CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of Study

Pronounciation refers to production of sounds that we use to make meaning, it

includes to the particular sounds of language, aspects of speech beyond the level of the

individual sound, such as attention stress, and rhytm. In pronunciation, there are many

aspects that will be discussed. One of the aspects that will be discussed in this paper are

English letters and Phonetic symbols.

English letter is a written symbol or character representing a speech sound and being a

component of an alphabet. In English letter there are many types and function of letter.

Phonetics is the study of the sound of language and their physical properties. Phonetics

discribes how speech sounds are produced by the vocal apparatus ( the lungs, vocal cords,

tongue, teeth, etc ). Phonetics focuses on the physical sounds of speech. Phonetics covers

speech perception (how the brain discerns sound), acoustics (the physical qualities of sound

as movement trough air), and articulation (voice production trough the movements of the

lungs,tongue,lips, and other articulators).

B. Aims of Study

The aims in studying English letter and phonetics symbol are :

To know what is English letter, types and the function of it;

To make a different between vowel and consonant;

To improve the student’s ability in uttering the words in English;

To know what is phonetics symbol, kinds and the function of it;

To know how to put the sounds together appropriately;

To make the students easier to analyse the pronunciation of words.

C. Limitation of Study

The limitation of study is to clarify the problems of the study English letter and

phonetics symbol.

D. Significant of Study

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This result of English letter and phonetics symbol’s paper is hoped fully useful for :

The student’s of English Department of Tarbiyah Faculty to improve their

pronunciation in spoken language

The English lecturers as a contribution to improve their students’ ability,

especially to build up their pronunciation in spoken language

CHAPTER II

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THEORITICAL REVIEW

A. DEFINITION LETTER AND PHONETIC SYMBOL

a. Definition of Letter

Letter is written or printed a sign representing a sound Character representing one or

more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbol of an alphabet: a capital letter.or a

written symbol or character representing a speech sound end being a component of an

alphabet.

Many letters in English have more than one sound, or they can be silent, because letter

are not always same with speech sound, in writting words are made of letter in speech, words

are made of sound speech for example the word key and car begin with the same sound but

different letter.1

b. Definition phonetic symbol

Phonetics on the other hand is the systematic study of the sounds of speech, which is

physical and directly observable. Phonetics is sometimes seen as not properly linguistic,

because it is the outward, physical manifestation of the main object of linguistic research,

which is language (not speech): and language is abstract.2

Phonetics is the study of speech. It is a broad and interdisciplinary science whose

investigations cover four main areas:

• how speech can be written down (called phonetic transcription);

• how it is produced (speech production or articulatory phonetics);

• what its acoustic characteristics are (acoustic phonetics);

• how it is perceived by listeners (speech perception or auditory phonetics).3

Because the English-speaking world contains so many diverse com -munities,

scattered over a wide geographical area with different historical and cultural backgrounds,

our basic stance is that it is not really possible to describe the phonetics of ‘English’ as such.

Even in the British Isles, there is huge variability in the way that English

sounds.Traditionally, British textbooks on English phonetics concentrate on Received

Pronunciation (RP), a variety of English which traditionally has had high social status, but is

spoken nowadays by few people. So in this book we explore the phonetic potential of the

vocal tract, and illustrate it from English; but also you, the reader, are encouraged to reflect

1 Mark hancock, english pronunciation in use,2009 page 102 Richard Odgen ,An Introduction to English Phonetics, 2009,page 13 Henning Reetz and Allard Jongman, Phonetics : transcription, production, acoustics and perception,2009 Page

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on what is true for you and your community. Despite its being one of the most written-about

languages, there are still many discoveries to make about English, and perhaps you will make

one of them.In making our observations, we will look at the way that sounds are articulated,

and think about how the articulations are co-ordinated with one another in time. We will look

at how the sounds of English can be represented using the Phonetic Alphabet of the

International Phonetic Association. We will look a little at acoustic representations so that we

can see speech in a different way; and we will look at speech in a number of different

settings, including carefully produced tokens of words and conversational speech.

