Phonetical interference in vocal system within Russian and English audience bilinguism

     4. According to the position of the lips in the formation of vowels English vowels are rounded without protractions. Russian vowels [a], [ə], [o], [i] are more closely rounded and protruded, where as the English [æ, ά, ۸, ə, ə] are slightly rounded and [a], [u:] are closely rounded without protrusion.

     All the front and central vowels in English and Russian are ungrounded. In articulating the English vowels [i:, i, e] and the Russian vowels [u, e (ə)], [y], the lips are neutral. In articulating the Russian [ə, (e)] the lips may be either neutral or spread. In teaching the Russians to pronounce the rounded English vowels care should be taken not to protrude the lips.

     5. Besides considerable qualitative difference there is a quantitative difference between vowel phonemes of English and Russian. Traditionally all English vowels are divided into slier-and long. Short – [ə, o, æ, ۸, i], long [i:, ά, o: u:].

     But at present the quantitative features of the English vowel phonemes have become their main property and quality musty be regarded as additional. The Russian vowel phonemes may only be differentiated by their quality. Philologically there is quantities’ difference in the Russian vowel phonemes. There are typical «middle sounds», neither long nor shorter English vowels, [u:] may sound like the Russian [y] and when they are pronounced short. This acoustic resemblance makes it possible to compare the vowels.

     6. The English Vowels are usually neutralized and may be substituted by [ә] in unstressed position. The Russian vowels may be used either in stressed or unstressed position. Thus there is little difference between stressed and unstressed vowels in Russian. It is better to pronounce the correct pronunciation of the English without trying to find any parallels in the native tongue.

     The Vowels Criteria for Classification

     The chapter before has examined the consonant phonemes of English from an articulator perspective. After trying to establish a general borderline between the two major classes of sounds – consonants and vowels respectively – by postulating some major articulator distinctions between them, an attempt was made to analyze English consonants in detail, discussing the distinctions among them as well as contrasting them with the corresponding sounds of Romanian.

     We will remember then that if consonants are distinguished from vowels precisely on the basis of an articulator feature that all of them arguably share – a place along the speech tract where the air stream meets a major obstacle or constriction – it would be very difficult to describe vowels in the same terms as it will no longer be possible to identify a «place of articulation». Articulator criteria can be, indeed, used to classify vowels but they will be less relevant or, in any case, of a different type than in the case of consonants.

     Acoustic and even auditory features on the other hand will play a much more important role in accurately describing vowels as vowels are sonorous sounds, displaying the highest levels of resonance of all speech sounds.

     Vowels, like consonants, will differ in terms of quality, the acoustic features will differ from one vowel to another depending on the position of the articulators, but in a way which is distinct from what we have seen in the case of consonants where there is another type of interaction between the various speech organs – and in terms of quantity or duration – again in a way distinct from consonants as vowels are all sonorous, continuant sounds.

     The quality of a vowel is given by the way in which the tongue – the main articulator, as in the case of consonants – is positioned in the mouth and by the activity of the lips. This position of the tongue modifies the shape of the resonating cavities above the larynx and decisively influences the quality of the resulting sound. The great mobility of the tongue and the absence of any definite place of obstruction – as in the case of consonants – accounts for the great variety of vowels that can be found in any language and for the fact that vowels rather than consonants are more intimately linked to the peculiar nature of each and every language. It will be therefore much more difficult for a student of a foreign language to acquire the correct features of the vowel system than those of the consonant system of the respective language.

     Three will be then the criteria that can be used to distinguish among vowels on an articulator’s basis: imposition of the tongue in the mouth – high or low on the vertical axis and fronted or retracted on the horizontal axis – and fast position of the lips. Many languages will also recognize a functional distinction between vowels produced by letting the air out either through the nasal cavity or through the oral one.

     Tongue height. If we consider the position of the tongue in the mouth we can identify two extreme situations: one in which the body of the tongue is raised, almost touching the roof of the oral cavity and in this case we will be dealing with high or close vowels – the name clearly refers to the position of the tongue high in the mouth or close to the palate – and the opposite position when the body of the tongue is very low in the mouth leaving the cavity wide open as in the case when the doctor wants to examine our tonsils and asks us to say «ah». The vowels thus produced will be called open or low vowels since the tongue is lowered in the mouth and the oral cavity is open. If the tongue is placed in an intermediate position, raised only halfway against the palate, we shall call the vowels mid vowels. A further, more refined distinction will differentiate between two groups of mid vowels: close-mid/mid close or half-close or high-mid/mid high vowels and open-mid/ mid open or half-open or low-mid/mid low vowels.

