The subject and Purpose of Theoretical Phonetics of the English language

Keywords: studying foreign language, meanings, linguistics, vowels.

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Considering demands made to the students studying at the foreign language faculties and intending to become a philologist or an English teacher we pay great attention to the lesson of analytical reading, the grammar and the essential component of which is fully- made special researches on the meanings of the units in the text, of each word in it.

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics which deals with the ways of forming speech sounds with their physiological and semantic properties. Phonetics being branch of linguistics occupies a peculiar position. It is quite independent and develops according to its own laws. Phonetics is an essential part of the language, because it gives the language a definite form; — the vocabulary and grammar of the language can function only when the language has phonetic form. The reason of this is that the lexical and grammatical forms are expressed phonetically.

The term «phonetics» comes from the Greek word «fonetikos» which means «science of speech sounds»

Phonetics as a science is based on the principal scientific language theory. This theory has two main principles: thinking and speaking. According to the second principle language is the most important means of human intercourse. Human thinking is expressed by means of words and words sentences. The words of the sentence consist of sounds. So language can exist with the material forms which are the sound system of the language. And the sound system of the language is the subject matter of phonetics. Phonetics was known to ancient Greeks and to the ancient Hindus. The scientists of that of that time studied only the speech sounds.

The phonetic system of English consists of some basic components. The first and basic component of the phonetic structure of English is the system of phonemes. This phonetic component has a systematic character, which finds its expression in different classifications of phonemes. The phonemes are divided into vowel phonemes and consonant phonemes. Vowels are divided into monophtongs and diphthongs long vowels and short vowels. Consonants are divided into voiced and voiceless consonants and noise consonants and sonorants.

The phonemic component of the phonetic structure of the English language doesn’t only consist of the phonemes described above, but also of the phonetic system of English has three aspects:

1. The system of its phonemes.
2. The presence of allophones.
3. The ways of joining speech sounds as VC, CVC, CV and so on.

The second component of the phonetic system of English is the syllabic structure of the words. The syllabic structure of words has two aspects which are inspirable from each other:

1. Syllable formation.
2. Syllable division.

In English syllables may be formed by a single vowel, by a vowel and a consonant and also by consonants only. The third component of the phonetic system of English is the accentual structure of words. By accentual structure we understand the word-stress which may be divided into primary word stress, secondary word stress and a weak word stress.

1. The physical nature of word stress (strong or weak).
2. The position of word stress in disyllabic and polysyllabic words.
3. The degrees of word stress. We distinguish different degrees of stress in disyllabic and polysyllabic words.

The fourth component of the phonetic system of English is the intonation of the sentence. In the language sentences are pronounced with different kinds of intonation as rising and falling intonation.

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics and it is closely connected with other branches of linguistics. Phonetics is closely connected with grammar. In grammar the plural form of some nouns is formed with sound interchanges. English word stress helps to distinguish different parts of speech English intonation shows different communicative types of the sentence.

Phonetics is closely connected with lexicology. Lexicology studies words and these words consist of speech sounds. There are different lexical words in English with short and long vowels, which belong to different parts of speech.

Phonetics is connected not only with linguistic sciences, but also with many other sciences. For example, the study of intonation is impossible without a good knowledge of logic. Acoustic phonetics is connected with physics, mathematics and cybernetics. Phonetics is also connected with physiology, anatomy and with the general history of language.

There aresome branches of phonetics such as:

1. General phonetics;
2. Special phonetics;
3. Phonology;
4. Historical phonetics
5. Comparative phonetics;
6. Comparative historical phonetics.

General phonetics studies all the sound producing possibilities of human speech apparatus, it finds out what types of speech sounds exist in the languages of the world, and what role they play in expressing thoughts.

Special phonetics studies the present phonetic system of a given language, at the given period synchronically. It gives a description of the system of pronunciation of the given individual language.

Historical phonetics studies the changes in the phonetic system of a given language at different stages of its historical development.

Comparative phonetics studies the phonetic system of two or more languages comparatively finding out the sameness or differences of the phonetic system of those languages.

References:

1. Chaudhari Bhati. Phonetics and Grammar.2011y.
2. Broughton Geoffrey. English Grammar A to Z.