Phonology

Phonemes are one of the four features of phonology in TKT. What are the other three?

1. Phonemes.
What are the differences between phonemes, phonemic symbols, phonemic script and the phonemic chart?

What are diphthongs and monophthongs?

Which consonant sounds are voiced and unvoiced?

You need to be familiar with the phonemic chart for the TKT exam. If you are haven't studied it before or if you need to brush up on your knowledge, take a look at this excellent interactive phonemic chart from the British Council. A smart phone/tablet app is available for download here.

2. Word stress
Firstly you can practise deciding how many syllables are in a word. Remember that the length of the word often does not reflect the number of syllables. Saying words out loud can help make sure you are counting correctly.

Secondly decide which syllable do we stress, i.e. say with more energy. In a dictionary, this is often marked with a ' before the syllable which is stressed, e.g. be'fore. Other syllables are said with less energy.

Sentence stress
We can divide utterances into content words and function words. Content words carry the meaning of the utterance and function words provide the grammar. In the utterance "Yuri ate sushi for lunch", the function word is 'for'. Generally these function words are not vital to the meaning and are often pronounced in their weak form, i.e. for is pronounced /fə/ as opposed to /fɔ:/.

The most important word in the sentence, i.e. the word that is vital to the meaning, is usually said with primary/main stress. This means that it is said higher, longer or louder. In the above sentence about Yuri we can change which word has the main stress depending on what part we want to highlight. This is called contrastive stress.

Yuri ate sushi for lunch. (not noodles)
Yuri ate sushi for lunch. (not dinner)
Yuri ate sushi for lunch. (not Yuka).

The contrast between main stress, secondary stress and unstressed words (weak forms) gives English its rhythm.  

Remember in class we talked about 'pets enter' versus 'pet centre'? That was an example of linking. The most common type of linking is when one word ends in a consonant and the next word begins with a vowel. When spoken at a natural pace the end consonant, e.g. the 's' in 'pets' attaches to the first vowel of the next word, e.g. 'e' in enter. Thus /pet enter/ sounds exactly like /pets center/.

Sentence stress and linking are both examples of connected speech.

Another characteristic of connected speech is intonation.


3. Intonation
How we say something is as important (or maybe more) that what we say.
Imagine your friend invites you to their house for dinner. Instead of cooking you a delicious meal like they promised, they serve you a cup of instant ramyen! You might say 'delicious!' but how you say it could mean:

a) It really is delicious! Ramyen is my favourite food and this particular one is really tasty. (Genuine)
b) This is not delicious. Where is my lobster? (Sarcasm)
c) I have never tasted ramyen before so I have no idea if this is delicious or not. (Doubt)

These different meanings are conveyed by the intonation i.e. the change in the voice level.