Applied Linguistics 665

English Phonology

3

Phonetics

• Relevance to Classroom Teachers• Pass standardized tests – RICA

(Reading Instruction Competency Assessment).

• Reading instruction - Phonics- based approach

Spelling and Sounds in English

• Spoken language varies over time and space. But written language is constant.

• English has been influenced by other languages. Spelling problems

Human Communication

• Oral communication = Speaker encodes an idea into language Listener decodes the acoustic signal into language to understand the original idea

• Sending and receiving messages involves much more than encoding and decoding

• Prediction• Making inferences ( to fill in

information not included in the message)

• Social context• Gestures• Tone of voice ( threatening, pleading)• Shared knowledge – common feelings• Nature of the utterance

(literal/nonliteral, direct/indirect)

How people learn to read and write and how people learn a second language?

• Reading should be directly taught and learned (learning view)

• Reading is acquired (acquisition view)• Reading should be taught in small parts

of language – phonemes and morphemes (current approach- US dept. of Edu)

• Second language – teaching grammar and vocab. (early approach)

• Second language is acquired (comprehensible input)

• Phonology, morphology and syntax can inform teachers as they evaluate method of teaching reading and methods of teaching second languages.

Phonemes

• Phoneme is a sound that makes a difference in meaning in a language. There are 40 phonemes in English and about 22 in Spanish. “p” sound in pin/pan and “b” sound in bet/ban = minimal pairs

• One letter may represent different sounds and one sound may be represented by different letters or letter sequences

• C in cat and k in kite • Ea have different sounds – tea,

bread, steak, and idea

• Phonemic transcription: each sound represented by one and only one written mark

• Cat and kite: /k/• Pill: /p/ - aspirated• Sip: /p/ - not aspirated• Phonemes are perceptual, not

physical units.