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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of Study

Pronounciation refers to production of sounds that we use to make meaning, it includes to the particular sounds of language, aspects of speech beyond the level of the individual sound, such as attention stress, and rhytm. In pronunciation, there are many aspects that will be discussed. One of the aspects that will be discussed in this paper are English letters and Phonetic symbols. English letter is a written symbol or character representing a speech sound and being a component of an alphabet. In English letter there are many types and function of letter. Phonetics is the study of the sound of language and their physical properties. Phonetics discribes how speech sounds are produced by the vocal apparatus ( the lungs, vocal cords, tongue, teeth, etc ). Phonetics focuses on the physical sounds of speech. Phonetics covers speech perception (how the brain discerns sound), acoustics (the physical qualities of sound as movement trough air), and articulation (voice production trough the movements of the lungs,tongue,lips, and other articulators).

B. Aims of Study The aims in studying English letter and phonetics symbol are : To know what is English letter, types and the function of it; To make a different between vowel and consonant; To improve the students ability in uttering the words in English; To know what is phonetics symbol, kinds and the function of it; To know how to put the sounds together appropriately; To make the students easier to analyse the pronunciation of words.

C. Limitation of Study The limitation of study is to clarify the problems of the study English letter and phonetics symbol.

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D. Significant of Study This result of English letter and phonetics symbols paper is hoped fully useful for : The students of English Department of Tarbiyah Faculty to improve their pronunciation in spoken language The English lecturers as a contribution to improve their students ability, especially to build up their pronunciation in spoken language

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CHAPTER II THEORITICAL REVIEW

A. DEFINITION LETTER AND PHONETIC SYMBOL a. Definition of Letter Letter is written or printed a sign representing a sound Character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbol of an alphabet: a capital letter.or a written symbol or character representing a speech sound end being a component of an alphabet. Many letters in English have more than one sound, or they can be silent, because letter are not always same with speech sound, in writting words are made of letter in speech, words are made of sound speech for example the word key and car begin with the same sound but different letter.1 b. Definition phonetic symbol Phonetics on the other hand is the systematic study of the sounds of speech, which is physical and directly observable. Phonetics is sometimes seen as not properly linguistic, because it is the outward, physical manifestation of the main object of linguistic research, which is language (not speech): and language is abstract.2 Phonetics is the study of speech. It is a broad and interdisciplinary science whose investigations cover four main areas: how speech can be written down (called phonetic transcription); how it is produced (speech production or articulatory phonetics); what its acoustic characteristics are (acoustic phonetics); how it is perceived by listeners (speech perception or auditory phonetics).3 Because the English-speaking world contains so many diverse com -munities, scattered over a wide geographical area with different historical and cultural backgrounds, our basic stance is that it is not really possible to describe the phonetics of English as such. Even in the British Isles, there is huge variability in the way that English sounds.Traditionally, British textbooks on English phonetics concentrate on Received Pronunciation (RP), a variety of English which traditionally has had high social status, but is spoken nowadays by few people. So in this book we explore the phonetic potential of the
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Mark hancock, english pronunciation in use,2009 page 10 Richard Odgen ,An Introduction to English Phonetics, 2009,page 1 3 Henning Reetz and Allard Jongman, Phonetics : transcription, production, acoustics and perception,2009 Page

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vocal tract, and illustrate it from English; but also you, the reader, are encouraged to reflect on what is true for you and your community. Despite its being one of the most written-about languages, there are still many discoveries to make about English, and perhaps you will make one of them.In making our observations, we will look at the way that sounds are articulated, and think about how the articulations are co-ordinated with one another in time. We will look at how the sounds of English can be represented using the Phonetic Alphabet of the International Phonetic Association. We will look a little at acoustic representations so that we can see speech in a different way; and we will look at speech in a number of different settings, including carefully produced tokens of words and conversational speech. Phonetic symbol is a written character used in phonetic transcription of represent a particular speech sound. This is the standard set of phonetic symbols for English (RP and similar accents). Consonants p pen, copy, happen b back, baby, job t tea, tight, button d day, ladder, odd k key, clock, school g get, giggle, ghost t church, match, nature d judge, age, soldier f fat, coffee, rough, photo v view, heavy, move thing, author, path this, other, smooth s soon, cease, sister z zero, music, roses, buzz ship, sure, national pleasure, vision Vowels kit, bid, hymn, minute E dress, bed, head, many trap, bad lot, odd, wash strut, mud, love, blood foot, good, put i fleece, sea, machine e face, day, break a price, high, try choice, boy u goose, two, blue, group goat, show, no a mouth, now near, here, weary e square. fair, various start, father

