Speech sounds and semantics

Estudiante: Genny Andrea Rincón Molina

Código: 1004945007
Grupo: 518017_25

Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia UNAD

Escuela Ciencias de la Educación ECEDU
Licenciatura en Lenguas Extranjeras con énfasis en inglés
Introduction to Linguistics
Ocaña, Norte de Santander
Noviembre 24 de 2020
 Speech sounds and semantics

- Based on the first document “The phoneme: the same but different” by

McMahon, A, answer the three questions from pages 21, 22.

1. A learner of English as a second language has the following pronun- ciations

(note that [ ʃ ] is the symbol for the first sound in ship , and [ ð ] for the first

sound in the):

How might you explain these non-native pronunciations?

- This English learner is not distinguishing the correct English sounds and is getting

confused with minimal pairs. As in that (dat) instead of (ᵭᵆt), push (pus) instead of

(puʃ) and so on.

How do you think this learner would pronounce the bold-faced consonants in

Daddy, either, loathe; ship, pass, dish, usher?

- According to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), each vowl or consonant has

its pronunciation, the mouth and tongue movement its different for each one. For a

person who is learning any language it is important to be aware of this phonetic

sounds so he can speak correctly. For example:

 In the Word Push (pus): The lips come together, air comes out and makes a “pop”

out of the mouth.

 In the Word Fish (fᶩʃ): with “sh” sound the lips flair and the corners of the lips come

in.

 In the Word That: the teeth come together and the tongue touches the teeth. You

stop the air flow and then release it.

 Daddy: dᴂdi

 Either: i:ᵭᵊr

 Loathe: lᵊᶷᵭ

 Ship: ʃᴵp

 Pass: pᴂs

 Dish:dᴵ ʃ

 Usher: ‘ᶺᵊr

2. Do the following sounds contrast in English? Find minimal pairs to support your

hypothesis, ideally for initial, medial and final position in the word. Where

minimal pairs for all positions do not seem to be avail- a ble, write a short

statement of where the sound in question can and cannot be found.

[m n ŋ p b t d k g l r]

These sounds contrast because they have minimal phonetic difference.

- Minimal pair- (b) (p):

Initial Medial Final

(b) (p): Bed Rabbit Cub

Pie Rapid Cop

- Minimal pair- (k) (g):

Initial Medial Final

(k) (g): Curly Anchor Back

Girly Anger Bag

- Minimal pair- (t) (d):

Initial Medial Final

(t) (d): Two Alter Hat

Do Alder Had

- Minimal pair- (l) (r ):

Initial Medial Final

(l) (r): Law Belly Deal

Raw Berry Dear

 3. The Ministry for Education in a certain country whose language has up to now

been unwritten has hired two foreign linguists to produce an orthography.

Linguists A and B have suggested two rather different systems.

- Which one is most in line with the phonological structure of the language it is

designed for?

The linguist B is most in line with the phonological structure of the anguage,

because he is taking in count how the Word is pronunced and in that way, he puts

the phonetic sound that corresponds better to the pronunciation.

- Why do you think the other linguist may have made different decisions?

Maybe the linguistic A has in mind the pronunciation with another phonoogical

alphabet.

- From the second document, “Natural Language Processing and Applications

Phones and Phonemes” please answer questions 1 and 2 from page 10.

1. How many phonemes are there in (a) Keith(b) coughs?

/Keith/ has four phonemes: k/e/i/th

/Coughs/ has five phonemes: c/o/u/gh/s

What are they in the IPA? Ineach case try to demonstrate the correctness of your

answer by finding words differingby only one of the phonemes you have

identified.

Keith: keᴵᴓ Faith: feᴵᴓ

Coughs: kᵅf Cods: kᵅds

2. You are NOTexpected to know the IPA symbols; the table given in the

Appendix will beprovided if and when necessary. However it is useful to have

some practice in usingthem. Study the following phonetic transcription of a

verse of Lewis Carroll’s poem TheWalrus and the Carpenter. The transcription

corresponds to my ‘careful’ pronunciation.Write down the normal English

spelling. If your pronunciation differs from mine, writedown an amended

transcription in the IPA.

 English spelling of the poem verse:

The time has come, the Walrus said,

To talk of many things:

Of shoes and ships and sealing wax

Of cabbages and kings

And why the sea in boiling hot

And whether pigs have wings.

We differ in the following pronunciation:

Said: sed

Talk: tᵅ:k

- From the reading “Semantics. The Study of Linguistic Meaning Chapter” by

Akmajian answer the two following questions:

o What is exactly the concept ‘speaker meaning’? Explain and give an example (in

Spanish or English).

Speaker meaning is when a person says something that can be literal or nonliteral.

Literal when someone express what he wants to say for example if someone says to

closet he door, it means exactly that, that you have to closet the door. Nonliteral is

when someone says something but the meaning is different because the person is

talking with sarcasm, irony or metaphor.

o Explain, what is an important problem of the ‘Denotational Theory of Meaning’?

The Denotational Theory of Meaning suggest direct relationship of an expression or

a word and the object it denotes. The problema with this theory is that, two

sentences can have the same denotation but have completely different meaning.

For example these two expressions: The president of Colombia and Ivan Duque,

these sentences denotes the same person but the don’t mean the same thing.

- Mini lesson:

Here is a scenario of a pronunciation lesson gone wrong. The teacher

repeatedly demonstrates a pair of similar sounds (e.g., “rrrr” and “llll”).

However, the students still fail to perceive the difference between the two. The

thing is that students have difficulty distinguishing between pairs of sounds

when these are taught in isolation. Pronunciation lessons are infinitely more

effective when students are taught to distinguish between words (e.g.,

light/right), instead of just individual sounds. Design a mini lesson that

presents the [l] and [ɹ] sounds within the context of minimal pairs. (Option,
you can select any other minimal pairs to design the mini lesson). (Adapted

from Gordon T. 2012).

I choose thw following minimal pairs: /p/ - /b/

In the mini lesson we woud explain how to produce these pair of sounds

individually, and then show minimal pairs to teach the students how to distinguish

on from another:

/p/ sound Called: Voiceless bilabials stop.

We use both lips to block the mouth,

we don’t use the vocal chords to

produce the sound, we stop the air

flow and the reléase it.

Words like: pair, pull, plate.

/b/ sound Called: The voice bilabials stop, we

use both the lips to block the mouth

and we use the vocal chord to

produce the sound.

We built up air pressure by stopping

air flow and the release it.

Words like: bend, bill, built

Minimal pairs to distinguish the difference between the sounds:

Beer /bᴵr/
 Peer /pᴵr/

Referencias

- McMahon, A. M. S. (2016). An Introduction to English Phonology. Edinburgh

University Press. http://bibliotecavirtual.unad.edu.co/login?

url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1584999&lang=es&site=eds-live&scope=site

- Coxhead, P. (2006). Natural Language Processing & Applications Phones and

Phonemes. [PDF FILE]. https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pxc/nlp/NLPA-Phon1.pdf

- Akmajian, A. et al. (2010). Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and

Communication, 6th edition. The MIT Press.

https://www.academia.edu/40559984/L_I_N_G_U_I_ST_I_C_S_An_Introduction_

to_Language_and_Communication