THE THEORIES OF PHONOLOGY

Sayyidati Maliha
Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teacher Training
State Islamic University of North Sumatera
Email: smliha25@gmail.com

Abstract
This article aims to provide the information about the theory of phonology to improve
the knowledge about phonology. The theories that will be discussed about phonology in
this article are: 1) Phonology theory, 2) English Vowel Thory, 3) English Consonant
Theories.
The information was collected by using e-book and international journals which
obtained from internet or websites. The research method used in this article is library
research method (Pustaka Research). The information analysis test was carried out by
reading, analyzing and identifying, discussing discussions regarding phonology and
reviewing the material.
The purpose of this article is to introduce some theories in phonology to the readers. If
they know how the process of sound, they would become the better speaker of listener.
Keyword: analyzing, discussing.

Abstrak
Artikel ini bertujuan untuk memberikan informasi tentang teori fonologi untuk
meningkatkan pengetahuan tentang fonologi para pembaca. Teori-teori yang akan dibahas
dalam artikel ini antara lain: 1) Teori fonologi, 2) Teori huruf vokal, dan 3) Teori
Konsonan dalam bahasa Inggris.
Informasi dikumpulkan dengan menggunakan buku elektronik dan jurnal
internasional yang diperoleh dari internet dan situs web. Metode penelitian yang
digunakan dalam penulisan artikel ini adalah metode penelitian pustaka. Uji analisis data
dalam artikel ini dilakukan dengan membaca buku dan jurnal internasional,
mengidentifikasi dan menganalisa, mengkaji pembahasan tentang fonologi dan mengkaji
ulang materi.
Tujuan dari artikel ini adalah untuk mengenalkan beberapa teori-teori dalam fonologi
kepada pembaca. Jika mereka mengetahui bagaimana proses dalam berbicara, mereka
akan menjadi pembaca yang lebih baik dari pendengar.
Kata kunci: analisis, diskusi.

1
1. INTRODUCTION
In phonology, every languages have
phonological rules. It classified into a
few major sorts of process that the
language includes. One of them is
phonological rules for absorption
process which occur in associated
speech. The term digestion according to
Pavlik as a rule refers to contextual
variability of speech sounds, which is
said to be caused by impact of one
sound upon another. The process of
assimilation is replacing one sound
influenced by the another word which
makes comparative or same sound.
Another process such as elision, point,
connecting, and development are
moreover met in fast or associated
speech.
Phonology is the branch of
linguistcs that distinguishes and
analyzes the pattern and organization of
speech sounds in a language.
Phonology is the study of sound
relating to the framework of language.
(Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Grundzuge der
Phonologie, 1939).
Phonology is the study of linguistic
sound frameworks. Though
phoneticians consider the physical
properties of speech sounds,
phonologists, specialists in phonology,
explore speech sounds` useful
properties.
Phonology theories bargain with the
mental representation and computation
of human spech sounds. This article
contains the reearch, focusing on
current theories and recent
developments of phonology.
Phonology can be described as the
study of sound of human speech. One
of the benfits of considering phonetics,
is that it appears the contrast between
languages through the distinctive
sounds that the language in question
have. There are languages that share a
few sounds but the contrast comes
within the sounds that they do not share
(Dohlus, 2008).
It is additionally important to note
that phonology also makes a difference
in learning and understanding a
language more. The more one gets to
understand the distinctive sounds that
are uttilized in a particular language, the
more they get to understand the
pronunciation of that language and how
this affects other languages. This can be
imperative tool in measurable
phonetics. The uttilize of phonetics in a
crime scene can advise the criminal
agents where the criminal was coming
from (Avery, Dresher, and Rice, 2008).
Phonology is additionally important
since it helps in other proffesions as an
example, singing. Singing requires the
consolidation of diferrent sounds of a
language. In afew songs, there is an
enterprise of sounds from two or more
languages. Understanding the sound
patterns of these languages is
exceptionally imperative in coming up
with a song and a tune.
2. RESEARCH METHOD
This research was obtained by
taking a few of the existing materials.
Then, this research also uttilized a
qualitative approach and library
research strategy, which suggests that
the information or materials for analysis
source from e-books, journals and
scientific articles that can be uttilized as
source for compiling the scientific
report for this article.
The introduction of the writing of
this article was done by obtaining the
data from a few sources, those are e-
books, journals, and also articles from
website, which was inspected and the
opinions or concepts contained within
the previous sources, since the most
2
 reason of the consider was to discover
out things related to the phonological
theories.
