VOWELS AND DIPHTHONGS

Lecturer : Dian Mukhlisa, M.A.

Group 4

1. Aulia putri ( 403170855 )

2. Herliza ( 403170876 )

Prodi English literature department

Faculty of adab and humanities
University of Islamic sulthan thaha sayfuddin jambi
2019/2020
 CHAPTER 1
INRODUCTION

Phonetics is the scientific study of speech sound. It is a fundamental branch of

linguistics and itself has three different aspects “articulated” in various parts of
mounth and throat acoustic phonetics a study of how speech sounds are transmitted
when sound travels through the air from the speaker’s mounth to the hearer’s ear it
does so in th from of vibrations in the air auditory phonetics a study of how speech
sounds are perceived looks at the way in which the hearer’s brain docodes the sound
waves back into the vowels and consonants originally intended by the speaker.

Kelly ( 2000 ) points out some out some typical difficulties of English learners in
producing vowels and diphthongs. Diphthong ( centring and closing ) seem to be most
difficult ones to be produced by many speakers of other languages. For Indonesian
speakers, AGPS ( 1986 ) mention that there are possibilities for the learners to have
problems in diphthongs which are not found in bahasa Indonesia : / ɪə /, / ʊə /, /eɪ /, /eə
/, and / əʊ /. On the other hand, he argues that due to the familiarity to the sound,
Indonesian speakers should not have difficulties with three diphthongs that appear in
bahasa indonesia : /ɔɪ /, /aɪ / and / əʊ /. Young ( 2001 ) claims that for Indonesian
speakers, English diphthongs are likely realised as pure vowels which might be
untered in the long and short forms. Since diphthong is one of the most problematic
features in pronouncation for speakers of other languages, this study focused on the
two English diphthong that are not found in Indonesian. Diphthong /eɪ / and / əʊ /
were chosen due to their frequent use in English compared to other diphthongs: / ɪə /, /
ʊə /, /eɪ /.
 CHAPTER 2

DISCUSSION

1. VOWELS
1. A speech sound in which the mounth is open and the tongue is not
touching the top of the mount, the teeth, etc.
2. A letter that represents a vowel sound, in English the vowels are a, e, I, o,
and u compare consonant.each language has a different vowel system.
A vowel is a letter of the alphabet (a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y) that
represents a speech sound created by the relatively free passage of breath
through the larynx and oral cavity. Letters that are not vowels are consonants.
The word “vowel” is come from Latin, means voice.
When sounding vowels, your breath flows freely through the mouth. In all
vowels, the mouth passage is unobstructed. If it is obstructed at any time
during the production of a speech-sound, the resulting sound will be a
consonant.

a. Kinds of Vowels
Five of the 26 alphabet letters are vowels: A, E, I, O, and U. The letter
Y is sometimes considered a sixth vowel because it can sound like other
vowels. Unlike consonants, each of the vowel letters has more than one
type of sound or can even be silent with no sound at all. When a vowel
sounds like its name, this is called a long sound. A vowel letter can also
have short sounds. Whether a vowel has a long sound, a short sound, or
remains silent, depends on its position in a word and the letters around it.
The letter Y is sometimes considered a vowel because it can sound like the
vowel letters A, E, or I depending on the letters around it or whether the
letter Y is at the middle or end of a word. For example : symbol, cry, myth,
etc. Because of that thing, the letter Y is called by a half a vowel.
Vowel rules :

1. When there is one vowel in a word, and it is anywhere except at the end of a word,
it usually has a short sound : net, ant, sun, pins, etc.
2. Where there is only one vowel and it comes at the end of a word, it usually has a
long sound : go, she, he, no etc.
3. Where there are two or more vowels, and the word ends with the vowel “E”, two
things happen
a. The ending vowel “E” is silent.
b. The vowel tht comes before it has a long sound : gate, make, lake, hole, wade,
etc.
4. When two vowel letters are together, the first vowel letter has a long sound, and the
second vowel letter is silent : rain, pain, real, cheat, seal, tied, etc.
5. When a word has a vowel followed by two same consonants in a row ( called a
double consonant ) short sound is used for the vowel : pull, dull, dinner, simmer,
summer, etc.
6. When a word has two of the same vowels in a row ( called a double vowel ),
pronounce them as one vowel using the long sound. This rule is doesn’t apply when
“O” is the double vowel : peek, seek, vaccum, greet, meet, etc.
7. When “O” is a double vowel, it makes different sound : book, pool, fool, tool, door,
etc.
sound has 20 sysmbols vowel sound which is divided into two forms, including monophthong
sound :

the classification of vowels is based on four major aspect :

