Phonetics and Phonology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Phonetics and Phonology - Essay ExampleThis paper examines the nature and purpose of the traditional transcription of phonetic notation and analysis which is based upon units of analysis called segments. It outlines the reclaimableness of this concept, and also its limitations, especially in the light of modern technologies which provide a wealth of precise detailed scientific data on how sounds are produced by the humans organs of speech. The concept of coarticulation is presented against the background of these traditional and more modern methodologies for analysing human speech, and in the end Lavers (1994) view of coarticulation is evaluated in depth using examples from English and a few other languages.When a person speaks in any human language the sound emerges in a float without any clear breaks between words. This is of course very difficult to analyse in one limpid stream and so scholars over the years have had to devise a method of breaking human speech into componen t parts. A fundamental tuberosity between vowels and consonants is one of the most obvious that can be made and forms the basis of standard phonetic notation. Vowels are sounds which emerge in a stream of air coming through the mouth and consonants are sounds which occur when this air is interrupted, or stopped by one or more of the speech organs such as the vocal cord, tongue, lips and teeth. A vowel and consonant occurring together are termed a syllable. These distinctions are represented in the worlds alphabets by various systems of written symbols, so that most people are familiar with these simple concepts. In phonetics there are more precise terms to key the nature of the stops, and there are several notational systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet which capture individual phonemes. These international conventions are very useful for distinguishing between the sounds of different languages, or of different speakers using the same language.All of these descripto rs of small parts