Теоретическая фонетика английского языка (Теоретическая фонетика английского языка М.А. Соколова, И.С.Тихонова, Р.М.Тихонова, Е.Л.Фрейдина. - Дубна; Феникс+, 2010. - 192 с.), страница 4

It isimportant, however, that the phonetician should remain a linguist and lookupon phonetics as a study of the spoken form oflanguage. It is its applica­tion to linguistic phenomena that makes phonetics a social science in theproper sense of the word.5. Spheres of Practical ApplicationNow we shall give an overview ofthe spheres in which phonetics can beapplied.A study of phonetics has educational value for everyone, who realizesthe importance of language in human communication. Through the studyof the nature oflanguage, especially of spoken language, valuable insightsare gained into human psychology and into the functioning of a man in so­ciety.

That is why we dare say that phonetics has considerable social value.The knowledge of the structure of sound systems, and of the articula­tory and acoustic properties of the production of speech is indispensablein the teaching of foreign languages. The teacher has to know the startingpoint, which is the sound system of the pupil's mother tongue, as well asthe aim of his teaching, which is mastering the pronunciation of the lan­guage to be learnt.

He/she must be able to point out the differences be­tween these two, and to provide adequate training exercises. Ear trainingand articulation training are both equally important in modern languageteaching. The introduction of new technologies, computers in particular,has brought about a revolution in the teaching of the foreign languagepronunciation.In our technological age phonetics has become important in a numberoftechnological fields connected with communication. The results of pho­netic investigations are used in communication engineering.

Phonetic datais obviously needed for creating sound analyzing and sound synthesizingdevices, for example machines converting the printed symbols or lettersinto synthetic speech or automatic typewriters which convert speech di­rectly into printed words on paper.Phonetics contributes important information to the research in crimi­nology aimed at identifying individuals by voices.5. Spheres of Practical Application15For those who work in speech therapy, which handles pathological con­ditions ofspeech, phonetics forms an essential part ofthe professional train­ing syllabus. Phonetics also enters into the training of teachers of the deafand dumb people and can be of relevance to a number of medical and den­tal problems.Phonetics has proved extremely useful in such spheres as investigationsin the historical aspects of languages, in the field of dialectology; designingor improving systems of writing or spelling (orthographies for unwrittenlanguages, shorthand, spelling reform), in questions involving the spellingor pronunciation of personal or place names or of words borrowed fromother languages.At the faculties of foreign language in this country two courses of pho­netics are introduced: practical and theoretical phonetics.Practical or normative phonetics studies the substance, the materialform of phonetic phenomena in relation to meaning.Theoretical phonetics is mainly concerned with the functioning ofpho­netic units in the language.

Theoretical phonetics, as we introduce it here,regards phonetic phenomena synchronically without any special referenceto the historical development of English.This course is intended to discuss the problems of phonetic sciencewhich are relevant to English language teaching. The teacher must be surethat what he/she teaches is linguistically correct. In this course we are tobring together linguistic theory and EFL practice. We hope that this bookwill enable the teacher to work out a truly scientific approach to pronuncia­tion teaching.In phonetics as in any other discipline, there are various schools whoseviews sometimes coincide and sometimes conflict. Occasional reference ismade to them but there is no attempt to describe and compare all possibletraditional and current approaches to the phonetic theory.As you see from the above, the purpose of this book is to consider therole of phonetic means in communication and to serve as a general intro­duction to the subject of theoretical phonetics of English which will en­courage the student and the teacher of English to consult more specializedworks on particular aspects.The authors ofthe book hope that the readers have sufficient knowledgeof the practical course of English phonetics as well as of the course of gen­erallinguistics, which will serve as the basis for this course.The description of the phonetic structure of English will be based onReceived Pronunciation (RP).Chapter I THE FUNCTIONAL ASPECT OF SPEECH SOUNDS This chapter is concerned with the linguistic function of speech sounds,i.

e. "segments of speech".We are going to discuss here the defInitions of the phoneme, methodsused in establishing the phonemic structure of a language, the system ofEnglish phonemes, modifIcations of sounds in connected speech.1.1. The Phoneme1.1.1. The definition of the phoneme1.1.2. The phoneme as a unity of three as­pects1.1.3. Phonological and phonetic mistakes inpronunciation1.2. Transcription1.3. Main Trends in the Phoneme Theory171.1.

The Phoneme1.1. The Phoneme1.1.1. The defmition ofthe phonemeTo know how sounds are produced by speech organs it is not enough todescribe and classify them as language units. When we talk about the soundsof a language, the term "sound" can be interpreted in two rather differentways. In the fIrst place, we can say that [t] and [d] are two different soundsin English, [t] being fortis and [d] being lenis 1 and we can illustrate this byshowing how they contrast with each other to make a difference of meaningin a large number of pairs, such as tie die, seat seed, etc.

But on theother hand ifwe listen carefully to the [t] in let us and compare it with thein let them we can hear that the two sounds are also not the same, the [t] oflet us is alveolar, while the [t] of let them is dental. In both examples thesounds differ in one articulatory feature only; in the second case the differ­ence between the sounds has functionally no significance. It is perfectlyclear that the sense of "sound" in these two cases is different. To avoid thisambiguity, the linguist uses two separate terms: "phoneme" is used to mean"sound" in its contrastive sense, and "allophone" is used for sounds whichare variants of a phoneme: they usually occur in different positions inword (i. e. in different environments) and hence cannot contrast with eachother, nor be used to make meaningful distinctions.1.4.

Methods of Phonological Analysis1.4.1. The aim of phonological analysis1.4.2. Distributional method of phonologicalanalysis1.4.3. SemanticaUy distributional method ofphonological analysis1.4.5. Methods of establishing the phonemicstatus of speech sounds in weak posi­tions. Morphonology1.5. The System of English Phonemes1.5.1. The system of consonants1.5.2. The system ofvowels1.5.3. Modifications of sounds in connectedspeech1.5.3.1. Modifications of consonants1.5.3.2. Modifications ofvowels<! ... B )!{flBOH pel [11 rrpOH3HOCl1TCSl 3Ha'Il1TCJlbHO oOJIbruee, 'ICM Mhl OfihlKHOBeHHO ,llYMa­eM, KOJU1'fCCTBO pa3Hoofipa3HbIX 3BYKOB, KOTOpb[e B Ka)!{;nOM ,llaHHOM ll3bIKe om,e,llH­HHIOTCSl B cpaBHflTeJlbHO HefioJIbruoc 'IHCJlO :mYKOBhlX THIIOB, crrocofiHbIX ,llHcpcpepeH­l\HpOBaTb CJlOBa H fiX CPOPMbl, T.

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