English Phonetics and Phonology

VOWELS AND CONSONANTS

INTRODUCCIÓN

Hoy en día existen un sin número de problemas teóricos relacionados a la identificación y estudio de las vocales del inglés, pero de manera general asumimos que los sonidos claramente se dividen en vocales y consonantes. Sin embargo el estudio que corresponde iniciar hoy tiene que ver con el análisis de las vocales y de cómo estas se diferencian entre unas y otras (cortas y largas). Es importante la lectura e interpretación de cada uno de los párrafos en inglés, pero también encontrarás los links de otras páginas muy útiles.

ENGLISH VOWELS

The first matter to consider is the shape and position of the tongue. It is usual to simplify the very complex possibilities by describing just two things: firstly the vertical distance between the upper surface of the tongue and the palate, and secondly the part of the tongue between front and back, which is raised highest.

Phoneticians need a very accurate ways of classifying vowels, and have developed a set of vowels, arranged in a close-open, front back, which are not the vowels of any particular language. People being trained in phonetics have to learn to make them accurately and recognize them correctly. However we should adopt the diagram of cardinal vowels as a standard reference system.

But there is another important variable of vowel quality and that is lip rounding. Although the lips can have many different shapes and positions, so we will consider only three possibilities:

1. Rounded: where the corners of the lips are brought towards each other and the lips pushed forwards. This is most clearly seen in cardinal vowel No 8 (u)

2. Spread: with the corners of the lips moved away from each other, as for a smile. This is most clearly seen in cardinal vowel 1 (i)

3. Neutral: where the lips are not noticeable rounded or spread, the noise most English people make when they are hesitating (written “er”) has neutral position

THE ENGLISH VOWEL SYSTEM

The RP variety of British English, with twenty vowel phonemes (standard American English has fifteen), has a relatively large vowel system, which is characteristic of Germanic languages (Swedish has even more vowels). There are seven short vowels, five long vowels and eight diphthongs. The vowels and their corresponding phonemic symbols are shown in the table below: