Class 002: Introduction on Phonology

On this lesson I have learned about phonology. In this chapter were teaches about part of speech organ, how to pronounce Engish sound correctly guided by the phonology table.

Now I have understood three important parts in this topic which are phonetics, phonetic script and phonemes. Phonetics is the study of sounds made by humans when they talk while the phonemes are the smallest unit of sound in a language which carries distinctive meaning.

I have learned that to produce a sound there are 15 part of speech organs involved. They all interconnected with each other. From the speech organs, we can produce 3 sounds which are initiation, phonation and articulation.

Speech production	Description
Initiation	· The production of any speech sound requires the creation of an air stream in vocal tract. Te air stream is initiated by the lungs
Phonation	· As the airstream passes through the larynx, it is modified by the vocal cords, through the introduction of voice. · When the vocal cords are brought together, airs passing out of the lungs cause them to vibrate and voice is produced. If the vocal cords are pulled back, they cannot vibrate. These sounds are called voiceless.
Articulation	· As the air stream passes through the vocal tract, it may be modified by the movement of the active articulators obstructing its passage through the vocal tract to varying degrees. · The obstruction of the air stream may occur at any point in the point in the vocal tract and is the result of the active articulators moving towards a passive articulator

If one of the speech organ does not functioning well, we cannot produce a sound. For example, if our mouth does not functioning well, we cannot say the sound b, p and etc. We can refer to these following diagram. All those sound can be divided  into vowel, consonant and dipthong.

For our task, we were asked to do a minimal pair of tongue twister to be presented in front of the class.

WHAT IS TONGUE TWISTER

- Combinations of alliteration (repetition of a sound)

- A phrase design-made very easy to slip accidentally.

- Spoonerism- words or phrases in which letters or syllables get swapped

— Tease my ears (Ease my tears)

— A lack of pies (A pack of lies)

Our group had chosen two tongue twister as follows:

Tongue twister 1:

If you can't can any candy can,

how many candy cans can a candy canner can,

if he can can candy cans ?

Tongue twister 2:

A big black bug bit a big black dog on his big black nose!

For me, individually this minimal tongue twister activity is an enjoyable activity for me. Apart from learning the correct pronunciation of a sound, we also can learn it through an enjoyable activity which is good in learning process.

The other groups also present their own interesting tongue twister.