 Language arose from instinctive emotional cries, expressive of pain or joy.

     The yo-he-ho theory

     Language arose from the noises made by a group of people engaged in joint labour or effort – lifting a huge hunted game, moving a rock, etc.

     The evolution theory

     Language originated in the process of labour and answered the call of social need.

     What is linguistics?

     Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

     Observing & questioning

     Formulating hypotheses

     Verifying the hypotheses

     Proposing a theory

     Branches of linguistics

     Internal branches: intra-disciplinary divisions

     Phonetics

     Phonology

     Morphology

     Syntax

     Semantics

     External branches: inter-disciplinary divisions

     Pragmatics

     Psycholinguistics

     Sociolinguistics

     Applied linguistics

     Computational linguistics

     Neurolinguistics

     Features of linguistics

     Descriptive

     Dealing with spoken language

     Synchronic

    Chapter 2 Phonetics

     What is phonetics?

     Phonetics is termed as the study of speech sounds.

     Sub-branches of phonetics

     Articulatory phonetics – the production of speech sounds

     Acoustic phonetics – the physical properties of speech sounds

     Auditory phonetics – the perceptive mechanism of speech sounds

     The speech organs

     Where does the air stream come from?

     From the lung

     What is the function of vocal cords?

     Controlling the air stream

     What are the cavities?

     Oral cavity

     Pharyngeal cavity

     Nasal cavity

     Transcription of speech sounds

     Units of representation

     Segments (the individual sounds)

     Phonetic symbols

     The widely used symbols for phonetic transcription of speech sounds is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

     The IPA attempts to represent each sound of human speech with a single symbol and the symbols are enclosed in brackets [ ] to distinguish phonetic transcriptions from the spelling system of a language.

     In more detailed transcription (narrow transcription) a sound may be transcribed with a symbol to which a smaller is added in order to mark the finer distinctions.

     Description of speech sounds

     Description of English consonants

     General feature: obstruction

     Criteria of consonant description

     Places of articulation

     Manners of articulation

     Voicing of articulation

     Places of articulation

     This refers to each point at which the air stream can be modified to produce a sound.

     Bilabial: [p] [b] [m] [w]

     Labiodental: [f] [v]

     Interdental: [] []

     Alveolar: [t] [d] [s] [z] [l] [n] [r]

     Palatal: [] [] [t] [d] [j]