Topics:
The sibilants
Palato-alveolar sibilants
Physical description
The learning problem

The Sibilants [ s ], [ z ], [ ʃ ], [ ʒ ]

Among the English fricatives, [ s ] and [ ʃ ] and their 'voiced' counterparts, [ z ] and [ ʒ ] are characterized by very audible high-pitched friction. These sounds are noticeably more 'fricative' than other English fricative sounds such as [ f ] and [ v ] or [ θ ] and [ ð ], and for this reason are referred to as sibilants.

English sibilants are of two basic types. On the one hand, there are so-called alveolar sibilants, [ s ] and [ z ], which occur in words such as sea, boss, zoo, and rose. On the other hand, there are the palato-alveolar sibilants [ ʃ ] and [ z ] (as in she and measure).

Palato-alveolar sibilants

[ ʃ ]

Remember that the [ s/ʃ ] contrast is one of the major phonological contrasts of English. Acquiring authentic-sounding palato-alveolar sibilants is far more important than remembering to use liaison at word boundaries, or using native-sounding vowels or intonation patterns. Start by practicing your palato-alveolars in isolation.

If you have difficulty in producing an authentic-sounding [ ʃ ] you should check these points:

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[ ʒ ]

This sound is the voiced counterpart of [ ʃ ]. If you can say [ ʃ ], you can achieve [ ʒ ] by starting off with [ ʃ ] and “switching on” your voice during production.

Practice saying [ ʃʃʃʃʒʒʒʒʃʃʃʃʒʒʒʒʃʃʃʃʒʒʒʒ ]. Distribution is limited to word-medial position, except in the case of small number (mainly French) loan words, such as prestige, beige, rouge, barrage, collage, where the sound occurs word-finally. It occurs word-initially in the Italian loanword gigolo.

If you want to know how to recognise these sounds in text, click here to learn more:

Physical description

This is complicated by the fact that, in spite of the traditional labelling of these sounds according of place of articulation, it is probably the shape of the tongue, which is critical in producing the characteristic sibilant sound (or either type). Sibilants are produced by channelling the air stream along a groove that runs down the centre of the blade of the tongue (see The diagram); and for this reason, these sounds are sometimes termed ‘grooved fricatives’.

Further, the ‘correctness’ of a sibilant of either type is primarily a matter of how it sounds; and different speakers may produce the right sounds by slightly different articulatory means. Some speakers, for example, use the tongue tip to produce the alveolar sibilants; while others use the blade . To produce a palato-alveolar, the blade is always used; but while some speakers may tuck their tongue tips down behind their lower front teeth, other hold the tongue tip up near the alveolar ridge .

If you want to know more about the physical description of alveolar sibilants, click here.

If you want to know more about the physical description of palato-alveolar sibilants, click here.

The learning problem

In the native Finnish system there is only one sibilant, Finnish /s/, to correspond to the English /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, and /ʒ/. This means that the Finnish learner of English has to go from his/her own less- differentiated native system to a more highly-differentiated one, and is faced with problems of perception and production.

Since there is only one sibilant in Finnish, speakers have certain amount of freedom in the precise quality they give it; and so Finnish /s/ may sometimes have a more palato-alveolar quality than English /s/ does. Nonetheless, the Finnish sound is broadly acceptable as a token for English /s/; because the empirical fact are that except in rare individual cases, Finns have very little trouble with the English alveolar sound. Finnish learners’ problems begin when they try to produce the English palato-alveolars [ ʃ ] and [ ʒ ].

If you want to know more, click here!

Theory adapted from: English Pronunciation (opetusmonisteita) 3rd edition by Michael Peacock.