Rajarata University of Sri Lanka Year-1 Semester-2

Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

Department of Languages

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities

Online Lectures

Year and Semester	Year-1 Semester-2
Subject	Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology
Subject Code	ENGL 1212
Course Unit	Voiced and Voiceless Sounds
Date	23.04.2020
Time	Theory (9.00 am-10.00 am)  Practical (2.30 pm-4.30 pm)
Lecturer	D.N. Aloysius
Theory Hours	01                                            Total  No of  Hours: 02
Practical Hours	02                                            Total  No of  Hours: 04

Voiced and Voiceless Sound

There are 26 letters in the English alphabet, but there are 38 sounds (14 vowel sounds and 24 consonant sounds) produced by these letters.

A vowel is a sound where air coming from the lungs is not blocked by the mouth or throat. All normal English words contain at least one vowel.

 All the sounds produced in the English are either voiced or voiceless (unvoiced). Voiced sounds occur when the vocal cords vibrate when the sound is produced. There is no vocal cord vibration when producing voiceless sounds. To test this, place your fingertips hand on your throat as you say the sounds. When saying the voiced sounds, you should be able to feel a vibration. When saying the voiceless sounds you sound not be able to feel a vibration.

Sometimes, it is very difficult to feel the difference between a voiced and voiceless sound. Another test may help. Put a piece of paper in front of your mouth when saying the sounds- the paper will move when saying the unvoiced sounds.

All vowels in English are voiced. Some of the consonant sounds are voiced and some are voiceless. Some of the consonant sounds produced in English are very similar. Many times the difference between them is because one is voiced and the other is voiceless. Two examples are ‘z’, which is voiced and‘s’, which is voiceless. See the chart below for a listing of the voiced and voiceless consonants.   

Certain pairs of consonants can be problematic for some learners. In some cases, the main difference between the pair is whether the consonant is voiced or unvoiced, that is, whether or not the vocal chords vibrate when making this sound.

This discovery activity can be used to help learners notice the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonants. Begin by asking learners what noise a bee makes. As they make a buzzing noise, do the same and put your fingers on your throat, indicating that they should do likewise. This will allow them to feel the vibrations of the vocal chords that occur with voiced consonant sounds. Ask them if they can feel the vibrations.

Then focus on a voiced / unvoiced pair such as s and z. Make the sounds with your fingers on your throat, indicating that the learners should do the same. You can help learners with this by getting them to make the 'bee' sounds for z, and the sound a snake is supposed to make for s. Ask them when they feel the vocal chords vibrate - with s or z? (The answer should be z). Tell them that this is the main difference between the two sounds, and that /z/ is voiced while/s/ is unvoiced. You could then give them a list of words and ask them to categorize the underlined consonant sound into these two categories. With /s/ and /z/, you might choose to include some third person singular verb and plural endings. In this list, the sound being focused on is the final sound in each case.

s	z
cups	pens
speaks	reads
cats	dogs
books	bags
robs	travels
paths	roads