CHAPTER
I
INTRODUCTION
The
name "vowel" is often used for the symbols that represent vowel
sounds in a language's writing system, particularly if the language uses an
alphabet. In writing systems based on the Latin alphabet, the letters A, E, I,
O, U, and sometimes Y are all used to represent vowels. However, not all of
these letters represent vowels in all languages, or even consistently within
one language (some of them, especially W and Y, are also used to represent
approximants). Moreover, a vowel might be represented by a letter usually
reserved for consonants, or a combination of letters, particularly where one
letter represents several sounds at once, or vice versa; examples from English
include igh in "thigh" and x in "x-ray". In addition,
extensions of the Latin alphabet have such independent vowel letters as Ä, Ö,
Ü, Å, Æ, and Ø.
The
phonetic values vary considerably by language, and some languages use I and Y
for the consonant [j], e.g., initial I in Romanian and initial Y in English. In
the original Latin alphabet, there was no written distinction between V and U,
and the letter represented the approximant [w] and the vowels [u] and [ʊ]. In
Modern Welsh, the letter W represents these same sounds. Similarly, in Creek,
the letter V stands for [ə]. There is not necessarily a direct one-to-one
correspondence between the vowel sounds of a language and the vowel letters.
Many languages that use a form of the Latin alphabet have more vowel sounds
than can be represented by the standard set of five vowel letters. In English
spelling, the five letters A E I O and U can represent a variety of vowel
sounds, while the letter Y frequently represents vowels (as in e.g.,
"gym", "happy", or the diphthongs in "cry",
"thyme");[19] W is used in representing some diphthongs (as in
"cow") and to represent a monophthong in the borrowed words
"cwm" (nearly always spelled combe, coomb, or comb in English) and
"crwth" (sometimes cruth).
Other
languages cope with the limitation in the number of Latin vowel letters in
similar ways. Many languages make extensive use of combinations of letters to
represent various sounds. Other languages use vowel letters with modifications,
such as Ä in Scandinavian and Nordic languages, or add diacritical marks, like
umlauts, to vowels to represent the variety of possible vowel sounds. Some
languages have also constructed additional vowel letters by modifying the
standard Latin vowels in other ways, such as æ or ø that are found in some of
the Scandinavian languages. The International Phonetic Alphabet has a set of 28
symbols to represent the range of basic vowel qualities, and a further set of
diacritics to denote variations from the basic vowel.
The
alphabets used to write the Semitic languages, such as the Hebrew alphabet and
the Arabic alphabet, do not ordinarily mark all the vowels, since they are
frequently unnecessary in identifying a word. These alphabets are technically
called abjads. Although it is possible to construct simple English sentences
that can be understood without written vowels (cn y rd ths?), extended passages
of English lacking written vowels can be difficult to understand (consider dd,
which could be any of dad, dada, dado, dead, deed, did, died, diode, dodo, dud,
or dude).
CHAPTER
II
DISCUSSION
A.
PHONEMIC
NOTATION
Phonemic
awareness is a subset of phonological awareness in which listeners are able to
hear, identify and manipulate phonemes, the smallest units of sound that can
differentiate meaning. Separating the spoken word "cat" into three
distinct phonemes, /k/, /æ/, and /t/, requires phonemic awareness.
The National
Reading Panel has found that phonemic awareness improves children's word
reading and reading comprehension, as well as helping children learn to spell.[1]
Phonemic awareness is the basis for learning phonics.[2]
Phonemic
awareness and phonological awareness are often confused since they are
interdependent. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate
individual phonemes. Phonological awareness includes this ability, but it also
includes the ability to hear and manipulate larger units of sound, such as
onsets and rimes and syllables.
Studies by
Vickie Snider have shown that phonemic awareness has a direct correlation with
students’ ability to read as they get older. Phonemic awareness builds a foundation
for students to understand the rules of the English language. This in turn
allows each student to apply these skills and increase his or her oral reading
fluency and understanding of the text.[3]
Phonemic
awareness relates to the ability to distinguish and manipulate individual
sounds, such as /f/, /ʊ/, and /t/ in the case of foot. The following are common
phonemic awareness skills practiced with students:
Phoneme
isolation: which requires recognizing the individual sounds in words, for
example, "Tell me the first sound you hear in the word paste" (/p/).
Phoneme
identity: which requires recognizing the common sound in different words, for
example, "Tell me the sound that is the same in bike, boy and bell"
(/b/).
Phoneme
substitution: in which one can turn a word (such as "cat") into
another (such as "hat") by substituting one phoneme (such as /h/) for
another (/k/). Phoneme substitution can take place for initial sounds
(cat-hat), middle sounds (cat-cut) or ending sounds (cat-can).
