1.

front vowels: the highest point of the tongue for vowels is in the front
of the mouth. e.g. i e a
back vowels: the tongue is close to the upper or back surface of the
vocal tract. e.g. u o
rounded : When pronouncing a rounded vowel, the lips form a
circular opening. In Eng., the mid and high back vowels are rounded
unrounded: Unrounded vowels (also called spread vowels) are
pronounced with the lips relaxed. In English, , the front and central
vowels are unrounded.
2. phonology: Phonology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the
systematic organization of sounds in languages.
phonetics: a part of phonology and provides the means for describing
speech sounds.
3. The function of phonetics is to find out what people are doing when
they are talking and how the sounds of speech can be described; it can be
applied in many areas. ( p.2)
4. (1) What is the "phoneme"?
The smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful
contrasts between utterances.
(2)What is the "phone"?
"Phone", the basic unit of phonetics, refers to the concrete sound
substance, including the transcription & classification of sounds.
(3) Is it true if we say that a phoneme is a single of sound that can be
pronounced in only one way?
No, take an example of "key" & "car". These two words begin with what
we consider the same sound; as a result, "k"&"c" in these two words are
in the same phoneme. However, if you whisper the first consonant of
these two words, you may probably feel the subtle difference of your
tongue's place in your mouth. So a phoneme is not a single sound, but a
name for a group of sounds; it can be pronounced in more than one way.
( p.34)
5. A minimal pair is a pair of words or phrases in a particular language,
which differ in only one phonological element, has distinct meanings.
They are used to demonstrate that two phones constitute two separate
phonemes in the language.

6. Diphthong: Movement from one vowel to another within a single

syllable. For example: [aI].
Monophthong is a pure sound; the vowel remain the same quality
throughout its duration. For example,[].
7. /b/ is theoretical word transcription. bis reality specific
transcription.
8. A1. The variants of the phonemes that occur in detailed phonetic
transcriptions are known as allophones(). (P46, paragragh4 &
PPT) A2. In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech
sounds (phones) that belong to the same phoneme.
A3. Ex: Sheep and ship. They are different in length.
9. The use of diacritics, small marks that can be added to a symbol to
modify its value, is a means of increasing precision.
Conversely, a narrow transcription is one that shows more phonetic detail,
either just by using more specific symbols or by also representing some
allophonic differences.
Diacritics: Small marks that can be added to a symbol to modify its value,
is a means of increasing precision.
10. All English vowels are open sounds, that is, when we are pronouncing
a vowel sound, the air can pass through our vocal organs without being
blocked.
11. Systematic phonetic transcription: a very detailed transcription that
shows all the rule-governed changes among the sounds.(
transcription Ex.
)

Impressionistic transcription: When the transcription was made, nothing

was known about the rules in the circumstance. The circumstances are,
for example, when writing down an unknown language or when
transcribing the speech of a child or a patient not seen previously. In the
cases, the symbols indicate only the phonetic value of the sounds. This
kind of transcription is called Impressionistic transcription.(
transcription
Impressionistic transcription).
12. Other things being equal, a given vowel is longest in an open syllable,
next longest in a syllable closed by a voiced consonant, and shortest in a
syllable closed by a voiceless consonant.

13. Try to explore the rules for English vowel allophones:

The main concept of allophone is that the structure of pronunciation is the
same, but it will be different because of stress and the length of
pronunciation.
Other things being equal, the length of pronunciation will be affected by
the number of syllables. A given vowel is longest in an open syllable. A
voiced consonant is longer than a voiceless consonant. And vowels are
longer in stressed syllables than in unstressed syllables. Vowels tend to
become nasalized before nasal consonants. Some vowels become
retracted before /l~/ at the end of the syllable.
14. Can you describe the basic qualities of the vowel in a perceptible
way? Whats your comments on the following?
1.It is difficult to describe the tongue position of a vowel in ones own
speech because there are no distinct boundaries between one type of
vowel and another and the movement of a vowel is a continuum.
Therefore, phoneticians often simply use labels for the auditory qualities
of the different vowels.
2.The following teach us to use lips to help pronounce I think that the
method is wrong because the position of tongue exactly affect the
pronunciation not the lip.
15. VOWEL QUALITY. A term in phonetics for the property that makes
one vowel sounds different from another:
16 (P88 ) Because it is very difficult to say exactly how your tongue is
moving when you move from one vowel to another unless we use x-ray
or MRI to monitor the tongue, we often simply use labels for the auditory
qualities of the different vowels.
The four vowels, /i/ (high front), /u/ (high back), // (low front), and /a/
(low back) give us something like the four corners of a space showing the
auditory qualities of vowels.
17. rounded: When pronouncing a rounded vowel, the lips form a circular
opening.
unrounded: while unrounded vowels (also called spread vowels) are
pronounced with the lips relaxed.
18. (1) rhotacization: just like high-low, front-back, the feature
rhotacization describes an auditory property, the r-coloring, of a vowel.
(2) rhotacized vowels: when we describe a sound as a rhotacized vowel,
we are saying sth about how it sounds. ex. sir, herd, fur
(3) stressed: A stressed syllable is usually produced by pushing more air
out of the lungs in one syllable relative to others. Thus, it has greater

respiratory energy than unstressed syllables. A stressed syllable is often,

but not always, louder than an unstressed syllable. A stressed syllable is
usually, but not always, on a higher pitch.
unstressed: reduced vowel quality. Vowels in unstressed syllable do not
necessarily have a completely reduced quality.
19. Vowels near the outside of chart are more distinct from one another
than vowels in the middle, and differences in vowel quality become
progressively produced among vowels than have a central, reduced
vowel, quality. Vowels in unstressed syllables do not necessarily have a
completely reduced quality.(p94 line8-14)
Reduced vowels: is the centralization and weakening of an unstressed
vowel, such as the characteristic change of many vowels at the ends of
words to schwa. A reduced vowel may be voiceless when it occurs after a
voiceless stop (and before a voiceless stop).
20. There are phonetics differences between the two groups
The tense vowels occur in the words with a final, so-called silent e in the
spelling, e.g., mate mete kite cute. The lax vowels occur in the
corresponding words without a silent e: mar met kit cut.
Closed syllables: Those have a consonant at the end.
Open syllables: Those without a consonant at the end--only a restricted
set of vowels can occur.
The lax vowel is shorter, lower, and slightly more centralized than the
corresponding tense vowel.
21. Sound waves: fluctuation in pressure that travel through a medium,
e.g. air, water. The sound waveform represents displacements from
normal atmospheric pressure.
Frequency: How many waves are made per time interval. And we use the
unit Hertz to state frequency.
22. Formant is a group of overtones corresponding to a resonating
frequency of the air in the vocal tract. Vowels are characterized by three
formants. Then, formant1 is the height of the tongue in our oral tract, and
formant2 is the front or back of the tongue in the oral tract.
23. Format 1 is the height of the tongue in the oral tract, and F2is the
front or back of the tongue in the oral tract. With analyzing the position of
the tongue when articulating, one can know the right position of the
tongue and know if ones pronunciation is right. Here is the example of
the vowel /e/.