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 with 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 charts. 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 of 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 look 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 International 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 “correct“ 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 written 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 plain 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 don 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 pronounced. 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 is 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 transcription. 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 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 Bernard 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 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 pronunciation 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 discussing the differences between dialects.,