Phonetic symbol is a written character used in phonetic transcription of represent a

particular speech sound.

This is the standard set of phonetic symbols for English (RP and similar accents).

Consonants

p pen, copy, happen

b back, baby, job

t tea, tight, button

d day, ladder, odd

k key, clock, school

g get, giggle, ghost

tʃ church, match, nature

dʒ judge, age, soldier

f fat, coffee, rough, photo

v view, heavy, move

θ thing, author, path

ð this, other, smooth

s soon, cease, sister

z zero, music, roses, buzz

ʃ ship, sure, national

ʒ pleasure, vision

h hot, whole, ahead

m more, hammer, sum

n nice, know, funny, sun

Vowels

ɪ kit, bid, hymn, minute

E dress, bed, head, many

Æ trap, bad

ɒ lot, odd, wash

ʌ strut, mud, love, blood

ʊ foot, good, put

iː fleece, sea, machine

eɪ face, day, break

aɪ price, high, try

ɔɪ choice, boy

uː goose, two, blue, group

əʊ goat, show, no

aʊ mouth, now

ɪə near, here, weary

eə square. fair, various

ɑː start, father

ɔː thought, law, north, war

ʊə poor, jury, cure

ɜː nurse, stir, learn, refer

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ŋ ring, anger, thanks, sung

l light, valley, feel

r right, wrong, sorry, arrange

j yet, use, beauty, few

w wet, one, when, queen

ʔ(glottal stop)

department, football

ə about, common, standard

I happy, radiate. Glorious

U thank you, influence, situation

nO suddenly, cotton

lO middle, metal

ˈ (stress mark)

B. FUNCTION OF LETTER AND PHONETIC SYMBOL

a. Function of Letter

The function of letter is arranging a word in written letter . It is representing the sound

in written english. There are the 26 letters of the alphabet comprise 5 vowels and 21

consonants. In spoken English, there are 20 vowels and 24 consonants. It is this discrepancy,

of course, which underlies the complexity of English spelling."4

b. Function of Phonetic Symbol

The pronunciation of words in many languages, as distinct from their written form

(orthography), has undergone significant change over time. Pronunciation can also vary

greatly among dialects of a language. Traditional orthography in some languages,

particularly French and English, often differs from the pronunciation. For example, the words

"bough" and "trough" do not rhyme in English, even though their spellings might suggest

they do. As well, each contains a silent 'g', and "trough" contains an invisible 'f'. An example

from French is the 's' at the end of words, which is usually silent ("militaire" is pronounced

the same as "militaires") unless followed by a word beginning in a vowel. In the orthography

of most European languages, the fact that many letters are pronounced or silent depending on

contexts causes difficulties in determining the appropriate pronunciation, especially in the

cases of English, Irish, and French. However, in other languages, such asSpanish and Italian,

there is a more consistent—though still imperfect—relationship between orthography and

pronunciation.

4 David Crystal, How Language Works. Overlook Press, 2006

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Therefore, phonetic transcription can provide a function that orthography cannot. It

displays a one-to-one relationship between symbols and sounds, unlike traditional writing

systems. Phonetic transcription allows us to step outside of orthography and examine

differences in pronunciation between dialects within a given language, as well as to identify

changes in pronunciation that may take place over time.

C. KINDS OF LETTER AND PHONETIC SYMBOL

a. Kinds of letter

In english letter there are 26 letters in this part ,There are two kinds of letter, Vowel

and consonant letter,for more information let us see this explanation :

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1. Consonant

Consonant in speech sound is made by (partly) stopping the breath with the

tongue,lips, etc and in letter Consonant is letter of the Alphabet that represent a consonant

sound . ex b.c.and d.5

"In written English the 26 letters of the alphabet comprise 5 vowels and 21

consonants. In spoken English, there are 20 vowels and 24 consonants. It is this discrepancy,

of course, which underlies the complexity of English spelling." 21 cononant letters

are ;”B,C,D,F,G,H,J,K,L,M,N,P,Q,R,S,T,V,W,X,Y,Z.

