The main goal of this book to help students grasp the basic concepts of English Phonetics in a distance learning setting. It covers both theoretical and practical content specifically designed for self-study and autonomous learning.
This book is addressed to students of English Phonetics whose first language is Spanish or who have a strong command of Spanish, since most of the topics include a comparison between the English and the Spanish phonetic systems.

Equipo docente

Eva Estebas Vilaplana

Contents

PART 1. English Phonetics: a descriptive approach

The first part of the course presents a descriptive introduction to some of the main concepts and ideas related to English Phonetics. It is divided into six Units.

UNIT 1 Introduction to Phonetics

• CLASS 1. Phonetics and Phonology
• CLASS 2. Perspectives on the study of Phonetics
• CLASS 3. The production of sounds
• CLASS 4. Levels of phonetic analysis
  

UNIT 2 Vowels

• CLASS 1. Parameters to describe vowels
• CLASS 2. Types of vowels
• CLASS 3. Allophonic variation in English vowels
  

UNIT 3 Consonants

• CLASS 1. Parameters to describe consonants
• CLASS 2. Types of articulations and types of consonants
• CLASS 3. Allophonic variation in English consonants
  

UNIT 4 Combination of Sounds and Connected Speech Processes

• CLASS 1. The syllable
• CLASS 2. Phonotactics
• CLASS 3. Connected speech processes
  

UNIT 5 Stress and Rhythm

• CLASS 1. Stress
• CLASS 2. Predicting the location of stress
• CLASS 3. Rhythm
  

UNIT 6 Focus and Intonation

• CLASS 1. Intonation and focalisation
• CLASS 2. Parameters to describe intonation
• CLASS 3. Modelling intonation
  

PART 2. English Phonetics: a practical approach

The second part of this course is divided into two units. The first unit compares English Phonetics and Spanish Phonetics and provides some advice for Spanish students of English to detect and overcome some of the main difficulties of English pronunciation. The second unit consists of a brief introduction to phonetic transcription along with some practical exercises.

UNIT 7 English Phonetics vs. Spanish Phonetics

• CLASS 1. English vowels vs. Spanish vowels
• CLASS 2. English consonants vs. Spanish consonants
• CLASS 3. Combination of sounds in English and in Spanish
• CLASS 4. Connected speech processes in English and in Spanish
• CLASS 5. English stress vs. Spanish stress
• CLASS 6. English rhythm vs. Spanish rhythm
• CLASS 7. Focalisation in English and in Spanish
• CLASS 8. Intonation in English and in Spanish
  

UNIT 8 Phonetic transcription

• CLASS 1. Phonetic transcription: An introduction
• CLASS 2. Phonetic transcription: Vowels
• CLASS 3. Phonetic transcription: Consonants
• CLASS 4. Phonetic transcription: Consonant clusters and across words
• CLASS 5. Phonetic transcription: Stressed syllables and weak forms
• CLASS 6. Phonetic transcription: Final remarks