Chapter 2 Phonology
1. What are the two major media of communication?
Of the two, which one is primary and
why?
Two major
media of communication are speech and writing, Of the two, speech is primary.
The reasons are as follows.
1)
From
the
point
of
view
of
linguistic
evolution,
speech
is
prior
to
writing.
The
writing
system of any language is always
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invented
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by its users to record speech when the need
arises.
2)
In
everyday
communication,
speech
plays
a
greater
role
than
writing
in
terms
of
the
amount of information conveyed.
3)
Speech is always the way in which every native speaker acquires his mother tongue, and
writing is learned and taught later when he goes to school.
4)
For modern linguists, spoken language reveals more true features of human speech while
written language is only the
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revised
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record of speech.
2. What is voicing and how is it caused?
V
oicing is a quality of speech sounds. It is caused by the vibration of the vocal cords.
3. Explain with examples how broad transcription and narrow transcription differ.
When
we
use a
simple
set
of
symbols
in
our
transcription,
it
is
called
broad
transcription.
Narrow transcription is the use of more specific symbols to show phonetic details.
In broad transcription, the symbol [ l ] is used for the sound [ l ] in words leaf [ li:f] and feel
[fi:l]. The [l] in [ li:f] , occurring before a vowel, is called clear [ l ]. The [ l ] in [fi:l] occurring in
the end of a word or before another consonant , is called dark [ l ].And in narrow transcription the
diacritic tilde [~] is used to indicate it.
4
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How are the English consonants classified?
English consonants can be classified in two ways: one is in terms of manner of articulation and
the other is in terms of place of articulation.
In terms of manner of articulation, it can be classified into stops, fricatives, affricates, liquids,
glides and nasals. In terms of place of articulation, it can be classified into bilabial, labiodental,
dental, alveolar, palatal, velar and glottal.
5. What criteria are used to classify the English vowels?
According to the place of the tongue, vowels can be distinguished as front, central and back.
According to the openness of the mouth, vowels can be classified into four groups: close vowels,
semi-close vowels., semi-open vowels and open vowels. According to the shape of the lips, all the
front vowels and the central vowel can are unrounded vowels and all the back vowels are rounded