Linguistic Anthropology The Sounds of Language Linguistic Anthropology

/p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ Some English Phonemes Bilabial Stop Alveolar Stop (“pot”) /b/ (“bot”) /t/ (“tot”) /d/ (“dot”) voiceless voiced

/k/ /Ɂ/ /g/ Some English Phonemes Velar Stop Glottal Stop voiceless (“kill”) /g/ (“gill”) /Ɂ/ (“uh-oh,” “Hawai’i”) voiceless voiced

/f/ /v/ /ɵ/ /ð/ Some English Phonemes Labiodental Fricative Interdental Fricative /f/ (“fine”) /v/ (“vine”) /ɵ/ (“thing,” “with”) /ð/ (“that,” “smooth”) voiceless voiced

Alveopalatal Fricative Some English Phonemes Alveolar Fricative Alveopalatal Fricative /s/ (“sue”) /z/ (“zoo”) /ʃ/ (“shoe,” “wish”) /ʒ/ (“vision,” “beige”) voiceless voiced

Alveopalatal Affricate Some English Phonemes Glottal Fricative Alveopalatal Affricate /ʧ/ (“chop,” “watch”) /ʤ/ (“job,” “cage”) /h/ (“happy”) voiceless voiced

/n/ /m/ Some English Phonemes Bilabial Nasal Alveolar Nasal (“mother”) (“nope”)

(“ring-a-ding-ding”) Some English Phonemes Velar Nasal /ŋ/ (“ring-a-ding-ding”)

/l/ /r/ Some English Phonemes Retroflex Liquid Lateral Liquid (“really”) /l/ (“later”)

/ʍ/ /w/ /j/ Some English Phonemes Bilabial Glide Alveolar Glide (“wheel,” “which”) /w/ (“wish”) /j/ (“yellow,” “opinion”) voiceless voiced

Phonetics Acoustic Auditory Articulatory physical properties of sound, sound waves Auditory perception of sounds, psychological “reality” Articulatory pronunciation of sounds, articulation aka “descriptive phonetics”

Doing Phonological Research Descriptive v prescriptive approaches Transcription vs. spelling Avoid using your own categories Find out how the system operates on its own terms Describe the patterns you find Identify the units Identify relationships between the units

Phonetic Charting Mapping the sounds of a language Helps you to analyze and pronounce sounds Helps you to analyze sound systems and to see patterns Guides you in understanding accents

Consonants different languages may use different sounds

Vowels

Diphthongs to back to center [uu] sue [ou] hoe [au] how [i] beer to front [ii] seen [ai] sign [i] boid to back [uu] sue [ou] hoe [au] how to center [i] beer [e] bear [a] bar [] bore

ghoti gh, pronounced /f/ as in tough /tʌf/ o, pronounced /ɪ/ as in women /ˈwɪmɪn/ ti, pronounced /ʃ/ as in nation /ˈne͡ɪʃən/ /ˈfɪʃ/

Ghoughpteighbteau /poʊˈteɪtoʊ/ gh, pronounced /p/ as in hiccough /ˈhɪkʌp/ ough, pronounced /oʊ/ as in though /ðoʊ/ pt, pronounced /t/ as in ptomaine /ˈtoʊmeɪn/ eigh, pronounced /eɪ/ as in neigh /neɪ/ bt, pronounced /t/ as in debt /dɛt/ eau, pronounced /oʊ/ as in bureau /ˈbjʊəroʊ/ /poʊˈteɪtoʊ/

Phonology Sounds and their arrangements Phonetics & Phonemics identify & describe sounds in detail (phones) Phonemics analyze arrangements of sounds identify groupings of sounds (phonemes) Examples: English “pill” vs “spill -- [ph] + [p] = /p/ Hindi “phl” (fruit) vs “pl” (minute) -- [ph] + [p] = /ph / + /p/

Phones and Phonemes phone phoneme smallest identifiable unit of sound in a language more easily identified by outsiders phoneme smallest contrastive unit of sound in a language heard as a single sound by insiders Contrasts are not predictable

Variations a phoneme can be a single sound/phone or it can be a group of sounds/phones members of a group are usually similar they are close on the phonetic chart they sound like ‘variations’ of one another members of a group are non-contrastive they don’t mark differences in meaning when such variations exist, they are called Allophones

Allophones are heard as ‘the same sound’ by native speakers are usually ‘complementary’ to one another we say they are in ‘complementary distribution’ because the variation is usually ‘conditioned’ by neighboring sounds, we can also call this ‘conditioned variation.’

Phonemes vs. Allophones non-contrastive predictable distribution [pn] and [spn] phonemes contrastive non-predictable distribution [pn] vs [tn].

Etics vs. Emics Ken Pike, 1950s Core concepts in anthropology Etics outside, cross-cultural /comparative absolute, objective a step to emic analysis Emics inside, culture-specific relative, subjective a goal of emic analysis