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h hot, whole, ahead m more, hammer, sum n nice, know, funny, sun ring, anger, thanks, sung l light, valley, feel

thought, law, north, war poor, jury, cure nurse, stir, learn, refer about, common, standard I happy, radiate. Glorious

r right, wrong, sorry, arrange U thank you, influence, situation j yet, use, beauty, few w wet, one, when, queen (glottal stop) department, football n suddenly, cotton l middle, metal (stress mark)

B. FUNCTION OF LETTER AND PHONETIC SYMBOL a. Function of Letter The function of letter is arranging a word in written letter . It is representing the sound in written english. There are the 26 letters of the alphabet comprise 5 vowels and 21 consonants. In spoken English, there are 20 vowels and 24 consonants. It is this discrepancy, of course, which underlies the complexity of English spelling."4 b. Function of Phonetic Symbol The pronunciation of words in many languages, as distinct from their written form (orthography), has undergone significant change over time. Pronunciation can also vary greatly among dialects of a language. Traditional orthography in some languages, particularly French and English, often differs from the pronunciation. For example, the words "bough" and "trough" do not rhyme in English, even though their spellings might suggest they do. As well, each contains a silent 'g', and "trough" contains an invisible 'f'. An example from French is the 's' at the end of words, which is usually silent ("militaire" is pronounced the same as "militaires") unless followed by a word beginning in a vowel. In the orthography
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David Crystal, How Language Works. Overlook Press, 2006

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of most European languages, the fact that many letters are pronounced or silent depending on contexts causes difficulties in determining the appropriate pronunciation, especially in the cases of English, Irish, and French. However, in other languages, such asSpanish and Italian, there is a more consistentthough still imperfectrelationship between orthography and pronunciation. Therefore, phonetic transcription can provide a function that orthography cannot. It displays a one-to-one relationship between symbols and sounds, unlike traditional writing systems. Phonetic transcription allows us to step outside of orthography and examine differences in pronunciation between dialects within a given language, as well as to identify changes in pronunciation that may take place over time.

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C. KINDS OF LETTER AND PHONETIC SYMBOL a. Kinds of letter In english letter there are 26 letters in this part ,There are two kinds of letter, Vowel and consonant letter,for more information let us see this explanation : 1. Consonant Consonant in speech sound is made by (partly) stopping the breath with the tongue,lips, etc and in letter Consonant is letter of the Alphabet that represent a consonant sound . ex b.c.and d.5 "In written English the 26 letters of the alphabet comprise 5 vowels and 21 consonants. In spoken English, there are 20 vowels and 24 consonants. It is this discrepancy, of course, which underlies the complexity of English spelling." 21 cononant letters are ;B,C,D,F,G,H,J,K,L,M,N,P,Q,R,S,T,V,W,X,Y,Z. (David Crystal, How Language Works. Overlook Press, 2006)

2. Vowel Vowel is speech sound in which te mouth is open and the tongue is not touching the top of the mouth, teeth,etc. In Letter is a letter that represents a vowel sound. "Written English has five proper vowel letters, A, E, I, O, and U (Y may substitute for I). Yet spoken English has some 20 shades of vowel sounds. Accordingly, our vowel letters are kept busy, each one symbolizing multiple sounds on any written page. Our letters get some help from rules of spelling, which, for example, can specify the long A of 'rate' versus the short A of 'rat.'"6

b. Kinds of phonetic symbol 1. Consonant a) Plosives The symbols for the plosives (or oral stops) [p, b, t, d, k, g] are familiar to anyone who uses the English writting. Importantly, however, as pointed out earlier, these symbols represent unique sounds that are articulatorily defined in terms of place and manner of articulation and voicing and are not letters that are defined by convention. It is easy to find
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Oxford Learners Pocket dictionary ,Fourth Edition university perss ,2008.page 91 David Sacks, Letter Perfect. Broadway Books, 2004

