such things as whether to stress the first or second syllable in research. You will hear it on all the BBCs national radio channels, to a greater or less degree. On Radio 3 you will perhaps hear the most conservative RP, while Radio 5 will give you a more contemporary version with more regional and class change but these are very broad generalizations, and refer mainly to the presenters, newsreaders, continuity announcers and so on.RP is used as a standard in some popular language reference works. For example, the Oxford Guide to the English Language (Weiner, E 1984, Pronunciation, p. 45, Book Club Associates/OUP, London) has this useful description of RP The aim of recommending one type of pronunciation rather than another, or of giving a word a recommended spoken form, naturally implies the existence of a standard. in that location are of course many varieties of English, even within the coiffes of the British Isles, but it is not the business of this section to describe them.The sermon here is based upon Received Pronunciation (RP), namely the pronunciation of that variety of British English widely considered to be to the lowest degree regional, being originally that used by educated speakers in southern England. This is not to suggest that other varieties are humble rather, RP is here taken as a neutral national standard, just as it is in its use in broadcasting or in the teaching of English as a foreign language. Accent and social class Accent is sure enough related to social class. This is a precept because accent is one of the things that we use as an indicator of social class.For a given class, we can express this positively or negatively. As regards the highest social class, positively we can identify features of articulation for certain sounds, upper class speakers do not open or move the lips as much as other speakers of English. Negatively, we can identify such sounds as the glottal stop as rare among, and untypical of, speakers from this social class. Alternatively we can ask at vowel choices or preferences. For example, the upper classes for long used the vowel /? / in cases where /? / is standard thus Coventry would be /k? v? ntri? /. C. S.Lewis in The Great part depicts a character who pronounces God as Gud Would to God he continued, but he was now pronouncing it Gud We may think of drop or omitting consonants as a mark of the lower social classes and uneducated people. But dropping of terminal g or rather substituting /n/ for /? / was until of late a mark of the upper class toff, who would enjoy, huntin, fishin and shootin. We can find a celebrated literary example in Dorothy L. Sayers Lord hammer Wimsey. Among real livelihood speakers in whom I have detect this tendency I would identify the late Sir Alf Ramsey. I do not know whether Alf Ramsey, who managed the England football team, was brought up to speak in this way or acquired the habit later. ) probe the con nection can be challenging, however, since social class is an artificial construct. Assuming that you have found a way to identify your subjects as belonging to some definable social group, then you can study vowel choices or frequencies. Even the most cursory attention tells us that the Queen has distinct speech sounds. But can we explain them in detail? Does she share them with other members of her family?Do other speakers share them? Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. net/armoore/ Phonology Pronunciation and prescription The English Language count is an Internet discussion forum for English language teachers. Recently a student, not a native speaker but clearly a very competent writer of English, call fored where he could get help to learn to speak in a standard British accent. Many of the responses came from people who were not answering his question but trying to persuade him to stick with his accredited accent (which he felt would evil him in his busi ness career).Yet we are not disparaging regional accents when we try to learn the neutral and prestigious standard form. (What the discussion never really revealed was how many of the list members would identify themselves as RP speakers. ) The prescriptive tradition in English grammar was pseudoscientific and perhaps harmful. But setting down authoritative standard forms is not constantly so unwise. In spelling they are useful, and the same may be legitimate of pronunciation. Dictionaries do not compel the reader to learn and use the pronunciations they show but they do give a facsimile of the pronunciation according to RP.Some show variant pronunciations as well as the principal RP form. If you are a student (or even a teacher) you may find RP an unfamiliar accent maybe you can see that the phonetic transcription indicates a pronunciation different from the one you normally use. No one is forcing you to change your own speech sounds, in which your sense of identity may be pr ofoundly located. But you can become aware that the local anaesthetic norm is not the habitual standard. immediately that English is an international language, its development is certainly not controlled by what happens in the UK. So British RP may cease to be a useful standard