One of the aspects of language is speech sound. The study of speech sound in language is called phonology. Each language has its own speech sound structure which differ from one language to another language. By learning the speech sound structure of language, not only can we recognize and understand how to pronounce a word of a language correctly, but can also produce the word using correct pronunciation. Furthermore, we will be able to explain why we should pronounce it that way.
In alphabetic languages such as English, individual spoken sounds are represented by individual letters or groups of letters. For reading and spelling, a young child should learn the complex rules by which these letters and sounds relate to each other. In languages with non-alphabetic orthography such as Chinese, There is no need to break words down into individual phonemes. Phonological impairments can cause greater difficulty in alphabetic languages than in logographic languages (Brunswick, 2009: 48). Several studies have shown that phonological awareness is essential in literacy and development of skills in reading and writing.
Reeb (2011) argued that there have been many studies on proving the advantages and disadvantages within the phonics instruction frame work. According to Reeb’s study, the first factor that is important is the explanation of what a phonics program is and its aim in schools. Mesmer and Griffith (2005) defined phonics in two different meanings. The first definition is “the letter or symbol used to encode a language’s spoken components” and the second definition refers to “teaching learners the relationships between letter sounds and how to use this system to recognize words” (p. 366). McNair (2007) explained phonics as it is instruction in letter-sound relationships.
Phonological knowledge refers to knowledge about sound and symbol relations in a language. A phoneme is the smallest linguistic unit of a sound. This is combined with other phonemes to form words. A phoneme consist of sounds that are considered to be a single perceptual unit by a listener for example you would say B is for ball. Phonic instruction involves teaching the relationship between sounds and the letters used to represent them.
On the other hand acoustic phonetics describes vowels and consonants in terms of their acoustic parameters such as frequency composition, relative intensities and changes in duration. Vowels are voiced and relatively high in intensity than consonants. Vowels are produced with relatively open vocal tract with prominent resonance. The first two formant frequencies (F1 & F2) are essential for the discrimination of vowels. Vowels are more accessible to auditory analysis as they are longer in duration and may hold longer duration in the auditory memory [3] (Stevens,
However, this research proposal will not focus on the meaning of words, but solely on the discrimination of sounds because the participants could have no knowledge of English vocabulary. The importance of mentioning their work lies on the significant relationship they found between musical training and the contrast of sounds
They are analytic skills and synthetic skills. Analytic skills involves the ability to break words into its phonemes while synthetic skills involves the ability to blend different phonemes to make words. A study done to identify the influence of alphabetic knowledge and oral vocabulary on phonemic awareness has found that oral vocabulary is an important predictor of analytical phoneme skills (Ouellette & Haley, 2013). This is an interesting finding as most would have assumed that alphabetic knowledge is a key aspect in teaching a child to read. However, according to the results of this research oral vocabulary plays a more significant role than alphabetic knowledge when learning to read.
Phonics One of the urgent requirements in the field of Education in Learning Disability is introduction of language development and phonics as a mandatory part of pre- and primary school curriculum. Phonics is relationship between sound of our language and written symbols. An alphabetical principle is, acquiring the knowledge that letters of the alphabet represent sound and written words are formed by putting together these sounds. The instruction of phonics is like breaking the code of unknown words. Phonics instructions have to be systematic and explicit.
INTRODUCTION Literature Review Much similarity have been found between music and language development. Studies have found that the roots of music and language are indistinguishable, and early perception of sound, the first crucial aspect, involves common processes. Infant’s early vocalization shares both musical and linguistic characteristics. Melodic utterances, due to the environment, only starts occurring from 9-18 months. (Chen-Hafteck, 1997) In language oriented societies, language acquisition is reinforced early for communication purposes, while resulting in a general lag in musical ability, although young children possess similar potential to develop both musical and linguistic skills.
Even though all of the elements of interest must interact, it is possible to differentiate individual elements that compose a meaningful language. Troike states phonology as an element of a language used in the acquisition of a second language. Phonology is that element of a language that shows the different sounds of a speech thereby creating different meanings. It defines the possible sequences of vowels and consonants in what is referred to as a syllable structure. Further, phonology deals with intonation patterns that include