Chapter I. Characteristics of phonetic and phonologic errors in intercultural communication

CHAPTER I. CHARACTERISTICS OF PHONETIC AND PHONOLOGIC ERRORS IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
1.1. Consideration of the characteristic of Phonetics and Phonology
Regarding this, there are several points of view in the field of linguistics, which ultimately boil down to two approaches. According to the first of them, phonetics is considered as one of the components of grammar. And, accordingly, the second - as an independent language discipline. It should be noted that the second approach is closer to the real situation of this science, this can be justified if we turn to the subjects of study of the sciences of language. Language units, starting with morphemes and ending with texts, have meanings, meaning. It is on the study of these meanings that all linguistic disciplines are built, with the exception of phonetics, the subject of which is phonemes and the sounds expressing them, which do not have their own meaning. Therefore, one can speak of that other disciplines are engaged in the analysis of the structure and meaning of linguistic units (sentences, phrases, words and morphemes), without attaching much importance to their material expression, while phonetics directly studies the matter of the language, its unsigned, one-sided units. You can also mention that phonetics existed long before the advent of writing, because it studies oral speech, which means that this science was primary and cannot be an integral part of grammar or lexicology⁴.
We can assume that phonetics originated in ancient India, where 2300 years ago, scientists tried to fix the correct pronunciation of sacred texts in Sanskrit, arguing that the sounds of prayers should not be distorted in the text. The Greeks created the ancient alphabet, which was a writing system based on the pronunciation of sounds, today this system is used to create transcriptions, for example, in English.
At a later time, the interest of linguists in the sound tier of the language decreased. Rare works of scientists of the past can be cited as an exception, but it should be noted that even in the first half of the 19th century they could not distinguish letters and sounds well enough, therefore, they did not have an accurate definition of what could be considered a sound.
Only in the 19th century did the development of phonetics as a science begin. This was historically due to the need to compile the grammar of Aboriginal languages ​​for the colonists, as well as the study of language groups in their historical development and formation. Progress did not stand still, so the evolution of phonetics was facilitated not only by the inquisitiveness of the then linguists, but also by a number of technical innovations. In particular, the laryngoscope invented in 1829 allowed scientists to study the structure of the human throat and to study the work of the vocal cords in 1852, this study became the basis for articulatory phonetics. And finally, in 1877, a gramophone was created, which made it possible to record and then listen to speech, this is how experimental phonetics appeared (in Russia it began its development at the end of the 19th century, and its heyday came in the 20s of the 20th century). In 1886
Today, phonetics is an independent linguistic discipline that has its own subject of study and tasks.
Phonetics - the science of speech sounds, which are elements of the sound system of the language (Greek phonz - sound). Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies sounds in the flow of speech, their compatibility and their positional changes⁵.
Phonetics (Greek Phfnetikz sound, sounding, rhfne sound, voice) is a branch of linguistics that studies the sound units of a language. The sound side is a necessary form of the existence of words, a material expression, without which the existence of a language is impossible. The sound structure of the language is a special tier in the structure of the language, and therefore phonetics is an independent section of linguistics, which has its own special subject and tasks. In accordance with the structure of the sound side of the language, phonetics studies sounds, syllables, various types of stress (i.e. accentuation) and intonation. The sound side is a combination of linear and non-linear units. Sounds, syllables are linear units, and accentuation and intonation are non-linear units that are layered on linear ones.
Phonetics solves the following tasks :
- establishing the sound composition of the language in a certain period of its development and formation;
- the study of a given language in a static state or the study of its evolution and the development of the sound side over a number of eras in the history of this language;
- determination of successive changes in speech sounds and finding out the reasons for these changes;
- study of the phonetic phenomena of a language in comparison with the phonetic phenomena of related languages;
- the study of the sound structures of two or more languages ​​in order to find their common and individual features⁶.
The place occupied by phonetics in a number of other sections of linguistics has been and remains a debatable issue. Some scientists are even inclined to believe that it is not a linguistic discipline at all, but is more related to physiology, psychology, acoustics and other natural sciences.
But, nevertheless, such an opinion lends itself to a comprehensive refutation. Firstly, if we consider phonetics from the point of view of the natural sciences, it can be noted that the properties of the phonetic units studied by it are not similar to the properties of other physiological, acoustic and psychological phenomena so much that it becomes necessary to create a special apparatus for describing these units. After analyzing the works devoted to the study of physiology, acoustics and speech perception, it can be argued that the corresponding characteristics of sound units cannot be understood without taking into account their main function - acting as a material carrier of the intangible properties of any message, that is, as a form of linguistic meaning.
From the point of view of linguistics, the place of phonetics is also controversial. Many linguistic theories are based on the idea of ​​the insignificance of the sound form of meaningful units, and the most important are not the phonetic properties themselves, but the relationship between them. Thus, phonetics and phonology can be contrasted, which leads to a situation in which the relationship between phonetic units is established not on the basis of the study of real phonetic properties, but on the basis of some criteria external to phonetics.

1.2. Criteria for the identification of phonetic errors in intercultural communication

Like linguistics, divided into general and particular, disciplines that study various linguistic aspects - vocabulary, grammar, sound system, etc. are subject to the same division.