     If we consider the position of the tongue along the horizontal axis we can identify three classes of vowels: front vowels – uttered with the front part of the tongue highest, central vowels – if it is' rather the central part of the tongue that is highest, modifying the shape of the articulator and back vowels – the rear part of the tongue is involved in articulation.

     The position of the lips. As I have mentioned earlier, the position of the lips is another major criterion that is used o distinguish among vowels. When we pronounce a vowel, our lips can be rounded, and then the resulting sound will be rounded, or they can be spread and then we shall say that the vowel that we have articulated is ungrounded. As we are going to see later, roundness may be more or less relevant, depending on the particular language we are talking about. The cavity through which the air is released – oral or nasal establishes an important distinction between oral and nasal vowels. There are nasal or nasalized vowels in all languages, but again this distinction will be more important in languages like French, where it has a functional, contrastive, phonemic value, than in English or in Romanian where the feature is just contextual. More will be said about that later. As mentioned above, quantity is an important feature that we have to take into account when we discuss not only consonantal sounds, but vocalic ones as well. In fact, this is a feature that is much more important for vowels, because when we talk about duration in consonants we can contrast, for instance, non-durative sounds of the plosive type to continuant sounds of the kind fricatives are or simple to geminate consonants, while in the case of vowels much more refined distinctions can be established among various sounds. The fact that vowels vary in length is something we can intuitively become aware of if we contrast the vowel of peel [pi:l] for instance, to that of pill [pIl]. As we are going to see later, however, the contrast between the two vowels is not limited simply to duration and, moreover, vowel length is very much a contextual feature. Thus, what we consider to be members of one and the same phoneme, the long vowel [i:] will vary considerably in length in words like sea, seed and seat. It is obvious even for a phonetically less trained ear that the vowel is longer in case it occurs in syllable-final position and it becomes shorter and shorter depending on the voiced or the voice lessens of the following consonant. The picture becomes even more complex if we compare the preceding contexts to seal, seen or seem. On the other hand all the occurrences of [i:] mentioned above will be kept apart from the variants of the short vowel [I] in words like Sid, sit, sill or sin which differ in their turn in length depending on the nature of the following consonant. We shall then say that vowel length is not always a reliable distinctive feature when we try to contrast vowels – since it is so much influenced by the context. Other features will be added to obtain a more refined and closer to reality representation. The next features we are going to examine will then be the degree of muscular tension involved in articulation and deposition of the root of the tongue.

     Muscular tension can vary considerably when we produce different vocalic sounds and this is something we can easily become aware of when we contrast the long vowel [i:] in seat and the short one [I] in sit, the examples analyzed above. Long vowels – conventionally marked in the ERA alphabet by a colon – are always associated with a higher degree of muscular tension in the speech organs involved in their articulation. We will say that these vowels are tense, since the articulators are so when we utter them. Conversely, when we examine the way the vowel of sit is produced, the articulator organs are less strained, laxer than in the previous case. We will consequently describe these vowels as being lax. As we shall see later, unlike in Romanian, vowel duration, associated with tenseness, has a phonemic, contrastive value in English. The position of the tongue root. The more advanced or retracted position of the root of the tongue differentiates between vowels having different degrees of openness. The vowels pronounced with the root of the tongue pushed forward of its normal position will be specified as advanced tongue root (ATK) vowels. Conversely, non-advanced tongue root vowels will be articulated with the root of the tongue in its common, resting position. The first group of vowels will be comparatively tenser and higher than the vowels in the second group. Vowel quantity – duration, length – combines with stability of articulation to make the distinction between simple or «pure» vowels or monophthongs on the one hand and diphthongs on the other. Monophthongs are comparatively shorter vowels that preserve the same quality throughout the entire duration of their articulation. A diphthong combines two different vocalic elements joined together in a unique articulator effort and consequently being part of the same syllabic unit. In any diphthong one of the vocalic elements will be stronger than the other, from which or towards which the pronunciation glides. If the weaker element comes first and we have a glide towards the dominant vocalic element, the diphthong is a rising one: it is the kind of diphthong we have in Romanian words like iatac, iubire, iepure, iobag, meandre, boal a etc. This is a type of diphthong that does not exist in English, a language that only has falling diphthongs, that is diphthongs in which the glide is from the dominant vocalic element to the weaker one. (e.g. boy, buy in English or boi, bai in Romanian – N.B. these examples do not suggest that the diphthongs in the two languages are identical!). It is often difficult to decide when we deal with a genuine diphthong (that is a sequence of two vowels pronounced together) and when we deal with a sequence of a vowel and a glide for instance. In other words, shall we describe the vocalic element in buy as the diphthong ay or shall we rather interpret it as the vowel a followed by the glide. Many linguists opt for the second variant and some will go as far as interpreting long vowels like i: in beat for instance as a succession of. The duration of the glide can constitute the basis for a differentiation, since glides will arguably take shorter to pronounce than the second vocalic element in a falling diphthong. If the vowel is very short, however, it is often difficult do distinguish it from the glide. The scope of this study will not allow us to go into further detail, so for, the sake of simplicity we will adopt the widely embraced approach that considers long vowels monophthongs and vocalic sequences as that of buy genuine diphthongs.

