Unit-02
Voice and Accent
 Phoneme is the smallest unit of a language which
makes difference in meaning.
 Phoneme is a set of allophone.
 A Phoneme is a distinct speech sounds in a
language.
 An essential property of is that, it functions
contrastively.
Transcription
Phoneme
Initially Phoneme
Breeze / freeze
/bri:z/ - /fri:z/
/b/ and /f/ are
phonemes
Middle Phoneme
Bell / bill
/bel/ - /bil/
/e/ and/i/ are
phonemes
End Phoneme
Had / hat
/hæd/ - /hæt/
/d/ and/t/ are
phonemes
 Allophone is a phonetic variant of a phoneme.
 Eg. Phoneme /t/ 1. Aspirated [tʰ]
2. Un-aspirated [t]
3. Flap [ɾ]
 The aspirated [tʰ] occurs at the beginning of a
word or a stressed syllable.
 The un-aspirated [t] occurs directly before or
after/s/.
 The flap [ɾ] occurs between a stressed vowel and
an unstressed vowel.
Overview
Linguistics: Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which encompasses the systematic
investigation of the properties of particular languages as well as the characteristics of language in
general.
Phonetics: Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that focuses on the physical production,
transmission, and reception of sound. It deals with the study of speech sounds.
Accent
The term accent has various meanings, but in speaking, an accent is an
identifiable style of pronunciation, often varying regionally or even socioeconomically.
An accent is a particular way of
pronouncing a language.
 'New Yawk' for New York among
native New Yorkers, 'aboot' for
about in Canada.
Components of Accent
There are 2 main parts to an accent:
1. Pronunciation
2. Intonation
Vowel Sounds
• Vowel sounds are sounds that are produced by the
un-interrupted flow of air.
• In written English there are 5 vowels i.e., a, e, i, o, u.
• But, in spoken English there are 20 distinctive vowel
sounds, made up of 12 pure vowels or
monophthongs and 8 vowel glides or diphthongs.