From the foregoing, it is clear that the main tasks of phonetics include a comprehensive study of the sound component of the language, as well as the search and identification of patterns in its internal organization. The sound side of any language can be characterized as a complex, complex phenomenon that includes not only speech sounds and their sequences, but also word stress and phrasal intonation. However, sounding speech is not only an acoustic phenomenon, but also a complex of acoustic signals purposefully produced by the human articulatory organs and intended primarily for auditory perception.
At the moment, there are four aspects of sound speech:
* physical,
* articulatory,
* perceptual;
* functional.
Phonetics is a complex subject, therefore, several particular disciplines can be distinguished in it, for example:
- articulatory phonetics,
- acoustic phonetics,
- perceptual phonetics,
- functional phonetics (phonology).
The subject of the study of articulatory phonetics is the activity of the human speech apparatus, the result of which is the reproduction of sounds that play the role of elementary sound units of any language. This science deals with the description and systematization of the movements and positions of the speech organs necessary to reproduce the sounds of a given language.
Acoustic phonetics deals exclusively with the physical parameters and characteristics of speech sounds belonging to different languages.
Perceptual phonetics studies the features of human auditory perception of speech sounds.
The subject of study of functional phonetics is the function of sound elements. This is work with the meanings of sounds and sound chains, the search for differences in these values ​​depending on the sound, the study of sound chains as an intermediary in the transmission of linguistic information, the study of the phenomena of encoding and decoding speech messages.
Acoustic-physiological phonetics (anthropophonics) deals with the study of the human body and those of its general permanent features that are responsible for the phenomenon of sound speech. This science also considers the organic habits that enable our pronunciation to remain approximately the same over a certain period of years. According to the research of linguistic history, we can conclude that these very habits are not something invariable, but rather undergo certain pronounced changes over a certain time period, usually quite significant. Being essentially the result of habits of pronunciation, sounds change depending on changes in these habits. The reasons for these changes are either the general conditions of the physical organization of a person and his speech apparatus (spontaneous speech changes), or the combination of some physiological habits with others during one period of time (such changes are called combinatorial). In some cases, sound changes appear, in others - no, it depends on the presence or absence of certain favorable conditions, but it is this mechanism that entails the appearance of sound alternations in related etymological forms (for example: foot // leg, legs: alternation g / / Well, etc.). Such alternations may differ depending on the prescription of their origin and belong to different eras in the history of the development of the language,
Acoustic phonetics is an independent scientific discipline that has emerged as a result of the interaction of such sciences as linguistics, physics and bioacoustics. She studies the physical properties of speech signals.
In line with this discipline, there is a study of the acoustic characteristics of the sound means of language and the connection of articulation and its aerodynamic and acoustic properties. The acoustic section of phonetics is of particular importance for the development of applications that decode and analyze a speech signal using technical means, as well as for speech technologies. Acoustic phonetics is based on a number of basic concepts of physics related to the doctrine of vibrations.
Based on the general laws governing vibrations, acoustic phonetics was able to take shape as an independent scientific discipline (in the mid-1940s), which is one of the most developed sections of phonetic science. The main field for the study of acoustic phonetics is the acoustic theory of speech production, which studies the relationship between the organic aspect of articulation and the acoustic result of the articulation process.
In private phonetics, all the issues studied are considered in relation to any particular language. Thus, one can distinguish, for example, the phonetics of the modern Russian language, the historical phonetics of the Italian (Kazakh, German) language, etc.
Quite often, experimental phonetics is emphasized, which is based on the widespread use of special sound recording equipment. But in this case, it would be more correct to speak not about phonetics as a whole, but only about the experimental method in relation to this science (the method of palatograms, kymography, tape recording, fluoroscopy, spectroscopy, oscillography, etc.). In recent years, scientists have managed to develop a special technique for speech synthesis, with the help of which it became possible to create speech-like sounds artificially, without human intervention.
Perceptual phonetics deals with the study of the perception of speech by the listener and the establishment of the relationship between the sounds spoken and heard.
Perceptual phonetics (Latin perceptio - “perception”) is a branch of phonetics that studies the perception of speech sounds by human hearing organs. The main question to which he answers is what sound properties are essential for human speech perception (for example, for the recognition of a particular phoneme), taking into account the changing articulatory and acoustic characteristics of speech signals. That is, to put it simply, what are the perceptual correlates of the relevant (that is, essential) features of phonemes and prosodemes.
In addition, perceptual phonetics takes into account that in the process of perceiving sounding speech, people receive information not only from the acoustic properties of the utterance, but also from the linguistic context and communication situation, making a prediction of the general meaning of the perceived message.
Also, perceptual phonetics reveals universal and specific perceptual characteristics inherent in the sounds of the human language in general and the sound units of certain specific languages. This allows us to conclude that perception is based not only on the invariant properties of phonemes, but also on variant ones.
Phonology can be divided into phonemics and prosody. Phonemics is the doctrine of the theory and description of phonemes, which reveals the structural and functional originality of phonological units of the segment (linear) level of the language. Prosody is a branch of phonology that studies the structure and function of intonation and stress as super-segmental (non-linear) means of organizing phonetic units that exceed phonemes in length (phrases, speech beats, syllables).
