tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78172421663263864972024-03-13T12:10:32.981-07:00A World of EnglishesThe view of an Inner Circle phonetician.Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-74568130779094102262019-12-09T08:06:00.004-08:002019-12-09T09:54:25.432-08:00Just in case you were unaware ... my book is out!If you follow me on Twitter you will probably know this ... but my popular science book, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/your-voice-speaks-volumes-9780198813842?cc=gb&lang=en&" target="_blank"><i>Your Voice Speaks Volumes: it's not what you say but how you say it</i></a> (OUP), is now available at places where books are sold. It was out in the UK in October and I understand it's officially launched in the US in January.<br />
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This is the book I have always wanted to write, and is about how the way you speak represents you as a person. It mainly focuses on English English, and there are chapters about accents and accentism, male and female speaker differences, voice quality, professional voice users (singers, speakers, broadcasters and voice coaches), forensic phonetics, transgender voice and synthetic voices, and global English voices.<br />
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Here's a lovely promo video - including an endorsement from David Crystal!<br />
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I've also had a super <a href="https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2019/11/book-week-2019-jane-setters-your-voice.html" target="_blank">review from Lynne Murphy</a> on her blog, Separated by a Common Language, and several supportive tweets (including from former students). It seems to be making it on to Christmas wish lists!<br />
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You can also watch a video of me giving a talk about the book at Google London here:<br />
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OK so this post is basically a blatant bit of self-promotion ... but if I don't do it, who will, eh? Well, Oxford University Press, in fact, who have been getting me all sorts of interesting gigs. Thank you!<br />
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I hope you enjoy the videos and links. If nothing else, it's definitely worth looking at Lynne's blog.Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-3583313011227845902019-05-17T03:15:00.000-07:002019-05-17T03:20:36.489-07:00Notes on English after the CSCUK 60th anniversary eventIn my last blog post, I blasted the UK government for the ridiculous situation some of our overseas students are in thanks to its draconian, sweeping reaction to the English language testing scandal.<br />
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This post is about overseas students, the opportunities studying in the UK affords them, the role of English in that, and just how brilliant they are.<br />
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Last night, I attended an extremely uplifting event to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission in the UK (CSCUK).<br />
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The CSCUK provides a number of different types of funding for postdoctoral study at UK universities for applicants from countries in the UK Commonwealth, including Master's and PhD scholarships and post-doctoral fellowships. They are particularly interested in supporting applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds and to promote equality and inclusion.<br />
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If you are interested in what they offer, have a look at <a href="http://cscuk.dfid.gov.uk/" target="_blank">the CSCUK webpages</a>.<br />
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I am currently an assessor in the area of linguistics and phonetics.<br />
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Applicants are likely to be bilingual in English and (at least) one other language.<br />
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One of the things I enjoyed most about attending the event was the opportunity to hear the award-winners talking about their research. At the exhibition, I learned about studies on topics ranging from intelligent prosthetic limbs and antenatal programmes for expectant mothers in rural locations to renewable energy and food security. I particularly enjoyed hearing about one project that looked at how encouraging schools to get children playing outside and doing sports - including 10000 steps a day - had reduced mental health difficulties experienced by those children. The researcher explained how, in her country (in Africa), playing outside was seen by children and parents as something "poor people" did, and therefore not desirable to be caught doing it; having access to computer games and social media was seen as more aspirational (i.e., "rich people" did it). There were, therefore, challenges on several levels ... but rising mental health issues were a major concern (as they are in the UK). She was using her research to help enact a change in educational policy.<br />
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Of course, another reason I enjoyed hearing the award-winners talk about their research was the range of post-colonial English accents. Music to my ears! And such eloquence, too. One current PhD student working on a complicated systems engineering problem explained her study so well in non-technical English that I congratulated her on her explanation. We have to write non-technical summaries in all research grant applications, and they can be a real pig to get right, no matter what English-speaking background you are from.<br />
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Something else which struck me as I circulated was the narrative around something called linguistic imperialism. This is basically when a language is used as an imperialistic device - i.e., that language is imposed on indigenous people to assist the colonising country in extending its power. In Britain's colonial period, the use of English was often described in this way. The continued use of English by indigenous (often British- or American-educated) elites in post-colonial countries and territories is seen as a continuation of linguistic imperialism, where language is used to separate elites from other social groups in order to help them (elites) hold on to power.<br />
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I got into a conversation with one student looking at architecture in an African country. She explained how European ideals have been imposed in recent years which have resulted in buildings being built which are just not fit for purpose, and with materials that have to be imported which are difficult to source locally and sustain. There was a need, therefore, for locally-suitable adaptations to fit the requirements of the environment. I told her that this had parallels with the spread of English, the language being imposed on people, but not necessarily able to express the cultural and physical needs of those people. This can result in misunderstandings which, in turn, result in their needs not being recognised or supported. Local adaptations can and should be made (often through code switching and mixing) to enable the language to better express the situation in which it is used. Architecture and English are not so far apart, then.<br />
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In Hong Kong, English is seen as a "value-added language" - i.e., if you can use it well, it adds value to you as a prospective employee or from a social angle. While some have claimed that it continues as a tool of linguistic imperialism, the suggestion is that Hong Kong people simply don't see it that way. It's part of their identity. In India, some see English as a neutral language which can be used as a lingua franca to level the playing field between people from diverse linguistic, cultural and religious backgrounds. While there is still the notion in both countries that being able to use English affords social prestige, the situation is very different from the days of the British Empire.<br />
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I'm proud to be part of a group which offers funding to people from Commonwealth countries, and also mindful of the fact that we are expecting award-winners to be able to operate at a high level in English. To have the opportunity to study with us in the UK through one of these scholarships, an applicant's English must be outstanding. CSCUK's stated objective - to support those from disadvantaged backgrounds - gives me hope that these outstanding scholars have mainly risen up from less advantaged beginnings, and have come to use English as a resource to help them initiate positive change as a result of their studies. Being bilinguals, they should have the linguistic tools to help them do so in their own contexts and beyond.<br />
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<br />Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-23477433358776566472019-04-24T02:16:00.003-07:002019-04-24T02:23:32.591-07:00Weaponised language: English, test centres, and UK immigrationI think I can speak for most of my colleagues when I say that we really enjoy teaching overseas students. In my English in the World class, the mix of UK finalist undergraduates, visiting undergrads from places like France, Spain, Japan, Germany and Italy, and MA TESOL / Applied Linguistics students, most of whom are from overseas, makes for a lively and informed discussion which simply could not happen if it were not for the overseas student contributions. Overseas students enrich the learning environment in a way which brings immeasurable benefits, in my opinion; in my English in the World class alone, it allows home students to get a better understanding of the history and role of the language globally, and have first-hand experience of different varieties. And I am proud of the fact that our overseas students want to come to the UK and study at our universities. Overseas students: you are WELCOME.<br />
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This is not the message sent out by our government, however - and I am appalled by this. I had understood the main issues to be the changes in visa arrangements for overseas students, including the inability to stay and seek work in the UK post-qualification, and the amount of monitoring academics now have to do of students on Tier 4 visas (for students not in the European Economic Area or Switzerland).<br />
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But no.<br />
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I knew there had been problems with some of the centres running tests of English, but it now turns out overseas applicants and some who are already studying in the UK for whom there is <b>no evidence of cheating</b> are having their visas cancelled, denied or - in extreme cases - being <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/23/toeic-english-test-sajid-javid-urged-to-act-in-immigration-scandal-bigger-than-windrush" target="_blank">forcibly removed from the UK</a>. Many have asked to sit tests again to prove their proficiency and therefore eligibility to study in the UK. This has fallen on deaf ears.<br />
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I am not saying that people whose English is not up to the rigours of academic study in the UK should be admitted if they are applying for student visas. But I believe strongly that - at minimum - those who are already here and being forcibly removed (around 1000 students/applicants, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/23/toeic-english-test-sajid-javid-urged-to-act-in-immigration-scandal-bigger-than-windrush" target="_blank">the article in the Guardian today</a>), many mid-way through their studies, should be given the opportunity to be reassessed - if they desire it, having been subject to the current hostile environment in the UK.<br />
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Come on, Conservatives. Stop sending out this message that overseas students are part of a wider problem. In order to provide a rich learning environment for all our students, engendering cultural awareness and understanding, the UK needs them. These isolationist policies have no place in UK Higher Education.<br />
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The English language should not be used as a weapon like this. Those days should be long gone. Let us use it to unite, not divide. Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-23110111349074536242018-02-02T02:53:00.002-08:002018-02-02T04:51:21.196-08:00Sumer is icumen in, and the wind is passing ...<div style="text-align: center;">
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This morning, I was interviewed by Andrew Peach on his BBC Radio Berkshire breakfast show on the provenance of the word <i>fart</i>. The QI Elves are doing a show in Reading and have published <a href="https://www.inyourarea.co.uk/news/10-facts-about-reading-from-the-qi-elves-including-how-many-potatoes-are-named-after-the-town/" target="_blank">10 facts about the town</a>, asking for more obscure facts in the run up to their visit.</div>
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Apparently, the manuscript containing the oldest known song in the English language, <i>Sumer Is Icumen In</i>, was found in Reading Abbey. It contains the word <i>fart.</i><br />
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The British Library has a good <a href="http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2012/06/sumer-is-icumen-in.html" target="_blank">page about the manuscript</a>, and I've pinched the picture:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YIId55MbZnc/WnQ7ywe4BzI/AAAAAAAAAVA/h5ZO25G-nPsttq1WouxUf6b-reRfmxukACLcBGAs/s1600/Sumer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Manuscript of Sumer Is Icumen In from the British Library" border="0" data-original-height="743" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YIId55MbZnc/WnQ7ywe4BzI/AAAAAAAAAVA/h5ZO25G-nPsttq1WouxUf6b-reRfmxukACLcBGAs/s640/Sumer.jpg" title="Manuscript of Sumer Is Icumen In" width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Manuscript of <i>Sumer Is Icumen In</i>, written around 1280 AD</td></tr>
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In Middle English, the word is <i>uerte<span style="font-family: "wingdings 3"; font-size: 12pt;">þ</span></i> - you can see it at the end of the third line. The thing that looks like a <i>p</i> is called "thorn" and is the same as the sound at the end of <i>bath</i>, and the <i>u</i> at the start of the word is actually pronounced more like <i>v</i>. It would have sounded a bit like "ferteth". In the song, the ewe bleats after the lamb, the cow lows (moos) after the calf, the bullock stirs and - depending on the translation - either the stag or the goat farts. Life goes on as normal in springtime in the rural landscape of the 1200s.<br />
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You can hear <i>Sumer Is Icumen In</i> sung here (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMCA9nYnLWo" target="_blank">link in case you can't see it</a>):<br />
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According to the <i>Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology</i>, the word <i>fart</i> is found in Sanskrit. People have been talking about farting - using a word similar to the modern English one - for a very long time. Etymologically, English probably got the word from the Anglo-Saxons, who started to arrive in Britain in earnest in the 5th century. English is basically a Germanic language with lots of embellishments from other languages for all sorts of historical reasons, and many of our basic words are from German (e.g., <i>house, man, wife, and, land, hand</i> ...).<br />
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The word <i>fart</i> is considered taboo by many. It is certainly a humorous word and a humorous concept. We have many euphemisms for it, including <i>pass wind</i>, <i>let one off</i>, and the Australian <i>shoot a fairy</i>. </div>
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But has <i>fart</i> itself always been a taboo word? There's an informative <a href="https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2015/08/03/who-gives-a-fart/" target="_blank">blog post on the subject from Strong Language</a> which shows that it was used freely in situations as diverse as politics, poetry, and handbooks for children well into the 1700s. My favourite fart poem (yes, I do have one!) was written by the Cavalier poet Sir John Suckling in the 1600s, and goes as follows: </div>
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<i>Love is the fart of every heart.</i></div>
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<i>It pains a man when 'tis kept close</i></div>
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<i>And others doth offend when 'tis let loose.</i></div>
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Do feel free to post your fart poetry and euphemisms below!</div>
