Through our readings, homework assignments, class discussions, and computer demonstrations,  we will examine in detail the sound system of Modern English.  This class will help you to uncover a subset of the linguistic knowledge that all native speakers of English possess.  The topics to be discussed include:  articulatory phonetics (how sounds are made in the mouth); acoustic phonetics (the study of the sound energy of speech); syllable structure (discovering what constitutes a possible English syllable); word stress (how we know which syllable takes relative prominence); segmental phonology (how the sounds in a word can change); and orthographic theory (how our spelling system is phonologically based).   During many of these discussions we will be comparing and contrasting English phonetic and phonological structures with structures from other languages.

At the completion of this class, you will possess and be able to discuss a thorough knowledge of some of the most interesting surface phenomena of English phonetics and phonology.  Equipped with this knowledge, you will be able to relate these English data to general phonological theory.  Although this class will not concentrate on second language pronunciation teaching by advocating direct application of the theoretical constructs, you will nevertheless be able to draw indirect implications for classroom second language learning.