English Phonetics and Lexicology

In this course, the discussion is drawn upon the most important aspects in the range of phonetics, phonology, lexicology and orthography, focusing on the problematic elements encountered in the articulation and perception of the sounds of the English language, as well as in the process of language acquisition, pronunciation and spelling rules and discrepancies. Acknowledging the discussion on the difference between L/language (the big L language and the small l language), an initial distinction is made between Language as a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings and language as the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community e.g. French, Arabic, Suomi etc, in terms of sounds and their study or analysis. This initial distinction is crucial in the further exploration of theories and methods of studying language, as vectors towards a better knowledge of human nature, finally.

By the end of this course, students will be able to recognize and to produce the sounds of the studied language just like a native speaker, distinguish certain nouns from verbs, identify lexical relations (homonymy, polysemy), cope with the discrepancy between spelling and present-day pronunciation, be aware of and explain the phonetic and phonological phenomena that occur in connected speech, use stress and intonation patterns correctly in English, understand the complex relationship between pronunciation, spelling and vocabulary, be able to use main notions related to the field of Phonetics, Phonology, Lexicology (basic Linguistics).