1

1111
2 SPOKEN AND WRITTEN
3
4 LANGUAGE
5
6
7
8
9
10
1
2
3
4
51111 This chapter is concerned with the difference between spoken and
6 written forms of language. The concepts ‘speech sound’, ‘vowel’ and
7 ‘consonant’ are introduced. We also begin to explore differences
8 between different varieties of spoken English.
9
20
1
2 SPEECH AND WRITING
3
4 Say aloud the English word peace in your usual pronunciation. Repeat it
5 several times, and then compare your pronunciation of the word written
6 piece. You will probably find that you pronounce the two words in exactly
7 the same way. The words are written differently, and have different
8 meanings, but for nearly all native speakers of English there is not the
9 slightest difference between them in sound. Words which are pronounced
30 identically are called HOMOPHONES (homo- ‘same’ + phone ‘sound’). Homophone
1
2
3
EXERCISE
4
5
1.1 At least some of the English words in the following groups
6
will be homophones for you. Try to decide which are and
7
which aren’t.
8
9 boy buoy
40 led lead (metal)
1 fool full
2 weight wait
3 horse hoarse
4111 which witch
2 SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

groan grown
luck look
maize maze May’s
sees seas seize C’s
or awe oar ore

Comment
There is no single set of ‘right’ answers to this exercise – the answers
you give will depend in part on the type of English you speak. For
instance fool and full are homophones for many Scots, but not for
speakers from England or Wales. Try to make objective decisions about
your own speech, and then if possible collect answers from a speaker
whose English sounds different from yours.

The homophones we have just considered happen to have distinct

spellings, but this is not always the case. For instance, there are three
different words tick in English:

tick (the mark ✓)

tick (‘credit’. For instance: he bought it on tick)
tick (parasite living on cattle, etc.)

Similarly, there are three homophonous words all spelt till:

till (= until)
till (to dig and cultivate the ground)
till (cash register)

Words which are written the same way (regardless of how they are pro-
Homograph nounced) are termed HOMOGRAPHS (homo- ‘same’ + graph ‘writing’).
The words read (rhymes with feed) and read (rhymes with bed) show us
that English words can be spelt the same way yet pronounced differently.
So not all homophones are homographs, and not all homographs are
homophones. The general conclusion is that sameness and difference
of sound is a completely different issue from sameness or difference of
spelling.

LETTERS AND SOUNDS

The word cat has three letters c, a and t. Most people can agree that it
also has three sounds. We can say the word slowly, splitting it up into
 SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE 3

1111 parts and counting them out on our fingers. But letters and sounds are
2 not at all the same things. The word cough has five letters in spelling –
3 but when we say it, it too only has three sounds. The first is like the first
4 sound of kite, the second is like the middle sound of top, and the last is
5 like the end of roof. A more logical spelling for the word might be kof
6 – and in fact young children learning to write English do invent such
7 spellings. More reliable than makeshift spellings are PHONETIC TRAN- Phonetic
8 SCRIPTIONS using internationally agreed SYMBOLS; our own British transcription

9 pronunciation of the word is then [kɒf] (the square brackets are just a Symbol

10 convention to show that the symbols are to be taken as phonetic tran-

1 scription). One principle governing the use of phonetic symbols is that
2 there should be one symbol for every sound; the number of letters in
3 the ordinary spelling is simply irrelevant.
4
51111
6
7 EXERCISE
8
9 1.2 How many sounds have each of the following English words?
20
1. dog 2. moon 3. fish 4. bath
1
5. rabbit 6. enough 7. study 8. through
2
9. spaghetti 10. tricky
3
4
5
6 Comment
7 As you can see, there is not a simple relationship between letters and
8 sounds in English speech at all. First, some letters are altogether ‘silent’.
9 In the example through above, the letters gh are ‘silent’. The spelling thru
30 records the same pronunciation. Notice also that threw is a homophone.
1 (Examples of other ‘silent’ letters are h in hour, the second b in bomb, p
2 in psychology.) Second, it sometimes takes several letters to ‘spell’ one
3 sound. What’s written th at the end of bath we hear as a single sound –
4 as we’ll see, it is represented with the single symbol [θ]. Likewise, sh at
5 the end of fish stands for one sound [ʃ], gh in enough represents the
6 sound [f] (but in spaghetti, it represents [$]). The oo in the middle of
7 moon represents just one sound (the symbol in fact is [u]); and the bb
8 and tt in rabbit and spaghetti represent just one sound each, [b] and [t].
9 If you are not sure about this last point, see if you can say rabbit
40 with two b’s in the middle. If you can, you will recognize that it sounds
1 a bit like a stammer, or perhaps as if you were saying a phrase some-
2 thing like rab a bit. The letters ck, as in tricky, always represent just one
3 sound, a [k].
4111
4 SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

