TTh
Jeff
Conn connjc@pdx.edu 503-725-4099 East Hall 241
Office Hours: Tues
This course is of value to all those interested in the
sounds of human language and how sounds are used in speech communication. The course also provides an introduction to
the application of phonetics to such areas as language acquisition, speech
pathology, speech synthesis and speech recognition, as well as to how slight
phonetic differences function on the social side of language, in such areas as
dialectology, sociolinguistics, language variation, and language change. In addition, the course complements such core
linguistics courses as phonology, discourse analysis, and even
psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics.
The course deals also with the application of phonetics to language
pedagogy, especially to the teaching of English as a second language.
Students are introduced to the scientific study of speech
sounds, primarily as these sounds occur in English but also as they are found
in other languages. Students will learn
what it is that makes English phonetically special, and how English differs
from other languages. They will be able
to conduct such an analysis on the firm scientific tradition of descriptive
phonetics, beginning (in English) with the great 19th century
phonetician Daniel Jones (immortalized in My
Fair Lady as “Henry Higgins” [ÈEnrI ÈIgn`z])
(Collins & Mees 1999), and continuing with an
unbroken laying on of hands to the participants in this phonetics course.
We will spend a fair amount of time learning how to analyze
speech sounds acoustically, that is, by means of measuring such speech features
as amplitude and frequency. At the end
of the course students should be able to interpret spectrograms and other
acoustic displays.
The course is grounded in practical skills, such as
listening carefully to speech sounds and faithfully transcribing them. Students will be expected to demonstrate
their proficiency in such skills. In
addition, students will also learn to produce sounds not found in English. Such sounds include the “exotic” clicks of
the Khoisan peoples of southern
Ladefoged, Peter. 2005. A Course in
Phonetics (5th ed.).
Accompanying website: http://phonetics.ucla.edu/
then click on A Course in Phonetics
Johnson, Keith. 2003. Acoustic and
Articulatory Phonetics (2nd ed).
Ladefoged, Peter. 2005. Vowels and
Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of Languages (2nd ed).
Ladefoged, Peter, and Ian Maddieson. 1996. The
Sounds of the World’s Languages.
Final grades are determined on the following basis:
Undergrads |
Grads |
|
35% |
30% |
Class participation/ |
35% |
30% |
Quizzes |
30% |
25% |
Final exam |
|
15% |
Language description |
Class participation.
The mark for class participation depends first of all on regular attendance.
More importantly it depends on being prepared and actively contributing to
class discussion. Students will be regularly asked to contribute in class, for
example, to demonstrate various sounds of the world’s languages. There will also
be in-class, small-group practice with listening and producing sounds. Students
are strongly encouraged to work together on all aspects of the course.
· Class attendance Preparation Active involvement
Homework.
Homework exercises will come from the book and other sources. These exercises are turned in, discussed in
class, but not graded for correctness.
You get credit for just doing them, but neglecting to turn them in will
hurt your grade. Each homework is worth
10 points. You should have completed the
homework by the first class we talk about the chapter, but they will be due as
on the calendar. Any homework turned in
late will receive only 6 points. The exercises in the book are available on the
CD and on the website so you should not have to rip the pages from your book to
turn them in. The computer labs should
be equipped with some IPA font or another in Microsoft Word, but you can
download them for free at:
http://www.sil.org/computing/fonts/Lang/silfonts.html
Or here: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/fonts.htm
Quizzes. Quizzes are the graded version of the
homework. Students not present for the quizzes
will receive a “0” (no marks). Excused
absences can be arranged around quizzes PRIOR to the quiz date. Quizzes include such tasks as the following:
Transcription
from a written text Transcription of oral stimuli Short answer
Final project
(graduate students only). The “Language description” for graduate students
will be a project based on elicitation with a single informant, a native
speaker of a language other than English. The exact nature of the project will
be determined on the basis of future discussion and class interests. A final
presentation of the results to the class as a whole is scheduled for the last
day of class.
Final exam. The
exam covers all of the course material and is fairly objective in its
nature. It includes performance as well
as listening (transcribing) components.
·
Course content: Objective true-false, multiple
choice, and short-answer questions
·
Acoustic analysis: Interpret acoustic displays
such as spectrograms and be prepared to make inferences as to the significance
of the displays
·
Perception: Transcription from oral stimuli
provided by instructor
·
Production: Students will be expected to produce
a set of sounds chosen at random from sounds of the world’s languages
TTh
Jeff
Conn connjc@pdx.edu 503-725-4099 East Hall 241
Office Hours: Tues
Week |
Tuesday |
Thursday |
1 |
1 (T 24 Sept) Introduction Begin Chapter 1 |
2 (Th 27 Sept) Read Ch
1 -Articulation and Acoustics Ch 1 Ex A-E, G, I, J, pp. 24-32 |
2 |
3 (T 2 Oct) Ch 2 - Transcription Ch 2 Ex A-C, E (only identify diffs), I pp. 48-50 |
4 (Th 4 Oct) Ch 3 - English Consonants Quiz 1 – Chaps. 1 & 2 |
3 |
5 (T 9 Oct) Ch 3 -
English Consonants Ch 3 Ex A & D (problems with this ex – will discuss),
pp. 76-80 |
6 (Th 11 Oct) Ch 4
– English Vowels Quiz 2 – Ch 3 Eng
Cons |
4 |
7 (T 16 Oct) Ch 4 – English
Vowels Ch 4 Ex C-F, H, pp. 101-103 |
8 (Th 18 Oct) Ch 5 - English Words and Sentences (No need to know ToBI) Ch 5 Ex B, D, E, F, pp. 128-130 Quiz 3 – Ch 4 Eng Vowels |
5 |
9 (T 23 Oct) Ch 6 - Airstream
Mechanisms and Phonation Types |
10 (Th 25 Oct) Ch 6
- Airstream Mechanisms and Phonation Types Ch 6 Ex C-E, pp. 153-155 Quiz 4 – Ch 3,4
& 5 |
6 |
11 (T 30 Oct) Ch 7 – Consonantal
Gestures Quiz 5 – Ch 6 |
12 (Th 1 Nov) Ch 7 – Consonantal Gestures Ch 7 Ex A-D, pp. 177-178 |
7 |
13 (T 6 Nov) Ch 8 –
Acoustic Phonetics Quiz 6 – Ch 7 |
14 (Th 8 Nov) Ch 8
– Acoustic Phonetics Ch 8 Ex A-C, pp. 208-209 |
8 |
15 (T 13 Nov) Ch 9 – Vowels etc |
16 (Th 15 Nov) Ch 9
– Vowels etc Ch 9 Ex A, p. 231 Ch 10 – Syllables
and Suprasegmental Features |
9 |
17 (T 20 Nov) Ch 10 – Syllables and Suprasegmental
Features Quiz 7 – Ch 8 &9 Ch 10 Ex A, F-G, pp. 254-256 |
(Th 22 Nov) NO
CLASS Thanksgiving |
10 |
18 (T 27 Nov) Grad Student presentations |
19 (Th 29 Nov) Review, Grad Student presentations 1st half: grad – 2nd half: review |
|
|
Final Exam: Th 6
Dec, |