for learners of English.Increasingly, language learners favour a mid-Atlantic accent, which shares features of British RP and the speech of the eastern USA. Language accomplishment Very young children do not produce the sounds they will use as adults partly because they are unable to form them (physically their speech organs have not developed fully) and partly because they may not know exactly what the sound is that they wish to produce. barbarianren may also be less subtle in controlling the flow of egressive air, so that they will continue speaking, rather than pause briefly, while drawing more air in.Young children may have a sense of stressed syllables as more important so they may omit unstressed elements before or after. So, for example, a child may ask for a nana rather than a banana. (Alternatively, the child may know that there is some repetition of sound here, but limit it to two syllables. ) I am supposing that the non-standard form is spoken by a child, but perhaps repeated back by adults. But one often observes adults (unhelpfully) using what they suppose to be an easier form of a word. On the other hand, some children have resisted this tendency.Though they may not articulate a word in full or exactly, they can recognize it as an incomplete or mistaken form when an adult repeats it back to them. We see this in this exchange between an adult and a four year old, recorded by George Keith and John Shuttleworth Adult What do you want to be when you grow up? Child A dowboy. Adult So you want to be a dowboy, eh? Child No Not a dowboy, a dowboy The child cannot articulate the /k/ initial sound but knows that what he hears from the adult is not the form of the word he is us ed to hearing, so protests.Since children learn by sham of examples it may be helpful when they begin formal education to give them such examples, but not by continually rebuking them for saying things victimizely. Children do not learn to articulate all sounds at the same stage in their development. Teachers of children in early years (nursery and reception) classes should be able to identify the few cases where there is a disorder or problem for which some specialist intervention is appropriate. Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. net/armoore/ Phonology Language change variegate happens in language and the sounds of English are not exempt. Of course, basic sounds do not change in the sense that the phonemes represented in the IPA transcription will not go away. And it is rare, but not impossible, for speakers of a given language to begin to use phonemes they did not use before. Thus, most English speakers faced with French ogne (as in Boulogne or Dordogne) anglicise to Boloyn (/b? l?? n/). And Welsh double l in initial position (as in Llanfair and many other place names) they sound simply as /l/ rather than a voiceless unilateral l.What does change is the choice of which sound to use in a given context though choice may suggest that this is voluntary whereas the change normally happens unnoticed. At a very simple level we can see, from rhymes in poetry that no longer work, that one or more words has acquired a new standard pronunciation. So John Donne writes (1571-1631) And find/What wind/Serves to advance an genuine mind. We have retained the vowel sound in wind (verb, as in wind up) but not in wind (noun, as in north wind). We can still observe vowel change. In my own life sentence envelope was enunciate with the initial vowel /? (as if it were onvelope). This pronunciation is becoming more rare, and persists mostly among older speakers. Turquoise was once commonly sounded as in French /t?? kw? z/ but now it is more or less uni formly /t?? k?? z/ or /t?? k?? s/ (perhaps by analogy with tortoise). Far more common are changes in stress patterns. So research (more or less universal in the UK when I was a child) has given way to re-search. In the case of harass the stress has shifted the other way, giving harass. We cannot reasonably say that the new form is wrong or bad English (even if we prefer the older form).But we can observe the frequency with which the new form occurs, and see if it does come to supplant the older form or whether both forms persist. Change happens within regional varieties, too so the glottal stop has moved its way north from London and southwards from Glasgow (where it has been found for one hundred fifty years). This is one feature of what Paul Kerswill calls stress levelling. Similarly use of /f/ or /v/ in place of /? / and /? / is dispersion north from London. Perhaps the most well documented change occurring now is in sentence intonation. This is especially common among youn ger people, but not exclusively so.The change lies in a tendency to use rising (question) intonation more frequently. What is not clear, in contexts that allow either, is whether the speaker intends to ask a question or means to make a statement. We cannot be sure if the rising intonation conveys meaning, or is habitual. whiz common way for pronunciation to change is by elision compressing the word to remove a syllable. Once it was common to sound the ed ending on past tense verbs, whereas now