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Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-75964454777550689522017-04-18T09:46:00.001-07:002017-04-20T02:30:10.718-07:00100 years of the English Pronouncing DictionaryAs we approach <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/un/english-day" target="_blank">English Language Day</a> on 23rd April, I thought it would be a nice idea to write a short blog post about the <i>English Pronouncing Dictionary </i>(EPD), which I co-edit with <a href="http://www.peterroach.net/" target="_blank">Peter Roach</a> (principal editor) and <a href="https://www.uvic.ca/humanities/linguistics/people/faculty/other/emeritus/eslingjohn.php" target="_blank">John Esling</a> (American English, from the 18th edition). This is especially salient as it is celebrating its 100th birthday this year, being first published in 1917. We marked this at a special Pre-Conference Event of the <a href="http://pronsig.iatefl.org/" target="_blank">IATEFL Pronunciation Special Interest Group</a> and a Cambridge University Press event at the <a href="http://conference.iatefl.org/" target="_blank">2017 IATEFL Conference</a> in Glasgow.<br />
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The EPD was created by British phonetician Daniel Jones, who was head of the Department of Phonetics at University College London. Jones is credited with coining the term 'phoneme' in 1917, too, so it was a bit of a special year all round for the subject area. Jones had collaborated on a dictionary project prior to the EPD but, rather than listing headwords orthographically in alphabetical order, that version had listed the headwords in phonemic script first, with the spelling form following. It was not a best-seller.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daniel Jones.<br />
Image: https://evolution9linguistics.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/dj-system-kk-system/</td></tr>
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The EPD was first published by Dent, who continued to produce it until the late 1980s, when it was bought by Cambridge University Press (CUP). During the Dent years, Jones produced a further 11 editions, with A. C. Gimson stepping in as editor following Jones's death in 1967. Gimson produced two editions, the 13th as sole editor, and the 14th with the support of Susan Ramsaran, who finished the work following Gimson's death in 1985.</div>
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I first got involved with EPD in its 15th edition. I'd been doing an MA at Leeds, where Peter was based at the time, and was invited to join the team; I am listed as 'Pronunciation Associate' on the title page of EPD15. From this edition, it was decided to add American English pronunciation as well as British English, and so James Hartman was brought on board. The other exciting thing about this edition was that it was being computerized using the impressively-named 'Advanced Revelation' database software. My main work at the time was to go through all the existing pronunciations ('prons') in the database to check they were up to date and entered properly, syllabify them according to the principle of <a href="http://www.glottopedia.org/index.php/Maximal_Onset_Principle" target="_blank">Maximal Onsets</a>, and add new prons for words coming in from CUP after consultation with Peter and Jim; we added more than 18,000 new words at the time. What that usually entailed was me researching and suggesting both British and American prons and Peter and Jim agreeing, disagreeing or augmenting the suggestions with additional variants. </div>
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Apologies for the huge understatement, but the English language has changed rather a lot since 1917, pronunciation included. Peter was very much against using the term RP to describe the reference accent in EPD (now CEPD) as he perceived it to be outdated and associated with the upper classes. For British English, he prefers the term 'BBC English', and for American English we use 'Network English'. The idea is that these are the accents used by professional speakers on national broadcast networks in the UK and USA; these are educated speakers who could come from any demographic.<br />
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Cambridge University Press have produced an engaging video on CEPD to mark its 100th year. I love the way the narrator trills his /r/ when he pronounces 'American'!<br />
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So, what next for CEPD?<br />
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There are no current plans to produce any further print editions of the dictionary; it is now available through the Apple and Android app stores (accessible via the video above), and CUP have told us that the way forward (as I write) is electronic editions only. However, as well as adding new words to the dictionary from time to time, there may come a point at which we will have to evaluate whether BBC or Network English are relevant anymore. John Wells, Emeritus Professor of Phonetics at UCL, has written of EPD that it 'has set the standard against which other dictionaries must inevitably be judged'. In order for that to continue, we may want to add prons for something like Standard Global English - whatever that might look like - or make changes to the current transcription systems to reflect the pronunciation of future Englishes. The phonemic system of transcription is fairly robust and forgiving, but it wasn't so long ago that we added happY and thank yOU vowels, which are non-phonemic. </div>
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Will we want to add glottal stops, for example? </div>
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And can the CEPD continue to be a suitable reference point when English is developing so fast around the world? </div>
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I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.</div>
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Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-86025949322013648872017-03-15T10:59:00.001-07:002019-08-06T20:45:38.555-07:00You say "lee-doh", I say "lye-doh" ...When I was a child, it was quite a fun thing on a summer's day to visit Margate Lido. My dad had an early morning newspaper stand outside it for several years, and sometimes I'd be with him on a Saturday morning (mum worked part-time at the Green Shield shop) and we'd go to the lido after he finished selling his papers.<br />
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In the UK, a lido is an outdoor swimming pool with individual changing rooms arranged around and facing on to the pool, often with seating around it, and sometimes with a café or somewhere else to buy a cup of tea and an ice cream. Here's <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-35539776" target="_blank">a picture of a lido from the BBC</a>; this is Pontypridd Ynysangharad park lido.<br />
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While most people visit lidos in the summer, they are also popular with cold-weather swimmers (I haven't ever been one of those - brrrrr!).<br />
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There has been discussion in Reading recently about the future of <a href="http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/reading-berkshire-news/kings-meadow-swimming-baths-redevelopment-11931517" target="_blank">the lido at King's Meadow</a>, originally built in 1902, and to be renamed "Thames Lido" when it re-opens. This sparked some interest from the local BBC radio station, BBC Berkshire, about how the word "lido" should be pronounced. Is it "lee-doh" or "lye-doh"?<br />
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As far as I am concerned, if it's an open-air swimming pool in the UK, it's a "lye-doh". This is how my dad said it and, when people talk about other lidos in the UK, I have never heard them called "lee-dohs" (one of my friends commented on Facebook that she couldn't imagine anyone calling Tooting lido anything other than "lye-doh"). However, a significant number of my friends say "lee-doh", the one in Venice is definitely a "lee-doh" ... and if you're American, it seems, "lee-doh" is the only possibility - check this clip from <i>Legally Blonde </i>(OK, I realise that's a sample of one).<br />
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For information, the <i>Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary</i> - which I co-edit - gives /ˈliːdəʊ/ as the first variant, followed by /ˈlaɪdəʊ/. I'm clearly not following my own pronunciation here.<br />
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So why the difference?<br />
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<i>Lido</i> is an Italian word which we have borrowed into English, as with so many other words which help us to express a multi-word concept ("out-door swimming pool", in this case) with one word. English is fine about borrowing in other words as long as there is a gap to fill. Think about all the different types of coffee servings we've borrowed from Italian; it's so much easier to ask for a cappuccino than for a very strong coffee with frothed milk on the top. The Italian pronunciation of <i>lido</i> is more like "lee-doh" and, if you have traveled extensively and/or know Romance languages like French or Italian and do not know of, or do not frequent, open-air swimming pools in the UK, you are unlikely to know and/or use the "lye-doh" variant. A friend also commented that, if you know the band Roxy Music, you may also say "lee-doh", as it appears in the song <i>Do The Strand</i>, in which it is (partially) rhymed with<i> incognito </i>(at 2:50 in the YouTube video below).<br />
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Not every town has a lido - weather good enough for open-air swimming is not <b>that</b> common in the UK - and the people who originally used lidos tended to be those who could not afford holidays abroad. Such people were more likely 1) not to have come into contact with the word abroad and 2) to pronounce it "lye-doh" based on English spelling rules, i.e., if there is a vowel followed by a single consonant followed by another vowel, the first vowel "says its name", in this case, /aɪ/. But they could also have been calling it a "lye-doh" because their peer group did that. The fact that my dad said "lye-doh" and I have this pronunciation for the UK ones is an indicator of my social background, i.e., we were working class.</div>
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<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04szf25#play" target="_blank">Click here to listen to me on BBC Berkshire</a>, and skip to about 02:09:00. </div>
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We move on from the discussion of the pronunciation of <i>lido</i> on BBC Berkshire to cover other contentious words in British English, such as<i> scone</i>, and I mention various <a href="http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/cambridge-app-maps-decline-in-regional-diversity-of-english-dialects" target="_blank">accent and dialect maps</a> developed at the University of Cambridge, which are fascinating - and there's now <a href="http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/do-you-say-splinter-spool-spile-or-spell-english-dialects-app-tries-to-guess-your-regional-accent" target="_blank">an app which allows you to contribute your variant of several words to the research</a>. How people use language can tell us a lot about how society has changed and developed, and looking at maps where there is a comparison between the 1950s and now is a real eye-opener. I've nicked<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/5glrvz/scone_map_of_the_uk_and_ireland_644_x_770/" target="_blank"> the scone map from Reddit</a> as a taster. </div>
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<br />Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-27283343416985321292016-09-30T06:32:00.002-07:002017-05-31T03:36:48.295-07:00The future of those tricky "th" sounds<div dir="ltr">
A number of newspapers have reported this week that the "th" sounds will die out by 2066 in British English (here's an article in the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/09/28/th-sound-to-vanish-from-english-language-by-2066-because-of-mult/">Daily Telegraph</a>)*. How likely is this assertion?<br />
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Dental fricatives [θ] and [ð], spelled "th" in English and found in words like <i>thin</i> and <i>this</i> respectively, are very low incidence in languages of the world; they are found in fewer than 50 of the world's 6000-7000 spoken languages**. In some cases, they only occur because of a phonological process. For example, [ð] appears in Castilian Spanish between two vowels, where it is an allophone of the phoneme /d/. <br />
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Dental fricatives are also late acquired in English - i.e., children start using them later than some other consonants. <a href="http://www.sltinfo.com/ess101-age-of-acquisition-of-speech-sounds/">SLT Info</a>, for example, explains that English-speaking children do not start using them until around four years of age, while some consonants, such as /p/, /b/, /m/ and /w/ (what's the common factor here?), are produced as linguistic sounds as early as the age of two.<br />
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Most new varieties of English around the world do not use dental fricatives. Hong Kong English speakers, for example, produce /θ/ as [f] (<i>three</i> sounds like <i>free</i>) and /ð/ as [d] (<i>this</i> sounds like <i>diss</i>).</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br />
There are also accents of British English which have been around for a very long time which do not use dental fricatives. Do any British readers of a certain age remember the Qualcast advert "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IARuRMLIAU">It's a lot less bovver than a hover</a>" (see around 48 seconds)? This works because accents such as Cockney, for example, have been substituting dental fricatives for other sounds for some time. /ð/ word initially is often produced as [d], and between two vowels as [v], as in this advert. /θ/, just like Hong Kong English, is produced by Cockney speakers as [f]; in fact, as a child learning Maths, when the new teacher arrived who was ethnically Chinese and from Hong Kong in the 1970s, we all thought she was from London as she pronounced <i>Maths</i> as /mæfs/. <br />
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<div dir="ltr">
Producing /ð/ as [d] is known as stopping - i.e., the fricative is produced as a stop or plosive consonant - and producing /ð/ as [v] and /θ/ as [f] is known as fronting - i.e., the fricatives are produced further forward in the mouth, in this case, as labio-dental fricatives. These are both processes which are common in developing child language in English. Some varieties of English stop /θ/, so it is produced as [t] or similar; Southern Irish accents do this, as does Jamaican English.<br />
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Given that dental fricatives are very low incidence in languages in the world, late acquired, and often substituted in regional and global varieties of English, it is not really a surprise that they are predicted to die out at some point in the future. This might be down to multiculturalism, or it might simply be because they seem to be of less importance in international communication in English. Which is it? It might be difficult to decide.<br />
<br />
Update, 03/10/2016<br />
<br />
* This was in the context of multilingualism in British English. My discussion looks at other issues.<br />
<br />
** My Twitter colleague Ben Zimmer (@bgzimmer) has found that there are at least 112 languages with dental fricative phonemes.</div>
Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-7120159610642487412016-09-19T09:19:00.000-07:002016-09-19T09:19:21.949-07:00International Talk Like A Pirate Day: musings on the pirate accent<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Avast, me hearties! Arrrr!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">September 19<sup>th</sup> every
year is <a href="http://talklikeapirate.com/wordpress/" target="_blank">International Talk Like A Pirate Day</a>. Started by John Baur and Mark
Summers as a bit of a private in-joke in 1995, it took off in 2002 when it was
picked up by Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry. But where does that pirate
accent come from?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The stereotypical one we hear
most often in films and on TV shows has similarities to current South-Western
accents of mainland Britain, e.g., Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Cornwall. While
it is likely that many British pirates originated from that region, others did
not (I grew up in Kent, for example, which is also associated with pirates and
smugglers). What we associate with the typical pirate accent may well be
based on well-known actors’ portrayals of pirates, with <a href="http://dialectblog.com/2011/05/24/pirate-accent/">Dialect Blog</a>
