Speech Sounds in English-Vowel Sounds-Diphthongs & Consonant Sounds-Phon...
Chapter: I- Speech Sounds First of all, we come to know from this chapter that in English language, many a time the letters of the Alphabet used to make words do not match the speech sounds produced by them. This fact leads to a lot of difficulty for the learner of English, as a second language, in the beginning. For example, the letters ‘gh’ sometimes produce ‘ph’ / f / as in laugh /lɑːf/, rough /rʌf/, though: /ðəʊ/, ghost: /ɡəʊst/, etc. But this problem has been solved by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Now we can easily understand the correct pronunciation of words by reading the phonetic transcription given in dictionaries these days. What is Phonetics? According to Professor Peter N. Ladefoged, Phonetics is the ‘the study of speech sounds and their physiological production and acoustic qualities.’ What is Phonetic Transcription? This is the visual representation of speech sounds that is made in accordance with the ...