1、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 w
2、ith samples of British vowels as posted by Tony Robinson. His samples are of one person pronouncing words with a hVd frame (hood, hid, had, whod, 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 cha
3、rts. The actual physical distribution of tongue body positions is close to being an ellipse For some reason, printers dont 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 o
4、f 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 lo
5、ok at some of the reasons why a special phonetic alphabet is necessary and then some of the background of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Writing things the way they sound How not to do it Problems with using English spelling conventions Ways to overcome the problem The IPA The Internatio
6、nal Phonetic Association 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 “cor
7、rect“ 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 w
8、ritten 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 Im blame sure they do be, an me rules says p
9、lain 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 foth, but she don. I do
10、n understan wimmin. Seem lak evbody settin fire to somethin evtime I turn my back. Wonder any buildins 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 p
11、ronounced. 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 i
12、s 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 transcr
13、iption. 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
14、 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. Shorthand systems (e.g., Pitman shorthand) Traditional dictionary keys Informal transcription conventions Specialized alphabets, e.g., George Ber
15、nard Shaws 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
16、 saved in not writing silent letters.,Traditional Dictionary Keys,English dictionaries usually give the pronunciation of a word as part of its entry. In Websters dictionary, for example, you will find that the pronunciation of knight is “nt“ and cat is “kt“. In order to understand these pronunciatio
17、n entries, you have to learn what sounds are meant by symbols like “ and “. 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 discussi
18、ng 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
19、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
20、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 re
21、present.,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 Shaws proposed alphabet for English. The only proposed alphabet which has achieved widespread use is the
22、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 whic
23、h 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. T
24、he 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 f
25、or 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 uprighte
26、d 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 sound
27、s 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
28、, 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.,Foundation of Linguistics by Franklin C. Sou
29、thworth and C.J.Daswani Labial唇音Apical 舌尖音Laminal or dorsal 唇背音Glot-tal声门音 Bilabi-al双唇音Labio-dental唇齿音Dent-al齿音Alveo-lar齿龈音 Palatal腭音Ve-lar软腭音Uvu-lar悬雍垂音Stop(plo-sives)塞音Voice-less清音p tckq Voiced浊音b d g Frica-tives (spir-ants)摩擦音Voice-less清音 f s x hVoiced浊音 v z Nasals鼻音 m n Trills颤音 r Later-als舌边音 l
30、,k,cakecrackquickThe 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 re
31、presents 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,
32、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
33、“ 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 transcriptio
34、ns 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 Tra
35、nscriptions,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
36、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 de
37、tails to ignore. Its 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 ign
38、ores 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.,