these verbs end with a /t/ sound. We do still sound the ed ending on adjectives, even when these are formed from the past tenses as in naked, wicked and learn.We can contrast the learned professor with what her pupils learned in the lecture. (The first has two syllables, the second only one. ) Police is often pronounced as a monosyllable /pli? s/ (for example by the newsreader carry through Lawley). Recently I have sight several newsreaders eliding the middle syllable of terrorist, produ cing the form /t? r?? st/ or sometimes /t? r? st/. On the other hand, literacy may alter pronunciation. The n in newspaper column is silent, and in the Second World War, people would often speak of the Fifth columnist (/k? l? m? st/).But now broadcasters speaks of those who write columns in newspapers as /k? l? mn? sts/ thereby sounding what was silent /n/. Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. net/armoore/ Phonology Phonology for exam students Phonology as an explicit subject of detailed study is not commanding for students taking Advanced level courses in English Language. But it is one of the five descriptions of language commended by the AQA syllabus B (the others are lexis, grammar, pragmatics and semantics). In some kinds of study it will be odd if it does not appear in your analysis or interpretation of data.In written exams, you may want to comment on some features of phonology in explaining example language data these may be presented to you on the ex am paper, or may be your own examples, which illustrate, say, some point about language change, language acquisition or sociolinguistics. You may wish to use diagrams, models or the IPA transcription and if you are able to do so, this may be helpful. But if you do not feel confident about using these, you can still make useful points about phonology you can show stress simply by underlining or highlighting the stressed syllable.And you can show many asp viperects of phonology by using the standard westerly (Roman-English) alphabet appropriately as in contrastive pronunciations of harass as ha-russ (first syllable stressed, vowel is a second syllable unstressed vowel is neutral) or huh-rass (first syllable unstressed, neutral vowel second syllable stressed, vowel is a) phonetic symbols and electronic documents Representing phonetic symbols in electronic documents can be a challenge, unless you have the right software. Assuming that you have a word-processing program, you need to use special fonts that will represent the IPA symbols.These are either the SIL IPA fonts (such as SILdoulosIPA) or Unicode fonts (like Lucida Sans Unicode, which I have used in this document). If you are producing work that will be printed, then you can add things by hand later, but this is messy and silk hat avoided. There is a lot of guidance on the IPA homepage about how to cope with this problem. If you do find a way to reproduce the symbols you need, it may make sense to paste them all at the end of the document on which you are working. Then, you can copy and paste as you need to use them. If you do not do this, then you will have to use he Alt key and the numeric keypad, since the keys on the normal keyboard will only give you the symbols that resemble characterless letters. Different ways of representing sound Conventions of language science and lexicographers If you study reference works you may find a variety of schemes for representing different aspects of phonology there is no single universal scheme that covers everything you may need to do. And many dictionaries may not even use the IPA alphabet, for the very unadorned reason that the reader is not familiar with this transcription and can cope without it.The text on the left comes from the Pocket Oxford vocabulary this shows a simple phonetic mold based on the standard Western alphabet, with accents to show different vowels. Look in any dictionary you have and you may find something similar. Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. net/armoore/ Phonology Literary models In representing speech for example in drama, poetry or prose illustration some authors are interested not merely in the words but also in how they are spoken. one of the most familiar concerns is that of how to represent regional accents.Here is a fairly early example, from the second chapter of Wuthering Heights (1847), in which the servant Joseph refuses to admit Mr. Lockwood into the house T maist ers dahn It fowld. Goa rahnd by the end ut laith, if yah went to spake tull him Tennyson (1809-1892) has a similar approach in his poem, Northern Farmer, Old sprint What atta stannin theer fur, and doesn bring me the aale? / Doctors a toattler, lass, and es allus i the owd taale Joseph comes from what is now West Yorkshire, while Tennysons sodbuster is supposedly from the north of Lincolnshire.Here is an earlier example, from Walter Scotts Heart of Midlothian (1830), which shows some phonetic qualities of the lowlands Scots accent. In this passage the Laird of Dumbiedikes (from the coarse near Edinburgh) is on his deathbed. He advises his son about how to take his drink My stick tauld me sae forty years sin, but I never fand time