Phonetics Research

Joe Leadbeater

Explanation of Phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech.

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‘Phonetics’ Research

‘The study and classification of speech sounds’

It focuses mainly on speech sounds, through physiological production and acoustic properties.

Inital Information

The International Phonetic Alphabet Also known as the IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet is a way of pronouncing words in a way they are said. This means accents and dialect can easily be understood.

Oral languages are split into three areas of study: Articulatory phonetics: The study of the production of speech sounds by the articulatory and vocal tract by the speaker.

Acoustic phonetics: The study of the physical transmission of speech sounds from the speaker to the listener.

Auditory phonetics: The study of the reception and perception of speech sounds by the listener.

Areas of Study There is a variety of areas which are studied in relation to phonetics: - The development of language - How children learn words and construct dialaect. There is a an arguement between several theorists, this being: is language learnt, or innate?

- The history of dialect - Where do different accents come from?

What are the specific differences in sounds / how do vowel sounds shift in different accents (in reference to the vowel quad) - Grapho-phonemic relationship - Essentially the relationship between graphemes (written words) and phonemes (how words are read). Examples of common grapho - phonemic relationships can be seen in text language, eg. R U GD? WOT U UP 2. Does the use of texting effect writing essays?

Phonetics

Below Left: The quad vowels diagram.

Below Mid: A diagram showing the height of vowel sounds.

Below Right: Monothongs (left column) and diphthongs (right 3 columns).

Vowel Diagrams Vowel Diagrams are used to show how different areas of the mouth and tongue are used to create different vowel sounds.

A ‘monothong’ is a vowel sound which only uses one area of the mouth, eg. “CAT”. A diphthong’ is a vowel sound which uses two areas of the mouth to produce in the same syllable, eg. “FACE” Vowel sounds are created from the front, mid or back of the mouth. A vowel sound commonly created at the front of the mouth could be the I in “SIT”, whilst the O in “BOOK” is at the back of the mouth.

High or Low refers to the the height within the mouth that the sounds come from. The I in “SIT” comes from the heighest point in the mouth, whilst the A in “CAT” comes from the lowest point in the mouth.

These sounds can also be either rounded or unrouded, referring to the shape the mouth makes whilst pronouncing vowels. The word “SHOE” uses a rounded sound, whilst, the word “FAT” is unrounded.

Joe Leadbeater

OUGD505

Cloudbuster Studio (Italy) - ‘Fonetica Dei Brand’ Cloudbuster Studio proposes a graphic restyling of the most important international Brands, to lead the Italian consumers to pronounce them in the right way.

Giada Bobbera (UK) - ‘Language & Typography’ An exploration between the alphabetic and phonetic system, playing around with the shapes of the characters of both alphabets.. I like the combination of both alphabets as this could be an easy way to show the IPA visually without causings confusion. I like the idea of creating my own IPA typeface, since not many exist at the moment.

‘Phonetics’ Research

Contextual Research

Joe Leadbeater

OUGD505

‘Phonetics’ Research

Contextual Research

Lisa Huang (France) - ‘Sinograms’ An understandable chinese writing system through simplifications of keys (one key per booklet) with their phonetics, ordered by themes such as body, actions, elements, etc.

Despite this not directly corresponding to the IPA, there is still similaries: An explanation of the symbols with an emphasis on typographic use.

I intend on looking at this for layout and typographic influences, as I feel it’s extremely functional and easy to understand.

Jianu Lu (Dubai) - ‘Visual Language’ Visual Language explores the founding principles and elements of design in an interactive and tactile format of a hand-bound book. The project approaches each element and principle through a restricted palette while limiting itself in being expressed solely through elementary shapes and forms.

The book creates a hands-on reading experience through die-cut designs, a process I would like to explore with this project.

Joe Leadbeater

Regional Accents / Dialects On this page, you will see the differences between different regional accents. When needed, I intend on illustrating accents on a vowel quad (with a full explanation).

Received Pronounciation Received Pronunciation, or RP for short, is the instantly recognisable accent often described as ‘typically British’. Popular terms for this accent, such as ‘The Queen’s English’, ‘Oxford English’ or ‘BBC English’ are all a little misleading. The Queen, for instance, speaks an almost unique form of English, while the English we hear at Oxford University or on the BBC is no longer restricted to one type of accent.

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‘Phonetics’ Research

UK Regional Accents

Scottish English This is the broad definition used to describe English as it is spoken in the country of Scotland. Note that Scottish English is different than Scots, a language derived from Northumbrian Old English that is spoken in Scotland as well. That being said, Scots has a strong influence on how English in Scotland is spoken.

Features: Rhotic, with trilled or tapped r’s.

Glottal stopping of the letter t when in between vowels (similar to Cockney and related accents).

Monopthongal pronounciations of the /ei/ and /ou/ dipthongs, so that that face becomes IPA fe:s and goat becomes IPA go:t.

Midlands English

Northern England English These are the accents and dialect spoken north of the midlands, in cities like Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool. Related accents also found in rural Yorkshire, although there are some unique dialect features there that I won’t get into now.

Features: The foot-stut merger: (see the Midlands description above).