suggesting the speech of the entire genre was based on 1950s screen actor
Robert Newton, who was born and raised in Dorset. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Interestingly, this is not the
direction Johnny Depp decided to go with Captain Jack Sparrow, whose accent –
if the trivia is correct – was based on Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards
(Richards appears as Sparrow’s father in <i>Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s
End</i>). In fact, although Geoffrey Rush does a pretty close approximation
to the stereotypical pirate accent, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has
pirates with accents of English from all over the world, including rather posh ones (e.g.,
Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan), Jamaican ones (e.g., Tia Dalma), as well as
Russian, Turkish, Chinese and Dutch; this was probably nearer the truth. One theory of pidginisation is known as the 'nautical jargon theory', which observes that many Pidgins have nautical words in them (e.g., the word <i>capsize</i> to mean 'turn over' or 'spill') and may have arisen from the development of a common language on board ship during European colonial days; that certainly has piratical connections. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But what of the British pirate accent? As the ‘traditional’,
swash-buckling period of pirating is generally situated in popular culture
somewhere between the 1500s and 1800s, we would expect the British accent
during this time to be rather more close to that of the pirates from the 1950s
films than Johnny Depp’s mock London. British English was rhotic, which
means the sound represented by the letter ‘r’ in spelling would have been
pronounced everywhere it was written; this is certainly a feature of the pirate
accent. And anyone who listens to David and Ben Crystal’s Shakespeare in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s">Original Pronunciation</a>
(from around 2 mins 50 seconds) will hear other vowels and consonants which we
associate with the stereotypes of how pirates speak.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
International Talk Like A Pirate Day is such fun; perhaps we should think about talking like other character types. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Something more modern perhaps? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Talk Like Siri day, anyone ..? </div>
Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-29431515281598342122016-06-28T06:13:00.003-07:002019-12-30T04:34:04.885-08:00English: no longer an official EU language?In the fallout from Brexit, it has been suggested that <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/28/english-language-could-be-dropped-from-european-union-after-brex/" target="_blank">English could stop being an official language of the EU</a>. <br />
<br />
Is this likely to happen?<br />
<br />
Until the 1990s, the most dominant language of the EU (European Union) was French. When the EU was the EC (European Community) and the official language policy was defined, Dutch, French, German and Italian were identified as the working languages. However, as more countries joined, many of which had English as a second or additional language, the number of English speakers grew until English was the majority common language.<br />
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Image from <a href="https://jakubmarian.com/map-of-the-most-spoken-foreign-languages-of-the-eu-by-country/">jakubmarian.com</a></div>
<br />
<br />
Currently, the EU lists <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/languages/policy/linguistic-diversity/official-languages-eu_en.htm" target="_blank">24 official and working languages</a>. The UK is the only member country which gives English as its official language, but English is the most commonly used language in EU debates and discussions. There are a few member countries which commonly use English but have nominated a different language as their EU official language; for example, the Republic of Ireland gives Irish Gaelic as its official language, and Malta gives Maltese.<br />
<br />
If Britain withdraws from the EU, there will be no member country listing it as an official language. (There is of course the possibility that England will withdraw and e.g. Scotland and Northern Ireland will remain; it will be interesting to see what happens linguistically in that instance.) In order for English to continue to be used as an official language, all remaining members of the EU will have to agree*.<br />
<br />
But does choice of language work like that?<br />
<br />
Historically, English has weathered a number of storms. When members of the British Empire sought to gain their independence, it may have seemed logical for English - the language of the colonial oppressors - to be rejected at the same time. The fact that this did not happen and that English is used as a first or second language in more than 70 countries worldwide points to the usefulness of English as a global language, but also to its developing socio-economic and political status during the 20th century. With the decline of the British Empire came the rise of the United States of America, which has English as its de facto national language. One of my colleagues, <a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/115259" target="_blank">Dr Lynne Murphy</a> from the University of Sussex, regularly presents on how America saved the English language; from the perspective of its use as a global lingua franca, she's got a point. (If you're interested, you can follow Lynne's wonderful blog, <a href="http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Separated by a Common Language</a>, and find her on <a href="https://twitter.com/lynneguist">Twitter</a> @Lynneguist.)<br />
<br />
In fact, in some post-colonial situations, English is regarded as a more or less neutral language. In India, for example - and this is an oversimplified summary - English was to be phased out over a period of 50 years post-independence in 1947 in favour of Hindi. However, as not everyone in India speaks Hindi, and many do not want to for various cultural reasons, English continued to be used, and is now an official language of India. In Hong Kong, there was quite a strong desire at the time of the Handover in 1997 for the British to stay and for the territory not to be handed back to China. The fact that English is still an official language of Hong Kong may reflect this desire, but also it has its uses in Hong Kong, which is an international hub for trade and finance. Singapore has Malay, Chinese (various dialects) and Tamil speakers, among others; English is a unifying language.<br />
<br />
But these Englishes we are talking about here are not 'British English', or even 'American English'. The Englishes spoken around the world may be based on one or other variety, but they have developed their own vocabulary and grammar. Euro-English is no exception; there is <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=125584&fileId=S0266078401004023">research</a> into this variety, and even <a href="http://www.euenglish.hu/books/eu-english/" target="_blank">guides on how to use EU English</a>. English simply does not belong to traditional 'native' English speakers any more; it belongs to everyone who speaks it, and communities will enact development to fit need and use. Brits and Americans need to bear this in mind when using English to interact in international settings, as they cannot assume they will be understood by every English speaker.<br />
<br />
So, will English cease to be a language of the EU? Probably not, either in conversations between EU member countries, MEPs, or in EU interaction with other countries around the world**. It is simplistic to think it can simply be voted out. After all, English is much more than just the language of the United Kingdom. <br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
Updates, 29/06/2016:<br />
<br />
* I had understood that there would have to be a vote to keep English as a language of the EU. The opposite is, in fact, true: there would have to be a unanimous vote to remove it as an official language, as clarified in this <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/ireland/news/statement-on-behalf-of-the-European-Commission-Representation_en">statement on behalf of the European Commission in Ireland</a>, dated 28th June 2016.<br />
<br />
** One MEP from Sweden suggests that communications in the EU could be <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-to-say-au-revoir-tschuss-to-english-language-1467036600">fairer in English</a>, as it will be everyone's second language.<br />
Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-33825938886700423222015-04-14T09:06:00.001-07:002015-04-14T09:06:20.981-07:00Compliments across culturesOn the way home from the IATEFL <a href="http://pronsig.iatefl.org/" target="_blank">PronSIG</a> Pre-Conference Event on Friday, someone complimented me on my hair. I felt pleased and I posted about this on Facebook. (I have a rather distinctive white streak in my fringe which I've had since I was 18 and people often think I put in; in fact, it's natural ... and it's now the rest which is coloured!)<br />
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Anyway, this resulted in various "likes", and a comment from an Indian FB friend of mine whom I met and taught on a workshop for trainers of Indian call centre operators some years ago. This is what he said:<br />
<br />
"I would have complimented you on your looks, your accent and your hair - in that order. :-)"<br />
<br />
While this is lovely (thank you, Indian FB friend!), I felt a bit uncomfortable about it, particularly the looks part. This got me thinking about what it's actually acceptable to compliment someone on in my culture.<br />
<br />
<b>Looks</b><br />
<br />
I would not feel comfortable complimenting someone I didn't know well on their physical looks - certainly not an adult. If I was complimenting a child, it would probably actually be directed at their parent(s) - along the lines of "didn't you do well producing such an adorable mini-you?" I don't think it's unacceptable to do that in my culture, but would be interested to know if anyone disagreed.<br />
<br />
Why wouldn't I compliment someone on their looks unless I knew them well? I'm not sure. Is it because it's not really a person's choice how their physical features happen to be arranged? Is it objectifying someone too much? <br />
<br />
I've been trying to think if anyone I didn't know well had complimented me directly on my looks other than my Indian FB friend. Aside from the very odd wolf-whistle whilst passing building sites in my youth, I really couldn't think of any time this had happened. <br />
<br />
So, clearly, complimenting someone on their looks if you don't know them really well is just not done in my culture. Apologies, Indian FB friend, but it feels a bit like being turned into a commodity rather than being valued as a person.<br />
<br />
<b>What about my accent? </b><br />
<br />
In my professional context, I have been complimented on my accent quite a lot, and this is the context in which I place my Indian FB friend. I've always found it a bit odd - but not entirely, because my area is English pronunciation / phonetics (I edit a <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/cambridgeenglish/catalog/dictionaries/cambridge-english-pronouncing-dictionary-18th-edition" target="_blank">pronouncing dictionary</a>) and people invite me to conferences to speak about that. Some - one assumes - must think I have an RP accent (I haven't). Although I doubt anyone from UK academia would compliment me on it, occasionally overseas conference organisers and delegates approach me to say how lovely my accent is. I'm pleased they think so; I worked very hard to speak clearly, and am reminded of my dad picking me up on my accent and grammar when I was a child. A compliment on my accent horrifies me much less than the idea that someone might approach me and express an opinion about my looks.<br />
<br />
I do have experience of other phoneticians commenting on features of my accent in a more objective way. One mentioned my diphthongal FLEECE vowel, for example, and Prof John Wells noted in a presentation we once gave that I have more glottal stops than he does. Although I grew up in Kent, I lived in Yorkshire for eight years; occasionally bits of that seep in and people have mentioned it.<br />
<br />
Clearly, accents are very important in forming impressions, as various matched-guise experiments have shown, and still a matter of great interest, as recent <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2785900/Posh-charming-Queen-s-English-favourite-accent-Received-pronunciation-comes-nine-ten-traits-looking-humour-try-Geordie.html" target="_blank">dating website surveys</a> indicate. Excellent communication skills are often listed as an employment criterion and accent probably plays a part in some employers' selections, whether it should or not (I'm not going to get into the argument about non-native speaker English teachers here). But, aside from the odd bit of banter you get about the FOOT/STRUT split or BATH merger between northern and southern English speakers in England, it is only when someone is actively criticised for their accent that it really gets noticed in the UK as an issue. For example, in an Ofsted report some time ago <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/teacher-told-to-sound-less-northern-after-southern-ofsted-inspection-8947332.html" target="_blank">a teacher in West Berkshire was given as a performance objective trying to sound "less northern</a>". I find that objectionable, personally, and so did the Independent (and various other newspapers). Outrageously, the superb Steph McGovern from the BBC Breakfast news, who is from the north east of England, was <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2847652/BBC-Breakfast-presenter-sent-20-viewer-fix-northern-accent.html" target="_blank">sent money by a viewer for elocution lessons</a>.<br />
<br />
But why do I feel is it unacceptable to comment on someone's accent, when clearly others do not? One can change one's accent with much less physical intervention / surgery than changing one's looks. Why should that be necessary if one is clearly spoken with a regional accent? After all, everyone has one accent or other. <br />
<br />
Have you had people compliment you on your accent, if you are a native speaker of a language? I'd be interested to know.<br />
<br />
<b>Finally, my hair. </b><br />
<br />
I am entirely comfortable about being complimented on my hair. Or my shoes. Or my jewellery. Or my clothes. Or my choice of phone or tablet or other consumer item. Or my handwriting. Etc..<br />
<br />
Is this because it is a conscious fashion/style choice, as opposed to something I can't change so readily? That may be the case. It's true that I have the white streak in my hair by an accident of nature, but I choose not to colour it, so it is a statement about me that I am choosing to make public. Perhaps that could be said about my accent, too.<br />
<br />
But - surgery and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L414AMdFIAg" target="_blank">very clever contouring</a> aside (and I don't do that - not enough hours in the day!) - I can't change my looks, and I don't want to be judged by them. <br />
<br />Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-79383256649119704332014-08-28T02:53:00.004-07:002014-09-16T01:57:48.871-07:00Profiling for the mediaI was recently called upon by<a href="http://www.ap.org/" target="_blank"> Associated Press</a>, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/" target="_blank">BBC News Channel</a> and Reading's <a href="http://www.jackfmberkshire.com/" target="_blank">Jack FM</a> to comment on the spoken features of the jihadist from the video footage of the beheading of US journalist James Foley, as it has been suggested that he is British. You can see me in the Associated Press clip on French television below.<br />
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I'm always ready to be called upon to comment on linguistic issues for the media, but this situation was particularly difficult owing to the content of the video. I hope that the phonetics community is able to assist the authorities. I wish to make it clear that am not carrying out the analysis myself.<br />
<br />
The speaker displays many of the features of a British accent known widely as Multicultural London English (MLE), such as producing vowels in e.g. FACE and PRICE as monophthongs, not dropping /h/ sounds (/h/-dropping is common in London accent Cockney) and pronouncing voiced dental fricatives in e.g. <i>the</i> as a [d]. There are glottal stops, which are less common in Afro-Caribbean or African English accents, and /l/-vocalisation. The speaker also has a more syllable-timed speech rhythm; instead of pronouncing the phrase <i>from all walks of life</i> as /frəm ɔːl wɔːks əv laɪf/ it sounds more like [frɒm ɔː wɔːks ɒv lɐːf], with a full vowel in each syllable.<br />
<br />