Phonology got another name for a reason: functional phonetics. It evaluates all information about the sound material from the position of evaluating the functions that are performed by the sound system of the language in the course of its action. The main functions can be called distinctive (distinctive) and identifying (identifying). Based on these functions, phonology constructs a definition of the phoneme as the minimum unit of the sound structure of a language, which serves to identify and distinguish between sign (two-sided) linguistic units - morphemes and words in their forms.
Phonology (from the Greek tschnYu - “sound” and lgpt - “teaching”) is a branch of linguistics that studies the structure and composition of the sound system of a language, as well as the functioning of sounds in a language system. The phoneme is the main unit of phonology, while the main object of study is the oppositions (oppositions) of phonemes, which together form the phonological system of the language.
Most specialists consider phonology (as the study of the functional side of speech sounds) only as a part of phonetics (namely, the study of speech sounds); but some experts, and among them, which is noteworthy, such prominent phonologists as N. S. Trubetskoy and S. K. Shaumyan, consider these disciplines as, in principle, non-overlapping sections of linguistics.
What is the difference between phonetics and phonology? This difference can be traced in the definitions of these sections, and it consists in the fact that the subject of phonetics is not limited to the functional aspect of speech sounds, but it also covers its substantial aspect, which can be divided into physical and biological (or physiological) aspects: articulation , acoustic properties of sounds, their perception by the listener (the subject of perceptual phonetics).
In the arsenal of modern phonology there is a good method for studying the sound structure of a language, both in its analytical and dynamic aspects. For this, rules were developed for identifying phonemes and determining the range of their variations depending on the specifics of the positional structure of the sound level in certain specific languages. Phonemes undergo various modifications, falling into different positional conditions in the process of language functioning. This also includes cases of neutralization - positional removal of the opposition of elements of the linguistic structure. Depending on the possibility or impossibility of subsuming sounds in a weak position under strong ones, two types of neutralization can be distinguished: solvable and insoluble. In the first case, the sounds of weak positions act as variants of the corresponding phonemes ([^] is a variant of the phoneme  in the presence of a living positional alternation in the allomorphs of the root a: [vLdb] // [woods] ); in the second case ([sLbbka]), if it is impossible to check with a strong position, the sound [Л] must be qualified as a representative of the hyperphoneme <о\а>.
Those phonological phenomena that are extended to segments of speech exceeding phonemes and syllables in length, as minimal non-sign units, are brought up by the subject of prosodic study. Being a section of phonology, prosody covers the area of ​​supersegment overlays of two varieties: intonational and accentological in their relationship. This means the study of the patterns of functioning of sound objects at the level of phonetic phrases and speech beats.

1.3. The nature of the occurrence of phonological errors in intercultural communication

Problem of phonological analysis is the identiticanon of the inventory o distinctive features on which all the phonological oppositions in the language are based. Every sound is characterized by a number of features, not all of which are equally important for communication. If one compares some of the allophones of /p/, it appears that all of them have common features and features which characterize only a few of them. The problem is to decide which of the features are phonologically relevant and which of them are irrelevant, or incidental. Each phoneme is characterized by a certain number of phonologically relevant features, which are its constant distinctive features. Each allophone of a certain phoneme is characterized by definite phonologically relevant features plus a number of irrelevant. constrictive sonorant & occlusive sonorant, unicentral vs. bicentral.
Sounds are the smallest segments into which the speech continuum is generally divided for purpose of analysis. In connected speech sounds are not pronounced separately, by 'themselves'. It is impossible to draw articulatory boundaries between them. The smallest units, into which the speech continuum is divided, are syllables. So the smallest pronunciation unit is the syllable. The syllable can be considered as both a phonological and a phonetic unit. As a phonetic unit the syllable is defined in articulatory, auditory and acoustic terms with universal application for all the languages. As a phonological unit the syllable can be defined and described only with reference to the structure of one particular language. The ancient Greek scholars noticed that the 2 main phonological types of sounds-vowels and cons. Fulfill different functions in speech⁷. 
The function of a vowel is to occupy the central position in certain combinations of sounds, whereas consonants serve as the margins of the sound combinations . Are incapable of forming syllables without vowels. But in a number of a languages ​​some sonorous and cons. Can also be syllabic because of their strong vocalic features. The relative sonority theory created by Jespersen, considers that sounds tend to group themselves according to their sonority. Pronounced with uniform force, length, and pitch, speech sounds differ in sonority. 
The most sonorous sounds are vowels, less sonorous are sonorants and the least sonorous are noise consonants.Of course the relative sonority doesn't explain the mechanism of syllable formation. It only makes an attempt at explaining our perception of a syllable. Neither does it explain syllable division , as it does it explain syllable division , as it doesn't say to which syllable the less sonorous sounds belong. Still the rel. sonor. Theory has been accepted by Jones and some other phoneticians. According to this theory syllable is characterized by variations in muscular tension. 
