Phonetics Course

Lesson 1 • Sound as a Physical Phenomenon

Introduces sound waves, frequency, amplitude, and resonance. Provides the acoustic foundation needed for later spectrogram analysis.

Lesson 2 • What Is Phonetics?

Defines phonetics and distinguishes it from phonology. Grounds students in the scope and purpose of the field before technical content begins.

Lesson 3 • Overview of the World's Sound Inventories

Surveys the range of sounds found across human languages. Motivates the need for a universal transcription system introduced next.

Lesson 1 • Vowel Symbols and the Vowel Quadrilateral

Presents the cardinal vowel system and the IPA vowel chart. Students locate vowels by tongue height and backness.

Lesson 2 • Broad vs. Narrow Transcription Practice

Distinguishes phonemic from phonetic transcription levels. Students practise both on authentic speech samples to build accuracy.

Lesson 3 • Diacritics and Suprasegmental Symbols

Covers modifying diacritics and symbols for stress, tone, and length. Enables precise narrow transcription of fine phonetic detail.

Lesson 4 • Consonant Symbols and Categories

Introduces IPA consonant symbols organised by place, manner, and voicing. Students map symbols to articulations systematically.

Lesson 1 • Place of Articulation in Depth

Examines each place of articulation from bilabial to glottal. Students identify active and passive articulators for each category.

Lesson 2 • Voicing and Phonation Types

Explains vocal fold vibration and its role in voicing contrasts. Introduces breathy, creaky, and modal phonation types.

Lesson 3 • Manner of Articulation in Depth

Analyses airstream modification types: stops, fricatives, affricates, nasals, liquids, and glides. Links manner to acoustic output.

Lesson 4 • Secondary Articulations

Covers labialisation, palatalisation, velarisation, and pharyngealisation as secondary features. Students recognise these in transcription and production.

Lesson 1 • Tongue Position and Vowel Quality

Analyses how tongue height and backness determine vowel quality. Students practise producing front, central, and back vowels.

Lesson 2 • Tense, Lax, and Reduced Vowels

Distinguishes tense and lax vowel pairs and introduces schwa and other reduced vowels. Connects reduction to stress patterns.

Lesson 3 • Diphthongs and Triphthongs

Defines diphthongs as vowel glides and analyses their components. Students transcribe and produce rising and falling diphthongs.

Lesson 4 • Lip Rounding and Vowel Contrasts

Examines rounded and unrounded vowels and cross-linguistic contrasts. Students identify rounding in unfamiliar language samples.

Lesson 1 • Fundamentals of Acoustic Analysis

Reviews waveform structure, fundamental frequency, and harmonics. Establishes the acoustic vocabulary used throughout spectrogram interpretation.

Lesson 2 • Formants and Vowel Acoustics

Explains formant frequencies F1 and F2 as acoustic signatures of vowels. Students plot vowels in F1/F2 space from real data.

Lesson 3 • Reading Spectrograms

Teaches wideband and narrowband spectrogram interpretation. Students identify vowels, consonants, and transitions in spectrograms.

Lesson 4 • Using Acoustic Analysis Software

Introduces free acoustic analysis tools for recording and measuring speech. Students complete guided exercises measuring F0, formants, and duration.

Lesson 1 • Tone Systems

Classifies tone languages by register and contour tone types. Students transcribe tonal contrasts using IPA tone diacritics.

Lesson 2 • Rhythm and Timing

Compares stress-timed and syllable-timed rhythm types. Students measure and compare duration patterns across language samples.

Lesson 3 • Stress: Lexical and Phrasal

Distinguishes word-level and phrase-level stress and their acoustic correlates. Students identify stress placement in isolated words and sentences.

Lesson 4 • Intonation and Discourse Function

Analyses intonation contours and their pragmatic meanings. Students map F0 contours onto utterances and interpret communicative intent.

Lesson 1 • Assimilation Processes

Covers progressive, regressive, and total assimilation with cross-linguistic examples. Students formalise assimilation rules using feature notation.

Lesson 2 • Allophonic Variation and Distribution

Distinguishes phonemes from allophones and explains complementary and free variation. Students identify allophonic patterns in language data.

Lesson 3 • Dissimilation, Deletion, and Insertion

Analyses dissimilation, elision, and epenthesis as natural speech processes. Students apply rules to predict outputs from underlying forms.

Lesson 4 • Writing and Applying Phonological Rules

Formalises rules using feature matrices and structural descriptions. Students write, test, and revise rules against phonological data sets.

Lesson 1 • Forensic and Sociophonetic Applications

Surveys phonetic methods used in speaker identification and sociolinguistic research. Students evaluate the reliability and limitations of each method.

Lesson 2 • Phonetics in Language Teaching

Connects phonetic knowledge to pronunciation instruction methods. Students design a pronunciation lesson targeting a specific phonetic contrast.

Lesson 3 • Conducting a Full Phonetic Assessment

Integrates all course skills into a structured assessment workflow. Students record, transcribe, analyse, and report on a complete speech sample.

Lesson 4 • Accent Description and Analysis

Provides a systematic framework for describing accent features phonetically. Students analyse recordings and produce structured accent profiles.