     The English diphthongs

     Diphthongs have already been described as sequences of two vowels pronounced together, the two vocalic elements being members of the same syllable. We have shown that it is often difficult to distinguish a genuine diphthong from a sequence of a vowel and a semivowel, that we can often pronounce diphthongs and even long vowels as such sequences and it is often the shorter duration of the less prominent vowel in the diphthong that transforms it into a semi vocalic element. There is, for instance, a difference, both in quantity and quality between the second vocalic element in the English diphthong [aI] – that occurs, say, in the word buy, and the semivowel [j] in the Spanish interjection ayl [aj].

     According to the position of the more prominent element in the diphthong we have already divided diphthongs into falling diphthongs – if the prominent element comes first – and rising diphthongs – if the less prominent element comes first. All English diphthongs belong to the first category, as it has already been pointed out.

     Diphthongs can then be opening diphthongs if the degree of aperture increases with the glide or closing diphthongs if the less prominent vowel is closer than the first. We can also differentiate between wide diphthongs – those in which the glide implies a more radical movement of the speech organs (e.g. [a 2]) and narrow diphthongs – if the two vocalic elements occupy neighboring positions (e.g. [e] on the vowel chart. There are also cent ring diphthongs – if the glide is from a marginal vowel in the vowel chart – either back or front – to a central vowel. (See the three English diphthongs gliding towards schwa; [Iə] in dear, [eə] in chair and in moor – to which we should add [uə], no longer met in present-day standard English). The centering diphthongs is a centric & falling, narrow, opening diphthong that starts at about the position of the short, lax and glides towards schwa. The diphthong is distributed in all three basic positions: ear, deer, tear. If the first element of the diphthong does not have the normal prominence and length, it can be reduced to a glide and the diphthong is changed into [j:]. There are several possible spellings for the diphthong: eer as in deer, peer or career; ea(r) as in ear, weary, idea, tear (n. «lacrim»), beard, eir as in weird, ier as in fierce or pierce, ere as in here or mere. Exceptionally we can have ia as in media(l), labia(l), genial, eu as in museum, iu as in delirium-, eo as in theory and theology; e as in hero or in the diphthongized version of [i:] serious, serial, [eə] is a centering falling, narrow, in most cases opening diphthong. The degree of openness of the first element varies, in some dialects of English the sound being quite close to [ae]. In the more conservative pronunciations, closer to RP, the articulation of the diphthong starts somewhere in the vicinity of cardinal vowel [e]. Then follows a glide towards a variant of the schwa. There are dialects where the glide to [ə] is very short and sometimes the diphthong is changed into a monophthong, a long, tense vowel [e:]. The diphthong is distributed in all three basic positions: air, scarce, fare. It can be spelt air: air, fair, chair, dairy, fairy; wee: fare, mare, care, care; ear: bear, wear, tear; aər: aerial, aero plane; ere: there; eir: their, heir. In words like prayer, layer, mayor, the spelling is ay followed by either or, or er. The vowel of Mary and derived words such as Maryland or Mary port is normally diphthongized to [eə]. The most common spellings of the diphthong are: ure and oor – endure, mature, cure, pure (words where the semivowel [j] is inserted before the diphthong), sure, poor, moor, or ur followed by other vowels than e: curious, duration. In a number of cases we can have the spelling ou: our, gourd, bourse. The diphthong can also occur in words where the suffix er is attached to a base ending in (ə): fewer, newer, chewer, doer, pursuer.