The energy of articulation increases at the beginning of a syllable reaches its maximum with the vowel and decreases towards the end of the syllable. So, a syllable is an arc of muscular tension. The boundaries between syllables are determined to be the occurrence of the lowest articulatory energy. Consonants within a syllable are characterized by different distributions of muscular tension. Shcherba distinguished 3 types of consonants: 1. Strong cons. = in the articulation of which the beginning is stronger while the end is weaker.They occur at the end of a closed syllable.2. Finally strong cons. in the art. Of which the beginning is weak while the ens is more energetic. They occur at the beginning of a syllable. 3 Double-peaked cons. in the art. Of which both the beginning and the end are energetic whereas the middle is weak. Acoustically they produce the impression of 2 consonants. These consonants occur at the junction of words or morphemes. = in the articulation of which the beginning is stronger while the end is weaker.They occur at the end of a closed syllable.2. Finally strong cons. in the art. Of which the beginning is weak while the ens is more energetic. They occur at the beginning of a syllable. 3 Double-peaked cons. in the art. Of which both the beginning and the end are energetic whereas the middle is weak. Acoustically they produce the impression of 2 consonants. These consonants occur at the junction of words or morphemes. = in the articulation of which the beginning is stronger while the end is weaker.They occur at the end of a closed syllable.2. Finally strong cons. in the art. Of which the beginning is weak while the ens is more energetic. They occur at the beginning of a syllable. 3 Double-peaked cons. in the art. Of which both the beginning and the end are energetic whereas the middle is weak. Acoustically they produce the impression of 2 consonants. These consonants occur at the junction of words or morphemes. Acoustically they produce the impression of 2 consonants. These consonants occur at the junction of words or morphemes. Acoustically they produce the impression of 2 consonants. These consonants occur at the junction of words or morphemes.

2.2. Common phonetic and phonological mistakes of Uzbek people are learning English as a foreign language

Millions of foreign students want to learn English as well as they can. For instance it is only a matter of reading and writing it, and they will find no help here. But many learners want to be able to speak English well, with a pronunciation which can be easily understood by both other learners and English people. Language starts with the ear. When a baby starts to talk he does it by hearing the sounds his mother makes and imitating them. If a baby is born deaf he cannot hear these sounds and therefore cannot imitate them and will not speak. But normal babies can hear and can imitate. They are wonderful imitators, and this gift of imitation, which gives us the gift of speech, lasts for a number of years. It is well known that a child of ten years old or less can learn any language perfectly, if it is brought up surrounded by that language, no matter where it was born or who its parents were. But after this age the ability to imitate perfectly becomes less, and we all know only too well that adults have great difficulty in mastering the pronunciation of foreign languages⁸.
Some learners are more talented than others, they find pronouncing other languages less difficult, but they never find them easy. Why is it so? Why should this gift that we all have as children disappear later in our life? Why cannot grown-up people pick up the characteristic sound of a foreign language as a child can? The answer to this is that our native language won’t let us. By the time we are grown up the habits of our own language are so strong that they are very difficult to break. In our own language we have a fairly small number of sound-units which we put together in many different combinations to form the words and sentences we use every day. And as we get older we are dominated by this small number of units. It is as if we had in our heads a certain fixed number of boxes for sounds. When we listen to our own language we hear the sounds and we put each into the right box, and when we speak we go to the boxes and take out the sounds we want in the order we want them [1]. And as we do this over the years the boxes get stronger and stronger until everything we hear, whether it is our own language or another, has to be put into one of these boxes, and everything we say comes out of English boxes contain the sounds at the beginning of the words fin, thin, and sin, that is f, th and s. As children progress through the discovery of language in their first three years, there are predictable patterns in the emergence and development of many features of the language they are learning. For example, children do not use temporal adverbs such as “tomorrow” or “last week” until they develop some understanding of time. [2] Learners of English often expect to be able to speak that language like a native speaker. However, they encounter many factors to gain their desire. One of the common factors that they find difficult is the pronunciation of another sound system. Learners find that their mother tongue influences their pronunciation of English. And also we can see some problems on consonant sounds. Especially Uzbek learners of English will have some difficulties in the pronunciation of sounds which do not exist in the native language. For instance, /s/ and /z/ is considered confusable in usage. The learners pronounce /s/ instead of /z/, so that a word such as peas is pronounced as peace. Consequently, the meaning will also be changed. And some consonants are written but not pronounced. This is either because they were once pronounced (knock) or come from a foreign language (psychology). [3] Initial position – kn — knock, knee, knife – ps — psychology, psychiatry End position – mb — lamb, climb, thumb – mn — condemn, autumn, column Besides, we have a lot of pronunciation mistakes in the consonant sounds/θ/ and /ð/. Differing these sounds are very difficult for Uzbek learners too. Speakers often create a heavily voiceless stop /t/ instead of a voiceless fricative /θ/ in a word like thank. Apparently, they vocalize the sound /t/ based on their language since in elementary level learners the letter th is combined by a heavily aspirated /t/. So, the word three can be pronounced exactly like tree. Elementary level learners of English commonly produce /d/ or /z/ for /ð/ sounds, so the word than may sound like /dæn/ or /zæn/. In the Uzbek language, the voiceless stop /p/ does not occur in initial position of words. And our speakers can substitute a voiced stop /b/ or a voiceless fricative /f/ for /p/. As a result, the word pool may sound like fool, and pop may sound like bop. [4] In contrast, in the final positions, these consonants often provoke confusion for learners. For example, lab might sound like lap. Except thatthere is a problem with grammatical ending s. When words end in s in forms of consonant-vowel-consonant, the /s/ sound is frequently omitted. For examples, sits may turn to /sit/ and wants may become /wan/. Sometimes, our speakers tend to omit both /t/ and /s/ sound in the word wants. Some other final consonant clusters such as /kt/ as in walked, /t/ as in washed, /d/ as in judged, and /ld/ as in filled are very difficult for our elementary level learners to pronounce. To clarify, the words world may be pronounced as /w/, myself may be pronounced as /mayse/. These mistakes can be very difficult for our learners to overcome. Some speakers come across various difficulties in learning English pronunciation. The complications of vowels, particularly between tense and vowels in English can be tough to learn. In addition, the differences between consonant positions, consonant clusters lead elementary level learners of English to meet a large number of difficulties. As a result, our speakers often come across pronunciation problems when communicating in English⁹.
