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...   Phonics and other key concepts defined  - phone, phoneme, allophone, logograph
 
Phonics
 
 
 
 

Phonics

(1) An obsolete term for the science of phonetics.
(2) A method of teaching reading and spelling based on the phonetic interpretation,  element by element, of spelling, often contrasted with the look-and-say method. [1810s: comparable to French phonique, ultimately from Greek phone - voice]. 

(1) Relating to vocal sound: phonic substance, phonic vibrations. 
(2) In phonetics, a term used in contrast with phonetic to mean 'relating to speech sounds': the phonic medium, the phonic method of  teaching reading, a phonic reader (a book). 
(3) In physiology, relating to a nerve centre that excites the organs of speech and to vibration of the vocal folds or cords.

       Links     Glossary of Spelling - teach yourself linguistics - index - links
                        Definitions - more definitions - whole word method

American Literacy Council    http://www.americanliteracy.com/variations.htm
Discusion: http://www.xrefer.com/entry/443363 some of this discussion is copied below
 


 
.........
Logographic [word sign] vs. Alphabetic [sound sign] Systems

To read an alphabetic system of writing like Spanish requires that one decode the phonetic relationships that exist between the marks on the page (letters) and the sounds of the spoken language, whereas to read a logo-graphic system like Chinese requires one to match the marks on the page (the ideograms) with the word or concept in the language that each represents. Thus, alphabetic systems carry an intervening stage of decoding of the phonetic component, a stage not involved in the use of logographic systems.  There are a few logograms in normal text.

Two concepts of reading: marks to concept or marks to speech to concept.
Sign language and Braille are similar.  Both are primarily speech mediated.

The term reading, therefore, entails different cognitive and perceptual processes depending on orthographic form. Second, reading consists of both a phonetic/acoustic process and a semantic/syntactic process. Consider the hypothetical example of an illiterate Greek farmer and his English professor friend whose schooling has taught him how to pronounce all the Greek letters and letter combinations although he cannot speak a word of modern Greek. The professor pronounces what for him are the nonsense sounds from a Greek newspaper for his
illiterate friend, who comprehends their meaning perfectly. 

Neither of the two can be said to be reading, yet between them they represent the skills that a reader must have. 

The purpose of raising these points here is to clarify to the reader that many simplistic definitions of reading which characterize the process in terms of pronouncing words are misleading and blur the deeper, more important aspects of this complex process. It is likely that many of the problems involved in the teaching of reading derive from our failure as yet to understand fully these various processes.

Some Definitions
Allophone

allophone  allophone An audibly distinct or acoustically distinct variant of a phoneme . E.g. the [d] and [ð] of Spanish ['deðo]...   The schwi [unstressed /i:/] is not a phoneme in English because it distinguishes no contrastive pair.  It is an allophone of i.  Is @ a phoneme or an allopone of ^?  It is in a similar 

two phonemes are described as overlapping if one has among its allophones at least one sound that is also, possibly in other contexts, an allophone of the other.

allomorph  One of a set of forms which realize a morpheme: cf. morpheme (3). E.g. -[@n] in taken and -[d] in removed are among the allomorphs of the 'past participle' morpheme. 
 

An allophone is one of several similar speech sounds: an allophone can be thought of as a variant of a phoneme. Each allophone is the contextually specific implementation of honeme, and phoneme is the (language dependent) smallest distinguishable unit of sound. In a particular context an habitual approximation of the phonemic ideal usually becomes so familiar as to be conventional. from wikipedia

A phoneme itself, however, is really too abstract and context variant to have a simple frequency decomposition. A phoneme as one of the abstract signals of the phonetic system of a language corresponds to a set of similar speech sounds which are perceived by speakers of the language to be a single distinctive sound in that language. 

One of two or more elementary sounds in a particular language that differ in acoustic or articulatory properties but without conveying any difference in meaning. For example, the [p] in pin is accompanied by a distinct puff of air while the [p] in spin is not. Nevertheless speakers of English will treat them as the same sound; the acoustic difference does not signal a semantic distinction. These two 'p's' are said to be allophonic variations of the single phoneme /p/. from Penguin Dictionary of Psychology

Phoneme
[1890s: from French phonème, Greek pho/nema a sound]. In phonetics and linguistics, the basic theoretical unit of distinctive sound in the description of speech, out of which syllables are formed, such as the three units /b, I, t/ (consonant, vowel, consonant) in /bIt/ (bit). The OED (1989) defines the phoneme as 'A phonological unit of language that cannot be analysed into smaller linear units and that in any particular language is realized in non-contrastive variants': see Phone. The Longman Dictionary of

