Vowels of American English
? Here the vowels of American English are plotted according to the
point of primary obstruction by the tongue in the articulation of the
sound,"Low" refers not only to the position of the tongue but the
jaw as well.
Vowels of British English
? Here is another quadrilaterial with samples of British vowels as
posted by Tony Robinson,His samples are of one person
pronouncing words with a 'hVd' frame (hood,hid,had,who'd,
hayed,etc.)
General American English Vowels
BBC Vowels Sets
Vowel Charts (I)
? There are various levels of
realism/idealism we can
use in drawing vowel
charts.
? The actual physical
distribution of tongue
body positions is close to
being an ellipse
? For some reason,printers
don't like charts that look
like ellipses.
Vowel Charts (II)
? The IPA vowel
chart makes the
ellipse look
closer to being
a rectangle,but
still preserves
much of the
relative spacing
of the vowels.
Vowel Charts ( III)
? A very idealized
(and ruthlessly
rectangular)
vowel chart is
usually used in
the North
American
tradition.
Phonetic Alphabets
? In this course,we will be learning to use the phonetic alphabet
developed by the International Phonetic Association,In this section,
we look at some of the reasons why a special phonetic alphabet is
necessary and then some of the background of the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA),
1.Writing things the way they sound
1.How not to do it
2.Problems with using English spelling conventions
3.Ways to overcome the problem
2.The IPA
1.The International Phonetic Association
2.The International Phonetic Alphabet
Writing things the way they sound
? The standard system used to write a language is
called its orthography (from Greek stems,ortho-
'correct',graphy 'writing'),Even for languages
whose writing systems are based on alphabets,the
standard "correct" spellings often have little to do
with how the words are pronounced,Phonetic
alphabets are designed (and necessary) for writing
down utterances in a way that records how they
sounded,Ideally,someone who never heard the
original utterance should be able to recreate it
simply by reading the written transcription out loud,
How Not to Do it
? Fiction writers will often try to give the impression that a
speaker is using a different accent by deliberately
misspelling some randomly chosen words.
– Pets thim animals may be,an' domestic they be,but pigs I'm
blame sure they do be,an' me rules says plain as the nose on yer
face,'Pigs Franklin to Westcote,thirty cints each.' An' Misther
Morehouse,by me arithmetical knowledge two time thurty comes
to sixty cints,
– Ellis Parker Butler,"Pigs is pigs" 'Pears lak she should pay some
'tention to her fifth husban',or leastwise her fo'th,but she don',I
don' understan' wimmin,Seem lak ev'body settin' fire to somethin'
ev'time I turn my back,Wonder any buildin's standin' in the whole
gahdam United States,
James Thurber,"Bateman comes home“
Why Not
? There are several problems with trying to use ordinary
English spelling conventions to suggest how a word is
pronounced,Firstly,doing so usually has offensive
connotations,Writers seldom use misspelling for the
speech of characters they are trying to get you to respect,
While the misspellings may help suggest that a
character speaks "differently" (from whom?),it usually
also implies that the character is stupid or illiterate,
(This is especially obvious with misspellings like "sez"
that suggest a pronunciation which is almost certainly
identical to pronunciation used by the writer.)
More importantly,English spelling conventions are not
consistent enough to be used in a systematic phonetic
transcription,
?The same letter or letter combination can refer to
different sounds,
?low vs,cow vs,bow,row,sow
?The same sound can be written with different letters
or letter combinations,
?sound,cow,bough
?Different dialects pronounce the same word
differently,
?Good only for English (at best)
Overcoming the Problems
? Several writing systems have been developed
which are more concerned with how a word
sounds than with how it has traditionally been
spelled,
1.Shorthand systems (e.g.,Pitman shorthand)
2.Traditional dictionary keys
3.Informal transcription conventions
4.Specialized alphabets,e.g.,
– George Bernard Shaw's 'Proposed English
Alphabet'
– the International Phonetic Alphabet
Shorthand Systems
? Many of the shorthand systems developed
for English in the last couple of centuries
use the idea of writing down words the way
they sound,rather than the way they are
spelt -- a large motivation being the time
saved in not writing silent letters,
Traditional Dictionary Keys
? English dictionaries usually give the pronunciation
of a word as part of its entry,In Webster's
dictionary,for example,you will find that the
pronunciation of knight is "nīt" and cat is "kǐt",In
order to understand these pronunciation entries,
you have to learn what sounds are meant by
symbols like "ī" and "ǐ",
? As consistent as they can be made for a single
dialect of English,both shorthand systems and the
traditional dictionary pronunciation keys will
suffer from the same problems as ordinary
orthography when it comes to discussing the
differences between dialects.
