Unit 3: PHONOLOGY

     Phonology is the study of sound features used in a language to communicate meaning. This includes phoneme, word stress, sentence stress and intonation. Now, there are some key concepts that are important to know about. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can make a difference to meaning in a language. Here we have an example. /s/ and /sh/ this is important because it helps to distinguish the difference between to words, sock and shock. The phonemes are shown in a phonemic chart.

 Those sounds are divided into vowels, diphthongs and consonants. The consonants are arranged in an order according to how and where in the mouth they are pronounced. Regarding this, we have the voiced sounds (use vibration of our voice /b/ /d/) and the unvoiced sounds (spoken without using our voice /p/ /t/) another feature is the sentence stress which is a characteristic of connected speech. The contraction is another feature, for example, don’t, and haven’t.  All of these characteristics help to keep the rhythm which is a pattern of stress. Another feature is linking (helps to keep the smooth) word boundaries (where one word ends and other begins) another is intonation (is the way the speaker chances the level of the voice to show meaning) and the function is the situation which language is used (asking a question, clarification) all of these features are important in phonology so we have to keep in mind that learning another language is a little bit complex. So, in the near future as a future teacher I will apply all of the characteristics when teaching my students a language. Besides, I could make them to listen to radio programs, and some websites in English. I think this will help them to recognize some features before I ask them to produce them.  Another thing I could use is the use of models. I will encourage my students by correcting them or asking themselves to correct. I think that another important thing are dictionaries since this will help them to build confidence. 

For further information visit these links:

• Wikipedia,. (2015). Phonology. Retrieved 19 April 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonology
• YouTube,. (2015). Voiced and Voiceless sound. Retrieved 19 April 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0sdVIb5fpE