See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicultural_London_English" target="_blank">HERE</a> for information on the features of MLE (yes, it's Wikipedia, but a good summary). <br />
<br />
The accent was identified chiefly by Professor Paul Kerswill and colleagues; Paul was at Reading, but is now at York via Lancaster.<br />
<br />
It's impossible to say exactly how many speakers there are of this accent, but it is common among younger working-class speakers in the London area, and features of the accent have also been observed in other urban areas of the UK. It is not at all exclusive to speakers from an Afro-Caribbean background but is also spoken extensively but e.g. white and Asian speakers wishing to identify with a certain demographic / social group.<br />
<br />
British impressionist and actor Alistair McGowan did a nice piece on MLE for the BBC's One Show, which you can view below.<br />
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<br />
I would say that the speaker in the clip is probably a UK or fully bilingual speaker of English rather than a second language learner or someone with an indigenised variety of English (e.g., Nigerian English). The speaker probably grew up in or near inner London and has probably been educated in the UK system. I would be surprised if he was from outside the greater London area, but this is an accent which is socioculturally attractive and so he may be from further afield. I would also suggest that he is lower middle-class rather than working-class as he sounds educated.<br />
<br />
It should be noted, however, that we cannot actually see him speak in the film. Most of his face including his mouth is covered. It could, therefore, be a voice-over.<br />
<br />
When I appeared on the BBC News Channel (I'm so sorry I don't have a clip of this to share) I was asked about forensic phonetic analysis of this speaker's voice. What we would need to be able to do this is a reference sample of a known speaker in order to make comparisons between that and the Foley video. As one of my colleagues, Martin Barry, points out, unless this speaker has spoken into a police microphone it will be almost impossible to carry out forensic speaker comparison successfully.<br />
<br />
My picture from the AP session also appeared in the Los Angeles Times. You can view the online article <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-foley-britain-20140822-story.html" target="_blank">HERE</a>, which has comment from Martin Barry.Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-2388824387300220062014-06-06T06:23:00.000-07:002016-06-28T07:07:37.686-07:00Phonetic vs phonemic inventories<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Lucida Sans', verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 4px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
In my first year "Sounds of Language" class, one of the things we do is look at phonetic vs phonemic inventories. I've just had a question about this on the discussion board for the module so I thought I may as well post my response, in case anyone is interested.</div>
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Sounds pattern differently in different languages. Speakers of two languages may produce exactly the same set of speech sounds - or phones (phonetics) - when talking, but the languages may use those sounds differently to create meaning. Once we're talking about meaning, we are considering phonemes.</div>
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Say, for example, there are two languages whose speakers produce the consonant sounds [p] and [b] and have one vowel, [a]. In both cases, the phonetic inventory contains [p], [b] and [a]. We put the sounds in [] brackets to indicate we are just talking about how the sound is produced at the moment. </div>
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The only thing which is different between [p] and [b] is voicing; [p] is voiceless and [b] is voiced. Otherwise, they are both bilabial plosives. </div>
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In language A, [bapa] and [baba] mean different things - [bapa] means "red" and [baba] means "yellow". [bapa] and [baba] constitute a MINIMAL PAIR, as only one sound differs between the two and it changes the meaning of the word. We can therefore say that /p/ and /b/ are phonemes - meaning units - because of this change in meaning, and we now put them in // brackets. There are TWO consonant phonemes. Thus, the phonemic inventory is /p/, /b/ and /a/.</div>
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In language B, however, [baba] and [bapa] both mean the same thing - they both mean "car". This means that it doesn't matter whether the consonant is voiced in language B. As there is no change in meaning when one substitutes [p] for [b], they are NOT different phonemes but belong to the same single phoneme. </div>
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What we have to do for language B is decide which sound represents the phoneme, and we often choose the one which occurs in most environments. As we don't have a lot of data here, let's go with the phoneme being /b/ (as there are more of them). That phoneme contains the two sounds [p] and [b], which are ALLOPHONES (phonetic variants) of /b/. Thus, the phonemic inventory is /b/ and /a/. </div>
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This is a <u>very</u> limited set of data, however!</div>
Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-46186268515014161092014-04-15T08:07:00.004-07:002014-04-16T08:41:26.878-07:00The Guess List: a study in /t/ elisionThe BBC is airing a new game show on Saturday nights hosted by the wonderful Rob Brydon and amusingly entitled <i>The Guess List. </i><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-guess-list-tv-review-fun-and-games-from-rob-brydon-but-this-quiz-show-isnt-a-winner-9257514.html" target="_blank">You can read the Independent newspaper's less than glowing review of it here</a>.<br />
<br />
Why amusing?<br />
<br />
This plays on a phrase, <i>the guest list</i>, which is a list of people invited to an event, i.e., a list of guests. No surprise there.<br />
<br />
What amuses me is that it is an example of how the process of alveolar plosive elision can result in homophones in English - in this instance, a homophonic phrase.<br />
<br />
When one produces the phrase <i>the guest list</i> in rapid speech, it is normal to leave out the /t/ sound at the end of /ɡest/. This process is called /t/ (or /d/) elision. The rules for when this can take place are as follows:<br />
<ol>
<li>The /t/ or /d/ must be in the syllable coda;</li>
<li>It must be surrounded by other consonants;</li>
<li>The consonant preceding the alveolar plosive must agree in voicing with it - so if the plosive is a /t/ it must be preceded by a voiceless consonant and, if it's /d/, it must be preceded by a voiced one.</li>
<li>The consonant following cannot be /h/.</li>
</ol>
So, in <i>guest list</i>, which can be transcribed phonemically as /ɡest lɪst/, we can elide the /t/ at the end of /ɡest/ because it meets the requirements listed above. This results in /ɡes lɪst/, which means <i>guest list</i> and <i>guess list</i> are homophonous.<br />
<br />
There is, as far as I know, no such thing as <i>guess list</i> as a phrase in English. If one types it into Google, for example, it redirects you to <i>guest list</i>.<br />
<br />
Other notable examples of homophones resulting from connected speech processes include <i>handbag</i> /hændbæɡ/ becoming homophonous with <i>ham bag</i> /hæmbæɡ/. There are two processes going on here: /d/ elision and assimilation.<br />
<br />
Assimilation is a process by which sounds at word boundaries - often alveolar consonants - become more similar to each other in rapid speech. Here's a diagram showing consonants at word boundaries:<br />
<br />
_ _ Cf | Ci _ _ <br />
<br />
Cf = final consonant; Ci = initial consonant<br />
<br />
In English, we tend to get regressive assimilation, which means the initial consonant (Ci) at the beginning of the next word has a backwards effect on the final consonant (Cf) of the preceding word. As I mentioned above, this tends to affect alveolar consonants, and more often than not it will affect the place of articulation of Cf, i.e., it will not be produced as an alveolar consonant but will have the same place of articulation as the Ci of the next word.<br />
<br />
In <i>handbag</i> /hændbaɡ/, the alveolar plosive /d/ is elided and the alveolar nasal /n/ is produced as a bilabial consonant because the following word - bag - begins with a bilabial consonant, /b/. This results in the production /hæmbæɡ/, which is homophonous with <i>ham bag</i>. But of course, a lady wouldn't normally take a bag of ham out with her when she went shopping, and we can usually retrieve the real meaning from the context.<br />
<br />
I should add a caveat in that this is a very brief overview of the theory of these two processes. In very rapid speech, all sorts of sounds get elided and / or assimilated, so analysing spontaneous speech can be a real challenge.<br />
<br />
Another issue which arises from connected speech processes such as elision and assimilation is that they can make speech less intelligible or the message more difficult to understand. Emilio's comment below led me to this example, spoken by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in <i>Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf</i>? In it, there is /t/ elision in the word <i>guests</i>, which is perfectly legal. You can see how Burton's character doesn't understand Taylor's character until she repeats the word <i>guests</i> with the /t/ in it - although what "We've got guess" (as opposed to "We've got guests") might mean is difficult to ascertain. There are obvious issues for speech intelligibility here in English as an international lingua franca.<br />
<br />
Watch from 04:04 right near the end. And thank you, Emilio!<br />
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I'd recommend the following books by way of introduction if you are interested in connected speech processes in English:<br />
<br />
Lecumberri, M L G & Maidment, J. 2000. <i>English Transcription Course</i>. London: Arnold.<br />
<br />
Roach, P. 2009. <i>English Phonetics and Phonology: A practical course</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com50tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-11345778257243997562013-12-19T06:25:00.000-08:002013-12-19T07:39:21.257-08:00Syllable structure mattersYou know, I can't remember who I was talking to about this recently or why we got on to the topic, but I have always done my best to educate language teachers (and learners, for that matter) about the importance of syllable structure and phonotactics in learning how to pronounce a new language.<br />
<br />
I am, of course, usually coming at it from the angle of someone pronouncing English.<br />
<br />
As you doubtless know, accents such as Standard Southern British English (SSBE) have up to three consonants at the start of a syllable (onset consonants) and four consonants at the end (coda consonants), and a syllable usually has a vowel as its peak. The structure of the basic SSBE syllable can therefore be described as follows:<br />
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(CCC)V(CCCC)</div>
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I'd recommend reading Roach (2009) chapter 8 or Cruttenden (2008) section 5.5 for a full description of what clusters are possible in syllable onsets and codas in SSBE. There's also a nice description on the <a href="http://clas.mq.edu.au/phonetics/phonology/syllable/index.html" target="_blank">Macquarie Linguistics pages</a>. The main point I want to make here is that not all languages have syllables which are as complex as English (and English does not have the monopoly on complexity), and this is what can lead to problems with pronunciation as much as not being able to produce a sound.</div>
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The thing which always surprises me - and perhaps it shouldn't - is that teachers of English from other language backgrounds often know nothing about the phonology of their own language, and so do not understand that a learner's problem with pronouncing a sound in a particular position in the syllable is unlikely to be about not being able to produce the sound <i>per se</i> but that the learner's language does not permit certain sounds in certain positions in the syllable. If, for example, a learner is from a Chinese language background and that language only permits a zero-coda (i.e., no consonants at the end of syllables) or only a nasal of some description in the coda, pronouncing any other consonant at the end of a syllable may be difficult, and pronouncing clusters is going to be an extreme challenge.</div>
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In addition, learners have different strategies for dealing with clusters. Some learners (e.g., Japanese) will insert vowels between consonants in a cluster - this process is known as vowel epenthesis - in order to preserve as many consonants as possible. By comparison, Chinese speakers will often elide consonants in order to be more similar to Chinese syllable structure and number. Here's a favourite comparison of mine: In Japan, <i>MacDonald's</i>, which is /məkˈdɒnəldz/ in SSBE, is known as "ma-ku-do-na-ru-do", but in Hong Kong it is known as "mak-do-nau", with a strongly glottalised and unreleased [k] in the first syllable. Japanese tends to preserve the consonants but Cantonese preserves the number of syllables.</div>
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In World Englishes, we often see patterns of syllable structure influenced by a speaker's L1 or the indigenous language(s) of the region in which English has been adopted. This may be why speakers of many varieties of English around the world drop third-person singular "-s"; the meaning of it is retrievable from the context, and it's a rather superfluous inflection which is likely to be dropped anyway in complex codas in many L2 Englishes. </div>
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Does it matter that clusters are simplified? Yes, it does, if intelligibility and therefore meaning is compromised. One is unlikely to be misunderstood if leaving off third-person singular "-s", but it becomes more of a problem in other contexts; my understanding of a Hong Kong English pronunciation of <i>MacDonald's</i> (I'd asked what the student's favourite things were) was that the speaker had said <i>Madonna</i>, thanks largely to the lack of consonants at the end of the word.</div>
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What can teachers do about this? First, one needs to be aware of the syllable constraints of the L1 of the learners you are going to be teaching, so you have an idea of whether they are used to complex syllable onsets and codas to start with. If not, chances are learners will be able to produce singleton consonants and some clusters in onset position with little difficulty, but codas are always more problematic.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
One strategy, if coda consonants are a problem, is to try to "slide" the coda consonants into the next word; this doesn't always work, but it can also help learners with listening if they can understand that speech is a stream rather than a string of discrete words, and so it may well sound like coda consonants belong to the next word. For example, in a phrase such as "MacDonald's is my favourite", one could slide the final /z/ of <i>MacDonald's</i> into the start of the word "is" and it would then be a little more straightforward for the listener to retrieve.</div>
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<b>References:</b></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
Cruttenden, A. (ed). (2008). <i>Gimson's Pronunciation of English</i> (7th ed.). London: Hodder Education.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Roach, P. (2009). <i>English Phonetics and Phonology </i>(4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</div>
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Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-47598167287522536702013-12-11T03:32:00.001-08:002013-12-12T06:01:45.395-08:00Flipping phoneticsI am so sorry I've not posted for a while; it's been a hectic term!<br />
<br />
One of the reasons it's been hectic is because I've been trying a different method of delivering some of my English phonetics and phonology classes and that - as always - entails preparation which takes TIME ... but time well spent which has been worth it.<br />
<br />
