1 Chapter 1 – Vowel Sounds
INTRODUCTION
In English, five or six letters are used to represent vowels in writing: a, e, i, o ,u and sometimes y. Unfortunately, there are many more vowel sounds than five or six in English. There are not enough letters in the alphabet to represent all the English vowels.
To represent the pronunciation of all vowels (and consonants), we will use a different kind of alphabet called the International Phonetic Alphabet or the IPA. You will not need to learn the symbols in the IPA, but we will use them from time to time to help distinguish the sounds.
By the end of the chapter, readers will be able to…
- recognize some symbols in the IPA
- describe how individual vowels are produced
- describe how vowel diphthongs are produced
- produce vowel sounds and diphthongs in different words and phrases
HIGH-LOW, FRONT-BACK, AND (UN)ROUNDED VOWELS
An introduction to the pronunciation of vowels requires a little understanding of how the sounds are made in the mouth. It’s also important to hear the sounds individually and in words.
This video from Ubc Visible Speech provides an overview of the pronunciation of vowels.
There are two kinds of vowel sounds monophthongs and diphthongs. Monophthongs have one vowel sound such as in the words “cat” and “sit.” Diphthongs have two vowel qualities. More information about diphthongs is given below.
Three criteria are used to describe the pronunciation of vowels: height, backness, and roundedness. These criteria refer to the position of the tongue and the lips.
- Three tongue positions refer to height: high, mid, low.
- Three tongue positions refer to backness: front, central, back
- Roundness refers to whether the lips are rounded or unrounded.
You can see the positions in this illustration of the vocal tract. The high vowels are represented by the IPA symbols [i], [ι], [ʊ], and [u].
The low vowels are represented by the symbols [æ] and [a]. The front vowels are [i], [ι], [e], [ɛ], and [æ] and the back vowels are [u], [ʊ], [o], [ɔ], and [a]. The mid central vowel is the shwa represented by [ə].
The Vocal Tract
Words with High-Low, Front-Back, and (Un)Rounded Vowels
TENSE AND LAX VOWELS
Vowels can be tense or lax. Tense vowels are pronounced with more tension in the vocal tract and lax vowels are pronounced with less tension. This video from Learn English with TIE explains differences between tense vowels and lax vowels. Sometimes these vowels are referred to as short and long but a more accurate way to describe them for pronunciation is tense and lax.
Tense vowels are pronounced with more tightness in the tongue, lips, and mouth more generally. Lax vowels are pronounced in a more relaxed way with less tension. Practice the sounds and words with the speaker in the video to feel the difference between tense vowels and lax vowels.
Now listen to the the audio file and look at the words below. Listen for the difference between tense and lax vowels
Words with Tense and Lax Vowels
- beat (Tense) — b