The individual speech sounds that we have begun to discover fall into
Vowel two groups: VOWELS and CONSONANTS. Every human speech sound is
Consonant either a vowel or a consonant. When the doctor asks you to open your
mouth and say ‘Ah’, he is asking you to make a vowel type of sound.
We can represent it (for now – there’s a bit more detail to come later)
with the symbol [ɑ]. Something like this vowel will occur in your pronun-
ciation of the word farm. The other sounds in the word are consonants;
they are [f], [m] and – for some speakers – [r] (for other speakers, the
r is silent). Look in a mirror and notice how in the vowel [ɑ] your mouth
is wide open, whereas in consonants such as [f] and [m] the mouth
is closed or nearly closed. Vowel sounds always have a relatively free
outward flow of breath; in typical consonant sounds the flow of breath
is temporarily obstructed or blocked.
In English, as in all other languages, the majority of words are
composed of vowels and consonants used together – e.g. farm, rabbit,
peace, through. It’s also possible to find English words that consist only
of vowel-type sounds: for instance eye and owe. (Don’t be fooled by the
letters y and w into thinking that these words must contain consonants;
notice that eye is a homophone of I, and that owe is a homophone of Oh
and O.) However, there are no proper English words which consist only
of consonants. The nearest we come to this is a few examples of sustained
consonant sounds used as exclamations: Shh!, Brr!, Mm!
The distinction between vowel and consonant is of crucial importance
in the description of languages. Here is a simple example from English.
The indefinite article has two different forms: a and an. Compare a pear
and an apple. The two forms of the indefinite article are not simply
variants which can be interchanged. Notice that we can’t say a apple or
an pear.

EXERCISE

1.3 What form of the indefinite article is required with the

following nouns, and what is the rule that governs the choice
between a and an?
1. farm 2. eye 3. shop 4. island
5. mouth 6. union 7. onion 8. ewe
9. yacht 10. one 11. eunuch 12. hair
13. heir 14. umpire 15. hour 16. week
 SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE 5

1111 Comment
2 The choice between a and an clearly depends on whether the following
3 word begins with a vowel or a consonant. Before a vowel sound, an is
4 required (an apple, an island); before a consonant sound, a is used. The
5 decision can’t be made on the basis of spelling. Notice that since we get
6 a union, a ewe and a eunuch, these words must actually begin with
7 consonant sounds (though spelt with vowel letters). In fact, they all begin
8 with the same consonant represented as spelling letter y in the word yacht.
9 Similarly, since we find a one rather than an one, this must indicate that
10 the word one is pronounced with an initial consonant sound; in fact it’s
1 the same consonant as heard at the beginning of week. Finally, although
2 the sound [h] is a consonant (a hair), in some words the letter h is silent.
3 These words therefore begin with a vowel sound in speech: an hour, an
4 heir. In a very few words, you can choose: a hotel or an (h)otel. (Of
51111 course, a few accents leave out h-sounds altogether – for speakers of such
6 accents, all so-called h-words will begin with a vowel.)
7
8
9
20
1 EXERCISE
2
3 1.4 Which of the following items begin with a consonant sound?
4 1. honour 2. year 3. usual 4. once
5 5. X-ray 6. oomph 7. young 8. U-turn
6 9. who 10. euphonium
7
8
9
CV PATTERNS
30
1
If we write the capital letter C to mean ‘any consonant’ and V to mean
2
‘any vowel’, we can represent the basic sound structure of a word as a
3
string of Cs and Vs. For instance peace has the pattern CVC; rabbit is
4
CVCVC.
5
6
7
EXERCISE
8
9
1.5 Represent the following words using the symbols C and V.
40
1 1. do 2. flea 3. help 4. brand
2 5. enough 6. dispute 7. spaghetti 8. tax
3 9. through 10. tacks
4111
6 SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

