4. Language and speech.

Language is a system of conventional signals used for communication by a whole community. This pattern of conventions covers the system of sound units (the phonemes), the inflections and arrangement of words, and the association of meaning with words. The main function of language is communication. When we communicate we use this system in our speech, i.e. speech is the realization of this system in the act of communication.

When we communicate we deal with two kinds of reality:

1. the concrete, measurable reality of the sounds uttered;

2. the abstract reality made up in our minds.

In the first, concrete approach, we deal with the sounds which we can hear, record, pronounce, i.e. we deal with sounds in relation to speech. In the second, abstract approach, we deal with the behavior of sounds in a particular language. Measurable reality can be pronounced, abstract – cannot. An utterance, an act of speech is a single concrete means of conveying “meanings”, of exchanging thoughts and thus organizing the life of human community. But no meaning can be conveyed without a certain kind of “form”. These forms are apprehended by us because they are signaled to us by means of sound or graphic “envelopes”, which are the units of the expressive plane. Phonology and phonetics study the sound envelopes, the sound forms of the meaning. Phonology is concerned with the ultimate units of the expression plane of language, and in this sense analysis the lowest layer of the structure of language.

Human speech is the result of a highly complicated series of events. The formation of the concept takes place at a linguistic level, that is in the brain of the speaker, this stage may be called psychological. The massage formed within the brain is transmitted along the nervous system to the speech organs. Therefore we may say that the human brain controls the behavior of the articulation organs which effects producing a particular pattern of speech sounds. This second stage may be called physiological. The moments of the speech apparatus disturb the air stream thus producing sound waves. Consequently the third stage may be called physical or acoustic. Further, any communication requires a listener, as well as a speaker. So the last stages are the reception of the sound waves by the listener’s hearing physiological apparatus, the transmission of the spoken message through the nervous system to the brain and the linguistic interpretation of the information conveyed.

5. The theoretical and practical aspects of Phonetics.

Neither linguistic theory nor linguistic practice can do without Phonetics. Theoretical significance of phonetics is connected with the further development of the problems of the synchronic study and description of the phonetic system of a national language, the comparative analysis and description of different languages and the study of the correspondences between them, the diachronic description of successive changes in the phonetic system of a language or different languages.

The practical aspects of phonetics are no less important. Phonetics is considered the basis of methods of teaching to read and write. Teaching of reading and writing is possible only when one clearly understands the difference between the sound and written forms of the language and the connections between them. Phonetics has a great practical importance in the process of teaching a foreign language. In our native school a phonetic method of teaching is being applied. Ukrainian methodology of foreign language teaching is based on the principle of conscious teaching. It means, that in the process of instruction it is necessary to compare the phonetical structures of the mother tongue with that of the target tongue. Another principle applied is imitation. Phonetics is also widely used in teaching correct pronunciation of actors, singers, announcers and other public figures on the basis of established orphoepical norms, in eliminating dialectical features from the pronunciation of dialectical speakers, in curing various speech defects in surdopedaqgogics, in teaching normal oral speech to deaf/dumb people.

Acoustic phonetics and phonology are of great use and importance to sound technology. The branch of science and technology is concerned with the study and design of techniques for the recording, transmission, reproduction analysis and synthesis gramophones, cassettes, tape and cassette recorders, loud speakers, etc.

Questions for self-control;

1. What is the subject of Phonetics and its place in Linguistics?

2. What is the difference between Phonetics and Phonology?

3. When did Phonetics begin to be developed seriously and what factors stimulated its development?

4. What are the branches of Phonetics and what they study?

5 What is the difference of language from speech?

6. What is the significance of theoretical and practical aspects of Phonetics?

Lecture 2

THE FUNCTIONAL ASPECT OF SPEECH SOUNDS.

THE PHONEME.