We covered the vowel system of General American English. We practiced listening to the different vowel qualities and using the IPA symbols. We also learned how vowel sounds can be categorized using the parameters high-low and front-back. Some vowels, called monophthongs, include only one sound (meaning the tongue stays still throughout the vowel). Other vowel sounds, called diphthongs, include two sounds, so that the tongue moves during the production of the vowel. The words "I", "cow", and "boy" contain diphthongs, for example.

Having now covered all the basic sounds of American English, we began to practice phonetic transcription. Phonetic transcription is a system for writing down the way a word SOUNDS. Using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), it is possible to describe the way a word is pronounced so precisely that someone reading the transcription could pronounce the word correctly, without ever having heard it.

It is important to remember that phonetic transcription is always a representation of sound. Often people from different regions will pronounce the same word differently, or the same person may even pronounce a word different ways at different times. DIFFERENT PRONUNCIATIONS REQUIRE DIFFERENT TRANSCRIPTIONS. For example, most Americans say "park" with an r-sound in it, but other Americans and Britons do not pronounce the "r". When you hear someone say "park" with an "r", you transcribe an [r] (actually an upside-down r), but if you do not hear an "r", you don't transcribe [r].

Phonetic transcription is particularly useful to researchers who study the sound systems of different languages or dialects. But learning phonetic transcription also helps anyone to become more aware of the sounds that exist in a language.

Phonetic transcription can be either "broad" or "narrow". A broad transcription includes only enough information to distinguish one word from another. A narrow transcription includes extra information about the exact pronunciation heard.

For example, the vowel sound in "wait" can be transcribed [e] in broad transcription. This is enough information to tell which vowel is meant, and to show that the word is pronounced differently than "wet" (with a low-mid vowel), "wheat" [wit], "wit" [wIt], etc. But there is a significant detail about the American pronunciation of this sound which is not captured by the broad transcription: the vowel usually sounds like it has a short [j] sound at the end. In a narrow transcription, we might also write this [j], so that "wait" would be [wejt].

In an even more narrow transcription, we could add other details about the [w], [e], and [t], such as how long the [e] is held, whether there is a slight puff of air after the [t], and whether the [t] is made with the tongue touching the alveolar ridge or the teeth. We will learn how to transcribe some of these details in future weeks.

There is not just one single "narrow transcription" of each word; you can add more and more details, making the transcription narrower and narrower.

Vowels are unfortunately the most difficult sounds to transcribe, for two reasons. First, English has far more vowels than exist in Arabic, Russian, or Hebrew. This means that for native speakers of these languages it is difficult to hear and produce all the fine vowel distinctions that are important in English. Second, there is less agreement among linguists about the best way to transcribe vowels. For example, everyone acknowledges that the vowel in "wheat" and the vowel in "wit" are different in several ways. The vowel in "wheat" is held longer; it also has a different "quality", meaning it is produced with the tongue a little higher in the mouth; and it is also produced with diphthongization (meaning there is a [j] sound at the end). But the question is, which of these differences is the most important? Some linguists think the basic difference is one of LENGTH, and that the difference in quality is secondary. Such linguists might use the [:] symbol, which indicates that a vowel is long, and transcribe "wheat" and "wit" as [wi:t] and [wit]. But other linguists think the difference in quality is most important and the difference in length is secondary, so theytranscribe [wit] and [wIt]. Still other linguists transcribe both the differences in length and quality: [wi:t] and [wIt]. I think it is worthwhile to transcribe both the differences in length and quality, and also the diphthongization. Therefore, I usually transcribe the vowel in "wheat" as [ij]. The presence of two symbols makes it clear that the vowel is longer than a short vowel, which would be written with only one symbol. It is not necessary to use [:].

The handout you were given includes a summary of all 4 of these transcriptions systems for American English. We will generally use the transcriptions in columns 1 and 4.