Unit 4 Phonetic Transcription.

1. Definition of transcription.

2. Broad transcription.

3. Narrow transcription.

One of the problems in phonology is the problem of representing speech visually. This problem is closely connected with the problem of phonological analysis, because any system of writing is not a simple record of speech utterances. It is always a generalization about them. Be it ideographic writing (with a different symbol for each word as in Chinese writing) or syllabic writing (with a symbol for each syllable as in Japanese writing) or alphabetic writing (with a symbol for each sound or combination of sounds as in English and Russian) writing systematizes and provides a distinctive symbol for each class of sounds it represents.

Since conventional spelling cannot and does not represent the phonetic form of words, a special script is used for this purpose. It is called phonetic transcription.

A transcription, which is a visual system of notation of the sound structure of speech, is also a generalization of a great variety of sounds that are uttered by speakers of a given language. In other words, transcription is a set of symbols representing speech sounds.

The extent of generalization may vary. One may classify the sounds into phonemes disregarding the different degrees of aspiration, labialization, length, palatalization and other phonologically irrelevant features of sounds.

On the one hand, one can differentiate between all these features and classify them as well. Consequently, there may be different types of transcription, depending on the degree of exactness required.

If it is accuracy only in representation of the phonemes of the language which is required the transcription should provide each phoneme with a distinctive symbol to avoid ambiguity.

A visual system of graphic notation, which helps to record adequately the phonemes, stress and intonation of living speech is called phonetic transcription.

It has always been one of the main concerns of the phonetic science to work out a transcription. Attempts to create a phonetic script for teaching and research purposes date as far as back as the 16^th – 17^th centuries.

But it was only after the international phonetic association (IPA) was founded in 1887 that any of the phonetic alphabets became widely spread. A few of the creators of the international scripts should be mentioned: D. Jones, H. Sweet, P. Passy, O. Jesperson.

H.Sweet – the creator of broad and narrow transcription – belongs as much to the 20^thcentury as to the 19^th and his influence is clearly seen in the works of D. Jones, who has dominated British English phonetics of this century.

It is interesting to note that one of the original basic principles suggested by H. Sweet is the phoneme idea. He wrote, “…there should be a separate sign for each distinctive sound that can change the meaning of any word being used instead of another in the same word”.

Practically all modern phonetic transcriptions used now in different foreign languages are based on the transcription of the IPA, which was worked out in 1904 and is called the international phonetic transcription.

Most of the symbols it uses are letters of the Latin alphabet. International phonetic transcription is often called the universal transcription as it may be applied to most languages. It is very simple and can be used for all purposes.

Special symbols used for each phoneme reflect the qualitative differences of the phonemes. The abstractional and the material aspects of the phoneme have given rise to and are reflected in two basic types of phonetic transcription:

• Phonemic

• Allophonic (phonetic)

N2. According to Henry Sweet there are two main types of transcription – broad and narrow. Broad or phonemic transcription provides special symbols for all the phonemes of a language. It is mainly used for practical expedience. The striking difference among present-day broad transcriptions of British English is mainly due to the varying significance, which is attached to vowel quality and quantity. The phonemic transcription is used to represent the phonetic system of a language.

A phonemic or linguistically broad transcription is based on the principle “one symbol per phoneme”. Thus, each of its symbols denotes a phoneme as a whole, i.e. an abstraction and generalization. The phonemic transcription is used to represent the phonemic system of a language. All the symbols of the phonemic transcription are usually placed between slanting lines (/ /). The broad type of the international phonetic transcription was first used by Daniel Jones in his “English Pronouncing Dictionary” published in 1917.

Broad transcription is represented by two kinds. The first type was introduced by D. Jones and the 2^nd type - by V.A. Vassiliev. The difference is that the 1^st type of notation disguises the qualitative difference between the vowels. They introduced different types of representation of vowels.

Being a good visual aid this way of notation can be strongly recommended for teaching the pronunciation of English to any audience.

N3.

A narrow or allophonic transcription provides special symbols to denote not only the phoneme as a language unit but also its allophonic modifications. It is based on the principle “one symbol per allophone”, so the allophonic transcription provides special marks to represent phonemic variants. These signs are called diacritic marks: (e.g. : - lenghth, t – rounding of the lips, labialization, ?? - nasalization, w/? - lips are more rounded.

• spreading

• devoicing

• voicing

• advanced variety

• a reflected variety

The symbol [h] e.g. indicates aspirated articulation, cf. [k^heit] - [skeit].

The symbols of an allophonic transcription are usually placed between the square brackets ([ ]). In phonetic literature an allophonic transcription is usually called a phonetic transcription in contrast to a phonemic one. One should know that this type of transcription is mainly used in research work.

These terms are very unhappy, because they suggest that Phonetics and Phonology are different sciences. Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba, for example, protested against divorcing Phonology from Phonetics whose integral part it actually is.

Phonemic transcriptions are used more extensively than the allophonic ones. At first glance it may seem that for teaching languages an allophonic transcription is better suited because it’s more exact. Yet, in language teaching only separate symbols of an allophonic transcription are occasionally used. But whole words and texts are hardly ever transcribed allophonically. A text in an allophonic transcription is hard to read.

A phonemic transcription is easier, quicker and more convenient to write by hand.

The American linguists use what is often called the linguistic alphabet. L. Bloomfield was the first who used such symbols as:

iy – [i:] ah – [a:] ə h – [ə:]

uw – [u:] oh – [o:]

The linguistic alphabet is widely used by those, who study American English pronunciation.