Twenty vowel sounds

Before we get started just take some time to think about the following question:

Most people will probably answer that the English language is composed of five different vowels. Who hasn’t heard of a, e, i, o, u? More astute English learners will probably add another one to the list: y, and will claim that there are six vowels in English.

The same spelling may be reproduced by different sounds, meaning that there may be two or three sounds associated with the same spelling.

Let’s think of the letter a, for example.

Long and short vowels, stressed and unstressed phonemes, monophthongs and diphthongs may be spelled as the letter a.

It is only confusing when we assume that phonemes and graphemes are one and the same. So, in the following sections we will be clearing up any confusion regarding vowel production. You will be surprised to know that seven different phonemes are represented as the letter a, as we can see in the words below:

Besides, you will probably be surprised to learn that English has, in fact, twenty vowel sounds. So, without further ado, let’s get started!

Vowel description

Vowels play a central role in the English language. They are syllabic phonemes, that is, they are able to form syllables on their own.

There are other differences, though, that refer to how these phonemes are described.

Tongue shape, however, is not the only relevant factor here. Vowels are also described in terms of:

Let’s see more examples!

Try saying these words:

Now, try to answer the following question:

These words exemplify the seven different short monophthongs we have in English, namely /i/, /e/, /æ/, /ʌ/, /ɒ/, /ʊ/ and /ə/.

To produce this phoneme, you should keep your lips relaxed and slightly parted. Also, you should keep your tongue high. Just remember that this is a short, quick sound. If you prolong the sound and keep your lips tense, as in a smile, another phoneme will be produced. This vowel is found at the beginning and middle of words and is spelled as y, i or ui.

Example:

Your tongue should also be high to produce this phoneme, near the roof of the mouth. You should keep your lips slightly spread and unrounded. Let’s compare two words that may seem similar sounding, but that are actually composed of different phonemes: pen and pain. In the first one, the short vowel /e/ is used, in the second one, nonetheless, the phoneme /ei/ is used. To pronounce /e/ you should open your mouth wider than for /ei/, but not as wide as to produce pan. /e/ is found at the beginning and middle of words and may be spelled as e or ea.

Example:

Some of the less frequent spellings for the phoneme /e/ are a, ai, ie, ue and eo.

This is what happens in the following words:

The letters ea before d are also usually pronounced as /e/.

Example:

This is the phoneme in the word pan, mentioned before. Differently from the previous phonemes, you should keep your tongue low to produce this sound. Your jaw is also wider, especially when compared with the previous phoneme /e/. You should keep your lips spread as well. If your mouth is not wide enough, you may say bed instead of bad, and bet instead of bat. Just remember to spread your lips and open your mouth. The phoneme does not occur at the end of words and is usually spelled as a, in words such as:

The combination of letter au is a less frequent spelling for the phoneme in question, such as what happens in the following words:

Your lips, jaw and tongue should be relaxed to produce this sound. While the lips are partly parted, the jaw is slightly lowered. The tongue is also in a mid-position in the mouth. The phoneme /ʌ/ does not occur at the end of words and is usually spelled as u, for instance, in words such as:

It may also be spelled as o, in words such as:

Less frequent spellings are oo, oe, ou and a.

Examples:

This vowel is at the lower end of the trapezium, which means that your tongue is kept low to produce this sound. In fact, the tongue is flat, on the floor of the mouth. Your jaw is also kept low. Your lips should be kept apart, as if you were yawning. The letter o in English is usually pronounced as /ɒ/ in words such as:

This vowel sound does not occur at the end of words and is usually spelled as a or o. When the letter o is followed by b, d, g, p, t and ck, it is pronounced as /ɒ/.

Example:

The letter a, when it precedes the letter r, is also pronounced the same way.

Example:

This is another short, quick sound. Therefore, your lips should barely move while you produce it. You should keep your lips partly relaxed and parted. You tongue is kept also high to produce this sound and your jaw is kept slightly low. This phoneme only occurs in the middle of words and is usually spelled as u, oo or ou.

