1.2 Strings of sounds
Instruction: Click on the card and slide it to the left to read the information.
In the previous section we had a look at how individual sounds are meant to be produced. It was also mentioned why this is important for communication: a single sound may make the difference between saying one word or another (do you remember minimal pairs?). However, every single sound is not really perfectly pronounced in a real context situation.
In everyday conversation, we put all these sounds together to form words, phrases, and sentences (strings of sounds) in order to transmit a message, and when we do it, sounds do not always come out perfect. This does not necessarily mean that communication is hindered; on the contrary, it can be said that it is simplified. There are many processes going on in our minds other than identifying sounds while ‘deciphering’ a transmitted message. The context (place, people involved, discourse) in which we develop a conversation also helps to transmit the intended meaning of our messages.
Moreover, this is not the only reason why we can simplify our ‘sound production’. The real purpose of sound simplification is to make communication easier, and there are several ways in which this simplification can occur. In the following sub-sections, we will briefly explore these phenomena: assimilation, elision and linking.
Stop and think What do you understand by assimilating sounds? What about eliding or linking them?
Assimilation
This phenomenon consists in simplifying speech by making ‘neighbouring sounds’, as called by Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994, p. 28), more alike. When we put sounds together, we combine them in many different ways, that is, they are not always followed by the same other sounds. This means that when producing a sound in connected speech, its ideal position of the articulators does not always start or finish at the same point. This will happen even when speaking at a normal speed; therefore, it is common that sounds be ‘adapted’ so they can be produced more easily and make the connected speech more fluent, and because of, in the words of Fromkin et al. (2017), “the need to maintain distinctness” (p. 366). This may happen within or between words, but never at the beginning sounds of words, as they are essential to understand utterances.
The assimilation of sounds is the main responsible for the existence of allophones. The same phoneme may have different ways to be produced depending on the ‘sound environment’ they occur in. These different ways to produce the same phoneme are the so called allophones, and in English, the main phonemes which present such phenomenon are /t/, /d/, and /h/, and sometimes /n/, when followed by /k/, /g/, /m/, or /b/. When these combinations occur in connected speech, then assimilation usually takes place.
LAS Activity 105. Assimilation
As follows, there are some examples where assimilation (the adaptation of a sound) takes place.
Instructions
- Finish the table indicating the corresponding aforementioned combinations as in the first word.
Examples
Phonemes 1
Phonemes 2
Examples
e.g. Apartment
*(Watch out! This is different!)
- Now, check the ‘ideal’ pronunciation of these instances and their ‘real’ pronunciation in colloquial speech in Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994, p. 28):
Elision
Elision, which is in this case a quite close synonym of ‘elimination’, occurs when, in connected speech, a sound that should be pronounced in theory disappears. The sound disappears because, as previously discussed, we tend to minimize the effort of articulating sounds when we speak in order to make it easier for us to pronounce them. These ‘left out’ sounds may be originally found within or between words, and in English, they are most commonly weak vowel sounds, such as the schwa (/ə/), or the consonants /t/ and /d/.
LAS Activity 106. Elision
Instructions
Indicate the phoneme that is involved in elision, that is, eliminated when used in everyday conversation, in the following examples.
Examples
Phonemes 1
Examples
e.g. Practical
/əschwa/
Linking
Linking words is an almost natural phenomenon when speaking given that we have to connect words to transmit our messages. However, the kind of connection that is referred to with this simplification method is slightly different from the necessary connection that we must give to words when speaking. In English, there are two kinds of linkings as a simplification phenomenon.
The first type of linking consists in adding a consonant sound between a word finishing in a vowel sound and another word beginning also with a vowel sound. The second type of linking occurs when the final consonant sound of a word is pronounced as if it were part of the following word, specially, but not exclusively, when this following word begins with a vowel sound. It is also possible that the first consonant of a word be treated as part of the previous word when this has a final vowel sound. This type of linking is the origin of homophonous pairs, two sets of different paired words that sound the same.
LAS Activity 107. Linking
Instructions
- Choose the corresponding type of linking as previously explained.
Examples
Type of linking
*British pronunciation:
In British pronunciation, the final “r”, as in far, disappears. However, when used followed by a word beginning with a vowel sound, as in away, the sound /r/ is added. That is why it is regarded as an example of a linking simplification phenomenon.
- Now, match the following homophonous pairs.
Column A
Column B
a) nitrate
b) that stuff
c) see them eat
d) ice cream
e) I stink
f) a name
g) may cough
h) nudist play
i) a nice man
j) grey day
A little of fun
The following is a poem that can be found at Aha! Jokes, opens a new tab. and it has to do with sounds and “homophones strung together”.
Eye halve a spelling chequer
Eye halve a spelling chequer It came with my pea sea It plainly marques four my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea
Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write It shows me strait a weigh As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long And eye can put the error rite Its rarely ever wrong Eye have run this poem threw it I am shore your pleased two no Its letter perfect in it's weigh My chequer tolled me sew.