(David Crystal, How Language Works. Overlook Press, 2006)

2. Vowel

Vowel is speech sound in which te mouth is open and the tongue is not touching the

top of the mouth, teeth,etc. In Letter is a letter that represents a vowel sound. "Written

English has five proper vowel letters, A, E, I, O, and U (Y may substitute for I). Yet spoken

English has some 20 shades of vowel sounds. Accordingly, our vowel letters are kept busy,

each one symbolizing multiple sounds on any written page. Our letters get some help from

rules of spelling, which, for example, can specify the long A of 'rate' versus the short A of

'rat.'"6

b. Kinds of phonetic symbol

1. Consonant

a) Plosives

The symbols for the plosives (or oral stops) [p, b, t, d, k, g] are familiar to anyone who

uses the English writting. Importantly, however, as pointed out earlier, these symbols

represent unique sounds that are articulatorily defined in terms of place and manner of

articulation and voicing and are not letters that are defined by convention. It is easy to find

minimal pairs for the voiceless-voiced contrast for all plosives (e.g. initial: tLie-b.uy, tie-dye,

[;.oast-gh_ost; final: ropg_robe,sight-side, back-bag) and for the place oppositions (e.g. b-

die-guy, aair(to) tear-[;.are, bib.-bid-big, apg_-eigh_l-ache).

b) Nasals

The symbols for the nasals are [m, n, IJ]. The bilabial nasal [m] and alveolar nasal [n] are

familiar to a speaker (or writer) of English- and, again, the IPA symbols are similar to the

5 Oxford Learners Pocket dictionary ,Fourth Edition university perss ,2008.page 916 David Sacks, Letter Perfect. Broadway Books, 2004

7 | P a g e

orthographic letters, which are often pronounced as these sounds. That these are sounds and

not letters becomes more obvious for the velar nasal, which is represented by the symbol [IJ].

This IPA symbol is not part of the English orthography. Note that the IPA symbol has a small

hook on the right leg of the "n," which is turned backward (the orientation and direction of

this hook are important because there are other IPA symbols that differ in this respect).

Minimal pairs for the labial and alveolar nasals are easy to find (might-:!light, tumor-tu:!

ler, beam-bea:!l). Minimal pairs (triplets) for all three places of articulation are more difficult

to find since velar nasals do not occur in word-initial position in English. However, a number

of examples can be found in medial and final positions (e.g. simmer-sinner-si:!lger and sum-

SO:!l-SU:!lg). In case you are not convinced that the last sound in ki:!lg ([IJ]) is different

from that in kill ([n]), stick a finger in your mouth while producing the last sound of

the two words. The tongue is in the front of the mouth for the word kin and the finger hits the

tongue much farther back for the word king. Kin ends with the alveolar nasal [n] whereas

king ends with the velar [IJ]. Remember that nasal and oral stops are both produced at the

same place of articulation and that the tongue might have exactly the same shape. But for the

nasal stops the velum is lowered, and for the oral stops the vocal folds do not vibrate if they

are voiceless.

c) Fricatives

For the fricatives, we see a bit more variation in the places of articulation and we

encounter a few new symbols. The voiceless labiodental fricative [f] is common in many

English words. The voiced variant of this sound [v] is again produced with the same position

of the articulators but the vocal folds vibrate, as can be easily felt (see Section 2.1 ). Minimal

pairs in initial, medial, and final positions are fan-y_an, surface-sery_ice, leaf-leave.

