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CTEL Exam Flashcard Study System: CTEL Test Practice Questions and Review (2020)

Get exam-ready with CTEL Exam Flashcard Study System: CTEL Test Practice Questions and Review (2020) , featuring topic-wise breakdowns, expert strategies, and sample questions.

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    Language Structure and Use © Mometrix Media - flashcardsecrets.com/ctel CTEL Exam Explain the difference between phonemes, graphemes, and letters.

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    Language Structure and Use A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language that makes a difference in meaning. Phonemes can be written in two different ways. Linguists commonly represent phonemes by using the International Phonetic Alphabet , which assigns a different symbol to each sound commonly found in languages around the world. A second way to represent a phoneme is by using graphemes , which are individual letters or groups of letters that depict how a sound is written in a given language. For example, in English, the sound /t/ is written either with a single “t” (as in “tall”) or with two “t’s” (as in the word “better,”). Thus, English has two graphemes, “t” and “tt,” that correspond to the phoneme /t/. Linguists have a special term, digraph, to refer to any two-letter grapheme, such as “tt” or “ch.” Phonetic alphabets and graphemes are necessary because written alphabets do not by themselves provide language learners with knowledge of how to pronounce a given word. Many letters have more than one pronunciation, and often are silent. In other words, spelling is not a reliable guide to pronunciation.

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    Language Structure and Use © Mometrix Media - flashcardsecrets.com/ctel CTEL Exam Contrast phonetics with phonology and explain how linguists relate one to the other through the application of phonological rules .

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    Language Structure and Use Phonetics is the study of speech sounds in isolation, and phonology is the study of how speech sounds function in a context—in a syllable, a word, a sentence, or a language as a whole. The speech sounds that each discipline studies are called phonemes . English, for example, consists of approximately 44 unique phonemes, arising from the 26 letters of the alphabet used singly or in combination. A competent English speaker can distinguish between these phonemes. Substituting one for another will result in a change in meaning—for example, substituting /m/ for /b/ in the word “ball” results in “mall.” Phonetics considers how individual speech sounds are produced and perceived and might ask which sounds are present in a given language. Phonology , by contrast, would study the ways in which those sounds are used to create larger units of meaning. Phonological rules are the ways in which sounds change depending on where they occur and how they are used in speech. For example, the deletion rule states that an unstressed vowel is often deleted in rapid speech, as when the /o/ in “police” is dropped and the word is pronounced as /pleas/.

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    Language Structure and Use © Mometrix Media - flashcardsecrets.com/ctel CTEL Exam Discuss how irregularities in English spelling, as well as the existence in English of phonetic features such as digraphs, diphthongs, and consonant clusters might present challenges for English language learners.

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    Language Structure and Use Students of any language benefit if that language has predictable rules of grammar, spelling, or pronunciation. Learning is made even easier if the student experiences positive transfer — that is, if features of their native language are similar to those in English, and thus reinforce the learning process. The fact that the 26 letters of the English alphabet combine to form approximately 44 distinct phonemes will complicate the learning process for ELLs, as there is no one-to-one correspondence between spelling and pronunciation. For example, the sound /k/ can be written in many different ways in English, as in “cat,” “kite,” and “tack.” Other features of English violate a regular one-to-one correspondence of letters to sounds. Digraphs , for example, are combinations of two or more letters to produce a unique phoneme—such as the /ch/ sound in English. Diphthongs are combinations of two or more vowels in a single syllable, often resulting in an unpredictable sound—for example, the word “chair” is usually pronounced with an /ur/ sound that is not evident from its spelling. Consonant clusters occur when two or more consonants combine to form a single sound, as with the /wr/ sound in “wreck.” These features render English more difficult for the ELL.

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    Language Structure and Use © Mometrix Media - flashcardsecrets.com/ctel CTEL Exam Discuss how phonemes can be classified based on their location in a syllable or word.

