2007 Handbooks

This unit forms the essential background to all aspects of speech and hearing science and to all of the speech and hearing-based research projects in the Speech, Hearing and Language Research Centre (SHLRC). The following key areas are covered in this unit: general phonetic principles of classification; an introduction to phonemic analysis; and prosody. The lectures are divided into two sections. The first section examines articulatory phonetics, the articulation of vowels and consonants as well as complex articulations, airstream mechanisms and laryngeal features. The sounds of Australian English are contrasted with other dialects of English. The second section of the lectures introduces students to phonology, examining phonemes and allophones, distinctive features, syllables, word stress and intonation. The tutorials amplify some of the main points dealt with in the lectures and are specifically concerned with developing phonetic ear-training skills and competence in the phonemic and phonetic transcription of English.