I first heard about the <a href="http://mast.unco.edu/programs/flipped/" target="_blank">flipped classroom</a> from my friend and colleague <a href="http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/contacts/detail/ntfs/2010/Ashby_Patricia_2010" target="_blank">Dr Patricia Ashby</a> who is now an Emeritus Fellow of the University of Westminster. You may know Patricia from her excellent books <i><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=G-he7lNXEQMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Speech+Sounds+Ashby&source=bl&ots=EA8MZsIEZO&sig=8qKe0QPsUS_4BdYhf3VFzS00tJc&hl=en&ei=xc8OTPO5EI3w0wSKttCTDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Speech Sounds</a></i> and <i><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xb5EAQAAQBAJ&dq=inauthor:%22Patricia+Ashby%22&source=gbs_navlinks_s" target="_blank">Understanding Phonetics</a></i>. She presented "Flipping Phonetics" at the <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychlangsci/ptlc" target="_blank">Phonetics Teaching and Learning Conference</a> at UCL in 2011; you can read the paper by clicking <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychlangsci/ptlc/proceedings_2011/ptlc2011_ashby-001" target="_blank">HERE</a>, and will notice that the results for the topics Patricia "flipped" were very impressive.<br />
<br />
The flipped classroom basically involves presenting what would normally be lecture content via vodcasts which the students watch ahead of the class, thus allowing more time in the actual class itself for practical work. This approach works well in the sciences where a lot of practical work is needed for students to progress, and Patricia had noticed how it was also suitable for phonetics, which also requires a lot of rehearsal of skills and time for class discussion of issues. <br />
<br />
I had wanted to try this for a while as I have been becoming increasingly concerned that the growing number of students I have in my class meant that I had less time to spend with each of them and that it was difficult to support individual student needs. Thanks to a small grant from the University of Reading's "Partnerships in Learning and Teaching" (PLanT) pilot scheme, I was able to buy some <a href="http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html" target="_blank">software</a> to do video capture of my desktop which enables me to record video and audio of me narrating my way through my lecture slides. I then post these on our virtual learning environment, Blackboard, for the students to view ahead of class.<br />
<br />
The PLanT scheme also enabled me to work with students to produce materials for the post-exams period at Reading to scaffold first year students' learning in preparation for the English phonetics and phonology module in Year 2. You can read about this <a href="http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/engage-in-teaching-and-learning/2013/10/01/preparation-for-phonetic-transcription-an-exercise-in-student-engagement-by-dr-jane-setter/" target="_blank">HERE</a> and <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychlangsci/ptlc/proceedings_2013/proceedings_2013" target="_blank">HERE</a> (see p. 79).<br />
<br />
One set of the vodcasts is on YouTube and I've posted them below if you'd like to take a look. We follow Peter Roach's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Phonetics-Phonology-Paperback-Audio/dp/052171740X" target="_blank">English Phonetics and Phonology</a></i> on this course, and this class presents material from chapters 15-17. In it you will see some embedded YouTube clips and also the excellent programme RT pitch which is available for download from <a href="http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/resource/sfs/rtpitch/" target="_blank">UCL's wonderful phonetics and speech resources</a>.<br />
<br />
I would value feedback on these videos (aside from the fact that I say "so" a lot!) either at the end of this message or on the YouTube pages themselves via <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/DrJaneSetter" target="_blank">my channel</a> (be warned: also contains some videos of one of my bands, <a href="http://www.crimsonsky.me.uk/" target="_blank">Crimson Sky</a>).<br />
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Students' responses so far have been very positive. They mention how appreciative they are to have more time in the class to work on practical skills. They also indicate how presenting material this way aids independent learning and allows students to take notes at their own pace, and they can of course return to these videos when it comes to exam revision; our exams are in May/June so there is a lot of time to forget the content. One student has written a <a href="http://earlyreflections1.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/flipping-phonology/" target="_blank">blog post</a> of her own about this (lots of other good stuff on there!), and another comments: "Your delivery and humour makes them very interesting and engaging." They have asked for other tutors to adopt this method and I hope some of my staff will consider it.<br />
<br />
Last year I was disappointed to see that the average overall marks among undergraduates for the dictation test we do at the end of term had dropped by around 11 percentage points. I usually expect the average to be in the mid-to-low 60s; the previous year's average had been around 66%. I'm just about to mark the transcription tests this year and will report back on whether they have improved with an update to this post.<br />
<br />
UPDATE #1: I've marked 20 out of 59 scripts and can report that the current average is **over 15 percentage points higher***. Watch this space ...<br />
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UPDATE #2: Having finished the marking, I can confirm that the average is up over 10 percentage points on last year's dictation test scores. Although not quite as impressive as 15%, it's still pretty darned good! Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-48146795567154730112013-09-13T05:45:00.000-07:002013-09-13T08:51:46.889-07:00Intonation and train announcements<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a post about the intonation of announcements on trains in the UK. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I didn't actually think it was worth posting on this topic until one of my students on the <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychlangsci/scep" target="_blank">UCL Summer Course in English Phonetics</a> mentioned that he thought the intonation was odd - and he was talking particularly about a feature which I had noticed and thought amusing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was returning to Reading on the <a href="http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/" target="_blank">South West Trains</a> London Waterloo service one evening when I noticed two things that interested me: first, the company who made the in-train announcements had chosen a falling-rising tone rather than a rising tone for certain functions; and second that the falling-rising tone was used in some unexpected places.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Excuse me while I explain a few things about intonation in standard British English, southern accent. This is taken from a chapter I wrote a while ago (Setter 2005) on Discourse Intonation and adopts that framework</span> (see e.g. Brazil <i>et al.</i> 1980; Brazil 1997)<span style="font-family: inherit;">. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">There are four central elements to discourse intonation: tone,
key, the tone unit and tonicity. I'm going to focus on tone here; readers with interest in the subject should seek the publications mentioned for
a fuller introduction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Tone
refers to the major pitch movement(s) in an utterance. Brazil </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">et al.</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
(1980: 13) distinguish between five tones: falling, rising, falling-rising,
rising-falling and level. The falling and falling-rising tones “embody the
basic meaningful distinction carried by tone”, whereas the other three “can
usefully be seen as marked options, understood and meaningful in contrast”
(Brazil </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">et al.</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"> 1980: 13).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify; text-indent: 30pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify; text-indent: 30pt;">The following example is given to show the contrast
between two utterances using the two basic tones, falling and falling-rising
(Brazil </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify; text-indent: 30pt;">et al.</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify; text-indent: 30pt;"> 1980: 13); I have used </span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">↘</span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify; text-indent: 30pt;"> to indicate falling and </span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">↘</span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">↗</span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify; text-indent: 30pt;"> to indicate a falling-rising, and // indicates a tone unit boundary (or intonational phrase boundary):</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(1) //
when I’ve finished </span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 20px; text-align: start;">↘</span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 20px; text-align: start;">↗</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Middlemarch // I shall read Adam </span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 20px; text-align: start;">↘</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bede //</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(2) //
when I’ve finished </span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 20px; text-align: start;">↘</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Middlemarch // I shall read Adam </span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 20px; text-align: start;">↘</span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 20px; text-align: start;">↗</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bede //</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Other
meanings notwithstanding, by using the falling-rising tone on <i>Middlemarch</i> and the falling tone on <i>Bede</i> in example (1), the speaker is
showing that he/she believes the listener already knows the speaker is reading <i>Middlemarch</i>, but does not know the next
book the speaker intends to read is <i>Adam
Bede</i>. By contrast, in example (2), it is believed that the intention to
read <i>Adam Bede</i> is known, indicated by
the falling-rising tone, but not the fact that the speaker is reading <i>Middlemarch</i> at the moment, indicated by
the falling tone. The use of specific tones therefore indicates what the
speaker believes either to be common ground in any utterance, be it general
knowledge of the world or information mentioned earlier in the same piece of
discourse or some other context, or unknown – whether information is given or
new.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">Brazil </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">et al.</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"> state that “all interaction
proceeds, and can only proceed, on the basis of the existence of a great deal
of common ground between participants” (1980: 15). Given information, or common
ground, is indicated by what Brazil </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">et al.</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"> call “referring” tones, and
new information is indicated by “proclaiming” tones (1980: 15). The falling
tone is therefore the default proclaiming tone, and is given the symbol </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">p</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">, which is placed at the beginning of
the tone unit. The falling-rising tone is default referring tone, and is
indicated by the symbol </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">r</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">. The
nucleus, referred to as the tonic syllable, is capitalised and underlined; the
two examples above could therefore be represented as follows:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(1a) <i>r</i> when i’ve finished <u>MIDd</u>lemarch
// <i>p</i> i shall read adam <u>BEDE</u> //<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(2a) <i>p</i> when i’ve finished <u>MIDd</u>lemarch
// <i>r</i> i shall read adam <u>BEDE</u> //<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
choice of tone used by a speaker is, then, dependent on the speaker’s
evaluation of “the relationship between the message and the audience” (Brazil
1980: 18) – whether the speaker believes information in the message to be given
or new. From this point of view, the speaker might be assuming common ground
which does not exist, and therefore erroneously using referring tones, or using
proclaiming tones where the information is, in fact, already part of the common
ground.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">The other tones mentioned are rising, rising-falling
and level. The rising and rising-falling tones are variants of the </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">r</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"> and </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">p</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"> tones respectively; the symbol for the rising tone is </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">r+</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">, and for the rising-falling tone, </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">p+</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">. The level tone is symbolised with an
</span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">o</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">An </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">r+</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"> tone
is used to reactivate background material. Brazil </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">et al.</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"> give the
following example (1980: 53):</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 30pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(3) Where’s
the typewriter?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(3a) <i>r</i> in the <u>CUP</u>board // (where it
always is)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(3b) <i>r+</i> in the <u>CUP</u>board // (why don’t
you ever remember …)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
(3a), the fact of the typewriter being in the cupboard is deemed by the speaker
to be “vividly present in the background”, whereas in (3b) the speaker is
indicating that the listener has to be reminded of what should be common
knowledge.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">Use of the </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">r</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">
or </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">r+</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"> tone can, therefore, show the
relationship between speakers in a conversation. The </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">r+</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"> tone is used by a speaker who is assuming some kind of dominant
role in the conversation, and is commonly used by teachers in teacher-student
interactions, doctors in doctor-patient interactions, or those giving directions or instructions to someone who (it is assumed) has no prior knowledge. As Brazil </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">et al.</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">
point out, a patient who starts a doctor-patient interaction with an </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">r+</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"> tone will sound rather aggressive
(4); an </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">r</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"> tone is usually used (5)
(examples from Brazil </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">et al.</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"> 1980: 16 & 54). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(4) <i>r+</i> i’ve COME to <u>SEE</u> you // <i>p</i> with the <u>RASH</u> // <i>r+</i> i’ve GOT on my <u>CHIN</u> //<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(5) <i>r</i>
i’ve COME to <u>SEE</u> you // <i>p</i>
with the <u>RASH</u> // <i>r</i> i’ve GOT on
my <u>CHIN</u> //<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: 40px;">(Where there are other stressed syllables preceding the tonic syllable, these are capitalised but not underlined in this system.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: 40px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
<i>p+</i> tone (rising-falling), like the <i>p</i> tone, is used to indicate that the
information is new, but with the additional meaning of being surprising,
disappointing or horrifying to the speaker also – the speaker is adding “to his
own store of knowledge” (Brazil <i>et al.</i> 1980: 56). It is noted that the <i>p+</i> tone tends to be used by a dominant
speaker.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">The level tone, symbolised </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">o</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"> and referred to as the “oblique” tone, is used to indicate that