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minimal pairs for the voiceless-voiced contrast for all plosives (e.g. initial: tLie-b.uy, tie-dye, [;.oast-gh_ost; final: ropg_robe,sight-side, back-bag) and for the place oppositions (e.g. bdie-guy, aair(to) tear-[;.are, bib.-bid-big, apg_-eigh_l-ache). b) Nasals The symbols for the nasals are [m, n, IJ]. The bilabial nasal [m] and alveolar nasal [n] are familiar to a speaker (or writer) of English- and, again, the IPA symbols are similar to the orthographic letters, which are often pronounced as these sounds. That these are sounds and not letters becomes more obvious for the velar nasal, which is represented by the symbol [IJ]. This IPA symbol is not part of the English orthography. Note that the IPA symbol has a small hook on the right leg of the "n," which is turned backward (the orientation and direction of this hook are important because there are other IPA symbols that differ in this respect). Minimal pairs for the labial and alveolar nasals are easy to find (might-:!light, tumortu:!ler, beam-bea:!l). Minimal pairs (triplets) for all three places of articulation are more difficult to find since velar nasals do not occur in word-initial position in English. However, a number of examples can be found in medial and final positions (e.g. simmer-sinner-si:!lger and sum-SO:!l-SU:!lg). In case you are not convinced that the last sound in ki:!lg ([IJ]) is different from that in kill ([n]), stick a finger in your mouth while producing the last sound of the two words. The tongue is in the front of the mouth for the word kin and the finger hits the tongue much farther back for the word king. Kin ends with the alveolar nasal [n] whereas king ends with the velar [IJ]. Remember that nasal and oral stops are both produced at the same place of articulation and that the tongue might have exactly the same shape. But for the nasal stops the velum is lowered, and for the oral stops the vocal folds do not vibrate if they are voiceless.

c) Fricatives For the fricatives, we see a bit more variation in the places of articulation and we encounter a few new symbols. The voiceless labiodental fricative [f] is common in many English words. The voiced variant of this sound [v] is again produced with the same position of the articulators but the vocal folds vibrate, as can be easily felt (see Section 2.1 ). Minimal pairs in initial, medial, and final positions are fan-y_an, surface-sery_ice, leaf-leave.

d) affricate For the affricates, there are voiceless and voiced postalveolar sounds ([ij] and [(i3], respectively). The IPA does not have separate symbols for affricates but combines the plosive
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and fricative with a tie bar [~]. The reason for this lack of symbols is that (1) affricates can be easily represented by this procedure and it reduces the number of symbols that have to be remembered, and (2) there is a debate whether affricates are really only a single sound segment or not. It is sometimes more a matter of whether the sounds are felt to be one segment or whether the plosive and affricate are two sounds that appear together as a coincidence. For example, the initial sounds in the English words cheap (with an initial [tf]) and ieep (with an initial [(i3]) are considered affricates because English generally does not allow clusters of a plosive followed by a fricative at the beginning of a word. On the other hand, the words pan~ and hands end in the plural marker "-s" and [ts] and [dz] at their ends are considered as a sequence of a plosive and a fricative, because the fricative is not really part of the word but the result of the attachment of the plural "-s" to the final plosives of the words. The case is different in, for example, German, where the sound [ts] patterns like a single sound (similar to [tf] in English). As a result, German [rs] occurs at the beginning, middle, and end of words such as Z.iel [tsi:l] 'target,' Konz_ept [bn'tspt] 'concept,' Schut.g; [Juts] 'protection'). Because the definition of an affricate is partly dependent on this structural behavior of a language, some phoneticians always treat affricates as a sequence of two sound segments and not as one phone or phoneme. When it is treated as one unit, keep in mind that it must always be a homorganic articulation (see Section 2.3.2; i.e. [ks] is not an affricate because the places of articulation for plosive and fricative are different) and it must be the sequence plosive-fricative and not the other way round (i.e. [st] is not an affricate). Common non-IPA symbols for [tf] and [d3] are [c] and [j], respectively.

e) Approximants All the sounds we have discussed so far are characterized by a total obstruction of the oral pathway (plosives, nasals, and affricates) or a rather severe constriction (fricatives). For the approximants, which are all voiced in English, as they are for most languages of the world, the pathway is more open. The pathway can be blocked in the midsagittal part, as for the lateral approximant [I], which is known from words as leek or little, but in that case at least one side of the tongue is lowered, allowing a reasonably unrestricted airflow.7

Henning Reetz and Allard Jongman, Phonetics : transcription, production, acoustics and perception ,

