Phonetics as a Science

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Phonetics as a science Phonetics is one of the oldest and the most essential branches of the linguistic. It studies the spoken aspects of languages. Its subject is a scientific analysis of the entire system of oral means expressing thoughts and emotions of the speaker. Branches of phonetics: The phoneme is the smallest sound unit of a language which is capable of distinguishing one word from another. Different phonetic realizations of phonemes are called allophones. The total number of English phonemes is 44. There are 24 consonant phonemes and 20 vowel phonemes. A vowel is a voiced sound produced with no obstruction (затруднение) to the air stream. A consonant is a sound produced with an obstruction to the air stream. phonology (фонология). It deals with the study of purely linguistic aspect of speech sounds with the analysis of the semantic functions of phonemes and other oral means of the language. articulatory phonetics. It deals (studies) with the prediction/production, description and the classification of speech sounds. It is the oldest branch. acoustic phonetics (акустическая). It deals with the acoustic aspects of speech sounds (from the physical point of view). General phonetics studies all sound producing possibilities of the human speech apparatus and the role they play in human communication. Special (descriptive) phonetics studies a particular language (phonetic system). comparative phonetics. (средства различных систем различных языков,) Historical phonetics studies all kinds of written documents and literature of ancient periods, compares pronunciation in different periods. The newest branch – phonostylistic. It studies different types of pronunciation. Theoretical significance Each branch of the phonetics aims at the further development of one of the basic linguistic problems such as synchronic study and description of the phonetic system of a national language, the comparative analysis and description of phonetic systems of different languages and the study of the correspondences between them. Practical significance Practical applications of the phonetics are manifold (многочисленный). It is necessary in methods of teaching the pronunciation of a foreign language. It can be also applied in methods of speech correction (логопедия), teaching deaf-mutes (глухонемые), in film doubling (дублирование фильмов). 1

2. System of English vowels The classification of English vowel phonemes. English vowel phonemes are classified according to the following principles: I. According to the position of the bulk (основной объем) of the tongue. II. According to the height of the raised part of the tongue. III. According to the kip position. IV. According to the length of the vowel. V. According to the stability of articulation. I. According to the position of the bulk of the tongue vowels are divided into five groups: 1) Front vowels (переднего) are produced when the bulk of the tongue is in the front part of the mouth. At the same time the front part of the tongue is raised in the direction of the hard palate, forming a large empty space in the back part of the mouth [i:, e, ǽ]. see, spell, man 2) Front-retracted vowels are produced with the bulk of the tongue in the front part of the mouth. However it is a little retracted (отодвинут назад). The front of the tongue is raised in the direction of the hard palate [i]. fish 3) Central vowels (смешанного ряда) are produced when the central part of the tongue is raised towards the juncture (соединение) between the hard and the soft palate [ , з:, ] muscles, work, about 4) Back vowels (заднего ряда) are produced when the bulk of the tongue is in the back of the mouth. At the same time the back of the tongue is raised in the direction of the soft palate, forming an empty space in the front part of the mouth [o, o:, u:,]. got, saw, too 5) Back-advanced (задние продвинутые вперед) vowels are produced when the bulk of the tongue is in the back part of the mouth. However, it is a little advanced (продвинут вперед). The back part of the tongue is raised in the direction