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Unit 7: Vowels and Its Phonetic Transcription

In truth, the only way of learning the Cardinal Vowels properly, and ensuring that they can act as a Notes
fixed set of reference points as they were designed to do, is to learn them from someone who already
knows the system, and do a considerable amount of practice (various tapes and videos are available
if you wish to do this). For the moment, what matters is to have an idea of what the Cardinal Vowels
are, and what the theoretical justification for such a system is, in terms of describing the vowels of an
unfamiliar language, or giving a principled account of the differences between the vowels of English
and some other language, or different accents of English. We turn to such differences, as well as a
more detailed outline of English vowel phonemes and allophones, in the next two chapters.
Self-Assessment
1. Using the ‘phonetic’ definitions of ‘vowels’ and ‘consonant’ say how many vowels and how many
consonants there are in the following English words.
(i) Call (ii) Know (iii) Thumb (iv) Hasses
(v) Blessed (vi) Leaves (vii) Wish (viii) Language
(ix) Photo (x) Cunning.
7.4 Summary

• We classify vowels according to a grid of two characteristics: whether the lips are more nearly
close or open, and whether the tongue is more nearly front, central, or back in the mouth as the
vowel is being produced.
• The front vowels are, going from close to open, the vowels in lead (as in “a horse”), lid, laid, lead
(as in pencil), lad, and lod (if that were a word ... it would rhyme with how most Americans
pronounce prod, sod, God).
• The central vowels, both of which are middle vowels, are the second vowel of bullet and the
first vowel of Luddite. The second vowel of bullet, the mid-central vowel, is often “reduced,”
and the symbol for it is called schwa. The first vowel of Luddite is more heavily stressed.
• The back vowels, again going from close to open, are the vowels of lewd, look, load, laud, and
Lawd (as pronounced in a rich stage dialect). The vowel of Lawd is close to what your doctor
makes you say to get a look at the back of your throat, because to make that sound you open
your mouth and depress your tongue as far as possible.
• Many vowel sounds in English are diphthongs, vowels that begin in one vowel position and
move toward another as the vowel is articulated. The vowel in laid is actually a diphthong,
beginning with the “long a” sound and ending a bit closer. Starting with the vowel of prod and
going up much closer gives the diphthong in lied. Starting with the back vowel of laud and then
moving front and near-close yields the diphthong in Lloyd. Starting way back and open and
moving up to a back near-close sound gives the diphthong of loud. The English “long” vowels
are usually pronounced as diphthongs: the vowels of lead, load, and lewd are actually pure
vowels followed by a semivowel “off-glide.”
• Note, however, that the distinction between “long” and “short” vowels, so often made in
elementary teaching, is really not a distinction between long and short versions of the same
sound. For instance, we think of the vowel in bad as being a “short a” and the vowel in bathe as
being a “long a.” But the two sounds are quite different and articulated in different parts of the
mouth. Bathe has a “long” sound because it is a diphthong, not because it has the sound of bad
lengthened. We call both of these vowels “a” sounds just because of an accident of spelling.
• At the present moment, the consonants in stone, home, boat and road are pretty much stable in all
English dialects, except that the majority of British speakers have no initial consonant in home
and may also substitute a glottal stop for the final /t/ in boat. So there’s great stability in this
age-old consonant pattern at the present moment.
• But there’s enormous variability world-wide in the vowels of these words. This variability is
the basic manifestation of what we call “accents” or dialectal differences in pronunciation. The
OE vowel has disappeared from these words, leaving a host of regional variants.

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