Topic 2: Introduction to Phonology

Phonology is a familiar word to me. I had learned it before in first semester of foundation. Based on Wikipedia, phonology is broadly speaking, the sub discipline of linguistics concerned with "the sounds of language". In short, it explains how sounds are produced in the English sound system. Learning outcome of this topic is produce accurate English sounds in discourse.

            Introduction of phonology includes speech organ and English sounds. As I had learned before, there are few speech organs that show below. 

It helps me a lot to understand how to pronoun the word correctly. Though I learn English from primary but there are certain words that I found hard to pronoun in right way. Sometimes, we not realize that we use wrong pronunciation because we prefer to use Manglish in our daily life. It actually affects our pronunciation very much.

            In this period we also do some activity to practice our speech organ in a group. It is a group of four and we had to get three tongue twister which are easy, middle and hard level. Our lecturer will give the present to the group which can say it fluently. My group had chosen our tongue twisters which are shown below. 

1.    Lesser weather never weathered lesser wetter weather.

/lɛsə wɛðə nɛvə wɛðərd lɛsə wɛtə wɛðər/

2.    Big black bugs bleed blue black blood but baby bugs bleed blue blood.

/bɪg blæk bəgz bli:d blu: blæk bləd bət beɪbi bəgz bli:d blu: bləd/

3.    King thistle stuck a thousand thistles in the thistle of his thumb. A thousand thistles king thistle stuck in the thistle of his thumb. If king thistle stuck a thousand thistles in the thistle of his thumb, how many thistles did king thistle stick in the thistle of his thumb?

/kɪŋ θɪsəl stək ə θawzənd θɪsəlz ɪn ðə θɪsəl əv hɪz θəm. ə θawzənd θɪsəlz kɪŋ θɪsəl stək ɪn ðə θɪsəl əv hɪz θəm. ɪf kɪŋ θɪsəl stək ə θawzənd θɪsəlz ɪn ðə θɪsəl əv hɪz θəm, haw mɛni θɪsəlz dɪd kɪŋ θɪsəl stɪk ɪn ðə θɪsəl əv hɪz θəm?/

For me, it is difficult to say the tongue twister fluently in a group. We have to practice more and say it with correct pronunciation.

            Next, we also had done a minimal pairs in the same group of tongue twister. We had to get 5v minimal pairs with initial, medial and final phoneme differences. I admit that is not easy to find the word. We use dictionary to help us to find the word. This activity makes me realize how poor my vocabulary and I need to do something about it.  

	INITIAL	MEDIAL	FINAL
1.	Ball, tall	Babble, battle	Cab, cat
	/Bɒl, tɒl /	/bæbəl, bætəl/	/kæb, kæt/
2.	Bow, pow	Stable, staple	lab, lap
	/bau, pau/	/stebəl stepəl/	/læb læp/
3.	Deed, need	Tidy, tiny	Bad, ban
	/did, nid/	/taɪdi, taɪni/	/bæd, bæn/
4.	Die, lie	Tiding, tiling	Pad, Pal
	/daɪ, laɪ/	/taɪdɪŋ, taɪlɪŋ/	/Pæd, Pæl/
5.	Pie, tie	Topper, totter	Hip, hit
	/paɪ, taɪ/	/tɑpər, tɑtər/	/hɪp, hɪt/