A Theoretical Course of English Phonetics (English Language Department)

Abstract

Language as a means of human communication exists in two forms of speech: oral and written. Both forms of speech have a material substance: phonic in oral speech, or the sound substance, and graphic in written speech. The sound substance gives shape to a spoken message in communication as well as forms units of a certain language phonetic system, which consists of two levels: segmental (elementary sounds, vowels and consonants that form the vocalic and consonantal subsystems) and suprasegmental (syllables, accentual (rhythmic) units, intonation groups, utterances, that form the melodic, dynamic and temporal subsystems). Both levels (so called phonetic level of a language) serve to form and differentiate units of other subsystems of language (lexical and grammatical). Grammatical level defines the rules governing the modifications of words and their combination into sentences. Lexical level deals with the vocabulary, the origin of words and their meaning, and with word-building. These three language levels are very closely connected since they constitute one indivisible whole.