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Chapter 2 Phonology
1. What are the two major
media of communication?
Of
the two, which one is primary and
why?
Two major
media
of communication are speech and writing, Of the
two, speech is primary.
The reasons are
as follows.
1)
From
the
point
of
view
of
linguistic
evolution,
speech
is
prior
to
writing.
The
writing
system of any
language is always
“
invented
’
by its users to record
speech when the need
arises.
2)
In
everyday
communication,
speech
plays
a
greater
role
than
writing
in
terms
of
the
amount of
information conveyed.
3)
Speech is always the way in which every
native speaker acquires his mother tongue, and
writing is learned and taught later
when he goes to school.
4)
For modern linguists, spoken language
reveals more true features of human speech while
written language is only the
“
revised
”
record
of speech.
2. What is
voicing and how is it caused?
V
oicing is a quality of
speech sounds. It is caused by the vibration of
the vocal cords.
3. Explain
with examples how broad transcription and narrow
transcription differ.
When
we
use a
simple
set
of
symbols
in
our
transcription,
it
is
called
broad
transcription.
Narrow
transcription is the use of more specific symbols
to show phonetic details.
In broad transcription, the symbol [ l
] is used for the sound [ l ] in words leaf [
li:f] and feel
[fi:l]. The [l] in [
li:f] , occurring before a vowel, is called clear
[ l ]. The [ l ] in [fi:l] occurring in
the end of a word or before another
consonant , is called dark [ l ].And in narrow
transcription the
diacritic tilde [~]
is used to indicate it.
4
．
How are the
English consonants classified?
English consonants can be
classified in two ways: one is in terms of manner
of articulation and
the other is in
terms of place of articulation.
In
terms of manner of articulation, it can be
classified into stops, fricatives, affricates,
liquids,
glides and nasals. In terms of
place of articulation, it can be classified into
bilabial, labiodental,
dental,
alveolar, palatal, velar and glottal.
5. What criteria are used
to classify the English vowels?
According to the place of
the tongue, vowels can be distinguished as front,
central and back.
According to the
openness of the mouth, vowels can be classified
into four groups: close vowels,
semi-
close vowels., semi-open vowels and open vowels.
According to the shape of the lips, all the
front vowels and the central vowel can
are unrounded vowels and all the back vowels are
rounded