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    Language Structure and Use Syllables typically have two components, an onset and a rime. The onset is the phoneme, or sound, that occurs at the beginning of the syllable. In English, only consonants can be onsets. If a syllable begins with a vowel sound, the syllable has no onset. The rime is the vowel and any consonants that follow the onset. Thus, every syllable has a rime, but not necessarily an onset. For example, the one-syllable word “and” has no onset, only a rime. In the word “bat,” by contrast, the /b/ is the onset, and the /at/ is the rime. A second way to classify phonemes is by their order in a word. The first phoneme in a word is called the beginning phoneme , the last phoneme is called the end phoneme , and any phonemes in the middle are called medial phonemes . Teachers often promote phonetic awareness in beginning readers using this classification. For example, the teacher might teach the word “bet” by highlighting the beginning /b/, the ending /t/, and the medial /e/.

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    Language Structure and Use © Mometrix Media - flashcardsecrets.com/ctel CTEL Exam Describe the framework linguists use for describing and classifying how consonant and vowel sounds are produced.

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    Language Structure and Use Linguists who study the physiology of sound production have classified the phonemes according to how they are produced . Each phoneme is articulated in a unique way. Consonant and vowel sounds have different classification systems. Consonants are classified according to three criteria: (1) the location in the vocal tract where they are produced (the descriptive terms used are bilabial, labiodental, interdental, alveolar, alveopalatal, velar, and glottal); (2) the manner in which they are produced (stops, nasals, fricatives, affricates, approximants, and glides); and (3) whether they are voiced or unvoiced. For example, the [b] sound is described as a “voiced, bilabial stop,” and the [f] sound is described as a “voiceless, labiodental fricative.” All vowels are voiced, and so the classification of vowels occurs along two dimensions, both of which refer to the position and movement of the tongue during utterance: (1) high, mid, or low; and (2) front, central, and back. Thus, the short vowel [u], as in the word “boot,” is produced high and in the back of the mouth.

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    Language Structure and Use © Mometrix Media - flashcardsecrets.com/ctel CTEL Exam Explain why the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was created and describe how linguists use slash marks to distinguish between phonemes and letters.

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    Language Structure and Use No alphabet has a one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds. In English, for example, 26 letters generate approximately 44 distinct phonemes. Nor do any two languages rely on the same system of sounds, even when they share an alphabet. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) , which was created in 1888 and revised repeatedly since, provides a standard system of symbols for all of the phonemes used in human languages. The existence of the IPA allows linguists to refer to sounds independently to how they are represented in a specific language. The IPA uses many symbols derived from the Latin alphabet, but it includes symbols from other sources, such as the Greek alphabet and even the Icelandic alphabet. By convention, when linguists want to refer to a phoneme, they place a symbol within slashes or brackets (“/a/” or “[a]”) in order to distinguish it from a letter that might have different sounds in different languages or multiple sounds in a single language.

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    Language Structure and Use © Mometrix Media - flashcardsecrets.com/ctel CTEL Exam Distinguish between the main prosodic features of language (pitch, tone, intonation, and stress), and explain how they differ from phonemes.

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    Language Structure and Use Spoken language relies on differences in sound to create differences in meaning. The primary source of these sound differences is phonemes. Differences in sound can affect meaning at a level above that of individual phonemes, however, by operating on syllables, words, or even sentences. Linguists refer to these as prosodic features of language . The two main prosodic features are pitch (which in turn is divided into tone and intonation ) and stress . Pitch , while technically a difference in the frequency of the vibration of the vocal cords, is recognized by listeners as a continuum between low and high. Many languages use pitch to distinguish between words, in which case it is referred to as tone . Cantonese, for example, is a tonal language. If the pitch rises or falls over the course of a sentence, it is referred to as intonation . In English, intonation is often used to distinguish a statement from a question. Stress refers to a difference in force applied to an element of speech, usually a syllable. Multi-syllabic words in English have a standard pattern of stress. With some words, changing the pattern of stress may lead to a change of meaning, as between “con-VERT” and “CON-vert.”

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