d) affricate

For the affricates, there are voiceless and voiced postalveolar sounds ([ij] and [(i3],

respectively). The IPA does not have separate symbols for affricates but combines the plosive

and fricative with a tie bar [~]. The reason for this lack of symbols is that (1) affricates can be

easily represented by this procedure and it reduces the number of symbols that have to be

remembered, and (2) there is a debate whether affricates are really only a single sound

segment or not. It is sometimes more a matter of whether the sounds are felt to be one

segment or whether the plosive and affricate are two sounds that appear together as a

coincidence. For example, the initial sounds in the English words cheap (with an initial [tf])

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and ieep (with an initial [(i3]) are considered affricates because English generally does not

allow clusters of a plosive followed by a fricative at the beginning of a word. On the other

hand, the words pan~ and hands end in the plural marker "-s" and [ts] and [dz] at their ends

are considered as a sequence of a plosive and a fricative, because the fricative is not really

part of the word but the result of the attachment of the plural "-s" to the final plosives of the

words.

The case is different in, for example, German, where the sound [ts] patterns like a single

sound (similar to [tf] in English). As a result, German [rs] occurs at the beginning, middle,

and end of words such as Z.iel [tsi:l] 'target,' Konz_ept [bn'ts£pt] 'concept,' Schut.g; [Juts]

'protection'). Because the definition of an affricate is partly dependent on this structural

behavior of a language, some phoneticians always treat affricates as a sequence of two sound

segments and not as one phone or phoneme. When it is treated as one unit, keep in mind that

it must always be a homorganic articulation (see Section 2.3.2; i.e. [ks] is not an affricate

because the places of articulation for plosive and fricative are different) and it must be the

sequence plosive-fricative and not the other way round (i.e. [st] is not an affricate). Common

non-IPA symbols for [tf] and [d3] are [c] and [j], respectively.

e) Approximants

All the sounds we have discussed so far are characterized by a total obstruction of the

oral pathway (plosives, nasals, and affricates) or a rather severe constriction (fricatives). For

the approximants, which are all voiced in English, as they are for most languages of the

world, the pathway is more open. The pathway can be blocked in the midsagittal part, as for

the lateral approximant [I], which is known from words as leek or little, but in that case at

least one side of the tongue is lowered, allowing a reasonably unrestricted airflow.7

Consonant Description Example

stop-plosive

consonant, unvoicedas in pet

stop-plosive as in bet

7 Henning Reetz and Allard Jongman, Phonetics : transcription, production, acoustics and perception ,

Blackwell Publishing,USA,2009 Page 26

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consonant, voiced

stop-plosive

consonant, unvoicedas in ten

stop-plosive

consonant, voicedas in den

stop-plosive

consonant, unvoicedas in kit

stop-plosive

consonant, voicedas in give

nasal consonant as in me

nasal consonant as in neat

nasal consonant (eng) as in hung

fricative consonant,

unvoicedas in feet

fricative consonant,

voicedas in vain

fricative consonant,

unvoicedas in think

fricative consonant,

voicedas in then

fricative consonant,

unvoicedas in sea

fricative consonant,

voicedas in zip

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fricative consonant,

unvoiced (esh)as in she

fricative consonant,

voicedas in azure

fricative consonant,

unvoicedas in heat

lateral consonant as in lift

glide as in rose

glide (yot) as in yes

glide, voiced as in were

glide, unvoiced as in when

combination

consonant, unvoicedas in chill

combination

consonant, voicedas in jet

2. Vowel

Vowel (in English articulation) a speech sound produced without occluding, diverting,

or obstructing the flow of air from the lungs ( opposed to consonant ).8

8Www.Vowel Define Vowel at Dictionary.com.htm.Friday.15 March 2013.11.45

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Vowels are categorized by their height (high, mid, low), frontness (front, central,

back), and rounding (rounded, unrounded, spread). In addition, vowels can be characterized

as tense or lax, the vowels are written in a chart that roughly represents the height and

frontness of idealized tongue positions. This representation is known as a vowel quadrilateral.