For the words used in Exercise 1.5, the answers are largely unaffected
by the particular type of English which you speak. But there are other
words over which speakers will differ. We have seen already that farm is
either CVC or CVCC depending on whether your type of English
actually pronounces any sound corresponding to the r of the spelling. A
similar difference affects many other words. For instance art is either VC
or VCC, car is either CV or CVC. This difference in the treatment of r
is the most fundamental feature distinguishing different types of English
accent. If you pronounce an r-sound in all the places where there is
Rhotic accent r in the spelling, you have what is called a RHOTIC ACCENT. This is
typical of General American speech and the pronunciation of English in
Scotland, Ireland and the south-western part of England.
Non-rhotic On the other hand, a NON-RHOTIC ACCENT has no r-sound in farm,
accent art or car. In fact r-sounds are allowed when a vowel follows immedi-
ately, as it does, for instance in red, bread, very. Non-rhotic speech is
found in most of England (apart from the South West), and in Wales,
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The author of this book has
a non-rhotic accent.

EXERCISE

1.6 Use C and V to show the structure of the following words

in (a) a rhotic accent, (b) a non-rhotic accent.
1. near 2. nearer 3. farmer 4. colour
5. colouring 6. strawberry 7. mirror 8. hard
9. father 10. further 11. postcard 12. wrestler

The concepts introduced so far will all be taken up and refined in later
chapters. In the next chapter we start to learn phonetic symbols and to
read and write phonetic transcriptions.

SUMMARY

• Words with the same pronunciation (regardless of spelling) are

called homophones.
• Accents can differ in the way in which they pronounce words.
• All words, when spoken aloud, are made up of sequences of vowel
sounds and consonant sounds.
• Each sound, vowel or consonant, has its own unique symbol which
we use to represent it in phonetic transcription.
 SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE 7

1111
2 FURTHER EXERCISES
3
4 1.7 Complete the table for the following English words. Some
5 examples are given.
6 Homophones? Homographs?
7
8 boy buoy + –
9 read read – +
10 (present tense) (past tense)
1 breed bread – –
2 bank bank + +
3 (for money) (of river)
4 son sun
51111 bill bill
(of bird) (= invoice)
6
seen scene
7
eyes ice
8
tear tear
9
(in the eye) (= rip)
20
flee flea
1
fleas fleece
2
tick tic
3
4
1.8 Using items from any of the exercises in this chapter, practise:
5
6 1. deciding whether they begin with a vowel sound or a
7 consonant sound;
8 2. deciding whether they end with a vowel sound or a
9 consonant sound;
30 3. writing CV formulas.
1
2 Discuss your answers with a friend. If you do not agree, try
3 to decide why – is one of you right and the other wrong, or
4 do you have different accents?
5
6
7
8
9
40
1
2
3
4111
2 PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION,
CONSONANT AND VOWEL
SOUNDS

In this chapter we build on what you already know about the roman
alphabet and about the pronunciation of your kind of English to get
you started reading and writing phonetic transcription in a variety of
languages.

READING PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTIONS

Anyone who is literate in English – and since you’re reading this, that
must by definition include you – already knows a surprising amount
about speech sounds and the symbols used to represent them. Try
reading aloud the following – you already know what to do without
having to be told.

