UNIT 3 PHONOLOGY

PHONOLOGY

It is basically the study of the sound features used in a language to communicate meaning. It includes:

*Phonemes

*Word stress

*Sentence stress

*Intonation

After studying this unit I have learned that Phonemes are represented by symbols like this     /ʤ/, /ɵ/, /ə/, etc it helps us to distinguish between sounds.

Into the English alphabet and the phonemic chart, English counts with vowels, dipthongs, consonants; and all of them are divided into voiced sounds (voice vibration) and voiceless sounds (no voice vibration). In phonology intonation and stress are very important because our speech repertoire needs to have rhythm in order to be understood by others.

Is essential to remark thet in English sentences are characterized for having connected speech which means that we can make contractions and link words; those are the word boundaries of the language.

 In this Unit I learned the importance of Phonology to get a good pronunciation and improve it from time to time. Furthermore it involves the correct intonation and to notice where to put the sentence stress, to give the correct message and avoid misunderstandings.

For this, it is important to encourage students the use of internet in order to find webpages that will get them practice how to pronounce words. A dictionary is also useful, but each may contain a different pronunciation and at the end it confuses Students. It is also important that learners use models of speech in order to correct and get a better pronunciation into the target language, so that they could be understood by others at the moment of speaking.

Another important fact I have learned is the use of the Phonetic chart in classes, since it get us to be familiar with the voiced and unvoiced sounds, to also have a good pronunciation. It will get them also recognize phonemes and allophones which will vary. 

References: 

• Wikipedia Phonology

  Wikipedia,. (2015). Phonology. Retrieved 23 April 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonology

• Moore, A.

  Phonology

  Moore, A. (2015). Phonology. Teachit.co.uk. Retrieved 23 April 2015, from http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/lang/phonology