Oral
segmenting: The teacher says a word, for example, "ball," and
students say the individual sounds, /b/, /ɑ/, and /l/.
Oral blending:
The teacher says each sound, for example, "/b/, /ɑ/, /l/" and
students respond with the word, "ball."
Sound
deletion: The teacher says word, for example, "bill," has students
repeat it, and then instructs students to repeat the word without a sound.
Onset-rime
manipulation: which requires isolation, identification, segmentation, blending,
or deletion of onsets (the single consonant or blend that precedes the vowel
and following consonants), for example, j-ump, st-op, str-ong.
For example,
the teacher might say, now say bill without the /b/." Students should
respond with /ɪl/. There are other phonemic awareness activities, such as sound
substitution, where students are instructed to replace one sound with another,
sound addition, where students add sounds to words, and sound switching, where
students manipulate the order of the phonemes. These are more complex but
research supports the use of the three listed above, particularly oral
segmenting and oral blending.[citation needed]
B.
VOWEL
In phonetics,
a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as an English ah! [ɑː] or oh! [oʊ],
pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air
pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such
as English sh! [ʃː], where there is a constriction or closure at some point
along the vocal tract. A vowel is also understood to be syllabic: an equivalent
open but non-syllabic sound is called a semivowel.
In all oral
languages, vowels form the nucleus or peak of syllables, whereas consonants
form the onset and (in languages that have them) coda. However, some languages
also allow other sounds to form the nucleus of a syllable, such as the syllabic
l in the English word table [ˈteɪ.bl̩] (the stroke under the l indicates that
it is syllabic; the dot separates syllables), or the r in Serbo-Croatian vrt
[vr̩t] "garden".
There is a
conflict between the phonetic definition of "vowel" (a sound produced
with no constriction in the vocal tract) and the phonological definition (a
sound that forms the peak of a syllable).[4]
The approximants [j] and [w] illustrate this conflict: both are produced
without much of a constriction in the vocal tract (so phonetically they seem to
be vowel-like), but they occur on the edge of syllables, such as at the
beginning of the English words "yet" and "wet" (which
suggests that phonologically they are consonants). The American linguist
Kenneth Pike (1943) suggested the terms "vocoid" for a phonetic vowel
and "vowel" for a phonological vowel,[5]
so using this terminology, [j] and [w] are classified as vocoids but not
vowels. However, Maddieson and Emmory (1985) demonstrated from a range of
languages that semivowels are produced with a narrower constriction of the
vocal tract than vowels, and so may be considered consonants on that basis.[6]
The word vowel
comes from the Latin word vocalis, meaning "speaking",[7]
because in most languages words and thus speech are not possible without
vowels. In English, the word vowel is commonly used to mean both vowel sounds
and the written symbols that represent them.
CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION
Phonemic
awareness is a subset of phonological awareness in which listeners are able to
hear, identify and manipulate phonemes, the smallest units of sound that can
differentiate meaning. Separating the spoken word "cat" into three
distinct phonemes, /k/, /æ/, and /t/, requires phonemic awareness.
In phonetics,
a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as an English ah! [ɑː] or oh! [oʊ],
pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air
pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such
as English sh! [ʃː], where there is a constriction or closure at some point
along the vocal tract. A vowel is also understood to be syllabic: an equivalent
open but non-syllabic sound is called a semivowel.
REFERENCES
Critical Issues: The National Reading Panel". Reading Online.
Crystal, David
(2005) A Dictionary of Linguistics & Phonetics (Fifth Edition),
Maldern, MA/Oxford: Blackwell,
Findings and Determinations of the National Reading Panel by Topic Areas".
NICHD.
Ladefoged,
Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Laver, John (1994) Principles of Phonetics, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press,
Online Etymology dictionary. Retrieved 12 April 2012.
Snider, Vicki
E. (1997). "The Relationship between Phonemic Awareness and Later
Reading Achievement". JSTOR. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
[1] Findings and
Determinations of the National Reading Panel by Topic Areas". NICHD.
[2] Critical
Issues: The National Reading Panel". Reading Online.
[3] Snider, Vicki
E. (1997). "The Relationship between Phonemic Awareness and Later
Reading Achievement". JSTOR. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
[4] Laver, John
(1994) Principles of Phonetics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
p. 269.
[5] Crystal, David
(2005) A Dictionary of Linguistics & Phonetics (Fifth Edition),
Maldern, MA/Oxford: Blackwell, p. 494.
[6] Ladefoged,
Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages.
Oxford: Blackwell. p. 323.
[7] . Online
Etymology dictionary. Retrieved 12 April 2012.
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