The analysis techniques used in this
article are identify and analyze, discuss
and categorize the specific sides about
phonology materials
3. DISCUSSION AND RESULT
1. Phonology Theory
According to Jarrah (2012), she
states that phonology refers to the patterns
of phonetic components uttilized in the
phonological forms of important
substances of a language, how the sound
works to make significant substances in a
language reflected through the
pronunciation.
From applied linguistics pespective
(applied linguistic refers to exercises
which involve solving a few language-
related isuues). Phonetics should be
employed in conjuction with phonology
particularly to learn and to teach (how
language sounds work in communication
e.g., pronunciation). Phonetics offer the
information for phonology. Both
disciplines are exceptionally closely
related to each other since it is almost
incomprehensible to understand
phonology without having deep
information of phonetics. In other words,
phonetic feeds phonology with the
information (e.g., types of speech sounds)
to create it `alive` in investigating sound
relationships and patterns in English
language. Subsequently, it is additionally
said that pronunciation is phonology in
action. In short, phonetices has done its job
to describe the way English sounds are
made, classified, and how they are spoken
to in symbols. Then, phonology must
uttilize the results of the work and change
in forming meaning of English language.
There are two branches of linguistic
science that deal with speech sound,
phonetics and phonology.
Phonetics is fundamentally an
exploratory science which considers
speech sounds from three perspectives,
these are:
1) Production, how sounds are
made in the human vocal tract
2) Acoustics, the study if
waveforms by which speech is
transmitted trough the
atmosphere.
3) Perspective, how the
approaching acoustic signal is
prepared to distinguish the
sound sequence originally
aiming by the speaker.
Phonology is additionally, in some
cases, an exploratory science, in spite of
the fact that it also involves a reasonable
degree of formal analysis and theoretical
theorizing. The essential information on
which phonological theory rests are
phonetic information, that is, perception of
the phonetic form of utterances. The
objective of phonology is to understand the
implied framework of the rules that the
speaker uses in apprehending and
controlling the sounds of the language.
In rule, a phonologist should
understand all of the three ranges of
phonetics above that mentioned as
production, acoustics, and perceptions. Of
these, production probably has the most
prominent practical significance for the
study of phonology. Since it is also the
simplest point of view to describe.
According to Halle (1995b), states
that “... the existence of phonology in
every language shows that faithfulness [in
optimally theory] is best an ineffective
principle that might be well be done
without.”
Phonology position in the Branches
of Phonetics, As a field that concentrates
3
on the description and analysis
of speech sounds, the work of phonology
is valuable and indeed utilized by other
branches of linguistics, such as
morphology, sentence structure, and
semantics.
a. Phonology in the branch of
Morphology
The sounds of a language,
themselves insignificant, exist in arrange
to create audible the higher-level structural
units that do bear meaning: morphemes,
words, phrases, sentences. It should not be
surprising that phonology is closely
connected with morphology and lsnguage
structure (syntax)., the two components of
linguistic use that create these higher-level
units. No adequate phonological
description of a language is possible
without reference to morphology and
syntax.
The field of morphology that
concentrates on the level of the internal
structure of words regularly takes
advantage of the results of phonological
studies,for the illustration is when
explaining the basic morpheme {reuire} is
pronounced varied between [perlU] and
[pErlu] and is pronounced [require] after
getting a morphological process by adding
the suffix morpheme {-kan }.
b. Phonology in the branch of
syntax
The syntactic field that concentrates
on the sentence level, when managing with
sentences you stand. (news sentence), you
stand up? (questioning sentence), and you
stand! (command sentence). the three
sentences each comprise of the same two
words but have different meanings. These
contrast can be explained by utilizing the
results of phonological analysis,
specifically about intonation, stops and
stress in sentences which can actually
distinguish the meaning of sentences,
especially in Indonesian.
2. Vowel Theory
Vowel Fundamentals 
The consonant sounds in speech
sound are delivered by discouraging the
vocal tract to changing the degrees. They
can be classified in terms of three factors
involved in their production:
1. The way in which discuss is
released from the sound
2. The put within the mouth, nose,
or throat where the air flow are
restricted.
3. Whether the vocal folds vibrate
to include voicing to the
consonant sound.
With all these things as production
rules, the consonants of a particular
language are simple to listen, feel and see.
In differentiate, the vowel sounds of
speech are made with exceptionally little
obstacle of the vocal tract. Think of the
mouth as a cave whose wal are versatile.
Changing dimension for each vowel
sound. It is the movements of the tongue,
lips and jaw and the degree of pressure
within the cavity, that recognize one vowel
sound to another. In spite of the fact that
these movements for creating English
vowels are more articulated that they are
for numerous languages, still, they are not
very unmistakeable, unlike consonant,
vowels are not simple to listen, feel and
also see.