Let’s check some examples:

Sometimes the letter o is also pronounced as /ʊ/, as in the following words:

It may be a bit hard to differentiate some of these short vowels. /e/, /ɒ/ and /æ/ may cause some confusion, as they seem at first too similar. One thing to be attentive is to the position of the jaw and, consequently, to how open the mouth is. While the jaw is completely dropped to produce /ɒ/ (the mouth is then wide open), it is not as low to produce /e/. It goes as follows: /e/ ≶ /æ/ ≶ /ɒ/.

Now pay attention to the words below:

What do you notice? Differently from the words discussed in the previous section, these words contain longer vowels. Comparatively, then, these monophthongs are longer. There are five long monophthongs in English: /i˸/, /ɑ˸/, /ɔ˸/, /u˸/ and /ɜ˸/.

To produce this phoneme your tongue should be high and your jaw should be almost completely raised. You should also feel the tension in your lips, as they are kept in a “smile” position. Just make sure you prolong the sound, otherwise eat will sound like it. This phoneme is found in the beginning, middle and end of words. E, ee, ea, and ie may be pronounced as /i˸/, as exemplified by the words:

Less frequently the letters i and eo may also be pronounced as /i˸/:

This is a very common sound in a doctor’s office. There is a clear reason for that. To produce this sound your tongue position is really low (this vowel is at the lower end of the trapezium), which means that your mouth is kept wide open. What’s more, this is a long vowel, so it should be prolonged.

Now let’s compare some words! The words had and hard, at first, may sound pretty similar. But while the former is composed of a short vowel /æ/, the latter has a long vowel in it /ɑ˸/. The following words also exemplify the same phenomenon:

Before we delve into the details of this vowel sound, just take some time to think about the following pair: bot and bought. Can you notice any difference? Are the vowel sounds the same or different? And how do they differ?

Can you notice any difference? Are the vowel sounds the same or different? And how do they differ? Once again we are dealing with a short/long vowel comparison. In the first word the short vowel /ɒ/ is being used, whereas in the second one, the long vowel /ɔ˸/ is used instead. There is another difference, apart from the duration, though: the shape of the mouth. To pronounce bought your mouth is slightly tighter and more rounded. The following pairs also show this difference:

Your tongue should be high to produce this sound. Your lips should be tense and in a whistling position. Differently from what happens in the production of /ʊ/, this is a long sound. If we compare pull and pool, you will realize that to say the latter you have to protrude your lips and make sure that you prolong the pronunciation of the vowel. Except for the word ooze, this phoneme does not occur in the beginning of words. /u˸/ may be spelled as u, oo, o, ew and ue.

Examples:

Your tongue is slightly low when you produce this sound, placed in the middle of your mouth. This long vowel is also produced with your lips relaxed. It is normally spelled as -er, as in words such as:

Other possible spellings are -or , -ir and -ur.

Although aspects of vowel description have already been discussed (tongue shape, duration), an important factor remains to be discussed: whether the tongue and the lip shape are held constant or undergo change. In the following section we will be discussing phonemes produced when the tongue and lip shape suffer change.

Trying to resort to the spelling of the words may be quite unsatisfactory, since both phonemes are composed of two letters, and both contain the letter o.

While the verb choose is composed of the long vowel studied before, that is, /u˸/, the noun choice is composed of a different vowel sound, called diphthong.

In this section we will be studying different diphthongs. Many varieties of English have several diphthongs.

Monophthongs and diphthongs

We called all the different long and short vowels studied in the previous section monophthongs, but so far we haven’t taken the chance to define them.

When a vowel has only one articulatory position throughout its production, it is considered to be a monophthong. When, conversely, more than one articulatory position is observed, the vowel is then a diphthong.

