Phonetics and Phonology: A Comprehensive Guide to Speech Sounds
Phonetics: the study of individual sounds as they occur in speech uttered on a particular occasion by a particular speaker. It is any speech sound without regard to its place in the phonological system of a language. They are represented with phonetic symbols, e.g. [n], [ŋ], [ɳ]
Phoneme: the smallest unit of sound in a language which can distinguish between two words from the point of view of meaning. It is a minimal unit (i.e. it cannot be broken up into smaller units) and it is a contrastive unit (it differentiates one word from another in meaning). It is shown in slashes/obliques, i.e. / / Compare: English: bus /bʌs/ vs buzz /bʌz/ → /s/ ≠ /z/.
Allophone: variants of a phoneme, one phoneme can have several allophones. They are the variants of each phoneme which show slight differences in pronunciation but not in meaning. They reflect different regional and social dialects or a foreign accent. They are shown within square brackets, i.e. and some extra symbols called diacritics.
Cluster or blend: is a sequence of two or more running consonantal phonemes within a syllable, e.g. /bl/ as in black. Clusters may occupy different positions within the word or syllable: a)beginning, as initial consonant clusters /tw/ in twin or /spr/ in spring; b)middle, as medial consonant clusters /fr/ in afraid or ; and /skw/ in esquire /ɪ’skwaɪ.ǝr/; c) end, as final consonant clusters /ld/ in fold, /lpt/ in helped or /ksts/ in tex
Grapheme: a symbol made up of a single letter or group of letters used to identify a phoneme. They are represented between angled brackets, i.e. . Thus, the word cat is made up of three phonemes (i.e. /k/, /æ/, /t/) each represented by a single-letter grapheme or monograph: . Types:
Monograph: a single-letter grapheme that makes one phoneme, e.g. and in hi /haɪ/. Digraph: a two-letter grapheme that makes one sound, e.g. in choice /ʧɔɪs/, in ship /ʃɪp/, in tea /ti:/ or in boat /bәʊt/. Split digraph: two letters, which work as a pair, split, to represent one sound, e.g. a-e as in cake, or i-e as in kite. Trigraph: a three-letter grapheme that makes one phoneme, e.g. in high, makes the diphthong /aɪ/ . Tetragraph: a four-letter grapheme that makes one phoneme, e.g. in the word eight, makes an /eɪ/ sound or in the word through where makes /u:/.
Diacritics: are a phonetic symbol. They are added and place under, over or across the phonetic symbol to indicate the type of variation in pronunciation. Compare pot [phɒt] vs bop[bɒp]→ [ph] ≠ [p].
Blending: merging the individual phonemes together to pronounce a word. In order to read an unfamiliar word, a child must recognize (‘sound out’) each grapheme, not each letter (e.g. ‘th-i-n’, i.e. /θ/ /ɪ/ /n/; not ‘t-h-i-n’ /ti:/ /eɪʧ/ /aɪ/ /en/), and then merge the phonemes together to make the word.
High frequency words: terms which appear most frequently in the English language. As they recur frequently in written materials, young children need them when they read and write. A child may be able to sound out some of them, such as ‘at’, ‘in’ or ‘he’, but some are not decodable through phonics, such as ‘said’, ‘are’ or ‘Mr’. Recognising and being able to read high frequency words give children more confidence: if a child can already recognise a quarter of the words in a text, they are more likely to want to keep reading.
Epenthesis or insertion: is the addition of one or more phonemes to a word. The new phoneme is an epenthentic sound. The additional sound may be a consonant or a vowel. For instance, an extra or epenthetic /r/ may be added to separate vowels. This is the case of intrusive /r/, for example drawing may be pronounced as drawring. A consonant may be replaced between consonants in a consonant cluster where the place of articulation is different in order to bridge them, e.g. epenthentic /p/ in something could become somepthing. A vowel may be inserted to break up a two-consonant cluster. An example of this would be the word grow /grəʊ/ being realized as /gə’rəʊ/ where the schwa vowel /ə/ is inserted between the two consonants that form the initial /gr-/ cluster of the word. Once inserted, the vowel is referred to as the epenthetic vowel.
Non-rhotic accent: is always pronounced as /r/ in initial position of words or syllables, but not in final position of words or syllables except when a vowel phoneme follows. Compare: tear up /teər ʌp/ vs. tear cloth /teə klɒθ/.
Pre-fortis clipping: What usually makes vowels longer or shorter whether they are followed by voiced or voiceless sounds. It is well-known that the so-called “short” vowels can be longer than the so-called “long” ones when followed by any of the voiceless phonemes /p, t, k, f, , s, , t/, a shortening process known as pre fortis clipping.
Rhythmic Clipping: the reduction or shortening of a full syllable when followed by one or more reduced syllables occasioned by rhythmic factors. An example is the difference in the duration of vowel in the syllable lead when it occurs in a foot without accompanying unstressed syllables, compared to, say, its duration when it occurs with following unstressed syllables, as in a word such as leader (or leadership). Informal measurements indicate that the duration of the vowel in the latter is less than 50% of the duration of the vowel in the former.
Syllabic consonant: Consonant phonemes that may occupy the nucleus in an unstressed syllable. This may only happen in the cases of /l, r, m, n, ŋ/. A small vertical line below the phonetic symbol is used as a diacritic. 
. Syllables can be classified according to their ending: If they end with a vowel, they are called open syllables, e.g. weigh /weɪ/If they end with a consonant, the are called closed syllables, e.g. hit /hɪt/.