Informal Transcription Conventions
? Professional linguists,particularly those in
the North American tradition,have over the
past century developed a collection of
symbols for use in phonetic transcriptions,
Many of these are identical to the symbols
used in the International Phonetic Alphabet
(IPA),but there are also several differences.
? Many of these differences made it easier to type
the symbols on a typewriter -- instead of leaving
a space where an [F] should have been and
writing it in by hand later,you could type an
ordinary [s] and only have to put the check mark
on later.
? Unfortunately,this set of transcription
conventions was never standardized,While
some of the symbols were used the same way by
almost everybody,most were not,If you read a
particular symbol in a linguistics article,you
could never be certain what sound it was
supposed to represent,
Specialized Alphabets
? A more radical solution is to create an entirely new
alphabet,Several proposals for new alphabets have
been made over the centuries,One example is George
Bernard Shaw's proposed alphabet for English,
? The only proposed alphabet which has achieved
widespread use is the International Phonetic Alphabet
(IPA),used by phoneticians,linguists,
speech/language pathologists,and increasingly by
dictionary makers and second language teachers.
The IPA
? The initials IPA are used for both the
International Phonetic Alphabet and for the
International Phonetic Association which
created it,It should usually be clear which
one is being referred to.
The International Phonetic Association
? founded in France in 1886
? most original members were language teachers,
(Until 1897,its name was the Phonetic Teachers'
Association.)
? published the first version of its alphabet in 1888,
? The aim of the IPA is to promote the scientific
study of phonetics and the various practical
applications of that science,
? The latest version of the IPA Alphabet was
published in 1993 (updated in 1996).
The International Phonetic Alphabet
? Guiding principle,one sound = one symbol
– a different symbol for each distinctive sound
– the same symbol should be used for that sound
in every language which uses it
– simple symbols for major sounds (from the
roman alphabet where possible)
– diacritics for more minor modifications
Symbol Sources
? Roman small letters
? Capitals with the size cut down
? Italics uprighted
? Obsolete letters
? Greek letters adapted
? New symbols (turning the letters upside
down,writing two letters together)
Diacritics
? A mark added to a letter to indicate a
special phonetic value or distinguish words
that are otherwise graphically identical,
Diacritics are used to show the shades of
sounds which are not identical by the plain
symbols.
IPA Symbols for English Consonants
? Straight forward symbols
? Not-so-straight forward symbols
? New symbols
Straight Forward Symbols
? The following IPA symbols are used for the
same sounds as the letters represent in
standard English orthography,
? [p],[b],[t],[d],[l],[m],[f],[v],[w]
Not-So-Straight Forward Symbols
? The following IPA symbols may be used
slightly differently (or more consistently)
than they are in ordinary English
orthography,[j] is used completely
differently,You should take special care in
using these,
[k]
? cake
? crack
? quick
? The [k] sound may be spelled with
orthographic k,c,ck,or q.
[g]
? In English spelling,the letter g sometimes
represents the first sound of get ("hard g")
and sometimes the first sound of gem ("soft
g") -- and sometimes represents no sound at
all,as in night! The IPA symbol [g] always
represents only the "hard g" sound of get,
? get
? give
? Rog
[s]
? Note that orthographic s often represents [z]
instead of [s],Note that the sound [s] is
often spelled with orthographic c,
? sake
? peace,piece
? Sell
[z]
? Note that the sound [z] is often spelled with
orthographic s,and that some orthographic
zs are not [z],e.g.,pizza,
? zone
? lazy
? knows,nose
[n]
? [n] is always used for the sound in now or
sun,It is not used for the sound that is
spelled with the combination ng.