1. Tongue height, according to the vertical position of the tongue ( high vowels, also
referred to as close, low vowels, also referred to as open intermediate – close mid and
open mid ).
2. Frontness vs backness of the tongue according to the horizontal position of the
heighest part of the tongue.
3. Lip rounding whether the lips are rounded ( O shape ) or spread ( no rounding ) when
the sound is being made.
4. Tenseness of the articulators refers to the amount of muscular tension around the
mounth when creating vowel sounds. Tense and lax are used to describe muscular
tension.
*In some American accents ( especially California English ), vowel sounds in words
such as bait, gate, pane and boat, coat, note are not consider diphthongs. American
phonologists often class them as tense monophthongs ( /e/ and /o/ ).

**// is used in unstressed syllables, while / / is in stressed syllable. The vowel / / used
to be a back vowel, and the symbol was chosen for this reason. This is no longer a
back vowel, but a central one.

*** a considerable amount of American don’t have the deep / / in their vocabulary,
they pronounce bought, ball, law with the deep / / sound.

According to the position of the lips :

English front and central vowels are always unrounded. English back vowel / /, /, /o/, /
/ are rounded ( / / vowel is unrounded ).

Vowel tenseness :

Tense vowels ( produced with a great amount f muscular tension ) : / /, / /, / /, /

/, / /. Tense vowels are variable in length, and often longer than lax vowels.
Lax vowels ( produced with a great amount of muscular tension ) : / /, / /, / /, /
/, / /, / /, / /. Lax vowels are always short.
2. DIPHTHONG
Diphthongs are sounds which consist of a movement of glide from one vowel to
another. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about all the diphthong
is that the first part is much longer and stronger than the second part. Take /ai/ as
an example. Most o this diphthong consist of the [a] vowel,and only in about the
last quarter of the diphthong does the glide to [i] begin. As glide to [i] happens,
the loudness of the sound decreases. As result,the [i] part is shorter and quieter.
The English diphthongs can be show in the following diagram :

The following is a description of the eight English diphthong.

1. Centering diphthong
/ ɪə eə ʊə / are called centring diphthong because they all glide towards the
/ə/ ( schwa ) vowel, as the symbols indicate. The starting point for / ɪə / is a
little closer than /ɪ/ in bit, bin. /eə / begins with the similar vowel sound as the /e/
of get, men. / ʊə / has a starting point slightly closer than /ʊ/ in put, pull.
2. Closing diphthong
 Ending ɪ
/ eɪ aɪ ɔɪ / the three dipthongs that glide towards /ɪ/. /eɪ / begins with
the same vowel sound as the /e/ of get, men. . /aɪ / begins with an open
vowel which is between front and back it is quite similar to the /Λ/ in
words like cut, bun. The starting point of /ɔɪ / is a little more open than
/ɔ:/ in ought, born. The closing diphthongs have the characteristic tht
they all end with a glide towards a closer vowel. Because the second
part of the diphthpng is weak, they often do not reach a position that
 could be called close. The important thing is that a glide from a
relatively more open towards a relatively closer vowel is produced.
 Ending ʊ
/ əʊ aʊ /
are the two diphthongs that end with a glide towards / ʊ /. So as the
tongue moves closer to the roof of the mounth there is at the same
time a rounding movement of the lips. This movement is not a large
one, again because the second part of the diphthong is week. The
vowel position for the beginning of / əʊ / is same as for the “schwa”
vowel /ə/. The lips may be slightly rounding. / aʊ / begins with a
owel similar to / ɑ:/ but a little more front. There is slight lip rounding
during the glide towards / ʊ /.
References :
1. Deterding, D. ( 2003 ). An Instrumental study of the monopthong vowels
of Singapore English. English world wide, 29/2, 148-175.
2. Roach, P. English phonetics and phonology. Pp 18-25. Cambridge
university press.
3. Gimson, A, C. pronunciation of pronunciation. Pp 32-37. Cambridge
university press.
4. Hancock, M. English pronunciation in use. Pp 44-50. Cambridge
university press.
5. Crystal, David. 2003. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English
Language. Cambridge university press.
6. Tsukada, K., (2008) “An acoustic comparison of English monophthongs
and diphthongs produced by Australian and thai speaers”, English world
wide 29, pp.194-211(18).
7. Peter Ladefoged. Keith Johnson ( 2006 ) “ A Course in Phonetics “.