The words choice, mouth and price are examples that contain pretty common diphthongs; they are all examples of closing diphthongs. They start with open vowels and raise to close vowels, in the area of /i/ and /u/.

Diphthongs can then be classed according to the direction of the tongue movement. There are closing diphthongs, as the ones discussed above, and centering diphthongs. In centering diphthongs the tongue moves towards the central vowel (/ə/). Closing diphthongs may also be classed into fronting and backing. In backing diphthongs the tongue moves towards a close back vowel (/ʊ/), in fronting diphthongs it moves toward a close front vowel (/i/).

In this diphthong there is a combination of two vowel sounds, that is, /e/ and /i/. In fact, this is a compound sound, since the two vowels are blended. To produce this sound your lips should be spread and unrounded. Your jaw raises as your tongue moves. Your jaw closes slightly. The tongue moves from the midlevel position to being closer to the roof of the mouth. This diphthong is found in the beginning, middle and end of words. It may be represented by different spellings: a, ai, ay and eigh, as in the words:

Now, pay attention to the following words:

What do you notice? They are all formed by the same diphthong /ei/. But that is not the only characteristic they share. In all these words the letter a occurs in a syllable ending in silent e. Whenever this is the case, the letter a is pronounced as /ei/.

But let’s look at a different set of words:

Whenever the letters ei are followed by g or n, they also represent the phoneme /ei/.

The letters ay, ai and ey are usually pronounced as /ei/ too. For instance, in the words:

Since this diphthong starts with /a/ and ends with /i/, the lips move from an open position to being slightly parted. The jaw also raises with the tongue and closes. This closing diphthong involves tongue movement. The tongue moves from a low position to a higher one. At the end, the tongue is closer to the roof of the mouth. It is, as the previous one, found in the beginning, middle and end of words. It is represented as different spelling patterns such as i, y, ie and igh. The following words contain the diphthong /ai/:

The words bite, refinement, fine also contain /ai/. But they have something else in common. The letter i occurs in a syllable ending in silent –e. And whenever this is the case, the letters are pronounced as /ai/. When the letter i is also followed by gh, ld and nd it represents the phoneme /ai/.

Examples:

This diphthong may not cause many problems, as there are basically two different spellings for it: oy and oi. It starts with /ɔ/ and ends with /i/. That means that the lips move from a tense oval shape to a more relaxed position. As with the previous diphthongs, the tongue moves from a low position to a higher one. This diphthong is also found in the beginning, middle and end of words.

Examples:

Since this is a closing diphthong, the tongue glides from a lower position to a higher one. And to do that, your jaw also raises with the tongue, as you produce this sound. Your lips also glide from an open position. Just make sure your lips glide from a wide, open position to a closed one. If these lip and tongue movements do not occur, you will produce a monophthong instead. To produce a diphthong the articulatory position changes as you produce the sound, therefore, there is always lip and tongue movement. If your tongue and your lip remain in the same position throughout the sound production, the phoneme /a/ will be produced. You will be saying pond instead of pound, for instance, as we can hear below:

In terms of spelling, this diphthong does not pose great challenges, as it is usually represented as the letter o followed by u, w, or ugh. Words that exemplify this diphthong are:

Let’s compare the two words coat and cut:

In the word coat, since it is a diphthong, there is a change in the articulatory position. The tongue glides from the midlevel position and comes closer to the roof of the mouth. The jaw also rises with the tongue. To produce this sound, your lips should also be kept tense and in a very rounded shape. Just make sure you round your lips into the shape of the letter o and prolong the sound. This is a long sound. It is found in the beginning, middle and end of words. And it may be represented by different spellings: o, oa, ow, oe, and ou; as in the words:

The following words show a common pattern for this diphthong:

What is it? What can you notice? The letter o is usually pronounced as /oʊ/ when it occurs in a syllable ending in silent e. Another common pattern is when o is followed by ld. In words such as bold, old, told the diphthong /oʊ/ is also present. Check it out:

Just make sure you prolong the diphthong pronunciation to avoid misunderstandings.

