Language and speech are not the same. Language can be written, spoken or signed.

Speech is
only spoken.

Linguistics studies language. It has many branches, among which we can find phonetics and
phonology.

Phonetic studies the production, transmission and perception of speech sounds (articulatory,
acoustic and auditory phonetics).

Phonology studies sounds’ behaviour –patterns- in a particular language. Isolated sounds and
larger units (segmental and suprasegmental phonology).

There is not one-to-one correspondence between spelling and pronunciation in English.

Dialect is a variety of language while accent is a variety of pronunciation.

We study General British English, also known as: modern received pronunciation, estuary
English, BBC English, Standard Southern British Pronunciation.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is what we use to represent speech sounds of all
languages in a written form.

A phoneme is the smallest speech unit that can change the meaning of a word (GBE has 44
phonemes).

Minimal pairs are two words that have equal pronunciation but differ in one sound.

Allophones are different realisations of speech sounds which do not change the meaning of a
word: allophonic variations can be in free variation (the speaker chooses to use that specific
sound variation) or in complementary distribution (the speaker is influenced by the
environment).

Anatomy refers to the structure. Physiology refers to the function.

The 3 main systems involved in speech production are: respiratory, phonatory and articulatory.
All of them have a primary function and speech production as a second one.

The respiratory system: to breathe in oxygen and remove carbon dioxide from the blood. To
produce the airstream with which sound is produced (English and Spanish use egressive
pulmonic airstream).

The phonatory system: the vocal folds/vocal cords protect the organs from chocking and
suffocation. They produce phonation by opening and closing rapidly (voiced sounds) or
remained separated (voiceless sounds). The space between the vocal cords is called glottis.

The articulatory system*: chewing food, filtering air and swallowing. They amplify and
modulate the buzz produced by the activity of the vocal cords.

*The cavities are pharyngeal, oral and nasal. The active articulators are capable of movement
(lips, tongue, velum or soft palate). The passive articulators are incapable of movement (upper
and lower teeth, hard palate and alveolar ridge).

Lip positions: rounded, spread or neutral. Tongue: tip, blade, front, back, root.

The 3 types of vowels in English are monophthongs or pure vowels, diphthongs and
triphthongs.
Monophthong /ˈmɒnəfθɒŋ/ Pure vowel /pjʊə ˈvaʊəl/

Phonetic POV: a vowel is a sound in the production of which the airstream escapes through the
mouth meeting no obstruction of the articulators.

Phonology POV: a vowel is a unit of a sound system that is –typically- the central element of
the syllable.

All English vowels are oral and voiced. To describe them, we mention the position of the
tongue and lips.

The cardinal vowel system is used to describe vowels of all languages and it represents the
possibilities of the human vocal tract. The horizontal lines indicate the distance between the
tongue and the palate (position or height of the tongue: close, half close, half open, open) and
the vertical lines indicate the part of the tongue raised (front, central, back.)

English monophthongs: iː, ɪ, ʊ, uː (close vowels); e, ə, ɜː, ɔː (mid vowels); æ, ʌ, ɑː, ɒ (open
vowels).

Diphthong /ˈdɪf.θɒŋ/

Phonetics POV: a diphthong is a vowel sound which consists of a movement or glide from one
vowel position to a second vowel position.

Phonology POV: GBE diphthongs can occur in all positions.

In English, there are 8 diphthongs and they can be classified according to the direction of the
glide into: centring diphthongs (the glide towards the /ə/), closing diphthongs (the glide
towards /ɪ/ or towards /ʊ/).

English diphthongs: aʊ, əʊ, ɪə, ʊə, eə, eɪ, ɔɪ, aɪ.

Triphthong /ˈtrɪfθɒŋ/

A triphthong is a vowel sound in whose production there is a glide from one vowel position to
a second one and then to a third one, all produced rapidly and without interruption. They have
no phonemic status. Triphthongs can be thought as a combination of a closing diphthong + a
schwa.

Nasalization

It is one of the processes that affect the articulation of all vowels in English. For example: The
word "man" /mæn/: The vowel /æ/ is nasalized due to the following nasal consonant /n/. The
word "long" /lɔŋ/: The vowel /ɔ/ is nasalized due to the following nasal consonant /ŋ/. The
word "pen" /pɛn/: The vowel /ɛ/ is nasalized due to the following nasal consonant /n/. In these
examples, the vowels become nasalized because the airflow is partially redirected through the
nasal cavity due to the proximity of the nasal consonants.