All vowels are produced in a very
limited ‘vowel space’ in the centre of the
oral tract, roughly between palatal and
velar in consonantal terms; and the place
of articulation will also be much more
difficult to scertain from self-observation,
since the tongue never moves close enough
to the roof of the mouth in vowel
production to make its position easy to
feel.
The quality of a vowel depends on
the shape of the vocal tract as the air
passes through. Different parts of the
tongue may be high or low in the mouth;
4
the lips may be spread or pursed; the and front of
velum may be raised or lowered. Vowel tongue up
sounds carry pitch and loudness; you can  Jaw moves from an
sing vowels or shout vowels. They may be open to a more closed
longer or shorter in duration. Vowels can position
stand alone—they can be produced  The lips are
without consonants before or after them. unrounded
You can say the vowels of beat [bit], bit  The vocal folds
[bɪt], and boot [but], for example, without separate and vibrate
the initial [b] or the final [t], but you  The velum is raised
cannot say a [b] or a [t] alone without at blocking off the nasal
least a little bit of vowel sound. cavity
/aɪ/  The tongue moves Boy, voice,
The classification of Vowel from a low back foil, point,
position to a high enjoy,
To describe vowels adequately and front position destroy, coin
accurately, we then need to consider three
 From lips rounded,
different parameters, all of which can be
make lips wide
seen as modifications of the place or
 The vocal folds
manner of articulation continua for
separate and vibrate
consonants: as we shall see, these are
height, frontness and rounding.  The velum is raised
Additionally, vowels may be long or short blocking off the nasal
(long ones are marked with a following cavity
below), and monophthongs or diphthongs.
Two diphthongs glide towards ʊ,
a. Diphthong
so that as the tongue moves closer to the
Dipthong is sounds which consist of a roof of the mouth there is at the same time
movement or glide from one vowel to a rounding movement of the lips. This
another. A vowel which remains constant movement is not a large one, again
and does not glide is called a pure vowel, because the second part of the diphthong is
and one of the most common weak.
pronunciation mistakes that result in a
/əʊ/  The tongue is Home, ago,
learner of English having a “foreign”
set lower loan, old,
accent is the production of pure vowels that /ʊ/ at the shoulder,
where diphthong should be pronounce. back, with a widow
Three of the diphthongs glide towards small pressure
ɪ, as described below :  Jaw is slightly
lowered
/eɪ/  Lips spread in Wait, eight,  Lips are round
a relaxed strange, shape and
position stay,baby, forward
 Tongue moves neighbour  The vocal
up to high folds separate
position and vibrate
/aɪ/  The back of Eye, like,  The velum is
tongue lowers side, quite, raised
silent, while
5
 blocking off to context (such as the type of sound that
the nasal follows them) and the presence or absence
cavity of stress. These vowels tend to be long, the
/aʊ/  The tongue Cloud, symbols consist of one vowel symbol plus
moves from a flower,
a length-mark made of two dots
low back tower, loud,
position to a around, /iː/  Tongue pushes Free, agree,
mid-high front now
forward and moves sheep,
position believe,
up in the mouth
 Jaw is raised while the sides touch meal,
during sound tooth ridge and the complete
production tip of the tongue is
 From an set behind the lower
unrounded teeth
shape, lips  Jaw is raise
move to a  Lips are
round shape unrounded and may
 The vocal be pulled back
folds separate  The vocal
and vibrate folds separate and
 The velum is vibrate
raised  he velum is
blocking off raised blocking off
the nasal the nasal cavity
cavity
/ɑː/  The tongue is Burn, word,
set at a back and search, her,
low position world, bird
b. Monophtong
 Jaw is lowered
A is a pure vowel sound, one whose more than the rest
articulation at both beginning and end is of the back vowels
relatively fixed, and which does not glide  Lips are
unrounded and
up or down towards a new position of wide open
articulation. The monophthongs can be  The vocal
contrasted with diphthongs, where the folds separate and
vowel quality changes within the same vibrate
syllable, and hiatus, where two vowels are  The velum is
next to each other in different syllables. A raised blocking off
vowel sound whose quality does not the nasal cavity
/ɜː/  The tongue tip Burn, word,
change over the duration of the vowel is
of tongue curls search, her,
called a pure vowel. world, bird
up and is near
Long vowel, these are the vowels top of mouth
 Jaw moves
which tend to be longer than the short
down a little
vowel ini similar context. It is necessary to  Lips are
say in “in similar context” because, as we rounded
shall see later, the length of all English  The vocal
vowel sounds varies very much according folds separate

6
 and vibrate short vowels. The symbols for these short
 The velum is vowels are: ɪ, e, æ, Λ, ɒ, ʊ. Short vowels
raised blocking are only relative short; as we shall see
off the nasal later, vowels can have quite different
cavity
lengths in different contexts.