There is some debate about whether a vowel quadrilateral is in fact an articulatory

representation, or should be considered an acoustic representation of vowels; we will take up

this issue. In contrast to consonants, whose place and manner of articulation can be

reasonably determined by self-observation, it is more difficult to determine the tongue

positions for vowels, and they can vary considerably across speakers. Furthermore, there is a

substantial divergence in the exact quality of vowels.

Long Vowels

iː Sheep

aː Farm

uː Coo

ɔː Horse

ɜː Bird

Short Vowels

ɪ Ship e Head

Æ Hat ə Above

ʊ Foot ɚ mother (US)

ɒ sock (UK) ɝ worm (US)

ʌ Cup

This is the differences between vowel letter and Vowel phonetic symbol :

Sounds Letters Examples Notes

[i:]

e, ee

ea

ie, ei

be, eve, see, meet, sleep,

meal, read, leave, sea, team,

field, believe, receive

been [i];

bread, deaf [e];

great, break [ei];

friend [e]

[i]

i

y

it, kiss, tip, pick, dinner,

system, busy, pity, sunny

machine, ski,

liter, pizza [i:]

[e]

e

ea

let, tell, press, send, end,

bread, dead, weather, leather

meter [i:]

sea, mean [i:]

[ei] a late, make, race, able, stable,  

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ai, ay

ei, ey

ea

aim, wait, play, say, day,

eight, weight, they, hey,

break, great, steak

said, says [e];

height, eye [ai]

[æ] A

cat, apple, land, travel, mad;

AmE: last, class, dance, castle, half

 

[a:]

ar

a

army, car, party, garden, park,

father, calm, palm, drama;

BrE: last, class, dance, castle, half

war, warm [o:]

 

 

[ai]

i, ie

y, uy

ice, find, smile, tie, lie, die,

my, style, apply, buy, guy

 

[au]

ou

ow

out, about, house, mouse,

now, brown, cow, owl, powder

group, soup [u:]

know, own [ou]

[o] O not, rock, model, bottle, copy  

[o:]

or

o

aw, au

ought

al, wa-

more, order, cord, port,

long, gone, cost, coffee,

law, saw, pause, because,

bought, thought, caught,

hall, always, water, war, want

work, word [ər]

 

 

 

[oi] oi, oy oil, voice, noise, boy, toy  

[ou]

o

oa, ow

go, note, open, old, most,

road, boat, low, own, bowl

do, move [u:]

how, owl [au]

[yu:] u

ew

use, duty, music, cute, huge, tune,

few, dew, mew, new,

 

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eu

ue, ui

euphemism, feud, neutral,

hue, cue, due, sue, suit

[u:]

u

o, oo

ew

ue, ui

ou

 

rude, Lucy, June,

do, move, room, tool,

crew, chew, flew, jewel,

blue, true, fruit, juice,

group, through, route;

AmE: duty, new, sue, student

 

 

guide, quite [ai];

build [i]

[u]

oo

u

ou

look, book, foot, good,

put, push, pull, full, sugar,

would, could, should

 

neutral sound [ə]

u, o

ou

a, e

o, i

gun, cut, son, money, love,

tough, enough, rough,

about, brutal, taken, violent,

memory, reason, family

 

[ər]

er, ur, ir

or, ar

ear

serve, herb, burn, hurt, girl, sir,

work, word, doctor, dollar,

heard, earn, earnest, earth

 

heart, hearth [a:]

 Note 2: Diphthongs

A diphthong is one indivisible vowel sound that consists of two parts. The first part is

the main strong component (the nucleus); the second part is short and weak (the glide). A

diphthong is always stressed on its first component: [au], [ou]. A diphthong forms one

syllable. American linguists usually list five diphthongs: [ei], [ai], [au], [oi], [ou].