Applied Linguistics (1985) defines the phoneme as 'the smallest unit of sound in a language which can distinguish two words', giving the examples pan and ban, that differ only in the contrast of the phonemic consonants /p/ and /b/, and ban and bin, that differ only in the phonemic vowels /æ/ and /I/. The number of phonemes varies from language to language, and from variety to variety within a language. Any such number, as for example the 24 consonants and 20 vowels of RP, are known as a phoneme inventory. A phone is a realization in sound of a phoneme, and an allophone is one such realization among others: for example, English /n/ is normally alveolar, but is dental before the dental fricative /[theta]/ in tenth [t[reverse3]n[theta]]. There are no minimal pairs contrasting dental and alveolar [n], and so the difference is not phonemic: because of this, the two forms are said to be allophones of the same phoneme  /n/. When allophones occur in different environments, only one ever occurring in one environment, they are said to be in complementary distribution. The term allophone is also used to include the free variant,  a sound that can be substituted for another without bringing about a change of meaning. Examples  include the various r-sounds of English and the use of the glottal stop as a variant of [t] in a word like water. See Bloomfield, -Eme, Feature (Distinctive Feature), Jones (D.), Minimal Pair, Phone, Phonetic

Phonetic Transcription

 A written or printed representation of speech using a phonetic alphabet. Whereas, in standard orthography, the same letters can be used to represent different sounds (the y in sky and syrup), and different combinations of letters can be used to represent the same sound  (the ee of meet and the ea of meat), a phonetic symbol always represents the same sound, and  a sound is always represented by the same symbol. Speech can be transcribed phonetically at  different levels of detail and accuracy. In general terms, there are two kinds of transcription:

(1) Phonetic transcription proper, which draws on the total resources of a phonetic alphabet to mark minute distinctions in sound and places symbols in square brackets, [t]. Such  transcriptions are used especially to represent the usage of individual speakers, and are  informally known as narrow transcriptions. 

(2) Phonemic transcription, which provides a symbol for each phoneme in a text and places the symbols between obliques, as in /t/. Such transcriptions are used to represent an idealized description of the system of a speech community. It is the kind used in pronouncing dictionaries, and is referred to informally as  broad transcription.  citation form not continuous speech.

 Contemporary phoneticians generally take their symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet, but other symbols are also in use, especially in North America. All such symbols are mnemonic labels that ignore phonetic detail, as when the initial consonants of tea, two, and train are phonemically written /t/, even though they are all phonetically slightly different. In many cases, diacritics are added to phonemic symbols to give further detail: for example, a superscript h added to /t/ to indicate aspiration, /th/. 

(3) A third kind of transcription is prosodic transcription, for which there is no generally agreed system of symbols. Its purpose is the representation of rhythm, stress, and intonation, and it has elements in common with musical notation. Generally, a text representing speech is divided into its actual or probable tone groups, the boundaries between groups being marked with a bar (/), usually doubled to mark the end of a major tone group (//), the rough equivalent to a sentence. Next, the accented syllables are identified, then the pitch contours associated with these syllables are marked in. See International Phonetic Alphabet, Notation, Oblique, Phoneme, Phonetics, Prosody, Transcription. [Speech, Writing]. G.K., T.McA.

What is the difference between a speech sound (phone) and a phoneme
    Comments by M.J. Hardman, Ph.D.

   A speech sound (Phone) is a physical event.  If you know anything about physics you know that physical events don't recur -- each one is unique to itself. We classify and group them, even phones, by certain criteria.  For phones we classify them by sound waves or by how we make them, but when we say 'phone' we refer to a physical event. 

   A phoneme is an abstract structural unit that is a building block within a specific language.  It is  realized in phones -- that is, phones cause us to perceive a phoneme -- but what phones belong to what phoneme and in what context will they cause the perception of a given phoneme is specific to individual languages. 

   Each language takes in its own way a set of phones or a phonetic area which then belong to a given phoneme. Sometimes certain phones belong to two different phonemes, depending on  where they occur.  As humans, we learn to perceive the phonemes of our own language as 'sounds'. 
 