/uː/  The tongue is True, you,
raised to a high move, /ɪ/  The tongue is Him, miss,
back position, whose, two, honest, sit,
put forward
against the chew kit, return,
and lower in
teeth at the the mouth than bit, remind
back of the the sound /iː/ ,
mouth while while the sides
the back of the touch the teeth
tongue is out and the tip is
forward to behind the
create an air lower teeth
passage  Jaw moves
 Jaw is raised lower a little
 Lips are than /iː/
rounded and  The lips are
put forward unrounded
 The vocal  The vocal folds
folds separate separate and
and vibrate vibrate
 The velum is  The velum is
raised blocking raised blocking
off the nasal off the nasal
cavity cavity
/ɔː/  The tongue is Sport, short,  Do not spread
set at the back wall, lips into a
in a low-mid launch, law, smile
position fall /Λ/  Tongue is in Honey,
 Jaw moves the middle of done, flood,
down a little mouth must,
 The lips are  Jaw moves sunny,
rounded, but down a little touch
less than /u/ bit
or /o/  The lips are
 The vocal unrounded
folds separate  The vocal folds
and vibrate separate and
 The velum is vibrate
raised blocking  The velum is
off the nasal raised blocking
cavity off the nasal
cavity
/e/  The tongue is Anyone,
English has a large number of vowel
put forward, them,
sounds; the first ones to be examined are breath, hell,
near the tooth

7
 ridge, the sides met, head,  The velum is
of tongue eleven raised blocking
touch the teeth off nasal cavity
and the tip of  Have similar
the tongue is sound with /æ/
behind the /ʊ/  The back of Cook
lower teeth tongue is Foot
 Jaw is up raised up to a Book
 The lips are high position Took
unrounded and and touches the Wool
may be pulled teeth at the
back back of the
 The vocal folds mouth
separate and  Jaw moves up
vibrate a little
 The velum is  The lips are
raised blocking usually
off the nasal rounded and
cavity forward
/ə/  Tongue is up a Open,  The vocal
little and curls answer, folds separate
near the top of ballance, and vibrate
mouth mother,  The velum is
 Jaw moves woman, and raised blocking
down a little banana off the nasal
 The vocal fold /ɒ/  The tongue is Shot, body,
separate and set at a low dog, stop,
vibrate back position block, box
 The velum is in the mouth.
raised blocking  Jaw moves
off the nasal down
cavity  The lips are
/æ/  The tongue is Man unrounded and
put a little bit Black wide open
forward and Challenge  The vocal folds
low in the Narrow separate and
mouth with the Thanks vibrate
tip of tongue is  The velum is
behind the raised blocking
lower teeth off the nasal
 Jaw moves cavity
down
 The lips are
unrounded and 3. Consonant Theory
can be pulled
back Each of the consonants and/or
 The vocal folds vowels in English can be used to spell
separate and several different sounds in the language.
vibrate Thus, many words are not spelled the way

8
they sound. This leads to frequent
pronunciation problems for new English
speakers. Frankly, even native speakers are
sometimes stymied when it comes to
pronouncing an unfamiliar printed word.
There is another factor to consider in
pronunciation: Is a particular sound part of
your personal “speech bank?” Your
pronunciation abilities are colored by the
structure and rules of your first language.
No two languages sound alike. There may
be consonants or vowels used frequently in
one language that do not even exist in
another language. Or, a sound may exist
only in certain word positions in one
language and have totally different usage
rules in another.
In the production of sounds
generally, there are three operative terms
which all students of the subject should be
firmly knowledgeable about. These are the
terms plosive, fricative and nasal.
Practically all natural languages have
plosive consonants, fricative consonants
and nasal consonants, in varying numbers
and in varying distributional patterns. In
the realization of a plosive consonant, four
stages described here in sporting terms are
notable:
a. Two articulators come together –
the articulators may be the lips
coming together; the tongue
moving up to be in contact with
the teeth ridge (alveolar ridge) or
the back part of the tongue being
in contact with the soft palate.
We may refer to this as the
preparatory or the “on-your-
marks” phase.
b. The air from the lungs is now
held completely in check; the
united organs prevent it from
escaping. We can call this the
‘get-set’ phase.
c. There follows a sudden parting
of the organs, a process which
allows the imprisoned air to
escape. This is the ‘go’ or the
‘plosion’ phase.
d. What follows immediately in the
wake of the plosion may be
voicing or voicelessness
depending on the action of the
vocal lips: vibration or absence
of it. We may call this the post-
plosion (the “pp” stage).
