We can account for the fact that the sound[t] is pronounced differently in the words above by applying the concepts of phonemes and allophones. That is, English /t/ has a phoneme /t/, which is related to three different allophones, namely [t] these three allophones are the different ways of pronouncing the phoneme/t/ in dif netic environments. The aspirated[t' always occurs in word-initial position It is usually found after/s/; and the flap[r] normally appears betw ssed vowel and an unstressed vowel. Note that in transcription, we put phoner distinguishing them from allophones and phones talked about in ge ch are enclosed in square brackets Therefore, the"t' sounds, Ith], [t], and[r, in words such as till, still, and bit etically related. They all belong to a single class of speech sounds. The soun and rl are allophones of the same phoneme/tl; they are the possible w ouncing the single phoneme depending on the context in which it is pro re 3.1 summarizes the relation between the phoneme/t/ and its allopho ish.