The ambiguous <e>
     link to ghost letters.html - redundant e

  We write short "e":                   We pronounce short "e":

 *bell  . . e.      e=@ as in the          new spell         IPA-Spanglish
  men . . . e       menn                e . . . . men      menn
  many. . . a       menny               e . . . . meny     menny    meni:
  burial. . u       berrial             e . . . . berrial           beri@l
  said. . . ai      sedd                e . . . . sed      sedd
  says. . . ay      sezz                e . . . . sez      sezz
 *head. . . ea      head hedd           e . . . . hed      hedd head
  friend. . ie      frennd              e . . . . frend    frennd
  heifer. . ei      heffer              e . . . . hefer    heffer   hef@r
  aesthetic.ae      essthetic           e . . . . esthetic esthettic
  jeopardy. eo      jeppardy            e . . . . jepardy  jepardy
  guest. . .ue      gesst               e . . . . gest
  quest. . .ue      quesst              e . . . . kwest 
  cleanse. .ea-e    cleanz clennz       e . . . . clenz
  belle. . .e-e     bell                e . . . . bel

  We write long "e": /i:/               We pronounce long "e":

                    Spanglish                        new spell         IPA-Spanglish
  keen. . . ee      kien  kEn           ee. . . . keen     kin, ki:n
  key . . . ey      ki                  ee. . . . kee      ki,  ki:
  deceit. . ei      deciet dcsEt        ee. . . . deseet   di'sit  disi:t
 *field . . ie      field  fEld         ee. . . . feeld    fild, fi:ld, field
  people. . eo      piepl               ee. . . . peepl    pipl, pi:pl, piepl
  team. . . ea      tiem                ee. . . . teem     tim, ti:m, tiem
  leave . . ea-e    liev                ee. . . . leev     liv, li:v, liev
  ravine. . i-e     ravien              ee. . . . raveen   r@'vi:n
  league. . ea-ue   lieg                ee. . . . leeg     lig, li:g, lieg
  cheese. . ee-e    chiez               ee. . . . cheez    chiez
  deceive . ei-e    deciev              ee. . . . deseev   di'siv  di'si:v
  believe . ie-e    believ              ee. . . . beleev   bi'li:v believ
  antique . i-ue    anntiek             ee. . . . anteek   aen'ti:k aentiek
  mosquito. ui      mosquieto*          ee. . . . moskeeto mos'ki:tou
 *ski  . . .i                           ee. . . . skee     ski: skie
  squeak. . uea     squiek              ee. . . . sqeek    skwi:k
  receipt . eip     reciet              ee. . . . reseet   ri'si:t
  debris. . is      debri               ee. . . . debree   di'bri:

*A fonemic spelling system has to pick out one of the spellings and make it 
 universal.  These are the spellings selected for Saxon-Sspanglish

http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vangogh/555/Spell/redundant-e.htm
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vangogh/555/Spell/ghost.htm

More British  - American   contrasts

SS        BRITISH                    GENERAL AMERICAN
aesk      ask - /a:sk/ aask          ask - /aesk/ (short A az in CAT)
faather   father - /fa:th@/         father - /fa:th@r/
bother    bother - /both@/          bother - /ba:th@r/
dog       dog - /dog/                dog - /do:g/
Compare Saxon Spanglish spelling with ALC Fonetic
Traditional Spelling    How it is Pronounced
moon  (oo)  . . . . . .  mun 
group  (ou)  . . . . . .  grup 
fruit  (ui)  . . . . . . . .  fr ut 
glue  (ue)  . . . . .  . . glu
drew  (ew)  . . . . . .   dru
two  (wo)  . . . . .  . .  tu
flu  (u)  . . . .  . . . . .  flu 
canoe  (oe)  . . . . . .  canu 
through  (ough)  . . . . thru 
rule  (u-e)  . . . . . . . . rul 
lieu  (ieu)  . . . . . . . .  lu
loose  (oo-e)  . . . . . . lus 
lose  (o_e)  . . . . . . .  luz 
pooh  (ooh)  . . . . . .   pu 
coup  (oup)  . . . . . .   cu 
bruise  (ui-e)  . . . . . .  bruz 
jiujitsu  (iu)  . . . . . . . .jiujitsu
silhouette  (hou)  . . . .silluet 
buoy  (uo)  . . . . . . . . buy 
deuce  (eu-e)  . . . . . . dus 
manoeuvre  (oeu)  . . . manuver 
sleuth  (eu)  . . . . . . .  sluth 
rendevouz  (ous)  . . . .rondevu
mousse  (ou-e)  . . . . .mus 

These are the 21 Vowels that Jones isolated in his IPA notation.
There were six short vowels, six long vowels, and six combinations  plus 3 schwa combinations.