1. [sed]
2. [ment]
3. [frend]
4. [nekst]
5. [ne]
6. [me]

The first four, when spoken, are clearly English words – you’ll have recog-
nized said, meant, friend, next. Item 5 is the Greek word meaning ‘yes’;
you will have pronounced it correctly provided you made it just like the
beginning of 4. When you said 6, again assuming that you were being
consistent and pronouncing it just like the beginning of 2, you were
saying the Japanese word for ‘eye’.
International
Phonetic The INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET (hereafter, IPA) provides
Alphabet about two hundred symbols for the sounds encountered in the world’s
 PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION 9

1111 languages, but it is based upon the roman alphabet (which you already
2 know). You are also familiar with at least one variety of English speech.
3 True, English is just one among five thousand or so languages in the
4 world, but it provides a reasonable sampling of human speech sounds.
5 In fact, English has a somewhat complex sound system, and the work
6 you did in mastering that (whether as a child acquiring your first
7 language, or as an adult learner of English) gives you a head start in
8 phonetics.
9
10
1 CONSONANT SOUNDS AND SYMBOLS
2
3 Subject to a few cautions which we’ll come to shortly, the following
4 symbols mean exactly what you’d expect:
51111
6 m n b p d t ! k f v s z w r l h
7
8 Here are English words which have these consonants in initial position:
9
20 [m] mike [f] foxtrot
1 [n] november [v] victor
2 [b] bravo [s] sierra
3 [p] papa [z] zebra
4 [d] delta [w] wellington
5 [t] tango [r] romeo
6 [!] golf [l] lima
7 [k] kilo [h] hercules
8
9
30
1 EXERCISE
2
3 2.1 Write representations for the following words, using phonetic
4 symbols for the consonant sounds and representing each
5 vowel simply as V.
6
1. cabinet 2. telephone 3. umbrella
7
4. September 5. ghost 6. whosoever
8
7. centipede 8. melancholy 9. photographic
9
10. beeswax 11. cellophane 12. quibble
40
1
2
3 Here are the cautions we mentioned. First, when we use them to repre-
4111 sent sounds, we never call them ‘letters’, but symbols. Second, when we
10 PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION

write them by hand we don’t use our ordinary cursive handwriting, but
carefully formed shapes that copy the printed forms fairly closely. Illegible
phonetic symbols would clearly be useless. Third, you must remember
that each symbol always and everywhere has the same sound value, with
none of the variations and inconsistencies we’re used to from ordinary
English spelling. So [!] always has the value of the first sound in golf,
never the first sound in gin (the word gin in fact begins with a sound
for which we haven’t yet given the symbol). There are no ‘silent’ symbols
and no combinations like ph in photo; the symbols [ph] would actually
mean the sound sequence which occurs in the middle of peephole
(provided, in your accent, you pronounce the h-sound). Finally, a word
of warning about the [r] symbol: at the moment, we are just using this
shape to mean any kind of r-sound. Later, we will learn some rather more
specialized symbols for different kinds of r-sound.

MORE VOWELS

We are almost ready to attempt reading and writing more examples of

phonetic transcription, but at the moment we are a bit short of vowels.
The only vowel symbol we’ve used so far (apart from a brief mention of
[ɒ] in cough [kɒf], [u] in moon and [ɑ] in Ah! on pp. 3 and 4) is [e] as
in next [nekst], red [red], etc. But letter e in English spelling doesn’t
always represent this sound. When you looked at the Japanese word [me]
(eye), which was example (6) above, you had to resist the temptation to
say the English word me, which in fact is pronounced [mi]. From this you
gather that [i] has the value familiar to you in words like ski, kiwi. We are
now in a position, then, to write a phonetic representation for the words
peace and piece; they are both pronounced [pis]. Clearly, if words are
homophones, they will be identical when put into transcription.
Another vowel we can practise at this stage is [u], which means a
sound of the general type you will have in Zulu or the first syllable of
rhubarb. So for most speakers (the pronunciation may be different if you
are Welsh, for example) blue is [blu], do is [du] and Zulu is actually
[zulu].
We’ll also add [ɑ]. This stands for a vowel of the type you will prob-
ably have in palm or Zhivago. Such a vowel is made with quite a wide,
open mouth. Not all speakers will have exactly the same quality of [ɑ]-
type vowel, of course, but for the moment we will just use the one symbol
[ɑ]. The important thing at this stage is that you use a vowel that is
made with your mouth as wide open as possible. Of course, not every a
in spelling represents this vowel. In the word Java, for example, the first
vowel sound is [ɑ] for a great many speakers, but the second vowel is
never a repeat of the first one. To see this, try saying the word Java
 PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION 11

