The Vowels of North American English Marla Yoshida University of California Irvine Extension English & Certificates for Internationals Teaching English as a Foreign Language Certificate Program

Tuesday, February 21, 12

Vowels • Vowels are sounds in which the air stream

moves very smoothly up from the lungs and through the mouth. Nothing blocks it.

• Every word and every syllable needs a vowel sound.Vowels are the “heart” of syllables.

• Vowels may seem slippery and hard to pin down, but we can’t speak without them.

Tuesday, February 21, 12

Vowels • We can describe the vowels of English by talking about four criteria:

• Tongue position • Lip rounding • Tense & lax vowels • Simple vowels, glided vowels, and diphthongs

Tuesday, February 21, 12

Tongue Position

• Where is the highest, tensest, or most active part of the tongue?

• Even a slight change in tongue position

can make a big change in the sound of a vowel.

Tuesday, February 21, 12

Tongue Position

• Try this: Say “beat” and feel where your jaw and tongue are. Then open your mouth wider and see what sounds you can make. As you open your mouth wider, your tongue gets lower, and the sound changes from “beat” to “bet” to “bat.”

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Tongue Position We can talk about tongue position in terms of:

• Vertical position: High / mid / low • Horizontal position: Front / central / back

Tuesday, February 21, 12

Tongue Position

• We can describe the tongue position for vowels by naming both of these dimensions. For example,

• /Q/ as in “cat” is a low front vowel • as in “but” is a mid central vowel • /uw/ as in “boot” is a high back vowel

Tuesday, February 21, 12

Tongue Position We can illustrate the tongue positions for different vowels by using a diagram called a “vowel quadrant.” front high

iy

mid

ey

low

central

Q

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uw

U

I E

back

!,´ A

ow ç

iy

I ey E Q

! ,´ A

U

uw ow

ç

Lip Rounding

• The shape of the lips can also change the sound of vowels.

• Are the lips very rounded, just a little rounded, relaxed, or stretched wide?

• Say the sound /iy/ as in “eat.” Then keep your tongue in the same position, but round your lips. Do you hear how the sound changes?

Tuesday, February 21, 12

Lip Rounding

• In English, the vowels /uw/, /U/, /ow/, and /ç/ are pronounced with the lips rounded. front high

iy

mid

ey

low

Tuesday, February 21, 12

central

Q

uw

U

I E

back

!,´ A

ow ç

Lip Rounding

• The vowels /iy/, /I/, /ey/, /E/, /Q/, /

!/, /´/,

and /A / are unrounded. front high

iy

mid

ey

low

Tuesday, February 21, 12

central

Q

uw

U

I E

back

!,´ A

ow ç

Lip Rounding

• Did you notice that in English the back vowels tend to be rounded... front high

iy

mid

ey

low

Tuesday, February 21, 12

central

Q

uw

U

I E

back

!,´ A

ow ç

Lip Rounding ... while the front and central vowels are unrounded? front high mid low

Tuesday, February 21, 12

iy ey

central

U

I E Q

back

!,´ A

uw ow

ç

Tense and Lax Vowels

• We can also describe vowels as being “tense” or “lax.”

• We often think of these terms as

describing whether the muscles of the tongue are relatively tense or more relaxed when we say the sound. Although this is not entirely accurate, it can be a useful way of thinking about these sounds.

Tuesday, February 21, 12

Tense and Lax Vowels

• In English, these are the tense vowels: /iy/ /ey/

/uw/

/ow/

• These are the lax vowels: /I / /E / /Q /

Tuesday, February 21, 12

/U /

/A/

/ç/

Simple Vowels, Glided Vowels, & Diphthongs

• We can also think about whether the

position of the tongue stays the same all through the vowel sound, or if the tongue moves during the sound.

• If it moves, does it move just a little or a lot?

Tuesday, February 21, 12

Simple Vowels, Glided Vowels, & Diphthongs

• If the tongue stays in one position during a vowel, it’s a simple vowel.

• The simple vowels of American English are: /I/

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/E/

/Q /

/A /

/U/ /ç /

Simple Vowels, Glided Vowels, & Diphthongs

• If the tongue position changes just a little, it’s a glided vowel.