the speaker considers he/she has not arrived at the potential completion point
of an utterance (Brazil </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;">et al.</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 30pt;"> 1980: 88), but it can also show that the
speaker is not very involved in, e.g., reading a passage.</span></div>
<br />
OK, that's the end of the section from Setter (2005). Are you still with me?<br />
<br />
On South West Trains, some of the announcements are something like the following:<br />
<br />
(6) This is the South West Trains service from London Waterloo to Reading, calling at Vauxhall, Clapham Junction, Putney, Richmond, Twickenham, Hounslow, Feltham, Ashford, Staines, Egham, Virginia Water, Longcross, Sunningdale, Ascot, Martin's Heron, Bracknell, Wokingham, Winnersh, Winnersh Triangle, Earley and Reading.<br />
<br />
(7) The next station is Sunningdale.<br />
<br />
(8) This station is Sunningdale. The next station is Ascot.<br />
<br />
These announcements are clearly made up of "slots" - e.g.:<br />
<br />
(6a) This is the (slot 1) service from (slot 2) to (slot 3), calling at (slots 4, 5, 6 ...) .... and (slot 7).<br />
<br />
(7a) The next station is (slot 1).<br />
<br />
(8a) This station is (slot 1). The next station is (slot 2).<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
In order to do this, the company producing the announcements has to have some kind of idea of how intonation works. Among other things, we are dealing with a list in (6) and (6a), so some slots will have an intonation pattern which indicates the speaker has not got to the end of the list, requiring a <i>referring (r)</i> tone of some kind - i.e., slots 2, 4, 5 and 6 in (6a) - and a pattern which indicates the end of a list, requiring a <i>proclaiming (p)</i> tone of some kind - i.e., slots 3 and 7 in (6a). The company has therefore recorded two versions of each town/city at which the train stops, one with an <i>r</i> tone and one with a <i>p</i> tone. In (7a), the <i>p</i> tone is used in slot 1 as this is a statement.<br />
<br />
The intonation patterns are as follows:<br />
<br />
(6b) <i>r</i> <span style="line-height: 115%;">this
is the SOUTH west <u>TRAINS</u> service // </span><i>r </i><span style="line-height: 115%;">from LONdon water</span><u style="line-height: 115%;">LOO</u><span style="line-height: 115%;"> // <i>p</i> to </span><u style="line-height: 115%;">READ</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">ing // </span><i>r</i><span style="line-height: 115%;"> calling at
</span><u style="line-height: 115%;">VAUX</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">hall // </span><i>r</i><span style="line-height: 115%;"> CLAPham </span><u style="line-height: 115%;">JUNC</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">tion //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">PUT</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">ney // </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">RICH</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">mond // </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">TWICK</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">enham //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">HOUNS</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">low //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">FEL</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">tham //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">ASH</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">ford //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">STAINES</u><span style="line-height: 115%;"> //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">EG</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">ham //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r</i><span style="line-height: 115%;"> virGINia <u>WAT</u>er //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">LONG</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">cross // </span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">SUN</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">ningdale //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">AS</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">cot //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><span style="line-height: 115%;"> MARtin's </span><u style="line-height: 115%;">HER</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">on //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">BRACK</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">nell //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">WO</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">kingham //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">WIN</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">nersh //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r</i><span style="line-height: 115%;"> WINnersh </span><u style="line-height: 115%;">TRI</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">angle //</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i>r </i><u style="line-height: 115%;">EAR</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">ley // <i>p </i>and
</span><u style="line-height: 115%;">READ</u><span style="line-height: 115%;">ing //</span><br />
<br />
(7b) <i>r </i>the <u>NEXT</u> station // <i>p</i> is SUNningdale //<br />
<br />
(8b) <i>r</i> <u>THIS</u> station // <i>r</i> is <u>SUN</u>ningdale // <i>r</i> the <u>NEXT</u> station // <i>p</i> is <u>AS</u>cot //<br />
<br />
Can you spot the things which amuse me?<br />
<br />
First, as the announcement being made is authoritative, I would expect the referring tone in the list to be a rising tone (<i>r+</i>) rather than falling-rising (<i>r</i>). This was what the very observant non-native English-speaking student asked me about in class this year. One could argue that commuters take this train every day and so the information is already "vividly present" in the background somehow ("this train always stops at these stations and you know it" - see 3a above), but I'm going to dismiss that.<br />
<br />
Second, in (8b), the company who selects which spoken version of the town/city goes into which slot has chosen an <i>r</i> tone for "Sunningdale" - i.e., (8a) slot 1. I assume this is because there is another town/city about to be mentioned later in the announcement (slot 2 - this correctly has a <i>p</i> tone on it) and so the company sees it a type of list. However, whenever I hear this it makes me laugh, because using an <i>r</i> tone here makes it sounds like a surprise that one has arrived in e.g. Sunningdale.<br />
<br />
(9) This station is Sunningdale ..?? <br />
... What??? I was expecting Longcross! I must have fallen asleep! Blast!!<br />
<br />
What should it be on "Sunningdale" in slot 1 (8a)? A falling tone (<i>p</i>), of course ("this is definitely Sunningdale and you don't have to be in any doubt about it").<br />
<br />
So, next time you are on trains in the UK, listen to see what intonation patterns are being used. Has the automated system of putting things in slots in announcements worked? Do let me know!<br />
<br />
(Don't get me started on nucleus placement on prepositions ...)<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>References</i></span><br />
<st1:country-region style="text-indent: -1cm;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><br /></st1:place></st1:country-region>
<st1:country-region style="text-indent: -1cm;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Brazil</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="text-indent: -1cm;">, D. (1997). </span><i style="text-indent: -1cm;">The Communicative Value of Intonation
in English</i><span style="text-indent: -1cm;">. </span><st1:city style="text-indent: -1cm;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Cambridge</st1:place></st1:city><span style="text-indent: -1cm;">:
</span><st1:place style="text-indent: -1cm;" w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Cambridge</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="text-indent: -1cm;"> Press.</span><br />
<span style="text-indent: -1cm;"><br /></span>
<st1:country-region style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -1cm;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Brazil</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -1cm;">, D., Coulthard, M., and Johns, C. (1980). </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -1cm;">Discourse Intonation and Language Teaching</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -1cm;">.
</span><st1:place style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -1cm;" w:st="on">Harlow</st1:place><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -1cm;">: Longman.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -1cm;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -1cm;">Setter, J. (2005). Communicative
patterns of intonation in L2 English teaching and learning: the impact of
discourse approaches. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -1cm;">In K.
Dziubalska-Kołaczyk & J. Przedlacka (Eds.), </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -1cm;">English Pronunciation Models: a changing scene</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -1cm;">, Bern: Peter Lang,
pp. 367-389.</span>Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-4292958498135536572013-08-29T02:45:00.000-07:002016-07-06T01:41:04.949-07:00The International Phonetic Alphabet<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was recently asked to contribute some history and other information on the IPA chart for <a href="http://www.babelzine.com/" target="_blank">Babel Magazine</a>'s fourth issue. The text below is the unedited version of what appears, with references. I have been given permission to post this to my blog.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">--</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/IPA_chart_(C)2005.pdf" target="_blank">The International Phonetic Alphabet</a> represents
the sounds of all the world’s documented languages. The first published version
of this chart can be found in Passy (1888) and appeared in a journal called <i>The Phonetic Teacher </i>(or <i>Dhi Fonètik Tîtcer</i>). This speaks a lot
to its origins, as the <a href="http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/index.html" target="_blank">International Phonetic Association</a> (IPA) itself was
inaugurated as the Phonetic Teacher’s Association in 1886 which was mainly
involved with teaching English (IPA 1949, p. 2 of cover). During the first two
years of the association, and as more than one script was in use, it was
decided by its members to establish a single alphabet which could be applied to
the description of all languages. Since Paul Passy’s publication of the first
chart in 1888, the association has worked tirelessly to improve the alphabet
and there have been several published revisions. The alphabet itself is “on
romanic basis” (IPA 1949, p. 1), meaning it uses a script which derives from
Roman characters rather than e.g. Cyrillic (Russian), Arabic or other written
traditions, and is presented by the Association as “a consistent way of
representing the sounds of language in a written form” (IPA 1999, p. 3).</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CDnPb7oOdMg/Uh8WfnYW3WI/AAAAAAAAAEM/JmCHQh3PQ8Q/s1600/IPA_chart_(C)2005_blank.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img alt="" border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CDnPb7oOdMg/Uh8WfnYW3WI/AAAAAAAAAEM/JmCHQh3PQ8Q/s640/IPA_chart_(C)2005_blank.jpg" title="The IPA Chart" width="491" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The International Phonetic Alphabet (2005 revision)*</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The current revision of the IPA chart (above) starts
with <a href="http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/images/pulmonic.gif" target="_blank">a large table</a> showing consonant sounds, or phones, made on a pulmonic
egressive airstream (i.e., with air from the lungs). Place of articulation (POA)
is indicated by which column a symbol is located in. The passive articulator is
usually indicated, i.e., the part of the oral cavity which remains in place
while the active articulator – often the tongue – moves towards it; e.g., if a
sound is labelled “alveolar” it means the tongue moves towards the alveolar
ridge. Manner of articulation (MOA) is indicated by row. Where voiceless and
voiced pairs of consonants are given, the one on the left is voiceless. The
usual way of describing a consonant is to use a VPM label, where VPM stands for
“voice place manner” – so [t] is a voiceless alveolar plosive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This table is followed by <a href="http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/nonpulmonic.html" target="_blank">non-pulmonic sounds</a>
– clicks, implosives and ejectives – below and to the left, with <a href="http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/vowels.html" target="_blank">the vowel chart</a> to the right. The vowel chart represents cardinal values for vowels which
can be used as a reference to describe vowel sounds in languages. Symbols are
placed on a trapezium which represents the vowel space; this space is in fact
very small, with “front” vowels being articulated with the front of the tongue
raised to various degrees in proximity to the hard palate, and “back” vowels involving
the back of the tongue being raised in proximity to the velum. It is usual to
describe vowels in terms of height, backness/frontness and lip rounding – so
e.g. [i] is a close front unrounded vowel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Beneath the non-pulmonic sounds are <a href="http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/symbols.html" target="_blank">“other”consonantal symbols</a>; these are ones which do not appear in the main chart
because they have two POAs, two MOAs, or cannot be otherwise accommodated. E.g., [w] has both lip rounding and a
movement of the back of the tongue towards the soft palate, so is labial-velar
and therefore classed as a double articulation; [t͜s] is an affricate, which
involves a plosive followed by a fricative both produced at the same POA (i.e.,
homorganic) with the same voicing; alveolo-palatal fricatives [ɕ] and [ʑ] are
not on the main consonant chart because that region simply cannot accommodate
any further symbols.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Beneath this list is a table of <a href="http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/diacritics.html" target="_blank">diacritics</a>
which allow the sounds on the chart to be modified further. For example, the
symbol [t] can be modified to represent a voiceless dental plosive by adding
the dental diacritic to give [ t̪ ]. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Under the vowel chart is a list of symbols for
representing <a href="http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/supras.html" target="_blank">suprasegmental</a> information, i.e., phonetic features above the
level of individual speech sounds. Here
we can find stress marks, length marks, syllable-division marks and suprasegmental
boundary markers and, below these, symbols for tones and word accents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Although the alphabet largely achieves what it
sets out to do, there are a number of issues which arise. One is simply to do
with what people understand this chart to mean.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Note that square brackets are placed around
each of these symbols: [ ]. This indicates that the symbol is representing the
production/articulation of a given sound and <i>not</i> that it is a linguistic unit or a phoneme belonging to any
particular language. In transcribing languages phonemically, one uses (or “borrows”)
a small subset of the symbols on the chart to represent distinctive linguistic
units in a language. To show the symbols are used as phonemes in a given
language and not as phones or allophones, which are representations of the
articulation of a sound, we use slash brackets: / /. In training people to use
the chart, it has to be understood that producing a phone such as [p] is not
going to be the same as, e.g., an English /p/, which is usually aspirated when
at the start of a syllable, <i>even though
we have used the same symbol</i>. If your phonetics teacher wants to hear a
typical English /p/ sound, it will be represented [pʰ] in phonetic
transcription. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Another issue is to do with processes for updating
or revising the alphabet. There was general rejoicing in the phonetics
community when, in 2005, the symbol for the voiced labiodental flap [</span><span style="font-family: "charis sil"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">] was
added to the main consonants chart; this was the first revision since 1996. But
it is not a matter of someone simply proposing a new sound; evidence must be
given for the existence of the sound as a distinctive unit in a given language.