2.3. Phonetic and Phonological errors in intercultural communication: causes and solutions
Phonetics is concerned with the study of speech in human communication. The aim of the present course is to provide explanation of how speech is produced, perceived and acquired, and how on-line phenomena of speaking, listening and learning the language are related to the sound patterns of English, the target language, and Russian, the mother tongue.
Speech productionis studied by articulatoryphonetics; speech perceptionis the object of auditoryphonetics; speech signal measurementsare taken by various techniques in acousticphonetics.
Any speech event is a complex process controlled by the brain. However we can present it as a simple one-way process of one person speaking (production) which is followed by sound waves travelling in the air (transmission) and the other person receiving them (perception). The role of the speaker's brain is to encode and the receiver's brain to decode the message thus transmitted.
Not only does the brain send out the commands necessary for producing speech, but it also constantly receives feedback in the form of speech sounds produced at the moment; if we were not able to monitor our speaking process in this way, we would find it extremely difficult to speak at all.
To understand the process of two people speaking we need to make use of information from physiology, acoustics, cognitive psychology and, of course, linguistics¹⁰.
We can describe the speech sounds at any stage in this chain: the physical properties of the sounds may be measured and described acoustically, the way listeners perceive them is revealed through auditory experiments but our primary concern as language learners will be with the way speech sounds are produced, i.e. with articulation, or speech production.
In fact, the success of communication act depends on the operation of all the systems involved but production-perception coordination is really decisive in intercultural communication. Communication depends upon mutual intelligibility. This is only possible if language forms (sounds, words, utterances) produced by the speaker are identified and understood by the listener. Communication failures, or intercultural misunderstandings, to put it mildly, may depend on a range of phonetic features: consonant and vowel pronunciations, word stress misplacement, change of rhythm type, intonation patterns. These are the cases from my own experience:
(a) consonants
At the railway ticket office in Tokyo the Japanese officer asked us in English if we would like to have ['пэи 'li:zav] tickets. We didn't understand the specification but agreed to it. When the train started we had to move on with our luggage through a dozen cars to where passengers with "no reserve" tickets were seated (two of which were smoking compartments!). The inconvenience was caused by the fact that in Japanese the sounds /r/ and /1/ are not discriminated.
(b) vowels
A Russian colleague was entertaining an American guest in her home and cooked a meal of veal heart with vegetables. When she said [ha:t] the American guest said he really liked his food [hat] meaning hot. (It was a good thing the meal was warm enough!) In the American pronunciation the short back vowel /t>/ is reflected as /a/ vowel.
(c) word stress placement
In Scotland the British guide talking Russian promised the tourists they would see Scottish [Valenki]. It turned out later on that she meant [va'lmki], the Scottish pipes. That was a surprise and a bit of disappointment¹¹.
(d) rhythm(based on accent patterns)
At the airport in Barcelona the Spanish officer announcing the flight to Moscow kept calling out something like a Russian family name. However the first syllables were quite obscure because of the fast machine-gun rhythm, with only the last syllable accented: [— 'zov!]. People looked worried but no one moved. After slowing down a little the speaker made it possible to understand that the call was in Russian: Пос-лед-ний- вы-'зов! (Last calif) In Spanish and in French there is only one accent at the end of the tone unit which makes it one-accent group. It is very difficult to make out separate words, especially for English and Russian speakers, who expect to have a number of accents in the intonation group. To the English and Russian ear the accentual patterns of words sound distorted and the important points are not taken except for the very last word.
(e) intonation
Intonation evokes more subtle, culture-bound attitudes when transferred from one language to the other. The conventional intonation pattern of Russian direct address, when used in the English setting, sounds like a peremptory command, which is rather rude:
'Annie/(with a high fall). 'Give it to me, please!
On the other hand, the American English direct address which was meant to be friendly sounded implicatory to a Russian ear, like a warning:
/innie (with a low rise)¹².