1111 deliberately making the second vowel the same as the first – the result
2 isn’t like anyone’s normal pronunciation of the word. Another example
3 of this vowel type occurs in the first syllable of father for many speakers.
4 Moreover, if you’re a non-rhotic speaker you should find that the second
5 vowel of father is in fact the same as the second vowel of Java.
6
7
8
9 EXERCISE
10
1 2.2 Now try reading these transcribed words of Dyirbal (an
2 Australian language from North Queensland).
3
[pi!in] ‘shield’
4
[pɑbil] ‘slice, peel’
51111
[tɑndu] ‘tree’
6
[tibɑn] ‘stone’
7
[kɑ!ɑlum] ‘moon’
8
[kɑbɑl] ‘sand’
9
[pɑ!ɑl] ‘pierce, dig’
20
[tudɑl] ‘mash with stone’
1
[pu!a] ‘putrid smell’
2
[pul!u] ‘wife’
3
4
5
6 Comment
7 To read these correctly, all you have to do is remember that each symbol
8 has a consistent sound value, and try not to be put off by familiar English
9 words and spellings. Make sure, for instance, when you read [pi!in], the
30 word for ‘shield’, that you are remembering to give the symbol [!]
1 the value of the first sound in golf; the word should not sound like the
2 English word pigeon. Notice also that the vowels are not like those in
3 pigeon. Both should be [i], just as they are in English kiwi. When you
4 read [pɑbil], make sure you’re making the beginning like pa, not like
5 pay; and the second part should be like the name Beale, not like bill. In
6 all the words where [u] occurs, be careful not to insert the consonant
7 which often accompanies the [u] type of vowel in English. The [du] at
8 the end of [tɑndu] ‘tree’ should be like do, not like SOUTHERN BRITISH Southern British
9 ENGLISH (SBE) due. SBE is the type of pronunciation generally taken English
40 as a model for foreign learners or as the codified basis for comparison
1 with other varieties (it’s the kind generally heard in international broad-
2 casts from the BBC). Try to think how hard sounds when compared
3 with had in that kind of accent, or how hoard compares with hod.
4111 Remember that it is a non-rhotic accent, so that hard and hoard are
12 PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION

simply CVC words. Finally here, it’s worth pointing out that the [ɑ]-
type vowel in SBE hard is pretty much the sort of vowel that is
represented by the symbol [ɑ] that we introduced above.

EXERCISE

2.3 Now see if you can write some phonetic transcription your-
self. Use the symbols we have learned so far to represent the
pronunciations of the following English words:
1. glue 2. calm
3. cool 4. seafood
5. car-park 6. ‘flu
7. rhubarb 8. ooze
9. sweet dreams 10. please

We’ve already pointed out that if two words are homophones, they’ll be
transcribed the same way, even though they are spelt differently. So [pis]
corresponds to both spellings peace and piece. In the next exercise, you’re
asked to supply the spelling forms for the spoken forms shown. There
are homophones for each one, so you need two spelling forms in each
case. The symbol [r] here means an r-sound that would be pronounced
in rhotic accents only (e.g. General American).