? when
? nose,knows
[h]
? [h] is always used for the sound in happy or
here,It is not used as in English spelling in
combinations like ch,sh,th.
[j]
? The "y" sound of English is represented
with the IPA symbol [j],similar to the way
it is spelled in German orthography,
? yes
? yellow
? Cute
New symbols
? The following sounds are represented with
new symbols not found in the English
alphabet,
? [W],[T],[F],[V],[tF],[dV],[N],[ ]
Transcription
Definition
Kinds of transcriptions
Narrow transcription
Broad transcription
Definition
? Phonetic transcription is a method of
writing down speech sounds in a systematic
and consistent way,In phonetic study it can
serve as an aid to the description of speech
sounds,and bring spelling and
pronunciation into conformity.
Kinds of Transcriptions
? There is no such thing as the transcription of a word,Strictly
speaking,you can only transcribe how,for example,Kevin
Russell uttered that word cat at 12:58:03 pm on January 15,
1997,You can transcribe that utterance as exactly as possible,
within the limits of your hearing and the conventions provided
by the IPA,If you want to go beyond that,to try to describe
how Kevin Russell pronounces the word in general,or further
still to how English speakers pronounce it in general,then you
have to start making abstractions -- you have to decide which
details to include and which details to ignore,
? It's common to distinguish between two kinds of transcription,
based on how many details the transcribers decide to ignore,
narrow transcription and broad transcription
Narrow Transcription
? Narrow transcription,captures as many
aspects of a specific pronunciation as possible
and ignores as few details as possible,Using the
diacritics provided in the IPA,it is possible to
make very subtle distinctions between sounds,
Broad Transcription
? Broad transciption (or phonemic
transcription),ignores as many details as
possible,capturing only enough aspects of a
pronunciation to show how that word
differs from other words in the language.
? Here the vowels of American English are plotted according to the
point of primary obstruction by the tongue in the articulation of the
sound,"Low" refers not only to the position of the tongue but the
jaw as well.
Vowels of British English
? Here is another quadrilaterial with samples of British vowels as
posted by Tony Robinson,His samples are of one person
pronouncing words with a 'hVd' frame (hood,hid,had,who'd,
hayed,etc.)
General American English Vowels
BBC Vowels Sets
Vowel Charts (I)
? There are various levels of
realism/idealism we can
use in drawing vowel
charts.
? The actual physical
distribution of tongue
body positions is close to
being an ellipse
? For some reason,printers
don't like charts that look
like ellipses.
Vowel Charts (II)
? The IPA vowel
chart makes the
ellipse look
closer to being
a rectangle,but
still preserves
much of the
relative spacing
of the vowels.
Vowel Charts ( III)
? A very idealized
(and ruthlessly
rectangular)
vowel chart is
usually used in
the North
American
tradition.
Phonetic Alphabets
? In this course,we will be learning to use the phonetic alphabet
developed by the International Phonetic Association,In this section,
we look at some of the reasons why a special phonetic alphabet is
necessary and then some of the background of the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA),
1.Writing things the way they sound
1.How not to do it
2.Problems with using English spelling conventions
3.Ways to overcome the problem
2.The IPA
1.The International Phonetic Association
2.The International Phonetic Alphabet
Writing things the way they sound
? The standard system used to write a language is
called its orthography (from Greek stems,ortho-
'correct',graphy 'writing'),Even for languages
whose writing systems are based on alphabets,the
standard "correct" spellings often have little to do
with how the words are pronounced,Phonetic
alphabets are designed (and necessary) for writing
down utterances in a way that records how they
sounded,Ideally,someone who never heard the
original utterance should be able to recreate it
simply by reading the written transcription out loud,
How Not to Do it
? Fiction writers will often try to give the impression that a
speaker is using a different accent by deliberately
misspelling some randomly chosen words.
