Jeff Conn connjc@pdx.edu {best option} 503-725-2372 East Hall 232
Office Hours: W 11:30-12:30 & by appt webpage: http://web.pdx.edu/~connjc/
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, neurolinguistics, historical linguistics and sociolinguistics.
The primary goals of this course are to provide you with an understanding of the articulatory and acoustic dimension of speech production and to teach you phonetic transcription. You will learn the mechanisms involved in segmental and suprasegmental speech production. These mechanisms include respiration, phonation, resonation, and articulation. You will be introduced to the topics of acoustic phonetics and human speech perception. You will learn the phonology of speech sounds in American English. In addition, you will learn to phonetically transcribe normal and disordered speech using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The primary emphasis will be on English sounds and their transcription, although description and transcription of sounds in other languages will also be included. We will also 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.
Goals
By the end of spring term, students will demonstrate knowledge in the following areas:
Ladefoged, Peter and Johnson, Keith. 2010. A
Course in Phonetics (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Accompanying website: http://phonetics.ucla.edu/
then click on A Course in Phonetics (not
working so need CD ROM)
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 Worlds Languages.
Students will be regularly asked to contribute in class. For example, 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.
Grading Scale:
93 -100 A 73 - 76.99 C
90 - 92.99 A- 70 - 72.99 C-
87 - 89.99 B+ 67 - 69.99 D+
83 - 86.99 B 63 - 66.99 D
80 - 82.99 B- 60 - 62.99 D-
77 - 79.99 C+ 59.99 and below F
Please note that there are different requirements for LING students than SPHR students. SPHR students must complete the tasks as listed, but LING undergrads can choose either option (let me know which):
|
SPHR Students |
LING Undergrads |
LING Grads |
|
|
30% |
35% |
30% |
Homework |
|
30% |
35% |
30% |
Quizzes |
|
25% |
30% |
25% |
Final exam |
|
|
|
15% |
Grad Project |
|
15% |
|
|
Acoustics Project |
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. Any homework turned in late will receive only 5 points. There are 11 possible homeworks due, but the total possible is for 10 (can do 11th for 5 points extra credit only if you turn in a homework late or you can skip one). 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. Excused absences can be arranged around quizzes PRIOR to the quiz date. Quizzes include such tasks as the following:
Ÿ Transcription from a written text Ÿ Transcription of oral stimuli Ÿ Short answer
Acoustics project
(SPHR option). You will all be given samples of speech and will have to
perform various acoustic analyses on the data.
More information regarding this assignment will be distributed in
class. You might need to download a free
speech analysis program Praat at: www.praat.org
you can save it on your PSU H drive and run the program from there.
Grad project
(graduate students only). Grad students have 2 options. The first involves a Language description. This option is to collect data from a native
speaker of a language you are not familiar with and try to create a phonetic
inventory for that language based on the data you collected. The written project will require about 6-8
pages double-spaced. Be sure to include
both a consonant and vowel chart. The second
option is an acoustics project that involves matching spectrograms with words
and providing written support for your choices.
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 worlds languages
TTh 3:30-5:50 CH 224
Jeff Conn connjc@pdx.edu {best option} 503-725-2372 East Hall 232
Office Hours: W 11:30-12:30 & by appt webpage: http://web.pdx.edu/~connjc/
|
Week |
Tuesday |
Thursday |
|
1 |
1 (T June 22) Introduction Chapter 1 |
2 (Th June 24) Ch 1
-Articulation and Acoustics Ch 2 -
Transcription {HW1 due = Ch 1 Ex
A-C, pp. 24-26} {HW2 due = Ch 1 Ex D, E, G, J, K, pp. 27-32} |
|
2 |
3 (T June 29) Ch 2 Transcription Ch 3 - English
Consonants {HW 3 due = Ch 2 Ex
A-C, E (only identify diffs), H
& I {transcribe your speech} pp.
48-50} |
4 (Th July 1) Ch 3 - English Consonants {HW4 due = Ch 3 Ex A,
D (just give 2 or 3 examples per statement), G {transcribe your speech} pp. 76-81} [Quiz 1
chaps. 1 & 2] |
|
3 |
5 (T July 6) Ch 3 -
English Consonants Ch 4 English
Vowels [Quiz 2 chap. 3 Eng Cons] |
6 (Th July 8) Ch 4 English Vowels {HW5 due = Ch 4 Ex H, I (transcribe your own speech) pp. 104-105} |
|
4 |
7 (T July 13) Ch 4
English Vowels Ch 5 - English
Words and Sentences [Quiz 3 chap. 4 Eng Vowels] |
8 (Th July 15) Ch 5 - English Words and Sentences (No need to know ToBI) {HW6 due = Ch 5 Ex
B, D, E, pp. 128-130} |
|
5 |
9 (T July 20) Ch 8
Acoustic Phonetics {HW7 due = Ch 5
handout online} |
10 (Th July 22) Ch
8 Acoustic Phonetics {HW8 due = Ch 8 Ex A, B + handout, pp. 208-209} |
|
6 |
11 (T July 27) Ch 6
- Airstream Mechanisms and Phonation Types {HW9 due =Handout? +
Ch 6 Ex C-E, pp. 153-155} |
12 (Th July 29) Ch 7 Consonantal Gestures [Quiz 4 chap. 6] |
|
7 |
13 (T August 3) Ch
7 Consonantal Gestures {HW10 due = Ch 7 Ex
A + handout, pp. 177-178} |
14 (Th August 5) Ch
9 Vowels etc [Quiz 5 chap. 7] {HW11 = Ch 9 handout} |
|
8 |
15 (T August 10) Ch
9 Vowels etc [Quiz 6 chap. 9] Review |
16 (Th Aug 12) NO CLASS |
|
|
Final Exam: Friday, August 13, 3:30-5:50 PM |
|