Blackwell Publishing,USA,2009 Page 26

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Consonant

Description stop-plosive consonant, unvoiced stop-plosive consonant, voiced stop-plosive consonant, unvoiced stop-plosive consonant, voiced stop-plosive consonant, unvoiced stop-plosive consonant, voiced nasal consonant nasal consonant nasal consonant (eng) fricative consonant, unvoiced fricative consonant, voiced fricative consonant, unvoiced fricative consonant, voiced

Example

as in pet

as in bet

as in ten

as in den

as in kit

as in give

as in me as in neat as in hung

as in feet

as in vain

as in think

as in then

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fricative consonant, unvoiced fricative consonant, voiced fricative consonant, unvoiced (esh) fricative consonant, voiced fricative consonant, unvoiced lateral consonant glide

as in sea

as in zip

as in she

as in azure

as in heat

as in lift as in rose

glide (yot)

as in yes as in were as in when

glide, voiced

glide, unvoiced

combination consonant, unvoiced combination consonant, voiced

as in chill

as in jet

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2. Vowel

Vowel (in English articulation) a speech sound produced without occluding, diverting, or obstructing the flow of air from the lungs ( opposed to consonant ).8 Vowels are categorized by their height (high, mid, low), frontness (front, central, back), and rounding (rounded, unrounded, spread). In addition, vowels can be characterized as tense or lax, the vowels are written in a chart that roughly represents the height and frontness of idealized tongue positions. This representation is known as a vowel quadrilateral. There is some debate about whether a vowel quadrilateral is in fact an articulatory representation, or should be considered an acoustic representation of vowels; we will take up this issue. In contrast to consonants, whose place and manner of articulation can be reasonably determined by self-observation, it is more difficult to determine the tongue positions for vowels, and they can vary considerably across speakers. Furthermore, there is a substantial divergence in the exact quality of vowels.

Long Vowels i Sheep a Farm u Coo Horse Bird

Short Vowels Ship Hat Foot sock (UK) Cup e Head Above mother (US) worm (US)

This is the differences between vowel letter and Vowel phonetic symbol : Sounds Letters Examples e, ee [i:] ea ie, ei be, eve, see, meet, sleep, bread, deaf [e]; meal, read, leave, sea, team, great, break [ei]; field, believe, receive friend [e] Notes been [i];

Www.Vowel Define Vowel at Dictionary.com.htm.Friday.15 March 2013.11.45

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i [i] y e [e] ea a ai, ay [ei] ei, ey ea

it, kiss, tip, pick, dinner, system, busy, pity, sunny let, tell, press, send, end, bread, dead, weather, leather late, make, race, able, stable, aim, wait, play, say, day,

machine, ski, liter, pizza [i:] meter [i:] sea, mean [i:]

said, says [e]; eight, weight, they, hey, height, eye [ai] break, great, steak cat, apple, land, travel, mad;

[]

A AmE: last, class, dance, castle, half army, car, party, garden, park, ar war, warm [o:]

[a:] a

father, calm, palm, drama; BrE: last, class, dance, castle, half i, ie ice, find, smile, tie, lie, die, my, style, apply, buy, guy out, about, house, mouse, now, brown, cow, owl, powder not, rock, model, bottle, copy more, order, cord, port, long, gone, cost, coffee, work, word [r] group, soup [u:] know, own [ou]

[ai] y, uy ou [au] ow [o] O or o [o:]

aw, au law, saw, pause, because, ought bought, thought, caught,

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al, wa- hall, always, water, war, want [oi] oi, oy o [ou] oa, ow road, boat, low, own, bowl u ew [yu:] eu ue, ui u o, oo ew [u:] ue, ui ou blue, true, fruit, juice, group, through, route; AmE: duty, new, sue, student oo [u] u ou u, o ou neutral sound [] a, e o, i [r] about, brutal, taken, violent, memory, reason, family look, book, foot, good, put, push, pull, full, sugar, would, could, should gun, cut, son, money, love, tough, enough, rough, guide, quite [ai]; build [i] euphemism, feud, neutral, hue, cue, due, sue, suit rude, Lucy, June, do, move, room, tool, crew, chew, flew, jewel, use, duty, music, cute, huge, tune, few, dew, mew, new, how, owl [au] oil, voice, noise, boy, toy go, note, open, old, most, do, move [u:]

er, ur, ir serve, herb, burn, hurt, girl, sir,

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or, ar ear Note 2: Diphthongs

work, word, doctor, dollar, heard, earn, earnest, earth

heart, hearth [a:]

