Phonetics & Phonology - A-Level Lang Terms

Refers to the movement of the speech organs to produce sounds required for speech. Place of ___________ refers to position of the speech organs used to make a sound and manner of ________ refers to how that sound is made. When describing _________, it is syntactically typical to mention the place of _________ before the manner, for example an alveolar plosive.

• fricative

• th-fronting

• articulation

• glottal stop

Certain speech sounds are made by drawing together the vocal cords so that they vibrate whereas others are made when the vocal cords are spread apart allowing air through. The former is classed as ______ed and the latter is classed as ______less. For example, the phoneme /d/ is a ______d alveolar plosive and the phoneme /t/ is an un______d alveolar plosive.

• schwa

• received pronunciation

• yod-dropping

• voicing

Refers to consonant sounds made by a complete closure of the airway followed by a quick release of air. It is one of the more common manners of articulation for English and includes phonemes such as /d/, /t/, /p/ and /b/.

• plosive

• assimilation

• minimal pair/set

• accent

Refers to consonant sounds made by the passing of air, often replicating hissing sounds e.g. /f/, /z/, /s/ and /v/.

• th-stopping

• fricative

• homographs

• plosive

Refers to the distinctive features of pronunciation that often mark an individual’s regional, personal or social identity.

• accent

• voicing

• received pronunciation

• rhotic

An accent of English that is typically associated with prestige and high social status. It is not a geographically based accent and is frequently abbreviated to _ _.

• received pronunciation

• articulation

• schwa

• homophones

Refers to the substitution of the phonemes /ð/ or /θ/ for a labio-dental

phoneme such as /f/ or /v/. For example, if a speaker pronounces with as /wɪv/ then they are using ___________.

• schwa

• th-fronting

• yod-dropping

• th-stopping

Refers to the substitution of the phonemes /ð/ or /θ/ for a plosive

phoneme, typically /t/ or /d/. For example, if a speaker pronounces that as /dæt/ then they are using __________.

• yod-dropping

• th-fronting

• assimilation

• th-stopping

The elision of the /j/ phoneme from certain words, typically as a feature of accent. For example, if a speaker pronounces the word tune as /tu:n/ then they are demonstrating __________.

• yod-dropping

• th-fronting

• minimal pair/set

• th-stopping

These are words that are identical except for one phoneme occurring in the same place. This altered phoneme changes the meaning of the word. For example, /sɪt/, /bɪt/ and /fɪt/ are all part of the same ____________. We use them to show which phonemes are distinctive or contrastive in a language.

• homophones

• minimal pair/set

• homographs

• glottal stop