The material aspect

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 439.

Three aspects of the phoneme

It is reflected in the following part of the definition: “realized in speech in the form of speech sounds”. In other words, each phoneme is realized in a set of predictable speech sounds which are called allophones.

Allophones of the phoneme [t]:

• in the combination “not there” – dental;
• in the word “try” – post-alveolar;
• in the word “stay” – not aspirated etc.

All these sounds are allophones of the same phoneme. They generally meet the following requirements:

1. They possess similar articulatory features, but at the same time they may show considerable phonetic differences.
2. They never occur in the same phonetic context.
3. They can't be opposed to one another, they are not able to differentiate their meaning.

It is obvious that the difference between allophones is the result of surrounding sounds, the phonetic context. So we distinguish two types of allophones:

1. Principle allophones – don't undergo any changes in the chains of speech. It is close to the sound pronounced in isolation.
2. Subsidiary allophones – in them we observe predictable changes under the influence of the phonetic context.

How do we approach the problem of teaching pronunciation? Our main concern is the principle allophone, because it is important in the terms of meaning. Subsidiary allophones are important as well, because your accent may suffer.