Phonology Have you heard British English lately?Only in Mr. Potter!…Or with the epic Anglo-Saxon's movies…

These British Actors and actresses speak English with Received Pronunciation “RP” as many United Kingdom (UK) published coursebooks use on their recordings.

This is a UK pronunciation variety. Originally from south-east England, but sometimes regarded as a kind of standard educated British English pronunciation.

Phonology

In this unit, we are going to study the English sounds.

44, 40, 37, 30, 27, 26, 25, 5?

Phonology

There are 44 (20 vowels and 24 consonants) English sounds or Phonemes.

A phoneme is the smallest sound unit which can make a difference to meaning

Phonology

Phonemes have their own symbols (phonemic symbols), each of which represents one sound.

Phonemic transcription is used in dictionaries to aid pronunciation. (Cambridge Glossary, 2005)

Words can be presented in phonemic script (usually International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA)

PhonologyPhonology is the study of the sounds features used in a language to communicate meaning (Spratt, 2005, p.13).

In English these features include

Word stress

Sentence stress

phonemes

intonation phonology

A word can be either a syllablesyllable (e.g. cat), two (e.g. window) or more (5: electricity) syllables.

When a word has more than one syllable, one of these syllables carries a stressstress.

In other words it is pronounced with more force or is it heard being more emphatic.

Therefore the rest of the syllables are unstressed

Sentence Stress can therefore be used to show meaning, to emphasise a particular point or feeling.

refers to the way the pitch of the voice changes. For example, if they are angry or pleased. Intonation can be rising or falling or both.

Vowel and consonant sounds together form syllables. There are different combinations of syllables. These are the possibilities

Vowel only (e.g. a)Vowel + consonant (e.g. eat)Consonant + vowel (e.g. me)Consonant + vowel + consonant (e.g. big)

Phonemes that are separated sounds and pairs of words which differ by only one vowel or consonant sound (bit/pit bit/but) are called minimal pairs (Hewings, 2004).

sheep ship

Cat cut

heat hit

bat bad

Moreover a vowel combination usually involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, is called a diphthong