to mind him. Jock, neer drink brandy in the morning, it files the stamach sair George Bernard Shaw, in Pygmalion (1914), uses one phonetic character (? schwa) in his attempt to represent the accent of Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower daughter Theres m enners f yer T? -oo banches o voylets trod into the madWill ye-oo py me fthem. However, after a few sentences of phonetic dialogue, Shaw reverts to standard spelling, noting Here, with apologies, this desperate attempt to represent her dialect without a phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as unintelligible outside London. In Pygmalion Professor Higgins teaches Eliza to speak in an u accent, so as to pass her off as a duchess.In the course of the play, therefore, her accent changes. The actress playing the part, however, may have a natural accent closer to that with which Eliza speaks at the completion of her education, so in playing the part she may doing the reverse of what Eliza undergoes, by gradually reverting to a natural manner of articulation. (Elizas pronunciation improves ahead of her understanding of grammar, so that at one point she says memorably My aunty died of influenza so they said. But its my belief they done the old womanhood in. ) In Pygmalion Shaw does not m erely represent accent (and other features of speech) but makes this polar to an exploration of how speech relates to identity and social class. Charles Dickens is particularly interested in the sounds of speech. He observes that many speakers have bar with initial /v/ and /w/. surface-to-air missile Weller, in The Pickwick Papers, regularly transposes these Vell, said surface-to-air missile at continuance, if this dont beat cock-fightin nothin never villThat wery next house Mr. Hubble, in Great Expectations does, the same thing when he describes young people as naterally wicious.Joe Gargery, in the same novel, has many verbal peculiarities, of which perhaps the most striking is in his description of the Blacking Warehouse, which is less impressive than the return Joe has seen on bills where it is drawd too architectooralooral. In Chapter 16 of Our Mutual Friend, Betty Higden is proud of Mr. Sloppy (an deprive she has fostered) not only because he can read, but because he is able to use different voice styles for various speakers. You mightnt think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the Police in different voices. Dickens also finds a way to show tempo and rhythm.In Chapter 23 of Little Dorrit, Flora Finching speaks at length and without any pauses Most unkind never to have come back to see us since that day, though naturally it was not to be calculateed that there should be any attraction at our house and you were much more pleasantly engaged, thats pretty certain, and is she fair or dark blue eyes or mysterious I wonder, not that I expect that she should be anything but a staring(a) contrast to me in all particulars for I am a disappointment as I very well know and you are quite right to be devoted no doubt though what am I saying Arthur never mind I hardly know myself Good gracious Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. net/armoore/ Phonology Background reading on phonology There are very full accounts of phonology in both of Professor David Crystals encyclopedias. define his Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, Part IV, The Medium of Language Speaking and Listening (pp. 123175 ISBN 0521424437) and his Encyclopedia of the English Language, Part IV, 17, The Sound System (pp. 236-255 ISBN 0521596556).For a very clear and succinct account, look at Howard Jacksons and Peter Stockwells Introduction to the Nature and Functions of Language, 2. 1, Sounds and letters (pp. 11-23 ISBN 0748725806). There is a longer and more discursive account in Shirley Russells Grammar, Structure and Style, Spoken English (pp. 107-168 ISBN 0198311982) You can find lots of help online. The best place to start is the International Phonetic Associations own weathervane site at http//www2. arts. gla. ac. uk/IPA/ipa. htmlYou will find some excellent resources from the languages part of the University of Victoria in British capital of South Carolina start at http//web. uvic. ca/ling/ipa/handbook/ For a great in tro to Scots with some excellent guidance on phonology try Andy bird of Joves Wir Ain Laid (Our suffer Language) at http//www. scots-online. org/grammar/index. htm For help with fonts go to the IPA Unicode site at http//www. phon. ucl. ac. uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode. htm and Alan surface Unicode Resources at http//www. hclrss. demon. co. uk/unicode/index. tml. You could also try the Microsoft report site at http//www. microsoft. com/typography/default. asp Apart from materials quoted from other sources, the copyright in this guide belongs to Andrew Moore. You are free to use it for any educational purpose, including making seven-fold copies electronically or by printing. You may not distribute it in any form other than the original, without the express allowance of the author. andrew. email&160protected net Copyright Andrew Moore, 2001 http//www. shunsley. eril. net/armoore/