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Diphthongs

eɪ Day

aɪ Eye

ɔɪ Boy

aʊ Mouth

əʊ nose (UK)

oʊ nose (US)

ɪə ear (UK)

eə hair (UK)

ʊə pure (UK)

CHAPTER III

PROBLEM SOLVING

A. Students’ Problem in studying English Letter and Phonetics Symbol

There are many troubles for the students in studying English letter and phonetics

symbol, so that they surrender to learn English. The problems that are always faced by the

students are :

1. Getting the difficulty in making distinction between two similar words in English;

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2. The correct word is pronunced the same as incorrect one, but the spelling different.

B. Students’s Efforts in Solving Problem in Studying English Letter and

Phonetics Symbol

Many students always get problems in studying English especially in learning English

letter and phonetics symbol. To solve this problems, there are many efforts that could be done

by the students, namely :

1. The students must have equipment to record their own voice, so that they can hear

their own progress;

2. Practicing in front of the mirror so that they can compare the shape of students mouth

to the mouth;

3. The students had better to check the phonetic symbol of the word of their spoken in

dictionary;

4. The students can practise listenning and repeating the words to improve their fluency.

C. The factors and Indicators of students’ Master English Letter and Phonetics

Symbol

1. Improving the students’ ability in English letter and phonetics symbol by practicing

the pronunciation’s of the word;

2. Listening to the English native speaker continiously;

3. Finding the difficult utterance of the word in dictionary continiously.

CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

A. CONCLUSION

Phonetic symbol and letter have their own meaning and both of them there is a real

relationship in ponunciation ,if phonetic is the way how to pronun a word we will write that

way in phonetic symbol, and the word that we spell will be written in letter.English letter is a

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written symbol or character representing a speech sound and being a component of an

alphabet. In English letter there are many types and function of letter.

Phonetics is the study of the sound of language and their physical properties.

Phonetics discribes how speech sounds are produced by the vocal apparatus ( the lungs, vocal

cords, tongue, teeth, etc ). Phonetics focuses on the physical sounds of speech. Phonetics

covers speech perception (how the brain discerns sound), acoustics (the physical qualities of

sound as movement trough air), and articulation (voice production trough the movements of

the lungs,tongue,lips, and other articulators).

We use phonetic symbol to describe how the word that we pronun and letter describe

how to write a word there are 26 letters in english that called by “Alphabet”.

Letter and phonetic symbol devide by two kind, it is vowel and consonant. In letter

we have 5 Vowels and 21 Consonant, and we have more complicated vowel and consonant in

phonetic symbol.

B. SUGGESTION

The English Lecturer, to increase the student ability in learning english

especially increasing the students’ ability to build up the english letter and

phonetic symbol.

The students must be more agresive to practice to utter the word.

The students have to look for more information about this subject especally to

understand and more understand about phonetic symbol and english letter.

REFERENCES

Lodge, Ken. A Critical Introduction to Phonetics.Continuum International Publishing Group.2009.

Hancock, Mark hancock. English Pronunciation in Use. Cambridge University

Press.2009.

Odgen, Richard. An Introduction to English Phonetics. Great Britain: Edinburgh University

Press Ltd.2009.

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Kreidler, W Charles. The Pronunciation of English A Course Book. USA : Blackwell

Publishing Ltd. 2004.

Reetz, Henning and Allard Jongman. Phonetics : Transcription, Production, Acoustics and

Perception. USA: Blackwell Publishing. 2009.

Gilbert, Judy B. Clear Speech. USA: Cambridge University Press. 2005.

Laroy, Clement. Pronunciation. New York : Oxford University Pers. 2008.

Szcześniak, Konrad. IPA Transcription Practice. Portugal: Universidade do Porto. 2011.

Oxford Learners Pocket dictionary. Fourth Edition university perss. 2008.

Cambridge University. Handbook of the international Phonetic Association.Cambridge

University Pers.2009.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonetic_transcription.Friday/ 15/march/2013/11:00

www.Phonetic symbols for English.html/15 march/2013/11:00

www.definition and examples of vowels in English and a description of the Northern Cities

Vowel Shift.htm

Www.Vowel Define Vowel at Dictionary.com.htm.Friday.15 March 2013.11.45

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