Pre-fortis clipping
It refers to the shortening of vowels in syllables that have voiceless consonants in final
position. When a vowel sound in a syllable is followed by a fortis consonant (a voiceless
consonant), such vowel is said more quickly than when it is followed by a lenis consonant (a
voiced consonant) or in open syllables (followed by silence or syllables with no coda). E.g. card
vs cart -> /kɑ:d/ vs /kɑ:t/ -> [kɑ:d] vs [kɑ.t]

Smoothing or levelling

It is the partial or complete loss of an element in vowel sequence and it mainly affects some
diphthongs and triphthongs. It mainly affects the following triphthongs:

aʊə -> ɑ:ə hour: / aʊə / = / ɑ:ə /

aɪə -> ɑ:ə fire: / faɪə / = / fɑ:ə /

It can also affect some diphthongs which become pure vowels (monophthongization):

ʊə -> ɔ: sure: / ʃʊə / = / ʃɔ: /

ɪə -> ɜ: year: / jɪə / = / jɜ: /

There are 2 archiphonemes in English: [ i ] and [ u ]. They are a neutralised pronunciation of /i:/
and /u:/. They occur in: word final position. E.g. “easy” /i:zi/. In some prefixes spelled “re-,
pre-, de-, be-”, especially if it precedes an unstressed vowel (for /i/). E.g. “Because” /bikɒz/. In
weak forms of structural words. E.g. “to” /tu/; “the” / ði /.

Spanish vowels

There are 5 pure vowels and all of them coincide with the spelling (A-E-I-O-U).

There are 13 diphthongs that can be classified into ‘crecientes’ (5) and ‘decrecientes’ (8).

Length variation in Spanish vowels happens at the allophonic level (it does not change the
meaning of words).

Spanish vowels have no restrictions in distribution. They can occur in all positions.

Morpheme

A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a language. They can be free (lexical or
functional) or bound (derivational or inflectional).

Inflectional morphemes are units which combine with roots to modify aspect, tense, person,
number, etc. This addition does not change word meaning or class. The pronunciation of
inflectional morphemes does not change or affect word stress (they are stress neutral affixes.)

There are 8 inflections:

Past tense: regular verbs add ‘-d, -ed, or -ied’ to form the past. The possible pronunciations of
the past morpheme are three, and they depend on the last root sound.

- If the stem ends in /t/ or /d/, an extra syllable is added: /ɪd/. For example: (Present)
Decide: /dɪˈsaɪd/. (Past simple) Decided: /dɪˈsaɪdɪd/.
- If the stem ends in a voiced sound (but /d/), the morpheme is pronounced /d/. For
example: (Present) Arrange: /əˈreɪnʤ/. (Past simple) Arranged: /əˈreɪnʤd/.
- If the stem ends in a voiceless sound (but /t/), the morpheme is pronounced /t/. For
example: (Present) Talk: /tɔːk/. (Past simple) Talked: /tɔːkt/.

Plural, genitive case, third person singular forms: they have three possible pronunciations.

- If the stem ends in a sibilant sound (/s/z/ʃ/ʒ/dʒ/tʃ/) an extra syllable is added /ɪz/. For
example: Rush /rʌʃ/. Rushes /rʌʃɪz/.
- If the stem ends in a non-sibilant voiced sound, the morpheme is pronounced /z/. For
example: Decides /diˈsaɪdz/.
- If the stem ends in a non-sibilant voiceless sound, the morpheme is pronounced /s/.
For example: Cats /kæts/.

Present participle: the morpheme ‘-ing’ is pronounced /ɪŋ/ in all cases. For example: Talking
/tɔːkɪŋ/.

Comparative and superlative form of adjectives: the suffixes ‘-er’ and ‘-est’ are pronounced /ə/
and /ɪst/. For example: Bigger /bɪgə/. Biggest /bɪgɪst/. However, when the stem ends in /ŋ/ and
the spelling suggests “-ng”, as in “long”, a /g/ is added. For example: Long /lɒŋgə/. Longest
/lɒŋgɪst/.