EXERCISE

2.4 Give the spelling forms for the following English words:
1. [ki] 2. [tu]
3. [buz] 4. [kruz]
5. [stil] 6. [sim]
7. [wik] 8. [blu]
9. [friz] 10. [hɑ(r)t]

So far in this chapter we’ve concentrated on sounds and symbols which

are very much what a person who speaks and writes English would expect.
 PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION 13

Now we add two new consonant sounds and symbols which are not so
obvious.
The sound which occurs immediately before the [k] in the English
word bank is [ŋ], called the VELAR NASAL. If you can’t see at first that Velar nasal
bank doesn’t contain [n], try saying the word ban and add [k] as an
afterthought. Other words with the velar nasal before [k] are sink, thank,
monkey, conquer, jinx and many more. You will also have the velar nasal
in finger, longer, strongest. In these, what follows is not [k], but – for
most of us – ["] (some speakers will find they have no other consonant
sound after the [ŋ] but go on directly to the next vowel).
In some kinds of English, the velar nasal has always got to be followed
by either [k] or ["]. If this is the case, then singer will have [ŋ"] just
like finger. This type of pronunciation is typical of some Midlands and
north-western accents in England. For most of us, though, there is no
["] in singer, and a word like spring ends in a velar nasal without any
following ["].

EXERCISE

2.5 Work out what consonant sounds occur in these words. Write
V for each vowel.
1. sink 2. fang
3. kingdom 4. beginning
5. banger 6. plonk
7. increasing 8. uncoordinated
9. unknown 10. angry
11. England 12. lynx

We’ve given examples of [ŋ] at the ends of English words (spring), and
within words when other sounds follow (finger, monkey). What we don’t
find in English is any words which begin with [ŋ]. English isn’t alone in
this, as there are plenty of other languages which have a velar nasal sound
that can’t appear at the beginnings of words (for instance Spanish,
Japanese); on the other hand, we can find languages which don’t have this
restriction. Examples are Maori (from New Zealand), Malay and Dyirbal.
While trying to find English examples, you may have thought of the name
Ngaio (most people have heard of the New Zealand writer Ngaio Marsh,
even if they haven’t read any of her whodunnits). This is actually
pronounced with [n] in English, but is a spelling of a Maori word
pronounced with initial [ŋ]. The Malay word [ŋɑŋɑ] means ‘open’ or
14 PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION

‘gaping’, as applied to the mouth. And the Dyirbal language, from which
we read some examples above, has many words with initial velar nasal. For
instance [ŋɑmbɑl] means ‘hear, listen to’, and [ŋul#ɑ] means ‘tomorrow’.
You should practise making [ŋ] at the beginning of words, even though
it will feel unfamiliar at first. One way to do this is to say a word like thing
silently to yourself, freeze your mouth in the position for the final sound,
and then go on aloud – for instance with Malay [ŋɑŋɑ].

YOD

It comes as a surprise to most learners of phonetics that the phonetic

symbol for the first sound of yacht is not [y], but [j]. From English
spelling we’re used to letter j representing the entirely different sound
which is heard at the beginning of jazz. But this is one place where the
IPA goes against English expectations. The initial consonant sound of
yacht, yellow, yard is represented by the symbol [j]. So be careful not to
transcribe with y if the sound you mean is [j], and not to read [j] as if
it represented the first sound of jazz. The sound [j] can be conveniently
referred to by the Hebrew name, yod.
In the spelling systems of certain other languages, the letter j does
stand for sound [j]. An example is German. The German word spelled
ja ‘yes’ begins with a yod; and the German word for ‘yacht’ is spelt Jacht.
So to a person familiar with German spelling, the use of [j] as a phonetic
symbol for yod seems perfectly natural.
In case you are wondering, the letter y does have a use as a phonetic
symbol, but it represents a sound not used in English: a vowel sound of
the type heard in French lune (moon). Obviously, people familiar only
with English spelling don’t automatically expect this, and nor do the
French for that matter, as the vowel sound [y] is regularly spelt with u
in French. But in the spelling system of Finnish, which also uses this
vowel, [y] is spelt with y (and, incidentally, yod [j] is written with j).
(The nearest English can come to the [y] sound is in the [ju]-sequence
in words like cue or pew.)

