The Vowels of North American English - PBworksteachingpronunciation.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/51128406/Vowels.pdf · Vowels •Vowels are sounds in which the air stream moves very

The Vowelsof North American English

Marla YoshidaUniversity of California Irvine ExtensionEnglish & Certificates for Internationals

Teaching English as a Foreign Language Certificate Program

Tuesday, February 21, 12

Vowels•Vowels are sounds in which the air stream moves very smoothly up from the lungs and through the mouth. Nothing blocks it.

•Every word and every syllable needs a vowel sound. Vowels are the “heart” of syllables.

•Vowels may seem slippery and hard to pin down, but we can’t speak without them.


Vowels•We can describe the vowels of English by talking about four criteria:

•Tongue position

•Lip rounding

•Tense & lax vowels

• Simple vowels, glided vowels, and diphthongs


Tongue Position

•Where is the highest, tensest, or most active part of the tongue?

• Even a slight change in tongue position can make a big change in the sound of a vowel.


Tongue Position

• Try this: Say “beat” and feel where your jaw and tongue are. Then open your mouth wider and see what sounds you can make. As you open your mouth wider, your tongue gets lower, and the sound changes from “beat” to “bet” to “bat.”


Tongue Position

Describing the tongue position is something like graphing a point in math

or naming a location on a map.

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H4


Tongue Position

We can talk about tongue position in terms of:

• Vertical position: High / mid / low

•Horizontal position: Front / central / back


Tongue Position

•We can describe the tongue position for vowels by naming both of these dimensions. For example,

• /Q / as in “cat” is a low front vowel

• as in “but” is a mid central vowel

• /uw/ as in “boot” is a high back vowel


Tongue PositionWe can illustrate the tongue positions for different vowels by using a diagram called a “vowel quadrant.”

iy Iey E

Q

uwU

ow

çA

! , ´

iy Iey E

Q

uwU

ow

çA

! , ´i y

Ie y

E

Q

u wU

o w

çA

!, ́

high

mid

low

front central back


Lip Rounding

• The shape of the lips can also change the sound of vowels.

•Are the lips very rounded, just a little rounded, relaxed, or stretched wide?

• Say the sound /iy/ as in “eat.” Then keep your tongue in the same position, but round your lips. Do you hear how the sound changes?


Lip Rounding

• In English, the vowels /uw/, /U /, /ow/, and /ç / are pronounced with the lips rounded.

i yI

e yE

Q

u wU

o w

çA

!, ́

high

mid

low

front central back


Lip Rounding

• The vowels /iy/, /I /, /ey/, /E /, /Q /, / !/, / ́ /, and /A / are unrounded.

i yI

e yE

Q

u wU

o w

çA

!, ́

high

mid

low

front central back


Lip Rounding

•Did you notice that in English the back vowels tend to be rounded...

i yI

e yE

Q

u wU

o w

çA

!, ́

high

mid

low

front central back


Lip Rounding

... while the front and central vowels are unrounded?

iyI

eyE

Q

uwU

ow

çA

!, ́

high

mid

low

front central back


Tense and Lax Vowels

•We can also describe vowels as being “tense” or “lax.”

•We often think of these terms as describing whether the muscles of the tongue are relatively tense or more relaxed when we say the sound. Although this is not entirely accurate, it can be a useful way of thinking about these sounds.


Tense and Lax Vowels

• In English, these are the tense vowels: /iy/ /ey/ /uw/ /ow/ /A / /ç /

• These are the lax vowels: /I / /E / /Q / /U /


Simple Vowels, Glided Vowels, & Diphthongs

•We can also think about whether the position of the tongue stays the same all through the vowel sound, or if the tongue moves during the sound.

• If it moves, does it move just a little or a lot?



• If the tongue stays in one position during a vowel, it’s a simple vowel.

• The simple vowels of American English are: /I / /E / /Q / /A / /U / /ç /



• If the tongue position changes just a little, it’s a glided vowel.

