PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

The course is one of the core educational activities of the MA course in Language Sciences, curricula in Language and Cognition, and Linguistics for Deafness and Language and Learning Disorders. It is one of the linguistic disciplines promoting metalinguistic awareness, through the acquisition of models of speech and their application to the languages spoken by the student. In particular, the course aims to illustrate the principles and rules of phonetic description on the one hand, and, on the other, to present the fundamentals of phonology, in order to promote understanding of the nature and features of speech sounds and how they are exploited to convey linguistic meaning.

Students will acquire the fundamentals of phonetics, with special emphasis on articulatory description and their acoustic counterpart. On the other hand, they will understand the fundamentals of the phonological analysis.
On the basis of the acquired theoretical and methodological competence, students will be able to understand the phonetic/phonological structure of the Italian language, applying their knowledge to the IPA transcription. The analysis will be carried out under a contrastive perspective with other languages spoken in Europe.
Practice of transcription will develop the critical competence of students, who will phonetically analyse speech, and as a consequence improve their pronunciation skills.

No specific previous knowledge is required.

Object and main areas of application of phonetics
Articulatory phonetics: phonatory apparatus and sound emission
Classifications of vowels and consonants
Intersegmental and suprasegmental phenomena
The sounds and phonotactic rules of Italian
Phonetic transcription with IPA alphabet (with exercises)
Notes on the phonetic characteristics of Italian-Romance dialects and some European languages
Principles of the acoustic description of speech sounds and their graphic representation
Fundamentals of the perception of speech sounds
Fundamentals of phonology
Phonological inventory of Italian
Phonological transcription (with exercises)
Phonetic/phonological changes (with exercises)
Socio-phonetics

Albano Leoni, F. & Maturi, P. (2018). Manuale di fonetica. Roma: Carocci.
Maturi, P. (2014). I suoni delle lingue, i suoni dell'italiano. Bologna: il Mulino. (completo)
Marotta, G. & Vanelli, L. (2021). Fonologia e prosodia dell'italiano. Roma: Carocci. (only PRIMA PARTE – FONOLOGIA SEGMENTALE)

Oral exam. Students need to demonstrate that they have acquired the theoretical concepts of the discipline, that they are able to produce accurate phonetic and phonological transcriptions, and that they are able to single out phonetic/phonological regularities in linguistic data.

oral

The instructor is responsible for ensuring the authenticity and originality of all examinations and coursework. In cases of suspected academic misconduct, an additional on-site assessment may be required during the exams, which may differ from the standard format.

Marks from 18 to 22 correspond to a pass level; from 23 to 26 good; from 27 to 30 cum laude very good/excellent

Conventional lectures; exercises of phonetic / phonological transcription and analysis. Active participation during the lessons is encouraged