The diphthong /iə/ starts with the tongue position for /i/, that is, the tongue is in a higher position at first. Then, the tongue moves towards a centering position. This diphthong is usually spelled as e or ea.

Examples for this diphthong are the words:

The diphthong /ʊə/ starts with the tongue position for the production of /ʊ/ and also moves towards a more centering tongue position. This diphthong is usually spelled as u, ou or oo. Differently from the phonemes previously discussed, this is not a common sound in English.

/ʊə/ is present in the following words:

In this diphthong, similarly to the previous two, the tongue also moves towards a mid-central position. To produce this phoneme, you start from the /e/ position and finish in a mid-central position, here represented as the phoneme /ə/. This diphthong is usually spelled as e or ea.

Examples:

Even though all the diphthongs have been represented by a combination of two symbols, for instance, /iə/, /ʊə/, and /eə/, they, actually, refer to a single phoneme, that is, they are single sounds. Diphthongs are also long sounds and they may be as long as the long vowels discussed in the previous section.

Diphthongs are formed by tongue movement, and differently from cardinal vowels, they cannot be represented as a point in the vowel diagram. Diphthongs are thus vowels whose start point and end point do not coincide.

Now, bearing this in mind, let’s discuss two other words! The words fire and power.

The words fire and power, then, may be examples of what is called triphthong. Alternatively, they may be called diphthong that have an extended vowel. Usually, these phonemes are represented by a diphthong followed by the letter r. The phonemes are as following: /aiə/ and /aʊə/.

Throughout this section we have discussed single phonemes that were actually a combination of two different vowels (or even three!). Two phonemes thus blended in order to produce a single long sound. While discussing centering diphthongs a phoneme gained importance, namely the mid-central vowel. This vowel, although presented in passing, is, actually, one of the most frequent sounds in the English language. In the next section, this mid-central vowel will be discussed in more details and you will learn that this neutral vowel, phonetically represented as /ə/, is much more complex and variable than this section showed. It is hence much more than a phoneme that just exists in combination with others.

Context

Even though, grammatically speaking, English may pose fewer challenges to learners, especially when compared to a language packed with inflections such as German, the same does not apply, though, to its phonetics.

Time and again reality and expectation clash. There is a very simple reason for that.

Do you remember that the letter a has seven different pronunciations? The words cat, cake and among contain three different phonemes associated with the letter a. And this is one of the great challenges English poses: many letters or even combination of letters may share the same pronunciation. Different words like about and doctor share the same phoneme, that is the schwa sound, even though their spellings do not coincide. What’s more, depending on the context in which a word is uttered, its pronunciation may change. In other words, when uttered alone it may be pronounced in a way, when the same word occurs in a sentence, however, it may sound differently. The context in which a phoneme occurs affects its pronunciation. The context may be a syllable, a phrase, or even a sentence.

In this section we will be studying a pretty common vowel sound. But don’t be mistaken! Common here just means ordinary, as this phoneme may be cause of some frustration.

The schwa sound: characteristics

One of the most common vowel sounds in English is actually a “lazy sound”. Your lips should barely move to produce this phoneme, while they remain pretty relaxed. This is a quick, short sound, even shorter than the short vowels previously discussed.

It may appear:

And it represents many different spellings:

As you can see, basically all vowels can be reduced to the so-called schwa sound. The schwa sound has, then, no regular spelling. And this may be the reason why even some adult native speakers may find it hard to remember the spelling of certain parts of words.

This sound, nonetheless, even though it has no regular spelling and it can occur in different parts of words, owes its occurrence to certain circumstances. Notice that all along we have been using the word “reduced” to refer to the schwa. Vowels can be reduced to the schwa. The use of this word – reduced – can be a nice indicator of the context from which the schwa emerges.

