Linguistics 2242B
Phonetics

Prerequisite(s): One of: Anthropology 1027A/B, Linguistics 2288A/B, both French 2805A/B and 2806A/B, or Spanish 3303A/B.

Course Description:

This course is an introduction to the study of the sounds of speech. Topics covered include: basic anatomy of speech production, articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, speech perception, phonetic description and transcription of sounds of the world’s languages.

General learning outcomes:

  • Describe and explain the anatomy and mechanisms of speech production.
  • Transcribe speech sounds of English and other languages using the International Phonetic Alphabet.
  • Describe in detail the articulation of consonants and vowels of English and other languages in isolated words and in connected speech.
  • Describe the acoustic properties of consonants and vowels and detect representations of the properties of sounds in waveforms and spectrograms.
  • Perform acoustic analysis on samples of speech from English and other languages.
  • Analyze speech at the level of the segment and the syllable and also at the level of suprasegmental phenomena: stress, length, timing, intonation and tone.
  • Identify and describe systematically rhythm and intonation patterns in English and other languages.
  • Situate phonetic analysis in relation to linguistic analysis, demonstrating an understanding of different theoretical perspectives on speech and language from research in phonetics and phonology.

Assignments and Evaluations:

  • Quiz (8): 20% (best 7/8)
  • Assignments (2): 40% (2X20%)
  • Final Assignment: 30%

 

Readings and other course material:

All reading and exercise materials will be made available on the Brightspace site.