INTRODUCTION:

In units 1 & 2, you learned the individual sounds that comprise human language. Phonology is the study of the patterned interaction of speech sounds. In this unit, we will explore these patterned interactions. One of the main distinctions in the study of sound is the difference between understanding language as a system of contrasts (phonology) and studying the actual human output of language. This unit will focus on the study of language as a system of contrasts.

One of the things we expect to find in a system of sound contrasts is the ways in which those contrasts contribute to the system. For example, "cat" is different from "bat" or "sat" based on the initial contrastive consonant sounds /c/, /b/, and /s/. Thus, "cat"/"bat" , "cat"/"sat", and "sat"/ "bat" are minimal pairs. A minimal pair is a pair of items that is matched except for one feature that makes a contrast. In this case it’s the initial consonant. By identifying the system of contrasts that exist in a language, we can identify the sounds of that language; we know that the sounds of a language that stand in contrast to each other are the sounds of that language . So if we were to draw up an inventory (a list) of all the sounds of English, we would include only the sounds that stand in a contrastively meaningful relationship to each other.

Once we have identified the sounds that exist in a language, the next step is to understand the environments in which those sounds are used. For example, you will learn in this unit that in English, the phoneme /p/ can be aspirated, unaspirated or unrealeased. The specific allophone of /p/ that is produced depends on where in the word it appears (beginning, middle, or end).

READINGS:

Phonology lessons on the LSP web site.

PRACTICE EXERCISES:

Phonology Section of the LSP web site:

DISCUSSION:

To what extent are people’s individual dialect features conscious and/or controllable? For example, professor Norma Mendoza-Denton studies Latina gang girls in California. A dialect feature of these gang girls is creaky voice. She knows that their use of creaky voice is controlled by them in the sense that they consistently use creaky voice in the context of their peer group only during specific kinds of stories about specific topics, but never in front of their parents or teachers. However, when asked about their use of creaky voice, the girls are not conscious of their usage pattern or even that they use creaky voice. What is the difference between being conscious of a dialect feature and controlling one’s usage of dialect features. What kinds of speaking processes are accessible to our consciousness and what kinds of processes are below our levels of consciousness? Can you think of examples from your own language experiences that can further illustrate these ideas?