Topic 2 : Introduction To Phonolgy

                I learned introduction to phonology for topic 2. I already learned on basic phonology during my first year degree. This topic will help me to produce accurate English sounds and I also could explain how sounds are produced in English sound system.

English sound system have many different compared to other language. For example, the word ‘th” can only be found in English. Then, the speech organs used in producing English sounds was not much different from Malay language such as lips and tongue. During the lecture session, it was so funny for us to translate some of the speech organs. Usually people could not produce sounds correctly because of some problems such as teeth. People that did not have any front teeth had difficulty to produce s and f sounds.

During lecture, we have to pronoun all the sounds in English correctly. It is hard for me to pronounce “th” word. When I heard people talked around me, I usually heard that they pronounce “th” as “t’ only. For example, the word three was usually pronounced as tree. I also noticed that I pronounced “love” wrongly.

For tutorial 1 for this topic, we had tongue twister competition. There were 5 groups and each group was represented by 4 people. My group members were Lydia, Mohd Khairizan and Mohd. Khairuddin. It was difficult tasks because we had to pronounce the tongue twister with the same speed and correctly but finally we did it. the competition won by Nazrin’s  group. Our tongue twisters were as below:

1.       I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish but if you wish the wish the witch wishes, I won’t wish the wish you wish to wish.

2.       Billy Button bought a buttered biscuit. Did Billy Button bought a buttered biscuit? If Billy Button bought a buttered biscuit, where’s the buttered biscuit Billy Button bought?

3.       If Freaky Fred found fifty feet of fruit and fed forty feet to his friend Frank, how many feet of fruit did Freaky Fred find

Our next tutorial was on minimal pairs. We had to make sure that we had chosen the correct word and check the symbol at the dictionary. The following is our minimal pairs table:

INITIAL	MEDIAL	FINAL
1.   Park, bark	Simple, symbol	Cop, cob
2.   Sue, zoo	Buses, buzzes	Peace, peas
3.   Kit, bit	Rocker, robber	Tuck, Tub
4.   Train, brain	Later, labour	Nit, nib
5.   Moon, noon	Dimmer, dinner	Loom, loon

INITIAL	MEDIAL	FINAL
1.   /pɑːk/, /bɑːk/	/'sɪmpl/, /'sɪmbl/	/kaːp/, /kaːb/
2.   /su:/, /zu:/	/'bʌsəs/, /'bʌzəs/	/piːs/, /piːz/
3.   /kɪt/, /bɪt/	/'rɒkeə(r)/, /'rɒbeə(r)/	/tʌk/, /tʌb/
4.   /treɪn/, /breɪn/	/'laɪte(r)/, /'laɪbe(r)/	/nɪt/, /nɪb/
5.   /muːn/, /nuːn/	/'dɪmə(r)/, /'dɪnə(r)/	/luːm/, /luːn/

Perhaps that after learned this topic, I will able to produce accurate English sounds.