Re: Transcribing rhotics for ESL

From: Peter Dy (peterdy_at_sbcglobal.net)
Date: 07/13/04 

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 01:50:02 GMT

 "Mxsmanic" <mxsmanic@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:mjf5f0pk9drp4r553leg13v0uk8j3ts99k@4ax.com...
> Lukas Pietsch writes:
>
> > I'm sure Mxsmaniac knows this perfectly well. And still I can't quite
see
> > what's so wrong about his approach. He made quite clear in his initial
post
> > what he wanted: a pair of transcription conventions, one for French and
one
> > for English, which should fulfil two separate requirements:
> >
> > a) each should be phonemic (with respect to its respective language,
> > obviously);
> >
> > b) no symbol should be used alike in both transcription systems if the
(most
> > typical, frequent, prominent, whatever) phonetic realisation of the
French
> > and the English phoneme involved are judged to be markedly different
(where,
> > obviously, the answer to what counts as sufficiently different is
basically
> > arbitrary, being dictated by his teaching aims).
>
> Exactly.
>
> > While it is obviously true that requirement (b) has nothing to do with
the
> > theoretical concept of a phoneme, there is nothing inherently wrong or
> > incoherent about wanting to combine both requirements. His idea about
having
> > separate symbols for the French and the English <r> phonemes strikes me
as
> > absolutely reasonable.
>
> Thanks.
>
> So, any suggestions or comments on the choice of symbols?

I still don't get it. What is wrong with a phonemic transcription? In the
IPA Handbook, the "r" in American English <were> is a schwa with a hook on
the right, to denote rhoticity. The "r" in <north> is an inverted "r". The
French fricative "r" is represented by an inverted small capital "r". The
French uvular trill is a small capital "r." The Spanish "r" in <pero> is a
fish-hook "r". So, five different "r"s and five different symbols. But you
don't want to teach how they are actually pronounced, but rather you want to
teach the phonemes? Aren't all five transcribed as simply /r/?

Peter

>
> Also, as I've said, apart from the 'r' symbols, I'm really irritated by
> the English texts that use 'e' for the vowel in "bed." It's a major
> problem when comparing English to any other language or trying to use
> the IPA to teach pronunciation to non English speakers, since they have
> learned that this symbol represents the vowel in "blé" (and this is
> correct). I have to keep explaining to teachers who have never learned
> the IPA outside of English that many English texts are using the wrong
> symbols.
>
> Another question I have about transcription is how to handle diphthongs.
> I understand that only three are phonemic, so these are the only ones I
> teach. Is it better to transcribe them as two symbols with the second
> symbol superscripted, or should both symbols be the same size? I've
> been superscripting to indicate that the off-glide is relatively weak
> and to make clear that these are diphthongs and not two consecutive
> monophthongs (which occur in many other languages).
>
> --
> Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

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