There are similar cases of thanks misinterpreted by foreigners: British English thanks pronounced by men sounded curt and lacking enthusiasm which in case of generous gift-giving was very impolite: —, Thanks (with a low fall). The British, in their turn, comment on the Russian profuse thanks which they find very embarrassing (as if the Russians didn't expect to be given the favour!). As a result, there was a failure to create empathy by a friendly gesture of gift-giving though neither party actually meant to sound ungrateful.
It is understandable now why we have to follow the requirements of Council of Europe directions in speaking English:
• as listeners, to identify words and expressions used by native speakers of the (regionally coloured) standard variants of English (RP, Polite Scottish, Irish, General American and Australian) and by non-native speakers whose speech, though also regionally coloured, approximates to those norms;
• as speakers, to produce spoken English which is readily intelligible both to native speakers and non-native speakers who approximate to stan­dard norms.
A note is made that regional variants differ mainly in vowel colouring whereas the consonant system which has been shown to play the larger role in identifying words is relatively uniform and stable.
Thus to be aware of and to be able to preserve in our own speech the vowel and, particularly, consonant contrasts, as well as placement of stress in polysyllabic words, and the principal contrasts carried by accent and intonation are the necessary conditions for communication to be successful in the international context. When we say "contrasts", we mean that a change in sounds creates a change in meaning.
Phoneticsis, therefore, primarily concerned with speech production (how sounds are made by speakers), speech perception (how sounds are perceived by listeners) and speech analysis (how sound waves can be processed and described).
The description of specific sounds and systems of sounds as well as rules of combining them into syllables, words and phrases used by language for human communication constitutes the link between phonetics and phonology.
Phonology,which is sometimes called linguistic phonetics,is concerned with a sound system as a system of contrastive units, phonemes,and their distinctive features¹³.
Phoneticstakes care of the physical properties of sounds, while phonologyfocuses on their functional characteristics: it selects only those features which are distinctive for contrasting sounds (and, therefore, words) in a particular language.
1.2. Articulation: how sounds are made and classified
In this part we will look at the way sounds are made and at their features which are determined by the way they are made.
Most of the sounds are produced as we breathe out (pulmonic, egres-sivesounds), though there are languages which employ in-taking motion too (ingressivesounds). The main source of the sound is the airstreamwhich is pushed out of the lungs, up the windpipe (the trachea) and into the larynx,at which point it must pass between two small muscular folds called vocal folds(also called vocal cords).If we close them so that they can touch each other lightly, the air passing between them causes them to vibrate, and the sound is voiced.By re-adjusting the vocal folds we can change the pitchof the voice, i.e. make the voice go up or down. By mov­ing the vocal folds wide open we can stop the vibration, and make the sound voiceless.The space between the vocal folds is called the glottis,and the sounds which are made there are called glottal;in English there are two of them: one is a voiceless fricative like a sigh before a stressed vowel, or adevoiced vowel, [h] in high, and the other is a glottal stop,a plosive made at the glottis by the vocal folds when they are pressed tightly together, as in [Ъл?эп] button¹⁴.
The vocal tractabove the larynx starts with a passageway called pharynx,the role of which in speech production is small. Then the vocal tract divides: one passageway goes up into the nasal cavity,and the other into the mouth cavity.We can close off the access to the nasal cavity by raising the soft palate(also called velum),and then the air will go through the mouth, and the sound will be oral(most of the sounds in English and Russian), or we can lower the soft palate and allow the air to go into the nasal cavity, in which case the sound will be nasal/m, n, rj/. The extreme end of the velum is a small piece of tissue called the uvulawhich plays a part in the pronunciation of some languages: French for instance, has a uvularsound [R].
Figure 2 presents speech productionas four processes: initiationprocess, phonationprocess, articulationprocess, oro-nasalprocess¹⁵.
Articulation process is described best of all and reflected in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as a system of symbols where each symbol corresponds to a sound with a particular articulatory feature. It is also called transcription system.IPA was devised for phoneticians of the world to understand each other when describing any world language. Dictionaries and manuals use transcription to represent the pronunciation of words.
Inside the mouth there are many parts called articulatorswhich are used in speaking. The tongue,the lower jawand the lipscan move and make contact with the immobile palate(the roof of the mouth), the alveolar ridgeand the teeth.The principal parts of the tongue are the tip, blade, front, centre, backand root
These items are actual and important even nowadays. Phonetics and phonology are worth studying for several reasons. One is that as all study of language, the study of phonology gives us insight into how the human mind works. Two more reasons are that the study of the phonetics of a foreign language gives us a much better ability both to hear and to correct mistakes that we make, and also to teach pronunciation of the foreign language to others.
The history of phonetics
Ancient objects, drawings, and written documents show that voice and speech always fascinated men. Written documents and evidences from ancient civilizations point to an awareness of speech, its origin and abnormalities a long time ago. In India more than 2000 years ago there flourished a science of phonetics more advanced than any that has since been known until very recent times [3; 8].
But phonetics was treated as a branch of grammar; still up to the 2th half of the XIXth c. it presented the investigations of the sound matter of different grammatical structures.
“In the second part of the XIXth c. phonetics began developing in all European countries due to the names of I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay, L. V. Scherba, E. Sapir, D. Jones, L. Bloomfield, R. Lackobson” [2; 3].