Non-rhoticity, except in some rural areas.

The dipthong in words like kite and ride is lengthened so that kite can become something like IPA ka:ɪt (i.e. it sounds a bit like “kaaaait”) Unique vocab includes use of the word mam to mean mother,

Midlands English is one of the more stigmatized of Englishes.

Technically, this can be divided into East Midlands and West Midlands, but I won’t get into the differences between the two just now. The most famous of these dialects is Brummie (Birmingham English).

Features: The foot-strut merger, meaning that the syllable in foot and could is pronounced with the same syllable as strut and fudge. (IPA ʊ).

A system of vowels otherwise vaguely reminiscent of Australian accents, with short i in kit sometimes verging toward IPA kit (“keet”) and extremely open “loose” dipthongs.

Cockney Cockney is probably the second most famous British accent. It originated in the East End of London, but shares many features with and influences other dialects in that region.

Features: Raised vowel in words like trap and cat so these sounds like “trep” and “cet.”

West Country (Southwest British) West Country refers to a large swath of accents heard in the South of England, starting about fifty miles West of London and extending to the Welsh border.

Features: Rhoticity, meaning that the letter r is pronounced after vowels. So, for example, whereas somebody from London would pronounce mother as “muthah,” somebody from Bristol would say “mutherrr“. (i.e. the way people pronounce the word in America or Ireland).

Otherwise, this is a huge dialect area, so there’s tons of variation.

London vowel shift: The vowel sounds are shifted around so that Cockney “day” sounds is pronounced IPA dæɪ (close to American “die”) and Cockney buy verges near IPA bɒɪ (close to American “boy”).

Glottal Stopping: the letter t is pronounced with the back of the throat (glottis) in between vowels; hence better becomes IPA be?ə (sounds to outsiders like “be’uh”).

L-vocalization: The l at the end of words often becomes a vowel sound Hence pal can seem to sound like “pow.” (I’ve seen this rendered in IPA as /w/, /o,/ and /ɰ/.)

Th-Fronting: The th in words like think or this is pronounced with a more forward consonant depending on the word: thing becomes “fing,” this becomes “dis,” and mother becomes “muhvah.”

Joe Leadbeater

OUGD505

‘Phonetics’ Research

UK Regional Accents

Regional Accents / Dialects (2)

Geordie

On this page, you will see the differences between different regional accents. When needed, I intend on illustrating accents on a vowel quad (with a full explanation).

Geordie usually refers to both the people and dialect of NewcastleUpon-Tyne, in Northeast England. The word may also refer to accents and dialects in Northeast England in general. I would classify this as a separate region from the rest of Northern England because it’s so radically different from the language spoken in nearby cities.

Features The foot-stut merger(see the Midlands description above).

Non-rhoticity (in the cities at least) The /ai/ dipthong in kite is raised to IPA ɛɪ, so it sounds a bit more like American or Standard British “kate.”

The /au/ dipthong in “about” is pronounced IPA u: (that is, “oo”) in strong dialects. Hence bout can sound like “boot.”

Liverpool (Mid - West British) One of the most unique Scouse features is the way the accent renders the letter ‘t.’ At the beginning of a word or a stressed syllable, /t/ is affricated, becoming something of a /ts/ sound: tree becomes ‘tsree,’ town becomes ‘tsown,’ and Tom becomes ‘tsom.’

Welsh English This refers to the accents and dialects spoken in the country of Wales. The speech of this region is heavily influenced by the Welsh language, which remained more widely spoken in modern times than the other Celtic languages.

But in between vowels and at the end of words, Liverpool /t/ is an exotic consonant popularly termed the ‘slit t.’ This might crudely be described as a sound between /t/ and /s/. Like /t/, it is pronounced with the tip of the tongue making contact with the alveolar ridge (the hard ridge right behind the top row of teeth). Like an /s/, however, the ‘slit t’ is a fricative, pronounced by passing air through the small opening created by the tongue’s position (hence the ‘slit’). To outsiders, then, the word butter might sound slightly like ‘busser.’

The ‘slit t’ is also found in Irish English, giving rise to a commonlyheld assumption that Irish immigration to Liverpool led Scouse to adopt this ‘Irish sound.’ Given the city’s longstanding ties to the Emerald Isle, this seems a plausible theory. Yet as I’ll explain later in the post, I have some reservations about the Liverpool-Ireland connection.

Features: Usually non-rhotic.

English is generally modelled after Received Pronunciation or related accents, but with many holdovers from the Welsh language.

Syllables tend to be very evenly stressed, and the prosody of the accent is often very “musical”.

The letter r is often trilled or tapped.

Some dialect words imported from the Welsh language.

Estuary English (Southeast British) Estuary is an accent derived from London English which has achieved a status slightly similar to “General American” in the US. Features of the accent can be heard around Southeast England, East Anglia, and perhaps further afield. It is arguably creeping into the Midlands and North.

Features: Similar to Cockney, but in general Estuary speakers do not front th words or raise the vowel in trap. There are few hard-and-fast rules, however.

Glottal stoppingof ‘t’ and l-vocalization (see above) are markers of this accent, but there is some debate about their frequency.