Re: Long vs. short vowels in English

From: Aki Moilanen (akmoilan_at_paju.oulu.fi)
Date: 07/19/04 

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 08:09:54 +0000 (UTC)

Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Transcribing them [non-phonemic diphthongs]
> introduces more detail than I require just to teach
> the essential sounds of the language. In many cases (all but three),
> proper pronunciation of a diphthong isn't really important for
> comprehension, so why transcribe both vowels? If students need not
> distinguish between diphthong X and Y in speaking in order to be
> understood and in listening in order to understand, why transcribe the
> distinction?

>From other postings I gather you are looking for something that
would not be totally useless outside your class-room, too, i.e.
something that has common features with systems used elsewhere
(dictionaries?). Also, you would like to have your system correspond
to IPA in some way.

By far the most common way to transcribe English diphthongs, phonemic
and non-phonemic, is with two symbols. The only dictionary I have right
now is Longman; in it's "Pronunciation table", there is:

/eI/ make
/aI/ lie
/OI/ boy
/@U/ note (BrE)
/oU/ note (AmE)
/aU/ now
/I@/ real
/e@/ hair (BrE)
/U@/ sure (BrE)
/u@/ actual
/i@/ peculiar

(I'm sure some of these are different from your pronunciation.)

Using <e> for the vowel in "cake" isn't in line with your aim that
the system would correspond to IPA. When I learned English, I
automatically perceived all of the diphthongs as "equal"; only after ten
or so years later I learned that some are phonemic and some are not. It
would have been quite strange had some of them been transcribed with one
symbol, and others with two. However, I have no idea if French learners
see them differently for some reason.

There's also a typo in the chart: "fin /pin/".

Aki Moilanen

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