A diphthong is one indivisible vowel sound that consists of two parts. The first part is the main strong component (the nucleus); the second part is short and weak (the glide). A diphthong is always stressed on its first component: [au], [ou]. A diphthong forms one syllable. American linguists usually list five diphthongs: [ei], [ai], [au], [oi], [ou]. Diphthongs e a a o e Day Eye Boy Mouth nose (UK) nose (US) ear (UK) hair (UK) pure (UK)

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CHAPTER III PROBLEM SOLVING A. Students Problem in studying English Letter and Phonetics Symbol There are many troubles for the students in studying English letter and phonetics symbol, so that they surrender to learn English. The problems that are always faced by the students are : 1. Getting the difficulty in making distinction between two similar words in English; 2. The correct word is pronunced the same as incorrect one, but the spelling different. B. Studentss Efforts in Solving Problem in Studying English Letter and Phonetics Symbol Many students always get problems in studying English especially in learning English letter and phonetics symbol. To solve this problems, there are many efforts that could be done by the students, namely : 1. The students must have equipment to record their own voice, so that they can hear their own progress; 2. Practicing in front of the mirror so that they can compare the shape of students mouth to the mouth; 3. The students had better to check the phonetic symbol of the word of their spoken in dictionary; 4. The students can practise listenning and repeating the words to improve their fluency. C. The factors and Indicators of students Master English Letter and Phoneti cs Symbol 1. Improving the students ability in English letter and phonetics symbol by practicing the pronunciations of the word; 2. Listening to the English native speaker continiously; 3. Finding the difficult utterance of the word in dictionary continiously.

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CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

A. CONCLUSION Phonetic symbol and letter have their own meaning and both of them there is a real relationship in ponunciation ,if phonetic is the way how to pronun a word we will write that way in phonetic symbol, and the word that we spell will be written in letter.English letter is a written symbol or character representing a speech sound and being a component of an alphabet. In English letter there are many types and function of letter. Phonetics is the study of the sound of language and their physical properties. Phonetics discribes how speech sounds are produced by the vocal apparatus ( the lungs, vocal cords, tongue, teeth, etc ). Phonetics focuses on the physical sounds of speech. Phonetics covers speech perception (how the brain discerns sound), acoustics (the physical qualities of sound as movement trough air), and articulation (voice production trough the movements of the lungs,tongue,lips, and other articulators). We use phonetic symbol to describe how the word that we pronun and letter describe how to write a word there are 26 letters in english that called by Alphabet. Letter and phonetic symbol devide by two kind, it is vowel and consonant. In letter we have 5 Vowels and 21 Consonant, and we have more complicated vowel and consonant in phonetic symbol.

B. SUGGESTION The English Lecturer, to increase the student ability in learning english especially increasing the students ability to build up the english letter and phonetic symbol. The students must be more agresive to practice to utter the word. The students have to look for more information about this subject especally to understand and more understand about phonetic symbol and english letter.

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REFERENCES Lodge, Ken. A Critical Introduction to Phonetics.Continuum International Publishing Group.2009. Hancock, Mark hancock. English Pronunciation in Use. Cambridge University Press.2009. Odgen, Richard. An Introduction to English Phonetics. Great Britain: Edinburgh University Press Ltd.2009. Kreidler, W Charles. The Pronunciation of English A Course Book. USA : Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004. Reetz, Henning and Allard Jongman. Phonetics : Transcription, Production, Acoustics and Perception. USA: Blackwell Publishing. 2009. Gilbert, Judy B. Clear Speech. USA: Cambridge University Press. 2005. Laroy, Clement. Pronunciation. New York : Oxford University Pers. 2008. Szczeniak, Konrad. IPA Transcription Practice. Portugal: Universidade do Porto. 2011. Oxford Learners Pocket dictionary. Fourth Edition university perss. 2008. Cambridge University. Handbook of the international Phonetic Association.Cambridge University Pers.2009.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonetic_transcription.Friday/ 15/march/2013/11:00 www.Phonetic symbols for English.html/15 march/2013/11:00 www.definition and examples of vowels in English and a description of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift.htm Www.Vowel Define Vowel at Dictionary.com.htm.Friday.15 March 2013.11.45

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