Page 103 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Unit 8: Diphthongs and Its Phonetic Transcription

lc
lc
ld
leer [] ) [] ) [ ] ) [t23 ] Notes
ed
ec
lair [ ] ) [t2 4 ] [] [t24 ] [ ) ] [t23 ]
e+
c
d
lure [ ] ) [t2 4 ] [ ] ) [ ) ] [t23 ]
c
8.3 IPA Transcription Systems for English
1. Introduction: the IPA. 2. Pronunciations in dictionaries. 3. Consonants. 4. Stress. 5. Vowels:
quantitative and qualitative. 6. Vowels: the standard scheme. 7. Upton’s scheme.
1. Introduction: the IPA
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is widely used for the transcription of English and
many other languages. People are often surprised to find that not all authorities who claim to
use the IPA transcribe the same words in the same way. They feel that since phonetics is a
science there should be just one pronunciation scheme for a word.
The reasons for the fact that there are several such schemes can be summed up in the term
academic freedom. No one can impose a given transcription scheme on an author, although
most authors have the common sense to adopt a widely-used scheme rather than invent one of
their own.
The IPA offers a set of symbols, and some general guidelines for their use. It does not prescribe
transcription systems for particular languages. In practice, the system that people use may
well depend on the purpose for which they use it. Specifying the pronunciation of a headword
in a dictionary is one thing; transcribing a specimen of running speech, making notes in linguistic
fieldwork, or annotating an acoustic display may each require something rather different.
Transcriptions intended to be used by native speakers of a language may well differ from those
intended for foreign learners; indeed, different groups of foreign learners may have rather
different requirements.
The symbols currently recognized by the IPA are set out on the Chart of its Alphabet. There are
over a hundred of them; any given language normally needs to exploit only a small subset.
2. Pronunciations in dictionaries
Our focus here is on British English dictionaries and how they indicate the pronunciation of
each headword. First, a little history.
Until relatively recently, English dictionaries did not use IPA. Instead, they used (if anything)
various respelling schemes. The only dictionaries that did use IPA were specialist pronunciation
dictionaries, notable Daniel Jones’s English Pronouncing Dictionary (“EPD”, first edition 1917).
The earliest general dictionaries to adopt IPA seem to have been dictionaries aimed at learners
of English as a foreign language: the Oxford Advanced Leaner’s Dictionary (first edition 1948), the
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (first edition, 1978). This was in response to market
forces, since specialist teachers of pronunciation for EFL had been using IPA for many years.
The first native-speaker dictionary with IPA may have been Collins English Dictionary (first
edition 1979). Since then, many others have followed suit.
3. Consonants
The transcription of English consonants in IPA is not subject to any disagreement. Everyone
agrees that we give the symbols/p, t, k, b, d, f, v, s, z, m, n, r, l, w, h/ their usual values as in
ordinary spelling. The remainder are as shown in the box. For Scottish, Welsh and foreign
words there is also /×/ (loch) available.
l or l let, lillle õ sinl, think

t ∫ church d¥ iudge

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 97