More recently, there has been discussion about whether the vowel chart should
have a symbol for an unrounded open central vowel as found in German, proposed
in Barry and Trouvain (2008), which would be represented with a small capital A
[<span style="font-variant: small-caps;">a</span>]. This proposal had in fact
been first discussed by the association in 1989 and rejected at that time; Barry
and Trouvain (2008) provided a convincing rationale for reconsidering this
position, including the fact that there are central vowels at every cardinal
tongue height except for in open position, and that there are languages which
have this vowel quality in a stable enough way to support representing it on
the chart with a single symbol not requiring diacritics (it can, for example,
be represented as [ɐ̞], which is the symbol for the most open unrounded central
vowel currently on the chart plus the “lowered” diacritic). In December 2011
the matter was finally decided by the IPA council voting against adopting [<span style="font-variant: small-caps;">a</span>] (IPA 2012, p. 245).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Something else the basic alphabet fails to
cater for is many of the sounds produced by atypical speakers – that is, people
with speech deficits – or children in the developmental stages of sound
production. For example, some speakers may produce sounds classified as labioalveolar,
which means the speaker’s bottom lip touches the alveolar ridge behind the
teeth (amongst typical speakers, the furthest back the bottom lip travels is to
meet the upper teeth in labiodental sounds such as [f] and [v]). In order to
deal with this, an additional chart known as “<a href="http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/extIPAChart2008.pdf" target="_blank">the Ext-IPA symbols for disordered speech</a>” was devised, where “Ext” is abbreviated from “extensions” (Duckworth,
Allen, Hardcastle & Ball 1990; PRDS Group 1983). This currently exists in
its 1997 revision in the IPA handbook (1999, p. 193). For information, labioalveolar
sounds are represented by a double-underline diacritic combined with a bilabial
or labiodental symbol, so a voiced labioalveolar nasal is [m͇] and a voiceless
labioalveolar fricative is [ f͇ ].<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And yes, it is possible to describe every
sound produced with human vocal apparatus with phonetic terminology. Did you know,
for example, that when you “blow a raspberry”, you are performing a voiceless
linguolabial trill? Or that a “gee-up”
noise to encourage a horse is a voiceless alveolar lateral click? Well, now you do.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #323232; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">*IPA Chart, </span><a href="http://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/content/ipa-chart" style="background-color: white; color: #e6683b; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/content/ipa-chart</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #323232; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License. Copyright © 2015 International Phonetic Association.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">References<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Barry, W. J. & Trouvain, J. (2008).
Do we need a symbol for a central open vowel? <i>Journal of the International Phonetic Association</i> 38(3), pp.
349-357.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Duckworth, M., Allen, G., Hardcastle,
W. & Ball, M. J. (1990). Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet
for the transcription of atypical speech. <i>Clinical
Linguistics and Phonetics</i> 4, pp. 273-280.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">International Phonetic Association,
The. (1949). </span><i style="background-color: white;">The principles of the
International Phonetic Association</i><span style="background-color: white;">. London: The International Phonetic
Association.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">International Phonetic Association,
The. (1999). </span><i style="background-color: white;">The handbook of the
International Phonetic Association</i><span style="background-color: white;">. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">International Phonetic Association,
The. (2012). IPA council votes against new IPA symbol. </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Journal of the International Phonetic Association </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">42(2), p. 245.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Passy, Paul. (1888). Our revised
alphabet. </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Phonetic Teacher</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, pp. 57-60.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">PDRS Group (1983). </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The phonetic representation of disordered speech: Final report.</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
London: The King’s Fund.</span></div>
Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-70655717043345312032013-06-19T07:18:00.002-07:002013-06-28T06:36:28.179-07:00Is /ə/ "real"?"Is schwa a real phoneme?" asked a first year student, during a preliminary session preparing them for transcription in the second year. What an excellent question!<br />
<div>
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<div>
The issue arose because I had referred them to <a href="http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/lexical-sets.html" target="_blank">John Wells' standard lexical sets</a> to describe English vowel sounds more easily. This is a list of English phonemes with keywords devised by Prof Wells and given in his three-volume book <i>Accents of English</i> (1982). Rather than trying to explain in articulatory terms what /ʊ/ is in comparison with /ʌ/, for example, they can be referred to as the FOOT and STRUT vowels respectively, and then discussion about them appearing (or not) in various accents of English can also be facilitated.</div>
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<div>
However, mid central unrounded vowel [ə] does not appear in this list ... which leads to the very intelligent question about its "realness".</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QEYhLxn0QV4/UcGxdOGXmaI/AAAAAAAAAD0/PNnsDbM_Gws/s1600/schwa-crown.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QEYhLxn0QV4/UcGxdOGXmaI/AAAAAAAAAD0/PNnsDbM_Gws/s1600/schwa-crown.png" title=""Schwa-crown" from titrexparade.com" /></a></div>
<div>
The schwa vowel is the most commonly occurring vowel in reference accents such as RP or Standard Southern British English (SSBE). In articulatory terms, [ə] is a sound which can be produced by basically relaxing the articulators in the oral cavity and vocalising. From that point of view, it is certainly "real".</div>
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From a phonological point of view, however, whether /ə/ is a phoneme or not in English is more tricky. There are no single-syllable citation forms of words containing this vowel, so it is not possible to contrast it with other vowels in minimal pairs, as we would normally expect to do with a vowel phoneme (or any phoneme, for that matter) in order to test its linguistic significance/reality. E.g., we can compare the TRAP and START vowels in British English using minimal pairs such as <i>hat</i> /hæt/ and <i>heart</i> /hɑːt/ and demonstrate that, as the meaning of the word is changed by changing the vowel sound, they are therefore separate linguistic units in English. As it's not possible to do this with /ə/, this is probably why it doesn't appear in Wells' lexical sets.</div>
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Schwa is a vowel which only occurs in weak syllables in RP or SSBE and is, therefore, never stressed. This might mean you find it in a bi- or multi-syllabic word such as <i>father</i> /ˈfɑː.ðə/, <i>about</i> /əˈbaʊt/ or <i>conglomeration</i> /kəŋˌɡlɒm.əˈreɪ.ʃən/ (note it is also possible to have syllabic consonants in syllables one and five in the last word) or in something called "weak form words" (<a href="http://davidbrett.uniss.it/phonology/notes%20and%20exercises/weak%20forms%20audio/introandpreps/weak_forms.htm" target="_blank">here's a nice post on the subject by David Brett</a>).</div>
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<div>
Weak form words are a small group of one-syllable function words - determiners, prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, modal and auxiliary verbs, etc. - which have a weak and a strong form. The weak form is the one which is most often used. It is unstressed, and in many instances the word is realised with /ə/ as the vowel. Common weak form words containing schwa include <i>but, and, the, her, of, can</i> and <i>that</i> (when used as a subordinating conjunction) which are often pronounced /bət/, /ən/, /ðə/, /ə/, /əv/, /kən/ and /ðət/ respectively in connected speech.</div>
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<div>
The alternation between other vowels (sometimes referred to as "full vowels") and schwa results in the distinctive speech rhythm of English accents such as RP and SSBE; this rhythm is often referred to as "stress-timed" (<a href="http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/knowledge-database/stress-timed" target="_blank">here's a short definition from the British Council / BBC</a>).</div>
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<div>
But back to whether schwa is a "real" English vowel or not. One could indeed claim that it is not a phoneme in English, as it merely replaces other vowels when they are realised in weak syllables. If we compare e.g. <i>economy</i> /ɪˈkɒn.ə.mi/ and <i>economic</i> /ˌiː.kəˈnɒm.ɪk/, we can see that /ə/ is standing in for /ɒ/ in the third syllable in <i>economy</i> and the second syllable in <i>economic</i>. The stress patterns of these words are dependent on other factors - in this case, the suffix <i>-ic</i> causes the main stress in <i>economic</i> to be placed on the syllable prior to it, which is different from <i>economy</i>.</div>
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However, as it is such a prevalent vowel in reference accents, and such an important part of the pronunciation of those accents, it tends to be accepted as a vowel phoneme in lists of vowels for those accents.</div>
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There are, of course, accents of English which do not use /ə/ very much, if at all - particularly those which are developing in regions of the world where other languages do not use it. Here's an example of a poem in Nigerian English in which the speaker talks about [ðɪ ˈpæʃɒn ɒv ðɪ ˈpoːem] (<i>the passion of the poem</i>) instead of /ðə ˈpæʃən əv ðə ˈpəʊɪm/. If you listen to the poem, you'll hear that he uses very few schwa vowels.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/chKFnzMOncI" width="420"></iframe>
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Addendum 28/06/2013: Since posting this, I feel I should just add that the standard lexical sets do indeed include <i>lett</i>ER /ˈlet.ə*/ - where * stands for possible linking /r/ - and <i>comm</i>A /ˈkɒm.ə/ which cover schwa, and also <i>happ</i>Y /ˈhæp.i/, covering the weak close front unrounded vowel sometimes referred to as "schwee", but that these do not appear in the list I projected for students from Prof Wells's blog post. The sets still do not have anything official to represent "schwoo", but what regularly gets used as an example of the weak close back rounded vowel (often rather mid-centralised and not very rounded) is <i>thank y</i>OU /ˈθæŋk ju/ and, as John Cowan suggests below, <i>int</i>O /ɪntu/.</div>
Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-26660766093855318302013-05-13T05:11:00.002-07:002013-05-13T12:01:16.295-07:00Supper's Ready - let's celebrate!<br />
<div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
I was at the <a href="http://www.hackettsongs.com/" target="_blank">Steve Hackett</a> Genesis Revisited II concert in London on Friday, and what a fantastic show it was! Excellent to be transported back to all those Genesis songs I grew up with in the 70s and to see some wonderful guest artists, such as <a href="http://www.nikkershaw.net/" target="_blank">Nik Kershaw</a> and <a href="http://www.johnwetton.co.uk/" target="_blank">John Wetton</a>. I'm a massive Genesis fan and am not pleased to have been born too late to see them touring with the classic line-up of Banks, Gabriel, Collins, Hackett and Rutherford (so if anyone knows somebody with a TARDIS, let me know).</div>
<div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
Steve has <a href="http://www.nadsylvan.com/" target="_blank">Nad Sylvan</a> from Swedish band Unifaun taking on the lion's share of the vocal duties on this tour, and doing a very impressive job.<br />
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So why the blog post? My ears picked up one interesting weak vowel difference during the song "Supper's Ready" from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxtrot_(album)" target="_blank"><i>Foxtrot</i></a> album. In the line "Today's the day to celebrate," Nad sang /ˈseləbreɪt/, whereas on various studio and live recordings Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins sing /ˈselɪbreɪt/. I'm such an <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-19185,00.html" target="_blank">anorak</a>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="File:Foxtrot72.jpg" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/Foxtrot72.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="200" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Genesis's <i>Foxtrot</i> album cover, courtesy of Wikipedia</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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I wondered how much of this was owing to age differences - I say /ˈseləbreɪt/, for example, and I must be 15 or so years younger than Messrs Gabriel and Collins - or whether it was to do with Mr Sylvan being a non-native speaker of English. I've heard he lived in the US for a period of time, too, so I wondered if it was US pronunciation.<br />
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However, whereas the 14th edition of the <i>EPD</i> (1991) gives /ˈselɪbreɪt/ as the only pronunciation of this word, <i>EPD</i>18 (2011) gives /ˈseləbreɪt/ as the first variant for both UK and US English with /ˈselɪbreɪt/ as the second, as does John Wells' <i>Longman Pronunciation Dictionary </i>(<i>LPD</i>), with the <i>Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation</i> giving their barred [ɪ] symbol in the second syllable to show it is one or the other.<br />
