The Anthropology of Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology

1
The Anthropology of Language An Introduction to
Linguistic Anthropology
Chapter 3The Sounds of Language
2
Which of the following is key to learning
languages?

• Learn the basics of sound production
• Learn all possible slangs in a language
• Learn which language is superior
• Learn all objects in the language
• All are correct

3
The Sounds of Language

• Sounds
• Phonology
• Phonetics Phonemics
• Phonetic Charts Symbols
• Consonants
• Vowels
• Suprasegmentals
• Phonemics
• Phonemes
• Minimal pair
• Allophones
• Etics Emics...

4
Phonetics

• Acoustic
• physical properties of sound, sound waves,
• Auditory
• perception of sounds, psychological reality
• Articulatory
• pronunciation of sounds, articulation
• also known as descriptive phonetics.

5
Producing Speech Sounds

• lungs

• oral nasal cavities

• larynx vocal cords
• voicing

• velum (soft palate) mouth closed m, n
  mouth open õ?

6
Writing Speech Sounds

• Phonetic Charts Symbols
• Spelling vs phonetic transcription
• cat (English)
• ciel (French)
• cizi (Czech)
• ghoti
• Phonetic charts
• I.P.A.
• Pike.

7
Phonetic Charting

• Mapping the sounds of a language
• Helps you to analyze and pronounce sounds...
• Helps you to analyze sound systems...
• and to see patterns
• Guides you in understanding accents.

8
Consonants Place

• From front to back

bilabial p, b, m
labiodental f, v
(inter)dental ?, ?
alveolar t, d, s, z, n, l, ?
alveopalatal (palatal-alveolar
postalveolar) ?, ?, ñ.
9
Consonants Place (continued)

• Front to back

retroflex ?, ?
velar k, g, x, ?, ?
uvular ? (French r)
pharyngeal ? (Arabic ain)
glottal ?, h .
10
Which of the following has NO effect on speech
production?

• Larynx
• Ear canal
• Tongue
• Nasal cavity
• Lungs
• Velum

11
Consonants Manner

• Stops (plosives) t, d, !, ?
• Aspirated th, dh
• Fricatives s, z
• Affricates t?, d?
• Taps Trills
• Taps / flaps ?
• Trills r
• Nasals n
• Approximants l, ?, j, w .

12
Creating a Language Consonants

• Your language will need some consonants
• Begin by choosing 8 to 12 consonants to use
• These can be as complex as you wish
• Be sure you can pronounce each one
• Try to use phonetic symbols (use the IPA handout)

13
Vowels Place

• part of tongue raised
• front, center, back
• height of tongue
• high, mid, low

i u e o a
14
Vowels Manner

• rounded
• u, o - back (e.g. most English back vowels)
• y, ø - front (e.g., French, German, Danish)
• unrounded
• i, e - front (e.g. all English front vowels)
• ?, ? - back (e.g., Turkish, Native Am.
  langs)
• tense/lax (close/open)
• i vs I .

15
Charting Vowels
16
Creating a Language Vowels

• Your language will also need some vowels
• Choose between 4 and 6 vowels to use
• be sure you can pronounce them
• These should be simple vowels
• Try using the phonetic symbols (use the I.PA. see
  handout)

17
Phones and Phonemes

• phone
• smallest identifiable unit of sound in a language
• more easily identified by outsiders
• phoneme
• smallest contrastive unit of sound in a language
• heard as a single sound by insiders
• Contrasts are not predictable.

18
Phonology

• Sounds and their arrangements
• Phonetics Phonemics
• Phonetics
• identify describe sounds in detail (phones)
• Phonemics
• analyze arrangements of sounds
• identify groupings of sounds (phonemes)
• Examples
• English pill vs spill -- ph p /p/
• Hindi ph?l (fruit) vs p?l (minute) -- ph
  p /ph / /p/ .

19
allophones of a phoneme

• are heard as the same sound by native speakers
• are usually complementary to one another
• we say they are in complementary distribution
• because the variation is usually conditioned by
  neighboring sounds,
• we can also call this conditioned variation.

20
Practice with Allophones English /p/

• See W/R pp. 42-43 (3.3a English)
• p? (aspirated) p? ? t
• p (unaspirated) s p ? t
• p? (unreleased) s ? p?

• /p/

p? / ___
p / s___
p? / ___
what about t and k in English?
21
Phonemes vs. Allophones Review

• allophones
• non-contrastive
• predictable distribution
• p??n and sp?n
• phonemes
• contrastive
• non-predictable distribution
• p??n vs t??n.

22
Etics vs. Emics

• Ken Pike, 1950s
• A core concept in anthropology
• Etics
• outside, cross-cultural /comparative
• absolute, objective
• a step to emic analysis
• Emics
• inside, culture-specific
• relative, subjective
• a goal of emic analysis.

23
Using Phonetics Phonemics

• working with your conversation partners
• map phonemic contrasts
• compare phonological systems
• use your understanding of phonemes allophones
  to assist with accent reduction (or to pronounce
  your CPs language better)
• See Workbook/Reader p. 49.

24
Using Phonetics Phonemics

• Creating your language
• Assume each of your sounds is a phoneme
• Now create a pair of allophones for one phoneme
• Choose one phoneme and create a variant
• OR
• Convert two phonemes into allophones of one
• Your allophones should resemble each other
• same manner or place of production, e.g.
• Create a rule to describe the distribution of the
  two allophones.
• beginning vs end of a word?
• following certain sounds?
• preceding certain sounds?
• See Workbook/Reader pp 41 (3.3) and 42.
  

25
Next

• Words and Sentences
• Read
• Textbook Chapter 4
• Workbook/Reader
• Adams (p. 50)
• Prepare to do
• Practice with Languages 4.1-4.15 (W/R pp. 53-67)
• Language Creating (W/R p. 69)
• Conversation Partnering (W/R p. 69)