• The glided vowels of American English are: /iy/

Tuesday, February 21, 12

/ey/

/uw/

/ow/

Simple Vowels, Glided Vowels, & Diphthongs

• If the tongue position changes a lot, so it

sounds like two separate vowels mashed together, we call it a diphthong.

• The diphthongs of American English are: /ay/

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/aw/

/oy/

• To show diphthongs on a vowel quadrant,

we can use arrows to show the movement of the tongue. front high

iy

mid

ey

low

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central

Q

uw

U

I E

back

!,´ A

ow ç

/ay/ as in “by” /oy/ as in “boy” /aw/ as in “cow”

What about the vowel sound in “bird,” “fur,” and “her”?

• All of these words have the same vowel

sound. Some people pronounce this sound with the tip of the tongue curled back a bit. Others say it with the back of the tongue bunched up, without curling the tip. • Both ways can produce the same sound. Tuesday, February 21, 12

• Either tongue position will work, as long as it sounds right.

Tongue tip curled back

Tuesday, February 21, 12

Back of tongue bunched up

What phonemic symbol do we use to represent the vowel sound in “bird”?

• Some people use two symbols to

represent this sound, for example: /´r/.

• Some use one symbol, for example: . • Whatever symbol we use, it’s useful to think of this as one vowel sound rather than as a sequence of two sounds.

Tuesday, February 21, 12

What do you think about this question?

• True or false? The main difference

between the vowels of “beat” and “bit” is that “beat” has a long vowel and “bit” has a short vowel. The vowel /iy/ just lasts longer than /I/. Click to check your answer.

Tuesday, February 21, 12

• False! The main difference between these vowels is tongue position, not duration.

• If you say “bit” and then make the vowel

last longer, it will not become “beat.” Not ever. To change from “bit” to “beat,” you have to change the position of your tongue.

• The same is true about vowel pairs like those in “pool/pull” or “mate/met.”

Tuesday, February 21, 12

Here’s another question:

• How many vowels does North American English have?

a) Five b) Five, or sometimes six c) 13 or14, including diphthongs Click to check your answer.

Tuesday, February 21, 12

• Answer “c” is correct (13 or 14) • The fact is, there are five vowel letters

in English (A, E, I, O, U) and “y” can sometimes represent a vowel, but there are many more vowel sounds than that.

• One vowel letter can represent several different vowel sounds: The letter “a” can represent /Q / as in “hat,” /ey/ as in “hate,” /A / as in “car,’ or /E / as in “care.”

Tuesday, February 21, 12

• American English has 13 or 14 vowel sounds, including diphthongs: /iy/ as in “beat” /I/ as in “bit” /ey/ as in “bait” /E /as in “bet” /Q / as in “bat” or /´/ as in “above” /A / as in “box”

/uw/ as in “boot” /U / as in “book” /ow/ as in “boat” /ç / as in “bought” /ay/ as in “bite” (diphthong) /aw/ as in “bout” (diphthong) /oy/ as in “boy” (diphthong)

So why do we say 13 or 14? Aren’t we sure how many? Click to find out.

Tuesday, February 21, 12

• Many Americans, especially in the West, no longer use the

sound /ç / as a separate phoneme. They say /A / instead. So “caught” and “cot” sound alike: /kAt/. “Don” and “dawn” are both pronounced /dAn/. /iy/ as in “beat” /uw/ as in “boot” /I/ as in “bit” /U / as in “book” /ey/ as in “bait” /ow/ as in “boat” /E /as in “bet” / asinin “bought”(Endangered sound) /ç//ças “bought” /Q / as in “bat” /ay/ as in “bite” (diphthong) or /´/ as in “above” /aw/ as in “bout” (diphthong) /A / as in “box” /oy/ as in “boy” (diphthong)

Tuesday, February 21, 12

Vowels can be much more variable than consonants:

• When we compare American, British,

Australian, or other varieties of English, vowels differ much more than consonants.

• Within each of these main varieties, there

are many dialects, and their vowels may also differ greatly.

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What do you think the artist who drew this cartoon wanted to say about vowels?

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Summary •

Vowels are the “heart” of syllables. They’re slippery little devils, but we can’t speak without them.

•

We can describe vowels by talking about:

Tuesday, February 21, 12

• • • •

Tongue position Lip rounding Tenseness or laxness Simple vowels, glided vowels, or diphthongs