But before discussing the contexts from which the schwa can emerge, let’s talk about a very simple word, the conjunction and.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, this conjunction and can be pronounced in different ways, both in the American and in the British varieties. It has a strong and a weak form.

Both in American and in British English these forms are possibilities.

The vowels can be either /æ/ or /ə/; the same letter, but different sounds. The latter is what we call the schwa sound, which, as the Cambridge Dictionary points out, occurs in the weak forms of the words. In better terms, the schwa sound only occurs in unstressed syllables.

In the word teacher, for instance, the stress falls on the first part of the word (teach). In the word today, on the other hand, it falls on the second part (day). When nouns have only one syllable, then, this one must be stressed.

The second syllable in teacher is thus shorter and lower.

Regarding the connection between the symbol, /ə/, and the sound, Richard Ogden claims:

The schwa, however, is not only variable within words, but also within phrases and sentences.

Let’s see some more examples!

Within words

• The schwa may be found in the beginning of words, as in:

• In the middle of words, as you can see in:

• At the end of words. For example, in:

• And also more than once in a word (since more than one syllable may be unstressed), such as in:

As you could see, it can be represented by different spellings:

As you can see the schwa sound is a common vowel sound because many different letters and combinations of letters can represent it. It is common but, by no means, simple! It may not even be represented at all!

It has two syllables but only one discernible vowel, right?

Can you see how English spelling can be misleading? Nothing in the spelling of the word shows this second vowel. It is, however, there, even if only as a quick, short, relaxed sound.

Within phrases and sentences

As mentioned before, the conjunction and may be pronounced in different ways. Two vowel phonemes are possible: /æ/ and /ə/

The reason why lies in the context from which the word emerges.

When you analyze this pretty common saying, you see how the schwa sound is an ordinary sound:

Strong and weak forms

As mentioned before, the auxiliary verb do can be stressed or unstressed, depending on the context where it occurs. Other auxiliary verbs also have weak and strong forms. In their weak forms they are pronounced as the neutral vowel schwa.

Let’s compare two utterances:

Even though examples a and b show the same auxiliary verb – was – in letter a, was appears in its weak form, whereas in b, it is in its strong form. The schwa sound, as it only occurs in unstressed syllables, is only present in the weak forms of auxiliary verbs. In short answers, auxiliary verbs (do, does, have, has, were and even the modal verb can) appear in their strong forms. In questions, however, the weak forms (the schwa) are prevalent.

Example:

Since the schwa sound is one of the most frequent sounds in the English language, understanding how it is pronounced and when and where it occurs may help a learner speak as naturally as possible. The schwa sound is an important indicator of unstressed sounds, both within words and sentences. This “lazy sound” is not at all sloppy and it occurs naturally in all types of settings, be them formal or informal. By practicing this short, relaxed sound, you will sound more and more natural in English.

Combining vowels and consonants

Although we may claim that someone has a monotonous tone of voice, as if this person were speaking in a monotone, that is, in one single tone from beginning to end; in reality, this perception couldn’t be further from the truth. We are incapable of utterances that are monotone in nature. We are actually using pitch variation all the time.

We, therefore, inflect our speech all the time. The objective of this section, then, is to look a little deeper into such inflections, such intonational contours.

So far we have been discussing different types of phonemes. However, whether we discuss long or short vowels or even diphthongs, these sounds do not exist in isolation, but rather they exist combined in syllables and, consequently in larger structures: sentences, clauses, texts.

In this section we will be delving into some concepts which were discussed in passing, namely the syllable, stress, tonic syllables and intonation.

The syllable

We have seen that vowels are syllabic phonemes, meaning that they can form a syllable on their own. We have also seen that the schwa sound only occurs in unstressed syllables. And while we have brought the term syllable into the discussion, we haven’t taken the time yet to define or even discuss what constitutes a syllable.

In a nutshell, a syllable has two main constituents: the onset and the rhyme.

In a word such as appraise two vowels are identifiable. The phoneme /ə/, and the diphthong /ei/.