– Pets thim animals may be,an' domestic they be,but pigs I'm
blame sure they do be,an' me rules says plain as the nose on yer
face,'Pigs Franklin to Westcote,thirty cints each.' An' Misther
Morehouse,by me arithmetical knowledge two time thurty comes
to sixty cints,
– Ellis Parker Butler,"Pigs is pigs" 'Pears lak she should pay some
'tention to her fifth husban',or leastwise her fo'th,but she don',I
don' understan' wimmin,Seem lak ev'body settin' fire to somethin'
ev'time I turn my back,Wonder any buildin's standin' in the whole
gahdam United States,
James Thurber,"Bateman comes home“
Why Not
? There are several problems with trying to use ordinary
English spelling conventions to suggest how a word is
pronounced,Firstly,doing so usually has offensive
connotations,Writers seldom use misspelling for the
speech of characters they are trying to get you to respect,
While the misspellings may help suggest that a
character speaks "differently" (from whom?),it usually
also implies that the character is stupid or illiterate,
(This is especially obvious with misspellings like "sez"
that suggest a pronunciation which is almost certainly
identical to pronunciation used by the writer.)
More importantly,English spelling conventions are not
consistent enough to be used in a systematic phonetic
transcription,
?The same letter or letter combination can refer to
different sounds,
?low vs,cow vs,bow,row,sow
?The same sound can be written with different letters
or letter combinations,
?sound,cow,bough
?Different dialects pronounce the same word
differently,
?Good only for English (at best)
Overcoming the Problems
? Several writing systems have been developed
which are more concerned with how a word
sounds than with how it has traditionally been
spelled,
1.Shorthand systems (e.g.,Pitman shorthand)
2.Traditional dictionary keys
3.Informal transcription conventions
4.Specialized alphabets,e.g.,
– George Bernard Shaw's 'Proposed English
Alphabet'
– the International Phonetic Alphabet
Shorthand Systems
? Many of the shorthand systems developed
for English in the last couple of centuries
use the idea of writing down words the way
they sound,rather than the way they are
spelt -- a large motivation being the time
saved in not writing silent letters,
Traditional Dictionary Keys
? English dictionaries usually give the pronunciation
of a word as part of its entry,In Webster's
dictionary,for example,you will find that the
pronunciation of knight is "nīt" and cat is "kǐt",In
order to understand these pronunciation entries,
you have to learn what sounds are meant by
symbols like "ī" and "ǐ",
? As consistent as they can be made for a single
dialect of English,both shorthand systems and the
traditional dictionary pronunciation keys will
suffer from the same problems as ordinary
orthography when it comes to discussing the
differences between dialects.
Informal Transcription Conventions
? Professional linguists,particularly those in
the North American tradition,have over the
past century developed a collection of
symbols for use in phonetic transcriptions,
Many of these are identical to the symbols
used in the International Phonetic Alphabet
(IPA),but there are also several differences.
? Many of these differences made it easier to type
the symbols on a typewriter -- instead of leaving
a space where an [F] should have been and
writing it in by hand later,you could type an
ordinary [s] and only have to put the check mark
on later.
? Unfortunately,this set of transcription
conventions was never standardized,While
some of the symbols were used the same way by
almost everybody,most were not,If you read a
particular symbol in a linguistics article,you
could never be certain what sound it was
supposed to represent,
Specialized Alphabets
? A more radical solution is to create an entirely new
alphabet,Several proposals for new alphabets have
been made over the centuries,One example is George
Bernard Shaw's proposed alphabet for English,
? The only proposed alphabet which has achieved
widespread use is the International Phonetic Alphabet
(IPA),used by phoneticians,linguists,
speech/language pathologists,and increasingly by
dictionary makers and second language teachers.
The IPA
? The initials IPA are used for both the
International Phonetic Alphabet and for the
International Phonetic Association which
created it,It should usually be clear which
one is being referred to.
The International Phonetic Association
? founded in France in 1886
? most original members were language teachers,
(Until 1897,its name was the Phonetic Teachers'
Association.)
