LING 3038 - Phonology: language sounds and sound systems

Pronunciation immediately identifies each of us as belonging to a certain ethnic group, social class, locality, age group and gender. This course investigates the nature of speech sounds, the mechanisms of speech production and perception and the ways by which these sounds are classified into a fixed inventory of meaningful sounds, the phoneme inventory, by speakers of a language. Students will learn how to transcribe speech sounds using phonetic symbols (International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA). Students will learn how to identify phonemes and how to analyse and provide formal accounts of sound system processes across a range of languages, paying attention to segmental phonemes as well as to factors such as stress, tone and intonation. This course is essential for all linguistics students, and provides vital understandings for language teachers (English or otherwise), speech pathologists and students of disciplines such as psychology, anthropology and social inquiry.