islamization of phonetics and phonology part 3

السلام عليكم

WHY CORRECT PRONUNCIATION IS CRUCIAL?

            As mentioned earlier, phonetics and phonology are one of the branches of linguistics. Both of them deal with sounds as phonetics and phonology are described as the study of sounds. Phonetics is stressed with how sounds are produced, transmitted and perceived or to make it simple, it is about the production of sounds whilst phonology is all about sound systems of language. In order to know more about it, the learners themselves have to know what is place of articulation and manner of articulation in phonetics and phonology first before applying those concepts in our daily life. Thus, phonetics and phonology has become one of the crucial elements for the learner to master in any language. As phonetics and phonology are all about sounds, so they are actually related to the pronunciation. So the question is why correct pronunciation is very important to us?

            As we all know, by having correct pronunciation in speaking, it actually does give us so much advantages. The reason why we said so is because, it helps us to avoid in any misunderstanding between the speaker and listener. By this it means the listener or the receiver can easily interpret the message that have given or said by the speaker or sayer. Not only for that, it apparently can cause the communication become smooth and maybe the conversation will become long. Thus, it shows that when the speaker can pronounce well, it can avoid misunderstanding between two parties occur. This is because different way of production of sounds would probably get different meaning and it may lead to misunderstanding. Hence, to reflect this with Islamic perspective point of view, we know that in Islam, we are taught to avoid misunderstanding in any aspect of life. So if something wrong somewhere we have to make it as clear as crystal in order to prevent from negative thing happen.

            Next, another importance of correct pronunciation is it can aid in increasing individual’s level of self esteem. By this it means, it can help people to have a confident when speaking. Although we are not born as an English native speaker, it does not mean we can’t speak English well. As long as we can pronounce the words correctly and others can understand it, so can use the language in our life. We have to be confident and practice it in order to achieve better communication skill. As for islamization of this point, as a Muslim we have to have guts in order to be successful person. So, when we have confident in speaking we can do some dawah activities and from the power of words, we actually can convince people.

           Last but not least, islamization of phonetics and phonology can be seen in terms of to ponder the beauty of Allah's creation. we know that when we learn phonetics and phonology we are exposed with place of articulation and manner of articulation. From these, we are able to know how the sounds were produced and how the organs work. Indirectly, we could see how wonderful Allah's creations are so as a Muslim we have to take care of all these because they are belong to Allah.

islamization of phonetics and phonology part 2

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

السلام عليكم

PLACE OF ARTICULATION

           First of all, we need to know what is the definition of place of articulation in order for us to understand and get the gist before we go further into the organ that are responsible as a place of articulation. According to Robert Mannel from Macquarie University, place of articulation is defined in terms of the articulators involved in the speech gesture. It is common to refer to a speech gesture in terms of an active articulator and a passive articulator. Besides place of articulation, we also have manner of articulation that work together with each other.

MANNER OF ARTICULATION

The organs that involve as part of place of articulation are nostrils, lips, alveolar ridge, nasal cavity, hard palate, oral cavity, teeth, tongue, velum (soft palate), uvula, pharynx, epiglottis, larynx, vocal folds and glottis. Each of these organs have their own role to produces certain sound of certain alphabets.

PLACE OF ARTICULATION OF ARABIC LETTERS

MEMORIZATION

            Islamization of phonetics and phonology is in term of memorization. Memorization is of phonetics and phonology is important because with it we can only produced the correct sound of the certain words and the alphabets. Like when we read the Qur’an, we read it with tone or called ‘taranum’. It means we read it with different tones or ‘harakat’ based on the makraj. It is the same with the stressed and unstressed words in English pronunciation. There also nasal and non-nasal in Arabic especially when reading the Qur’an. To read the Qur’an correctly one should know on how to differentiate between nasal and non-nasal and long or short the letters to be. Thus, to Islamize phonetics and phonology in term of memorization an individual should keep on learning it with the heart and love it  because without the love or the interest in it then an individual cannot find they way to be close with it.