? published the first version of its alphabet in 1888,
? The aim of the IPA is to promote the scientific
study of phonetics and the various practical
applications of that science,
? The latest version of the IPA Alphabet was
published in 1993 (updated in 1996).
The International Phonetic Alphabet
? Guiding principle,one sound = one symbol
– a different symbol for each distinctive sound
– the same symbol should be used for that sound
in every language which uses it
– simple symbols for major sounds (from the
roman alphabet where possible)
– diacritics for more minor modifications
Symbol Sources
? Roman small letters
? Capitals with the size cut down
? Italics uprighted
? Obsolete letters
? Greek letters adapted
? New symbols (turning the letters upside
down,writing two letters together)
Diacritics
? A mark added to a letter to indicate a
special phonetic value or distinguish words
that are otherwise graphically identical,
Diacritics are used to show the shades of
sounds which are not identical by the plain
symbols.
IPA Symbols for English Consonants
? Straight forward symbols
? Not-so-straight forward symbols
? New symbols
Straight Forward Symbols
? The following IPA symbols are used for the
same sounds as the letters represent in
standard English orthography,
? [p],[b],[t],[d],[l],[m],[f],[v],[w]
Not-So-Straight Forward Symbols
? The following IPA symbols may be used
slightly differently (or more consistently)
than they are in ordinary English
orthography,[j] is used completely
differently,You should take special care in
using these,
[k]
? cake
? crack
? quick
? The [k] sound may be spelled with
orthographic k,c,ck,or q.
[g]
? In English spelling,the letter g sometimes
represents the first sound of get ("hard g")
and sometimes the first sound of gem ("soft
g") -- and sometimes represents no sound at
all,as in night! The IPA symbol [g] always
represents only the "hard g" sound of get,
? get
? give
? Rog
[s]
? Note that orthographic s often represents [z]
instead of [s],Note that the sound [s] is
often spelled with orthographic c,
? sake
? peace,piece
? Sell
[z]
? Note that the sound [z] is often spelled with
orthographic s,and that some orthographic
zs are not [z],e.g.,pizza,
? zone
? lazy
? knows,nose
[n]
? [n] is always used for the sound in now or
sun,It is not used for the sound that is
spelled with the combination ng.
? when
? nose,knows
[h]
? [h] is always used for the sound in happy or
here,It is not used as in English spelling in
combinations like ch,sh,th.
[j]
? The "y" sound of English is represented
with the IPA symbol [j],similar to the way
it is spelled in German orthography,
? yes
? yellow
? Cute
New symbols
? The following sounds are represented with
new symbols not found in the English
alphabet,
? [W],[T],[F],[V],[tF],[dV],[N],[ ]
Transcription
Definition
Kinds of transcriptions
Narrow transcription
Broad transcription
Definition
? Phonetic transcription is a method of
writing down speech sounds in a systematic
and consistent way,In phonetic study it can
serve as an aid to the description of speech
sounds,and bring spelling and
pronunciation into conformity.
Kinds of Transcriptions
? There is no such thing as the transcription of a word,Strictly
speaking,you can only transcribe how,for example,Kevin
Russell uttered that word cat at 12:58:03 pm on January 15,
1997,You can transcribe that utterance as exactly as possible,
within the limits of your hearing and the conventions provided
by the IPA,If you want to go beyond that,to try to describe
how Kevin Russell pronounces the word in general,or further
still to how English speakers pronounce it in general,then you
have to start making abstractions -- you have to decide which
details to include and which details to ignore,
? It's common to distinguish between two kinds of transcription,
based on how many details the transcribers decide to ignore,
narrow transcription and broad transcription
Narrow Transcription
? Narrow transcription,captures as many
aspects of a specific pronunciation as possible
and ignores as few details as possible,Using the
diacritics provided in the IPA,it is possible to
make very subtle distinctions between sounds,
Broad Transcription
? Broad transciption (or phonemic
transcription),ignores as many details as
possible,capturing only enough aspects of a
pronunciation to show how that word
differs from other words in the language.
