Word Pronunciation

Word Pronunciation English

The way we pronounce words can depend on several things. Of course, a word's spelling can help us 'figure out' pronunciation, but not all words are pronounced how they look.

There are tips and tricks in English we can learn to help with pronunciation. For example:

• When certain letters appear together, they create specific sounds, e.g., ch, sh, igh - we call these phonics blends.

• Now consider the letter G in gnome or K in knife; these are silent letters and shouldn't be pronounced.

• Or, how about the modifying E, which can turn a short vowel sound into a long vowel sound, e.g., hat --> hate.

• Finally, consider the difference in pronunciation between a vinyl record and the verb to record. Here we can see the effect of word stress on a word's meaning.

This is just a small insight into the complex world of pronunciation.

To help us understand and tell others how a word should be pronounced, we can transcribe words using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The IPA is a system comprised of letters and symbols representing different sounds and is used worldwide to help with pronunciation.

Before we delve into the important elements of pronunciation, let's take a close look at transcription and the IPA. This will help you understand the remainder of the explanation as example pronunciations will be transcribed using the IPA.

Word Pronunciation Symbols

Have you ever looked up a word in the dictionary or online, such as morphology, and seen something that looks like this: mor·faa·luh·jee or even, like this: [ˈmɔːrfəloʊgiː]

The first example uses phonetic spelling to 'sound out' the pronunciation syllable by syllable, whereas the second uses IPA transcription.

Let's begin by looking at phonetic spelling.

Phonetic Spelling

Before we can discuss phonetic spelling, there are two important terms we need to define: phonemes and graphemes.

If we look at the word morphology again, we can see that in the center of the word, the phoneme /f/ is represented by the grapheme ph.

When we write a word using phonetic spelling, we use phonemes rather than graphemes and break the word down into syllables.

International Phonetic Alphabet Transcription

The second representation of pronunciation we saw ( /ˈmɔːrfəloʊgiː/) was phonetic transcription.

Phonetic transcription uses symbols from the IPA to transcribe the pronunciation of any word from any language. These symbols include:

• Consonants - these are ordered based on the manner and place of articulation, with voiced consonants on the right and voiceless consonants on the left.

• Vowels - these are organized based on the shape of the mouth and the position the tongue is in when pronouncing the sound.

• Diacritics - these are small marks that appear alongside the consonant and vowels to provide extra information on the pronunciation, such as voiced or voiceless, aspirated or nonaspirated (with or without an exhalation of air), or how rounded a vowel sound should be.

• Suprasegmentals - these are similar to diacritics, except they apply to the prosodic features that appear in connected speech, such as tone, intonation, changes in pitch, and stress. These prosodic features are represented by small marks.

• Other features - the IPA also contains symbols to represent other pronunciation features, such as clicks and tones; however, these aren't necessary for English.

Fig. 1. Recent copy of the International Phonetic Alphabet

As you can see, the IPA is pretty comprehensive, and all the included information isn't necessary for doing simple phonemic transcriptions of English words. To simplify things, we can use the English Phonemic Alphabet, a simplified version of the IPA that focuses only on vowels and consonants that appear in English.

Fig.2. Example of the English Phonemic Chart

Word Pronunciation Elements

Now we know the basics behind pronunciation and how to represent the pronunciation of words, let's look at some important elements behind correct pronunciation specific to English.

Syllable Stress

By now, you're probably aware that there is more to pronunciation than the production of consonant and vowel sounds.

When we pronounce a word with multiple syllables, the syllable we stress can be very important as it can make the word difficult to understand or even change the meaning of the word altogether. Stressed syllables can be longer, louder, of a higher pitch, or just generally clearer than other syllables.

This is particularly important for homonyms (words that look/sound the same but have different meanings). There are many homonyms in English that can function either as a noun or a verb, depending on where the syllable stress falls.

Phonics Blends

There are certain sounds we can create when we pair phonemes together - these are called phonics blends. When pronouncing phonics blends, each phoneme shouldn't be pronounced individually, but the blend should be pronounced as a whole.

When a phonics blend contains two vowels, we usually pronounce the first vowel. For example, the word brain contains a long a sound (so does the word contain!)

Minimal Pairs

Minimal pairs are words that sound very similar but differ by a singular sound. The sound that differs usually appears in the same place in each word.

Understanding minimal pairs highlights the importance of clear pronunciation.

Modifying 'E'

The modifying e (a.ka. the magic e) is a silent letter that appears at the end of a word and modifies the vowel sound that appears before it. The e will transform a short vowel sound to a long one - for example, rat --> rate.

Silent Letters

In English, there are many words that contain silent letters; they could be vowels or consonants. These are letters that appear in the spelling of words but should not be pronounced. When we consider things such as the second vowel in phonics blends and the modifying e, an estimated 60% of English words actually contain silent letters.

Silent letters often exist because the word originated from another language, such as Greek or Latin, and the spelling has been carried over. Silent letters can also Help us distinguish between homophones (words that sound the same), e.g., hour and our.

Word Pronunciation Example

Let's finish with some example words that include some of the elements we've looked at today. Each example will include the English spelling, the phonetic spelling, and the IPA transcription.

Words with silent letters

• Climb - klime - /klaɪm/

• Read - reed - /riːd/

• Knight - nite - /naɪt/

Words with the modifying e

• Plane - playn - /pleɪn/

• Shine - shine - /ʃaɪn/

• Home - home - /hoʊm/

Words with phonic blends

• Flight - flite - /flaɪt/

• Rain - rayn - /reɪn/

• Brought - braat - /brɔːt/