Phonetics / Phonology

Course Description

This course provides you with an elementary introduction to English phonetics and phonology, designed for those who have no previous knowledge whatsoever of the subject. It begins with a very elementary introduction to articulatory phonetics, and then proceeds to introduce the student to a very simplified account of some of the main aspects of the phonological structure of present-day English. Languages other than English will also be examined to compare and contrast the linguistic structural differences and gain insights on linguistic generalisation.

Objectives:

On completion of this course, you should be able to:

• Describe the articulatory processes involved in producing speech sounds of English and other languages.
• Gain a basic fluency with reading and writing the International Phonetic Alphabet
• Perform a phonemic analysis on phonetic data
• Identify similarities and differences among phonetic/phonological systems of a range of languages
• Analyse data provided from natural languages to extract phonological generalizations, and construct arguments from such data to support or to weaken proposals for particular analyses

Audience:

Students who would like to learn more about the structures of phonetics and phonology. Students who would like to do more advanced phonetics and phonology courses in the future.