YOD AFTER CONSONANTS

Words like yak, yes, yogurt which are spelled with y are not the only ones
to have yod in English. Some words begin with yod even though there’s
no y in the spelling. For instance ewe is [ju] and unique is [junik]. Yod
also occurs within words, after consonants. Most people will find they have
a yod just after the [b] in beauty; without the yod the word would be a
homophone of booty. In the same way cute has a yod which is missing in
 PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION 15

1111 coot. We can transcribe the two words [kjut] and [kut] respectively. One
2 well-known difference between most North American speech and British
3 speech is the treatment of words like new or tune. The usual North
4 American pronunciations have no yod; they are [nu] and [tun], the British
5 pronunciations are [nju] and [tjun] (or a further development from
6 [tjun] that makes it start like chew). Within Britain, however, speakers with
7 East Anglian accents also say [nu] and [tun], and even go further than
8 American speakers, dropping the yods in beauty and other words where
9 they’re kept by Americans. If you live in Britain, you may remember see-
10 ing produce described as bootiful in an advertisement; the spelling is meant
1 to represent the word beautiful as spoken by an East Anglian farmer.
2 There are also words where speakers of one and the same variety of
3 English differ over whether there should be a yod. For instance, do you
4 pronounce suit as [sut], or [sjut]? And is lewd [lud] or [ljud]?
51111
6
7
8 EXERCISE
9
20 2.6 Transcribe the following words as fully as you can. Where you
1 don’t yet know the appropriate phonetic symbol, write V for
2 any vowel, C for any consonant.
3
1. fumes 2. human
4
3. communicate 4. lunar
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5. module 6. music
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7. computer 8. impunity
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9. speculate 10. spectacular
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SUMMARY
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• The IPA is a set of internationally agreed symbols for representing
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speech sounds; such representations are called phonetic transcrip-
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tions.
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• Knowledge of the sound-values of the symbols enables you to read
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aloud phonetic transcriptions of languages you don’t even know.
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• Some symbols have well-established names like the velar nasal and
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yod.
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16 PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION

FURTHER EXERCISES

Now more practice reading English from transcription. This time

you will have to work a bit harder to avoid being put off by what
look like familiar spelling patterns of English words.
2.7 The words given below all look like spelling forms of ordi-
nary English words. In fact, they are to be read as items in
phonetic transcription. When this is done, a different English
word results in each case. Say what each word is. (A non-
rhotic pronunciation is represented.)
1. [!rin] 2. [pɑt]
3. [hit] 4. [nil]
5. [plum] 6. [bin]
7. [slip] 8. [tens]
9. [rum] 10. [tɑt]

2.8 Read aloud the following which are given in transcription.

When you’ve worked out what they say, write them down in
ordinary spelling, and then later try to put them back into
transcription without looking at this exercise.
1. [iv its red mit]
2. [ken nidz ten sents]
3. [su livz nekst wik]
4. [stivz ruf liks]
5. [nilz !ests sun left]
6. [pɑm triz . . . hit . . . dip blu si . . . tu wiks sun went]
7. [luz suts dɑk blu]
8. [nju brumz swip klin]
9. [bred nidz jist]
10. [menju
pi sup
bif stju
red binz
stimd liks
stjud prunz
krim
ti]
 PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION 17

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2 Comment
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Note that when a piece of transcription extends over more than
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one line (as in 10 above), we put one bracket at the beginning and
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one at the end. You do not need separate brackets round each line
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or round each item.
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9 2.9 On p. 9 we gave words which exemplify the consonants
10 [m n b p d t ! k f v s z w r l h] in initial position. We chose
1 internationally known words (most of them from the interna-
2 tional communications code as used by pilots and air traffic
3 controllers) in which the spelling-to-sound correspondences
4 are obvious. Now find your own set of sixteen words, showing
51111 the same set of consonants (at any position in the word), but
6 differently represented in spelling. For instance, instead of
7 straightforward mike for [m], you might choose comb or
8 hymn. What is the ‘worst’ spelling you can find for each sound?
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The international code name for h is hotel, and the one for w
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is whisky. Can you figure out why we felt we couldn’t use
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these words in our original list?
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