Vowels:     Graphemes for 21 English Phonemes

   SAMPA  SS     KEYWORD   SAMPA      ENGLIK    SPANGLISH    IQLIZ

      I   i.      pit       pIt        pit       pitt 
      E   e.      pet       pEt        pet       pett 
      {   a.      pat       p{t        paet      patt 
      A   o.      pot       pAt        pot       pott 
      V   u.      cut       kVt        cat       cutt 
  6   U   w       put       pUt        put       pwt 

      i   i       ease      iz         iiz       iez    iz 
      e   e       raise     rez        reiz      reyz 
      u   u       lose      luz        luuz      luz 
      3`  er      furs      f3`z       f'erz     furrz  ferz 
 12   O   o       cause     kOz        kooz      coz 
pure
      @   a       allow     @"laU      alau      alau   alaew 
      @`  a       corner   "kOrn@`     korner    corner cornr
                  herder   "h3`d@`     h'erder   herder hurrder 

      o   ow      nose      noz        nouz      nowz   no'z
      aI  ai      rise      raIz       raiz      raiz 
      OI  oi      noise     nOIz       noiz      noiz 
 18   aU  au      rouse     raUz       rauz      rauz   raewz
 

      A@  aa      are       A@         aar       aar
      I@  ir      ear       I@         ir        ir 
      Er  err     air arrow E@         er/eir    err / aer-arrow
 21   Or  or      ore       O@         or        or
 
 

Keep quite quiet.      Kiep quait quaiat quik quickly        aentiek   anntic
need a rule for the terminal c, only forunstressed endings?  aartic  aent
Hi baiz furrz for hiz ferrz ferst.     feilyer  feilure
Hi baiz ferz for hiz ferrz furrst/ferst. Ramoan the roaman brawt bearz tu the circas befor it bernd doun.  
Burnnerd bot thoaz birz for hiz beizh berrz.
and ezy solution is to set rr=3:  frrz frrst ferrz 
Perhaps an i.t.a. shwd hav mor thann wan wey to represent a saund.
Should the capability of spelling sounds more than one way be exploited?  their theyr feir feyr

Vowels:     Graphemes for 21 English Phonemes

   SAMPA  SS IS   KEYWORD   SAMPA      ENGLIK    SPANGLISH    IQLIZ

      I   i.  i    pit       pIt        pit       pitt 
      E   e.  e    pet       pEt        pet       pett 
      {   a.  c    pat       p{t        paet      patt 
      A   o.  aa   pot       pAt        pot       pott 
      V   u.  a    cut       kVt        cat       cutt 
  6   U   w   u    put       pUt        put       pwt 

      i   i   j    ease      iz         iiz       iez    iz 
      e   e   ei   raise     rez        reiz      reyz 
      u   u   uu   lose      luz        luuz      luz 
      3`  er  3    furs      f3`z       frrz      furrz  ferz 
 12   O   o   oo   cause     kOz        kooz      coz 
pure
      @   a   a    allow     @"laU      alau      alau   alaew 
      @`  a   a    corner   "kOrn@`     kornr     corner cornr
                   herder   "h3`d@`     hrrdr     herder hurrder
                                        haada 
      o   ow  ou   nose      noz        nouz      nowz   no'z
      aI  ai  ai   rise ice  raIz       raiz      raiz   ais
      OI  oi  oi   noise     nOIz       noiz      noiz 
 18   aU  au  au   rouse     raUz       rauz      rauz   raewz
 

      A@  aa  aa   are       A@         aar       aar
      I@  ir  ir   ear       I@         ir        ir 
      Er  err er   air arrow E@         er/eir    err    aer-arrow
 21   Or  or  or   ore       O@         or        or

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saundspel/files/byutifal-prinsas.html 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saundspel/files/50sndz.gif 

      Phonics   (1) An obsolete term for the science of phonetics.
                       (2) A method of teaching reading and spelling based on the phonetic interpretation,
                       element by element, of spelling, often contrasted with the look-and-say method.
                       [1810s: comparable to French phonique, ultimately from Greek phone voice]. 

     Phonics  (1) Relating to vocal sound: phonic substance, phonic vibrations. 
                      (2) In phonetics, a term used in contrast with phonetic to mean 'relating to speech
                            sounds': the phonic medium, the phonic method of
                            teaching reading, a phonic reader (a book). 
                      (3) In physiology, relating to a nerve centre that excites the organs of speech 
                            and to vibration of the vocal folds or cords.