REFERENCES

About Tajweed. (2007). Place of articulation introduction to articulation points of the arabic letters. Retrieved March 27, 2013, from 

www.abouttajweed.com/articulation-points- areas-of-the-arabic-letters/places-of-articul.html

Mannel, R. (2009). Phonetics and phonology place of articulation. Retrieved March 27, 2013, from

            clas.mq.au/phonetics/phonetics/consonants/place.html

islamization of phonetics and phonology part 1

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

السلام عليكم

In this post and another two posts that follow, we will be discussing on the islamization of phonetics and phonology in general, its application and how we as a Muslim can relate and benefit from this field of linguistics.

Phonetics and Phonology

Introduction

Both phonetics and phonology are the branches of linguistics. They deal with the structure of human language sound. However, the subject under study in both phonetics and phonology is different. Phonetics deals with the physical appearances of speech sounds and theories of speech production and perception. It is basically about sounds and whatever happens in our mouth, throat, oral and nasal cavities, and lungs. It is the description of how sounds are made and where they are produced. For example, the word “bed” is formed by having our lips pressed together. Since the place of articulation of /b/ is on the lips, it is called bilabial.  /b/ is produced by stopping the flow of air at some point in the mouth and suddenly releasing it, thus making the manner of the articulation as plosive.

 Phonology focuses on the sound patterns and their meanings within and across languages. These are among the questions being asked in phonology: How do sounds change due to the sounds around them? (For example, why does the plural of “hat” end with an 's'-sound, the plural of “dog” end with a 'z'-sound, and the plural of “house” end in something sounding like 'iz'?) How do sounds combine in a particular language? (For example, English allows 't' and 'b' to be followed by 'l' - rattle, rabble, atlas, ablative - so why then does 'blick' sound like a possible word in English when 'tlick' does not?) These kinds of questions would be answered in phonology. 

Why should we learn phonetics and phonology?

Some people do not feel interested in learning phonetics and phonology. They think that as long as they can pronounce the words in English correctly, they do not have to worry about anything. Some of them even think that if they pronounce the words with minor mistakes, people still can understand what they are trying to say. We have to bear in mind, all knowledge in this world are beneficial to people. If they are meant to harm and trouble people, others would not struggle to develop that knowledge. This is similar with phonetics and phonology. There are benefits behind learning these two linguistics areas. By learning phonetics and phonology, we are able to:           

1)      Know how to pronounce the words correctly.

It is important to know how to pronounce a word correctly. Wrong pronunciation may cause miscommunication and misunderstanding among people and eventually will cause other problems.

2)      Be familiar with the sounds and symbols in the IPA chart. It is helpful to know how to read these symbols. When we are in doubt on how to pronounce a particular word, we can always refer to the dictionary that provides the transcription of the word.

3)      Learn about the place and manner of articulation of each and every sound in the IPA chart. We get to know where the sound is produced and how to produce it.

         Learning phonetics and phonology can be very helpful in learning Arabic. As the Qur’an is revealed in Arabic, Muslims have to learn that language. They have to learn all the Arabic letters in order to recite the Qur’an. Knowing the letters are not enough. It is important for Muslims to really know how to produce the sounds of the Arabic letters. If they produce it wrongly, the meaning of the words in the Qur’an would change. Muslims also have to know how the sounds in Arabic change when one letter meets another letter in the same word, or in two different words. All these changes of sounds will fall under tajwid (the rules governing pronunciation during recitation of the Qur’an).

References

Pomona College. (2005). Phonetics-Phonology. Retrieved on March 21, 2013 from             http://www.lcs.pomona.edu/page15/page1/page1.html

Your dictionary reference. (2013). The difference between phonetics and phonology. Retrieved on March 21, 2013 from http://reference.yourdictionary.com/word-definitions/differences-between-phonetics-and-phonology.html