     The diphthong is distributed in all three basic positions: eight; plate, play. It can be spelt [eI]: ace, lace; ai: aid, maid; ay: aye, clay; ei: eight, reign, ey: they, grey, ea: break, steak. Exceptionally, there are spellings like goal [goal], bass [bess], gauge [geuge], halfpenny [helfpeni]. The diphthong also occurs in a small number of French loan words ending in et or 6: ballet, bouquet, chalet, cafe, fiancé, attaché, resume. The diphthong starts with a central mid vowel and glides to a back close one. It is a falling, narrow, closing diphthong. It is distributed in all three basic positions: old, gold, flow. It has various spellings: o: old, sold, wo; oa: oak, roast, oe: toe, ow: own, known, row; ou: poultry, dough; eau: beau, bureau, and, exceptionally, au: gauche; oo: brooch; ew: sew; oh: oh. [au] is a falling, wide, closing diphthong. It starts as an open, fairly front vowel and glides towards. It is distributed in all three basic positions: ouch, loud, cougar. It can be spelt by ou: oust, doubt, plough, or ow: owl, howl, how and, exceptionally eo in MacLeod.

     English Diphthongs

     The lax and tense vowels we have looked at so far are monophthongs, sometimes called pure vowels. This is because the tongue and lips are relatively stationary while these vowels are being pronounced – the vowels do not move around in the vowel chart. Diphthongs, on the other hand, move through the chart as they are pronounced: they start at one vowel-position, and move towards another. The word diphthong is from Greek: it means «two vowels», and we write them as two vowels.

     Diphthongs are tense vowels; they can be unchecked, and are subject to clipping like the «pure» tense vowels – they can be long or short.

     The centering diphthongs occur only in the nonrhotic accents. In the rhotic accents, words such as NEAR SQUARE and CURE are pronounced with a single vowel (monophthong) followed by r.

     This is by far the rarest vowel in RP (with a frequency of 0.06% – see Vowel Frequencies) – and is getting rapidly rarer, since words in the CURE set are moving over to THOUGHT, . This happened decades ago in mainstream RP with words such as 'sure' and 'poor', , , and in newer RP and Estuary English all of the old CURE set have gone over to THOUGHT.

     Difference between SQUARE and NEAR

     You'll hear different pronunciations of these two vowels (for instance, in some accents the disappears and the remaining vowel lengthens) but most accents of English keep them clearly distinguished. On the other hand speakers of English as a foreign language sometimes confuse these vowels, and Icelanders often do.

     The Diphthongs

     There are 9 diphthongs in English. [əi, ei, ou, au, iə, uə, oi, eə,  əi]

     The English diphthongs are stable combination, no syllable division is possible in them. They may form phonological opposition either with monophtongs, diphthongized vowels or with each other.

     The first element of the diphthongs, which is called the nucleus, is pronounced distinctly arid clearly. The second element is glide. There are no diphthongs in Russian. According to the phonological approach combination of «vowel + j» and vice versa, such as the Russian u-u, u–y, u – o, u+ a, are considered to be these sequences of a vowel and consonant [I+ә] They are not stable combinations but sometimes may be destroyed by the syllable division: юла, вьюнок, подъезд, яблоко.

     The first element of the diphthongs [əi, ai, au, əi, uə], to a certain degree acoustically resemble the Russian vowels [əi, u, a] and [I]. Therefore it is not difficult to leach the Russians to pronounce the nucleus of these diphthongs into [j] which is the most usual mistake in the pronunciation of the Russians. There are also two combinations often used which consists of three vowels in English. There are: [əi, auα], they may be regarded as diphthongs and tile third consists of the vowel. Usually they are called trip tongs. But there is no trip tongs in Russian. 

     1.4 Consonants 

     Consonants are speech sounds in the pronunciation of which noise is heard. The degrees of noise are different. There are consonants’ in the production of which only noise is heard, there are consonants in the production of which noise and voice are heard and there are consonants in the production of which voice prevails over noise, but the fact is that noise in different degrees and forms is always present, consonants do not give periodic voice waves.

     The consonants should be classified on the following 3 principles:

     1. The manner of production

     2. The active organs employed in the production

     3. The place of production

     The last division is very important; due to it the parricidal difference in the formation of consonants in English and of consonants in Russian may be clearly shown. The system of English consonants consists of 24 consonants. They are: [p, t, k, b, d, g, m, n, 1, n, f, v, s, z, w, j, ð, ə, s, з, ts, w, j] and the problematic phoneme [ju].