Steve Bett wrote:

Teik thi olternat noateishan challenj
TEiK ThI OLTeRNaT NOuTEiShaN ChALeNJ
tak Dc xltcrnct nOtAScn Calenj  [UnifOn]

> TO  I stopped the altercation in the urban underground.
> SS  Ai stopt dhi olterkeishan inn dhe urrban unndergraund.  aalt nowteyshan challenj
> Iq   A stapd d' alt'cez'n in d' 'rb'n 'nd'rgrand.
> Eg   I stopd th altrcatn n th urbn ndrgrnd.

> AB  Y stopt x oltrkesan in x rbn ndrgrnd
> IS  J stopt 4a oltarkeizan in 4i arban andargraund  ?
> RS
> RM  Ai stopt dha olterkeishan in dha arban andergraund

> EG Ai stopt dha ooltrrkeshan in dhi rrban andrgraund
> CL
> CS  I stopd th altrcatn in th urbn undrground.
> TS  Ie staapt thee aulterkkaeshin in thee erbin underground. "aulterkkaeshin and erbin".
>
> a  a  aa  ae    The a can have three associated sounds, ey is not one of them   creation is not crieyshan.
>  e  a  ea  ey  er eyr/err/ear   I prefer rbn ndrgraund  tu erban unndergraund , it works in croatian
>  i   i   i.    ie    ir   nirer        ai stopt the
> aolterkeyshan in the urrban unndergraund.
>    o  o  ao  ow  or  owr 
> Y stopt x oltrkesn in x rbn ndrgrand
>    u  u. w   u  yu


linear version of this table - ipa values
Not all the systems listed below have a unique phonogram for each of the phonemes isolated by the IPA [International Phonetic Alphabet].  Quite often the mid central vowels are merged.  The chart does not indicate length.  Some notations [e.g., Ianspel & SAMPA B] want to have a short snappy version of awe as in odd to contrast with the longer [awe] in caught. soundfiles. links
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saundspel/files/vowel-charts/14ipa-vowels16c.gif
 
40-ipa16  click for larger chart 40-ipa16c
Writing Sample
This is difficult in IPA because it has so many special characters requiring a special font. K simplified this by using caps for the short vowels and lower case for the long vowels, this took care of 10 of the 14 pure vowels.  & can be used for [at] and @ can be used for [ago]. Unifon uses the more intuitive big O for the long o [caps = long vowels]

Beautiful Princess

W'ns'pon' taim ð' bju:tif'l do:t' 'v ' greit m'd3iò'n want'd mo:': p':lz tu: put 'm'h h': tre3ju':z."Luk thru: ð' sent': 'v  ð' mu:n hwen it iz blu:," sed h'r m'th' in æns': tu: h': kwestò'n, "Ju: mait faind j': ha':tz di:zair."

 

Several ascii-ipa notations are shown here > beautiful princess
 
 

CLICK VOWEL LETTER COMBINATIONS BELOW TO HEAR THEIR SOUND
These are traditional sound associations not IPA or international
There are 8 long or free vowels in English, only 5 are shown and 2 are blends

Short
Vowels
Long
Vowels
Digraphs
2 letters
1 Sound
R
Controlled
Vowels
DIPHTHONGS
2 Letters
2 Sounds
short a long a ai ar ou
short e long e ee er oo - long
short i
long i
ie ir oo - short
short o long o oa or ew
short u long u ea (2) ur ow - long
    ay   ow - short
    au   oi
    aw   oy
The links above provide an excellent way to practice and memorize the essential vowel sounds.
If the person you are teaching to read does not have these sounds memorized,
the rate at which they will learn new reading and spelling words will be dramatically lower.
The only exception being the fortunate upper 10%-20% of our readers who are able to read
no matter which method they are taught.

HOW TO USE THE VOWEL SOUND TEACHER ABOVE

1)  Click any letter sound in the table above

2)  I will say the letters and pause 5 seconds -
giving you time to say the sound before I say it.

3)  I then give several word examples and ask you to say it again -
this time pausing for only 2-3 seconds

4)  This can be used in teacher training or adult reading programs -
and is an excellent resource for college professors preparing education students.

To hear the sounds, you must have the REAL PLAYER G2 (or higher) installed on your computer.
Download takes approximately 10-15 minutes with a 28K modem and is very easy to do.
You only need to do this once and you'll then be able to hear
 all the great teaching audio and video we are placing on TampaReads.com
Click the DOWNLOAD PLAYER link below - 
and scroll to the bottom of their page to look for the "FREE" Real Audio Player.

DOWNLOAD REAL PLAYER - CLICK HERE



Links