In the 1886 International Phonetic Association (IPA) was founded. IPA started publications of a special phonetic magazine "Le Mattre Phonetique". It stated phonetic symbols for sounds of many existing languages¹⁶.
Phonetics as a science
Whereas syntax is about sentence formation, and semantics about sentence interpretation, phonetics and phonology cover the field of sentence utterance. Phonetics is concerned with how sounds are produced, transmitted and perceived
So what does mean phonetics as a science? According to phonetician Sokolova phonetics is concerned with the human noises by which the thought is actualised or given audible shape: the nature of these noises, their combinations, and sound system of the language, that is segmental phonemes, word stress, syllabic structure and intonation [5].
“Phonetics is basic branch of linguistics; neither linguistic theory nor linguistic practice can do without phonetics. That is why phonetics claims to be equal importance with grammar and lexicology” [5; 7].
It studies the sound matter, its aspects and functions.
At present phonetics is treated in two principal ways:
a) the narrow point of view: the phonetic system of any language, which includes a definite number of phonemes, a system of accent, the syllabic structure, intonation and its components;
b) the broad point of view: as a branch of linguistics dealing with a process of sound formation, the interaction of speech sounds, the formation of accents, the tones and their functions. [2; 3]
Practical significance of phonetics is connected with teaching foreign languages.
Theoretical significance of phonetics is connected with the further development of the problem or the synchronic study and description of the phonetic system of a national language, the comparative analysis and description of different languages and the study of the correspondences between them, the diachronic description of successive changes in the phonetic system of a language or different languages [3; 14]¹⁷.
Phonetics gave rise to the development of a number of new directions of the phonetic research:
1. General Phonetics.
2. Special Phonetics.
3. Historical Phonetics.
4. Comparative Phonetics.
5. Descriptive Phonetics.
6. Phonology.
7. Phonostylistics.
General Phonetics studies the sound matter of all existing languages, irrespective of the differences between them and deals mainly with acoustics, articulation and physiology of speech and aspects of phonology.
Special phonetics is the branch of linguistics, which deals with the sound matter of one particular language. It can be both synchronical and diachronical.
If the sounds matter is studied diachronically that means all its features are studied in the process of the language development, and it is concern of Historical Phonetics, which stands on the borderline between Phonetics and the History of Language.
Comparative Phonetics implies comparing the sound matter of two or more languages at a certain period of their development.
When the sound matter of a given language is studied synchronically it means that the phonetic aspects of this or that language are studied at a certain period of time and may present interest for Comparative Phonetics, Descriptive Phonetics, Phonology and Phonostylistics.
Phonology sets out to discover segmental and super-segmental features that have a differential value in the language and distinguishes the system of phonemes.
Phonostylistics studies various pronunciation styles and analyses the ways different human beings express themselves. It stands on the borderline between Phonetics and Stylistics [2; 4].
Sokolova says that phonetics is itself divided into major components: segmental phonetics, which is concerned with individual sounds and suprasegmental phonetics whose domain is the lager units of connected speech: syllables, words, phrases and texts [5].
Branches of phonetics
english phonology phonetics science
Of course, phonetics has its branches. According to Leonteva phonetics has the following branches: 1) articulatory (physiological) and perceptive (auditory), 2) acoustic, 3) functional (linguistic)¹⁸.
Articulatory and perceptive investigation of speech sounds is done on the basis of a good knowledge of the voice and sound producing mechanisms, their structure, work and perceptive (auditory) effects, that is--physiology and psychology.
Acoustic properties of sounds, that is, quantity, or length, tamber, intensity, pitch, temporal factor are investigated by the acoustic and auditory branch of phonetics.
The phonological or functional properties of phonemes, syllables, accent and intonation are investigated by means of special linguistic methods, which help to interpret them as socially significant elements [3; 13-14].
But according to Sokolova there are three branches of phonetics each corresponding to a different stage in the communication process. Each of these branches uses quite special sets of methods.
The branch of phonetics that studies the way in which the air is set in motion, the movement of the speech organs and the coordination of these movements in the production of single sounds and trains of sounds is called articulatory phonetics.
Acoustic phonetics studies the way in which the air vibrates between the speaker's mouth and the listener's ear.
The branch of phonetics investigating the hearing process is known as auditory phonetics. Its interests lie more in the sensation of hearing, which is brain activity between the ear and the brain [5; 9].
Connection with other sciences
Phonetics as a branch of Linguistics has a great number of links both with the other branches of Linguistics and other branches of science.
Phonetics formulates the rules of pronunciation for separate sounds and sound combinations. The rules of reading are based on the relation of sounds to orthography. Through the system of rules of reading phonetics is connected with grammar and helps to pronounce correctly singular and plural forms of nouns, the past tense forms and past participles of English regular verbs. Phonetics is also connected with grammar through its intonation component¹⁹.
For example, it connected with grammar (morphology) in cases: to sink - sank - sunk; grammar (syntax): When I eat, I scream, I love it; When I eat ice-cream, I love it; while pronouncing complex and compound sentences.