• The glided vowels of American English are: /iy/ /ey/ /uw/ /ow/



• If the tongue position changes a lot, so it sounds like two separate vowels mashed together, we call it a diphthong.

• The diphthongs of American English are:

/ay/ /aw/ /oy/


• To show diphthongs on a vowel quadrant, we can use arrows to show the movement of the tongue.

i yI

e yE

Q

u wU

o w

çA

!, ́

high

mid

low

front central back/ay/ as in “by”

/oy/ as in “boy”

/aw/ as in “cow”


What about the vowel sound in “bird,” “fur,” and “her”?

•All of these words have the same vowel sound. Some people pronounce this sound with the tip of the tongue curled back a bit. Others say it with the back of the tongue bunched up, without curling the tip.

• Both ways can produce the same sound.


• Either tongue position will work, as long as it sounds right.

Tongue tip curled back Back of tongue bunched up


What phonemic symbol do we use to represent the vowel sound in “bird”?

• Some people use two symbols to represent this sound, for example: / ́ r/.

• Some use one symbol, for example: .

•Whatever symbol we use, it’s useful to think of this as one vowel sound rather than as a sequence of two sounds.


What do you think about this question?

• True or false? The main difference between the vowels of “beat” and “bit” is that “beat” has a long vowel and “bit” has a short vowel. The vowel /iy/ just lasts longer than /I /.

Click to check your answer.


• False! The main difference between these vowels is tongue position, not duration.

• If you say “bit” and then make the vowel last longer, it will not become “beat.” Not ever. To change from “bit” to “beat,” you have to change the position of your tongue.

• The same is true about vowel pairs like those in “pool/pull” or “mate/met.”


Here’s another question:

•How many vowels does North American English have?

a) Fiveb) Five, or sometimes sixc) 13 or14, including diphthongs

Click to check your answer.


•Answer “c” is correct (13 or 14)

•The fact is, there are five vowel letters in English (A, E, I, O, U) and “y” can sometimes represent a vowel, but there are many more vowel sounds than that.

•One vowel letter can represent several different vowel sounds: The letter “a” can represent /Q / as in “hat,” /ey/ as in “hate,” /A / as in “car,’ or /E / as in “care.”


•American English has 13 or 14 vowel sounds, including diphthongs:

/iy/ as in “beat” /uw/ as in “boot”/I / as in “bit” /U / as in “book”/ey/ as in “bait” /ow/ as in “boat”/E /as in “bet” /ç / as in “bought”/Q / as in “bat” /ay/ as in “bite” (diphthong) or / ́ / as in “above” /aw/ as in “bout” (diphthong)/A / as in “box” /oy/ as in “boy” (diphthong)

So why do we say 13 or 14? Aren’t we sure how many?Click to find out.


• Many Americans, especially in the West, no longer use the sound /ç / as a separate phoneme. They say /A / instead. So “caught” and “cot” sound alike: /kA t/. “Don” and “dawn” are both pronounced /dA n/.

/iy/ as in “beat” /uw/ as in “boot”/I / as in “bit” /U / as in “book”/ey/ as in “bait” /ow/ as in “boat”/E /as in “bet” /ç / as in “bought”/Q / as in “bat” /ay/ as in “bite” (diphthong) or / ́ / as in “above” /aw/ as in “bout” (diphthong)/A / as in “box” /oy/ as in “boy” (diphthong)

/ç / as in “bought” (Endangered sound)


Vowels can be much more variable than consonants:

•When we compare American, British, Australian, or other varieties of English, vowels differ much more than consonants.

•Within each of these main varieties, there are many dialects, and their vowels may also differ greatly.


What do you think the artist who drew this cartoon wanted to say about vowels?


• Vowels are the “heart” of syllables. They’re slippery little devils, but we can’t speak without them.

• We can describe vowels by talking about:

• Tongue position

• Lip rounding

• Tenseness or laxness

• Simple vowels, glided vowels, or diphthongs

Summary


Documents

The Vowels of North American English - PBworksteachingpronunciation.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/51128406/Vowels.pdf · Vowels •Vowels are sounds in which the air stream moves very