Have you ever wondered what exactly makes a British accent sound so distinct from an American or Australian one? Why does a word like "handbag" sound like "hambag" in natural speech? And how can we change the quality of our voice to make it sound sexy or authoritative? 

Speech is a seamless, split-second act of physical coordination, yet we rarely pause to analyze how it actually works. This course offers a systematic look into the architecture of spoken English, exploring both the physical mechanics of speech production and how English sounds are organized. We will cover the following topics: 

• The description of English vowels and consonants 
• The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as a framework to analyze and transcribe spoken language 
• Key features that distinguish major English accents around the globe 
• How sounds are organized in syllables 
• How speech sounds subtly shift their pronunciation depending on their position and adjacent sounds 
• The predictable ways words adapt, link, and blend together in natural connected speech 
• How speech prosody—e.g. intonation, stress, and vocal quality—functions in everyday interaction to layer meaning and intent onto our utterances 
   

The course provides essential knowledge and analytical skills applicable to future work in linguistics, communication, speech pathology, language acquisition, and speech technology. While the course uses Southern British English as its primary reference baseline, other varieties of English will also be discussed. 

The nature of speech; vowels and consonants; English accents and sound change; phonemes and allophones; broad and narrow transcription, syllable structure, connected speech processes, prosody (stress, rhythm, intonation, voice quality, etc.), applications of phonetics 

On completing the course, students should be able to:  

1) describe the sound system of Southern British English using appropriate terms in phonetics and phonology;  

2) describe and compare major English accents around the world 

3) appreciate the diverse applications of phonetics such as speech technology, accent studies, sociophonetics, analysing learners' pronunciation problems, and forensic phonetics.