Phonetics is also connected with lexicology while treating homophones (e.g., sight :: site :: cite or flower :: flour, hair :: hare); homographs (e.g., bow; row; lead); homoforms (e.g., knows :: nose, made :: maid) . It is only due to the-presence of stress, or accent, in the right place, that we can distinguish certain nouns from verbs.
Phonetics is also connected with stylistics; first of all through intonation and its components: speech melody, utterance stress, rhythm, pausation and voice tamber which serve to express emotions, to distinguish between different attitudes on the part of the author and speaker.
Phonetics is also connected with stylistics through repetition of words, phrases and sounds. Repetition of this kind serves the basis of rhythm, rhyme and alliteration.
The study of phonetic phenomena from the stylistic point of view is phonostylistics. It is connected with a number of linguistic and non-linguistic disciplines, such as: paralinguistics, psychology, psy-cholinguistics, sociology, sociolinguistics, dialectology, literary criticism, aesthetics, information theory, etc. [3; 10-15].
Phonetics is also closely connected with word building (e.g., import - to import, black board - black-board; with Biology while analysing physiology of speech; with Mathematics while analysing the linguistic data; with Medicine while dealing with the voice-producing mechanism and the manner of noise production; with Methods of teaching while teaching people a foreign language; with Politics while creating new alphabets; with Geography while studying language contacts and language unions²⁰.
Phonology. Development of phonology
Phonology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the systematic organization of sounds in languages. It has traditionally focused largely on study of the systems of phonemes in particular languages, but it may also cover any linguistic analysis either at a level beneath the word or at all levels of language where sound is considered to be structured for conveying linguistic meaning.
The history of phonology may be traced back to the Ashtadhyayi, the Sanskrit grammar composed by Pa?ini in the 4th century BC. In particular the Shiva Sutras, an auxiliary text to the Ashtadhyayi, introduces what can be considered a list of the phonemes of the Sanskrit language, with a notational system for them that is used throughout the main text, which deals with matters of morphology, syntax and semantics.
The Polish scholar Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (together with his former student Mikolaj Kruszewski) introduced the concept of the phoneme in 1876, and his work, though often unacknowledged, is considered to be the starting point of modern phonology. He introduced in his work functional and social aspect of phonetic phenomena [5].
Phonology grew up due to the pains of linguistics of the Prague Phonological School headed by N. Trubestkoy, R. Trnka, R. Jacobson.
Nikolai Trubetskoy, whose Principles of Phonology, published posthumously in 1939, is among the most important works in the field from this period. Directly influenced by Baudouin de Courtenay, Trubetskoy is considered the founder of morphophonology, although this concept had also been recognized by de Courtenay. He also developed the concept of the archiphoneme. “Trubetskoy declared phonology to be a linguistic science limiting articulatory and acoustics phonetics to anatomy, physiology and acoustics only” [5; 12].
In 1968 Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle published The Sound Pattern of English, the basis for Generative Phonology. In this view, phonological representations are sequences of segments made up of distinctive features. These features were an expansion of earlier work by Roman Jakobson, Gunnar Fant, and Morris Halle²¹.
Natural Phonology was a theory based on the publications of its proponent David Stampe in 1969 and (more explicitly) in 1979. In this view, phonology is based on a set of universal phonological processes which interact with one another; which ones are active and which are suppressed are language-specific.
In 1976 John Goldsmith introduced autosegmental phonology. Government Phonology, which originated in the early 1980s as an attempt to unify theoretical notions of syntactic and phonological structures, is based on the notion that all languages necessarily follow a small set of principles and vary according to their selection of certain binary parameters. That is, all languages' phonological structures are essentially the same, but there is restricted variation that accounts for differences in surface realizations [6].
Soviet linguists consider phonology a branch of phonetics that investigates its most important social aspect.
Differences between phonetics and phonology
It is important to understand differences between phonetics and phonology.
As we mentioned above phonetics and phonology are two branches of linguistics that deal primarily with the structure of human language sounds.
But phonetics focuses on the physical manifestations of speech sounds and on theories of speech production and perception. Most phonetic work falls into the sub-field of articulatory phonetics. From the physical point of view phonetics is strictly about audible sounds and the things that happen in your mouth, throat, nasal and sinus cavities, and lungs to make those sounds.
Phonology is concerned with the systems of rules (or constraints) that determine how the sounds of a language combine and influence one another. Phonology cares about the entire sound system for a given language. The goal is to formulate a model/theory which explains not only the sound patterns found in a particular language, but the patterns found in all languages.
Examples of questions which are interesting to phonologists are: How do sounds change due to the sounds around them? How do sounds combine in a particular language? [8].
So phonology is concerned with how sounds function in relation to each other in a language. In other words, phonetics is about sounds of language, phonology about sound systems of language. Phonetics is a descriptive tool necessary to the study of the phonological aspects of a language [7].
This is the biggest distinction between phonetics and phonology, although phonologists analyze a lot more than just the obvious differences. They also examine variations on single letter pronunciations, words in which multiple variations can exist versus those in which variations are considered incorrect.
There are also some differences between phonetics and phonology:
· The difference between phonetics and phonology is that phonetics deals with the physical production of these sounds while phonology is the study of sound patterns and their meanings both within and across languages²².