Segments and Divergences. Transcription and the IPA Collins & Mees 2003; IPA Handbook 1999; Ladefoged 2001; Lodge 2009; McMahon 2002

A segment refers to an individual speech sound (phone). The written language has been an integral part of our lives. Thus, it is very common to think that the number of orthographic letters in a word is an accurate reflection of the number of sounds.

o – women {i}, ti – nation {sh} GHOTI : gh –enough {f}, George Bernard Shaw’s spelling of ‘fish’. GHOTI : gh –enough {f}, o – women {i}, ti – nation {sh}

letters can only tell about spelling and cannot be used as reliable tools for pronunciation. first rule in studying phonetics and phonology is to ignore spelling and focus only on the sounds of utterances.

Orthography (The Alphabet ) vs Transcription (IPA symbols) Orthography – grapheme Art of writing words using accepted symbols – alphabet. Irregular correspondence between the spelling system and sound. There is no one-to-one correspondence between a symbol and a sound

Transcription – phone (sound) One-to-one correspondence between sound and representation. Consistency and accuracy Different sounds are realized differently in connected speech and transcription enables us to show these effects with a degree of accuracy that would otherwise be beyond our reach.

The IPA: International Phonetic Alphabet ambiguities created by the regular orthography must be avoided. there should be a system (notation) that can represent sounds unambiguously. use a phonetic alphabet guided by the principle of a consistent one-to-one relationship between each phonetic symbol and the sound it represents. The symbols are used in whichever language they are heard (in principle we are able to represent sounds from unfamiliar languages).

The phonetic symbols used to represent speech sounds are contained in the IPA. The IPA was developed in 1888, and has been revised since then (currently the one being used was revised in 1993 and updated in 1996 and revised again in 2005).

A phonetic symbol stands for a particular speech sound, or segment, which is defined independently of any language (may also be accompanied by diacritics – below or above). The IPA is based on the Roman Alphabet for the reasons of being familiar but it also includes letters and symbols from a variety of other sources – additions are necessary because the variety of sounds in language are more than the letters of the alphabet.

Vowels and Consonants CONSONANT A speech sound produced with air stream impeded, constricted, diverted, or obstructed. The flow of air is impeded enough to make some disturbance. Since their articulation involve a stricture (narrowing) at a particular point along the vocal tract (the mid line) it is possible to talk about the place and manner of articulation.

VOWEL A speech sound produced with a (relatively) unimpeded air stream. Airflow is unimpeded. There is no stricture so vowels have no place of articulation but are described using the positions of the tongue in the oral cavity.

International Phonetic Alphabet IPA International Phonetic Alphabet

Discrepancies between orthography and transcription. Same sound is represented by different letters. each, bleed, either, achieve, scene, busy, we have the same vowel sound represented by different letters.

Same letter may represent different sounds. gate, any, father, above, tall : a stands for different sounds. /s/ : sugar, vision, sale, resume.

One sound is represented by a combination of letters. thin, rough, attempt, pharmacy.

A single letter may represent more than one sound. exit, union.

Transcription Phonemic (broad, does not tell us precisely how each phoneme is realised, but shows only the distinctive contrasts.) Use slashes / /. Phonetic (narrow – more detailed, use diacritics, indicate the minute articulatory detail of any particular sound. Use square brackets [ ].