These vowels constitute two different nuclei. This is then a two-syllable word. When a word in English has more than one syllable, one of them receives more stress than the others. In other words, the amount of volume a speaker gives to one of the syllables is greater than to any other.

Words containing more than two syllables, have primary stress on the first, second or third syllables. Since English makes use of strong and weak stress, one of the syllables is going to be more emphasized than the others.

Stressing the wrong syllable may lead to a bunch of misunderstandings and communication problems.

A common mistake Brazilian students make is to incorrectly stress the first syllable in the word police, when, primary stress should fall on the second syllable.

Tonic syllables

Stress goes beyond the boundaries of word level. Within sentences and clauses different words receive different amounts of emphasis. It would sound extremely unnatural to stress all the words equally in a sentence. Stress is a great tool in communication. By stressing some words, the speaker highlights the importance of these words within the sentence. If, on the other hand, stress is placed on the wrong word you may not only completely change the meaning of the sentence, but also distort the intended meaning or even give much stress to unimportant words.

Let’s compare two different utterances.

In the first example, the word house is being stressed, meaning that his house is green.

If stress is placed on green, instead, like in the second example, the meaning conveyed is another. He lives then in the place where the plants grow.

In a sentence or clause certain words will be more stressed than others. Stress will fall more often than not on content words, unless stressing grammatical words may serve a purpose in conveying meaning. For instance, in the following sentence:

The auxiliary verb may be stressed to oppose a previous utterance and to emphasize the fact that even though you might believe reading is not one of my favorite pastimes, I actually like it a lot. Thus, stress may fall on auxiliary verbs to correct some false assumption. Stressing words, then, helps clarify meaning by calling attention to certain words.

In the following sentence:

Three content words can be perceived – Mary, went and doctor. These words, this way, are more stressed than the grammatical words – to and the. The content words also have stressed syllables. The penultimate syllable in Mary, went (since it is a single syllable) and the penultimate syllable in doctor. There is one syllable, however, in the whole sentence that is more prominent and longer than the others. This syllable is called the tonic syllable, where the tone falls.

According to Philip Carr:

This falling tone is typical of declarative utterances.

Intonation

Simply put, intonation refers to the rise and fall of the voice when speaking. Intonation conveys meaning, the speaker’s attitude, signals to whether the utterance is a question or a statement, etc. The wrong use of intonation, if your voice rises instead of falling, for instance; may change a declarative sentence into a question. If, on the other hand, your voice stays the same, instead of falling or rising, you may come across as being bored or uninterested.

• Two types of sentences may end with a falling pitch:

Declarative sentences, as mentioned before.

Example:

Questions starting with question words (what, who, where, when, etc).

Example:

• As examples of rising pitch we can mention:

Yes/ No questions

Example:

Statements that express doubt or uncertainty.

Example:

There may also be combinations of rising and falling pitches. The use of the rise-fall tone, when the pitch rises and then falls, may convey certainty, exclamation, or strong conviction on the part of the speaker. Conversely, a fall-rise tone, when the pitch falls and then rises, may convey hesitation, lack of certainty or reservation on the part of the speaker (CARR, 2013).

Homonymy and Polysemy

All along we have been harping on the same string. We keep insisting on the fact that English is a language in which a one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds does not exist. Perhaps a one-to-many or many-to-one correspondence would be more realistic. Homophones and homographs are those types of phenomena that once again break the illusion that graphemes and phonemes can actually coincide.

There are many two-syllable nouns and verbs that fall under this category, examples to this case are:

In English we can also find full homonyms. These are words which are spelled the same, pronounced the same, but that have completely different meanings.

But, let’s analyze the following sentences:

These two sentences are clear examples of polysemy since they entail the exact same word – newspaper – being used differently. In sentence a) it refers to the actual object and, in sentence b), to the company. The word good, since it can refer to both moral judgment and the judgment of a skill, can also an example of polysemy.