SPE8210 : MSc Phonetics II: Segment, Gesture and Prosody
- Offered for Year: 2024/25
- Module Leader(s): Dr Cong Zhang
- Lecturer: Professor Ghada Khattab
- Owning School: Education, Communication & Language Sci
- Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus
Semesters
Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.
| Semester 1 Credit Value: | 10 |
| Semester 2 Credit Value: | 10 |
| ECTS Credits: | 10.0 |
| European Credit Transfer System | |
Aims
This module serves as a foundation in instrumental, acoustic and advanced articulatory phonetics. The main aims are:
1. To further develop an understanding of articulatory phonetics and listening and transcription skills, building on what the students will have covered in year one.
2. To introduce the students to Acoustic Phonetics, the branch of phonetics that deals with the properties of sound waves.
3. Building upon theoretical foundations in speech production and perception, to enable students to use instrumental techniques for speech analysis, including clinical analysis of speech. The focus will be on spectrography since this is by far the most widely-used and versatile method.
In relation to HCPC Standards of Proficiency, this module addresses aspects of the following standards but is not the only module to do so:
7.3 understand the characteristics and consequences of verbal and non-verbal communication and recognise how these can be affected by difference of any kind, including, but not limited to, protected characteristics, intersectional experiences and cultural differences
12.2 demonstrate awareness of the principles and applications of scientific enquiry, including the evaluation of treatment efficacy and the research process
12.7 understand linguistics and phonetics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and all levels of typical processing and the differences for individuals whose home language is not English
13.13 administer, record, score and interpret a range of published and self generated assessment tools to describe and analyse service users’ abilities and needs using, where appropriate, phonetic transcription, linguistic analysis, instrumental analysis and psycholinguistic assessment
13.14 apply knowledge of communication impairment, linguistics, phonetics, psychology and biomedical sciences to the identification, assessment and differential diagnosis of a range of communication and swallowing impairments
Outline Of Syllabus
This module introduces the students to instrumental techniques and covers:
1. Introduction into instrumental and acoustic phonetics
2. Sound and sound waves
3. Source and filter theory of speech production
4. Introduction to the software Praat that will be used for instrumental analyses of speech
5. Acoustic properties of sounds
6. Connected speech processes
7. Acoustic analysis in the assessment of consonants
8. Phonological assessment of vowels (bearing in mind dialectal differences)
9. Phonological assessment of prosody
10. Auditory phonetics and perception of speech
11. Acoustic analyses in the assessment of voice disorder/Phonological theory and application in an SLT context.
In relation to the RCSLT curriculum guidance, the module covers aspects related to phonetics and linguistics (4.4.1) including phonetics and clinical application, general linguistics and clinical applications (phonology) and sociolinguistics.
Teaching Methods
Teaching Activities
| Category | Activity | Number | Length | Student Hours | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guided Independent Study | Assessment preparation and completion | 1 | 44:00 | 44:00 | N/A |
| Scheduled Learning And Teaching Activities | Lecture | 14 | 1:00 | 14:00 | Lectures on acoustic phonetics |
| Scheduled Learning And Teaching Activities | Practical | 9 | 1:00 | 9:00 | Used to practice production, transcript and recognition of the IPA and the extended IPA sound system |
| Scheduled Learning And Teaching Activities | Workshops | 14 | 1:00 | 14:00 | Lab sessions used to allow in depth practice in instrumental techniques of speech sounds. |
| Guided Independent Study | Independent study | 1 | 120:00 | 120:00 | N/A |
| Total | 201:00 |
Teaching Rationale And Relationship
Knowledge outcomes are addressed through lectures to introduce concepts, plus guided reading to allow students to follow these up in more depth.
Lab practicals are used to familiarise the students with the use of instrumental analyses techniques.
Small group tutorials are used to enable intensive practice in practical phonetic skills.
Assessment Methods
The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners
Exams
| Description | Length | Semester | When Set | Percentage | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Digital Examination | 30 | 2 | A | 25 | Phonetic component 1 - Dictation - in-person digital exam using Inspera |
| Oral Examination | 10 | 2 | A | 25 | Phonetics component 2 - Oral - organised in House |
Other Assessment
| Description | Semester | When Set | Percentage | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Written exercise | 1 | A | 50 | Phonetic component 3: Phonetic individual project |
Assessment Rationale And Relationship
All essential components of this module are to be passed to allow for progression.
The phonetics project requires students to use their knowledge of articulatory and acoustic properties of speech to perform a spectrogram segmentation while taking into account linguistic and social variability in speech.
The phonetics transcription test (digital exam) assesses students' abilities to transcribe speech accurately using the IPA conventions.
The phonetics oral transcription test assesses the students’ abilities to produce the sounds of the IPA.
Reading Lists
Timetable
- Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
- SPE8210's Timetable