These four stages are applicable to
the articulation of plosive consonants in
practically all natural languages. From
these four stages we can also appreciate
why plosive consonants are sometimes
referred to as stop consonants. With
respect to English, six consonant sounds
/p, b, t, d, k, g/ are often realized following
the four stages outlined above. Of these
six, /b,d,g/ are generally said to be voiced
(even if they are not equally vigorously
voided in all word positions), while /p, t, k/
are generally said to be voiceless. It has
also generally been claimed that the
voiceless plosives are produced with a
great exertion of energy and so the
consonants are said to be strong or fortis.
On the other hand, it is generally claimed
that the realization of the voiced
plosives /b,d,g/ takes a comparatively less
exertion of energy in their realization and
so the plosives are said to be weak or lenis.
The terms fortis and lenis are however not
restricted to English alone. Indeed, any
language in which the dichotomy of
energy exertion is observable may employ
the terms for the description of plosive or
any other consonant sounds for that matter.
The next term in our preliminary
discussion of consonant is fricative.
Fricative consonants are realized when
articulating organs get near to each other,
leaving a small space between them.
Because of the narrowed space, the air that
passes through makes some kind of hissing
sound. Such consonants are often said to
be continuant consonants, and this is
because of the fact that the fricative sounds
can be continued almost indefinitely so
long as the speaker has enough air to
9
continue the pronunciation at any given
time.
The last of the operative terms is
nasal. Nasal consonants are those which
are realized through the nose. For this to
happen, the soft palate must be lowered to
cover the mouth cavity and this allow the
nasal cavity free for the air to pass
through. In all natural languages,
consonants of this class exist and are
explicable in terms of this kind of lowering
of the soft palate. This possibility of
lowering the soft palate during sound
production presupposes that even oral
sounds can be nasalized, (for illustration or
for any other reasons). The process of
nasalized is a very crucial one in sound
production because it makes the important
difference between two sets of sounds –
oral and nasal. Ordinarily, all vowels and
all consonants produced without a
lowering of the soft palate belong to one
class – oral sounds. All other sounds
which pass through the nose cavity are
nasal sounds. In a majority of the world’s
languages, all nasals are voiced. So, in a
detailed description of a nasal, it is
superfluous to say something like. Voiced
velar nasal for / /. It is enough to say: velar
nasal
Conclusion
Phonology can be defined as the
study of sound patterns and their
meanings, both within and across
languages. An example of phonology is
the study of different sounds and the way
they produce together to form words and
speech.
A vowel is a syllabic speech sounds
pronounced that is made without
significant constriction of the flow of air
from the lungs. It is produced by
comparatively open configuration of the
vocal tract and a unit of sound system of a
language that forms the nucleus of a
syllable.
References
Hayes, B. 2009. Introductory Phonology.
A John Wiley & Son, Ltd, Publication.
Paul, D, L. 2007. The Cambridge
Handbook of Phonology. United States of
America by Cambridge University Press,
New York.
Mcmahon, A. 2002. An Introduction to
English Phonology. Edinburgh University
Press.
Nurhayati, D, A, W. 2019. Introduction to
English Phonology. Tulungagung:
Akademia Pustaka.
Goldsmith, J. Riggle, J. Alan, C. 2011. the
Handbook of Phonological Theory:
Second Edition. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Pennington, M, C. 2013. Phonology in
English Language Teaching: An
International Approach. Routledge, New
York.
Kennedy, R. 2017. Phonology: A
Coursebook. Cambridge University Press,
United Kingdom.
Odden, D. 2005. Introducing Phonology.
Cambridge University Press, New York.
Sikorsi, L, D. 2017. M.E.EC: Vowel
System of American English. Advanced
ESL Materials, USA.
Sikorsi, L, D. 2017. M.E.E.C: Consonant
Variations of American English. Advanced
ESL Materials, USA.
Musk, N. Vowels and Consonants of
English: Lecture Notes.
Davis, K, J. 2009. Vowel Pattern.
Germantown, TN 38138.
Kaharudin. Ahmad, D. 2018. English
Phonetics for Indonesian Learners of
English (An Essential Guide to Natural
English Pronunciation). CV. Orbittrust
Corp, Yogyakarta.
10
Regsdale, J, D. 2009. Quarterly Journal of
Speech. Routledge, London.
Ino, L. 2016. Phonology of Muna
Language. International Journal of
Linguistics, Literature and Culture.
Car, P. (1993). Phonology. London: The
Mcmillan Press Ltd.

11