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I am deducing, then, with no knowledge of Mr Sylvan's age whatsoever, that this is largely an age difference. <br />
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However, it still sounds Australian to me to hear the <i>-ed</i> suffix pronounced with the /ə/ vowel instead of /ɪ/ - for example, <i>started</i> pronounced /ˈstɑːtəd/ rather than /ˈstɑːtɪd/ - although I acknowledge there seems to be a change in favour of /ə/ there, too.<br />
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When I was an undergraduate, I wanted to do my dissertation on the pronunciation of English in Abba songs. I was told this was "not academic enough" and ended up doing something on spelling. I'd be positively encouraging any undergraduate student who wanted to look at such things now ...<br />
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Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-46727916712917584082013-01-18T04:49:00.001-08:002013-01-18T06:31:32.025-08:00Nice to see yee!At Christmas, we had to switch the television subtitles on for my mother-in-law to be able to "hear" the news effectively. On one of our TV sets, we haven't been able to work out how to switch them off again. This was originally a bit of an annoyance but, recently, I've been paying more attention to what's in the subtitles and it's been really interesting.<br />
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<div>
The thing I wanted to write about here is a phenomenon called GOOSE-fronting, and what prompted it was a subtitler typing the word <i>may</i> instead of <i>now</i> on the BBC Breakfast programme this morning. The presenter, Charlie Stayt - who is on the young side among the presenting team - pronounced the word <i>now</i> as something close to [naɨ] and this was all a bit too confusing for the poor subtitler. </div>
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By the way, I've seen all sorts of other fun incorrect subtitling, including <i>liars</i> for <i>lawyers</i>, which made me laugh out loud - particularly as the lawyers were representing someone to whom the public clearly doesn't give much credibility (mentioning no names). To be fair, news and other live TV shows have to be subtitled very quickly indeed and in real time, so it's not really surprising lexical or grammatical errors get made in these situations. I did actually have an interview many, many moons ago for a BBC subtitling job and I know they are able to watch as well as listen, but sometimes the listening seems to take priority, the subtitler not paying attention to the visuals, and I do sometimes wonder about the general knowledge of some of the people doing it.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Mn22aXJp12Y/UPlA-V0jNTI/AAAAAAAAACs/bn7fIpEepj4/s1600/iapchart_CVs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="252" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Mn22aXJp12Y/UPlA-V0jNTI/AAAAAAAAACs/bn7fIpEepj4/s320/iapchart_CVs.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Full IPA vowel chart, revised to 2005<br />
(http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/vowels.html)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
As John Wells points out in his <a href="http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/fronted-goose.html" target="_blank">phonetic blog post of 16th June 2010</a>, "it was Caroline Henton who first properly documented the new fronting of RP GOOSE, in her 1983 article 'Changes in the vowels of Received Pronunciation', <i>JPhon</i> 11: 353-371". GOOSE-fronting is a process by which the close back rounded vowel /uː/ is produced with a much more front tongue gesture, so instead of old-fashioned RP /uː/, the speaker produced something more like the close central rounded vowel [ʉː]; this symbol is know as "barred u". You can see this symbol on the full IPA vowel chart reproduced here. This process is also affecting the FOOT vowel, /ʊ/, to some extent ... and this extends to the target for back-closing diphthongs /aʊ/ and /əʊ/. </div>
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More recently, however, the lip-rounding associated with these vowels appears to be in decline among younger speaker groups. Wells mentions this at the end of his blog post, and Cheshire, Gillett, Kerswill and Williams comment on this in their <a href="http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/linguistics/staff/kerswill/pkpubs/LEVELFIN99.pdf" target="_blank">report of 1999</a>; see in particular the Annexes from p. 16 onwards. As an observation, the younger speakers of (near-)RP accents get, the more fronted and unrounded their GOOSE and FOOT vowels seem to be. There is very little difference for some speakers between GOOSE and <i>geese</i>, for example, and between <i>mouse</i> and <i>mice</i>. Natasha Kaplinsky, another erstwhile rather younger BBC Breakfast presenter, commented to one interviewee that it was [ˈnaɪs tə ˈsiː jɨ] ("Nice to see you"), for example.</div>
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This is not something only observed in (near-)RP but also in other accents. It has been noted as a phenomenon in South African, Australian and New Zealand English, and we even note that it has been recorded in Hong Kong English, too (Setter, Wong & Chan 2010), which may be more interesting as, in learner terms, it has traditionally been based on a conservative RP accent.</div>
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John Wells comments in his blog post that, nearly a century ago, Daniel Jones had spotted GOOSE-fronting in the environment of a preceding /j/ - so in, e.g., <i>music</i> or <i>beauty</i>, but not in <i>spoon</i> <i> </i>- and that it could be spreading from there. Wells does not attempt to explain the unrounding of the lips, however. I'm not too hung up on the "whys" of this, and just enjoy observing the differences and, sometimes, the confusion which results.</div>
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Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-91803546770062291442013-01-14T07:02:00.000-08:002013-01-14T08:42:41.174-08:00Fun and games with /r/Well it's now January 2013 and I haven't posted anything since September 2012. The good news is that my module "English in the World" starts again this term - tomorrow, in fact - so I should have more to say.<br />
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In the mean time, I thought you might enjoy my retelling of a conversation I had with a friend about intrusive and linking /r/. She was complaining that someone on the television had pronounced the word "drawing" as /ˈdrɔːrɪŋ/. This is in fact the way I pronounce it (which doesn't mean it's necessarily right, I should hasten to add!). The <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/elt/catalogue/subject/project/item6669814/Cambridge-English-Pronouncing-Dictionary-18th-Edition/?site_locale=en_GB" target="_blank">Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary</a> gives /ˈdrɔː.ɪŋ/ as the "-ing" form of "draw" but notes in a box below that an intrusive /r/ is sometimes inserted.<br />
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My friend was horrified by this. "It sounds terrible!" she wailed. We then had a discussion about value judgments and language but she wasn't convinced.<br />
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In fact, intrusive /r/ is an interesting one. If you are a speaker of a rhotic accent - i.e., one in which you always pronounce "r" everywhere it appears in the spelling (e.g., General American; Irish; Scots) - then intrusive /r/ is just not something you do. It's not there so you don't say it (although I note the box about "drawing" seemed to suggest that it even occurs in American English accents - would anyone like to comment?).<br />
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Intrusive /r/ comes about in non-rhotic accents by analogy with linking /r/. Non-rhotic accents are those in which the speaker only pronounces /r/ if it is followed by a vowel (e.g., RP; Australian). Linking /r/ is an optional connected speech process which happens in non-rhotic accents, such as RP, in rapid speech where there is an "r" in the spelling and the following word begins with a vowel. <br />
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E.g.:<br />
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<ol>
<li>In "My car burns too much fuel these days", we do not pronounce the /r/ at the end of "car" in non-rhotic accents as the next word begins with a consonant - /maɪ ˈkɑː bɜːnz ˈtuː mʌtʃ ˈfjʊəl ðiːz deɪz/;</li>
<li>In "My car always starts on cold mornings", we may very well pronounce the /r/ at the end of "car" as the following word begins with a vowel - /maɪ ˈkɑːr ɔːlweɪz ˈstɑːts ɒn kəʊld ˈmɔːnɪŋz/ (I've not added in any assimilation here but you might get them at the end of "on" and "cold") - but we wouldn't pronounce the "r" in "start" as it is followed by a consonant.</li>
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It is not <i>necessary</i> to perform linking /r/ in 2., but most speakers of e.g. RP will do it.</div>
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So, why does intrusive /r/ happen - i.e., why would a speaker pronounce "drawing" as /ˈdrɔːrɪŋ/ when there is evidently no /r/ at the end of "draw"?</div>
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If you consider the words which can contain a linking /r/, these all have vowels in the non-high area of the vowel chart, all of which are spelled with "r" at the end of them. See <a href="http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/vowels.html" target="_blank">HERE</a> for the IPA vowel chart and compare the position of the vowels (note these are English phonemes listed below and not Cardinal Vowels). The vowels are as follows:</div>
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<li>/ɑː/ - e.g., "car"</li>
<li>/ɜː/ - e.g., "cur"</li>
<li>/ɔː/ - e.g., "core"</li>
<li>/ɪə/ - e.g., "pier"</li>
<li>/eə/ - e.g., "pear"</li>
<li>/ʊə/ - e.g., "pure"</li>
<li>/ə/ - e.g., "mother" /ˈmʌðə/</li>
</ul>
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In the case of /ɪə/, /eə/ and /ʊə/, these vowels are referred to as "centring" diphthongs as the tongue moves from the first vowel towards the second vowel which is a central one, /ə/. NB. /ʊə/ is becoming rather low-frequency in modern RP and is often replaced with /ɔː/.</div>
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This doesn't mean you have to have an "r" in the spelling to have these vowels in a word, however, and this is where intrusive /r/ comes in. For example:</div>
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<li>In "I can see the pier over there", an RP speaker will most likely have a linking /r/ at the end of "pier" because the next word begins with a vowel - /ˈaɪ kən siː ðə ˈpɪər əʊvə ˈðeə/ (Quiz: There is no /r/ at the end of "over" and "there" - why not?)</li>
<li>In "The mere idea of it!", there is likely to be a linking /r/ at the end of "mere" but ALSO an <i>intrusive</i> /r/ at the end of "idea" - /ðə ˈmɪər aɪˈdɪər əv ɪt/ - because it contains one of the set of vowels in the list above. This will sound very odd indeed to a speaker of a rhotic variety.</li>
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One must note, however, that linking and intrusive /r/ are both optional connected speech processes; they do not HAVE to happen. For reasons of fluency, they often do. My friend was saying that she would always put a glottal stop between "idea" and "of" in that last example; if I could hide behind her with a recording device to find out whether this is true in such instances, I would ... but of course this would be unethical.</div>
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In the Lingua Franca Core, Jenny Jenkins recommends always pronouncing "r" where it is found in the spelling, i.e., adopting a rhotic accent. Personally, I can't think of many occasions in which my r-lessness or insertion of linking or intrusive /r/ has been a problem. However, it's quite possible that I wouldn't have as, often being considered a role model for my particular accent, it is unlikely that I would ever have been challenged. </div>
Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-81231628071341851632012-09-17T10:46:00.000-07:002012-09-17T10:46:38.429-07:00Fresh prints ...<br />
This isn't exactly a global Englishes-related post but I've explained this once or twice recently so I thought it might be worth blogging about.<br />
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One of my former students in HK asked me the following on Facebook:<br />
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"About the coda /ts/:<br />
<ul>
<li>Why is there an italicised /t/ before /s/ in
the transcriptions of words like 'dance', 'finance', 'answer' in some learner dictionaries? </li>
<li>Is there now a systematic use of this /t/ in British English native speakers?"</li>
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My response:<br />
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"This means that, although there is no 't' in the
spelling, it is sometimes pronounced by a speaker. This is called an
epenthetic /t/.<br />
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"The reason it occurs is because there is a homorganic
nasal + fricative (in this case, /ns/). For a nasal the velum is lowered but for an
obstruent like /s/ the velum has to be raised.<br />
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"In the sequence of
articulation, if the velum is raised while the tongue is still making a
complete contact with the alveolar ridge and upper side molars before
the tongue moves to a narrow approximation with the alveolar ridge,
there may be plosion rather than a straightforward narrow/fricative
release.<br />
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"Compare the two words 'mints' and 'mince', which can sound the
same in e.g. RP."<br />
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After discussing /t/ epenthesis on the <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychlangsci/scep" target="_blank">UCL Summer Course in English Phonetics</a> this year, one of my class told me the following joke:<br />
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Q: How do you find Will Smith after a blizzard?<br />
A: Go outside and look for the fresh prints in the snow.<br />
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Love it!<br />
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Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-71984878584814070712012-09-12T09:46:00.002-07:002012-09-12T09:46:37.093-07:00A skiing problemHere's an interesting one.<br />
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One of my PhD students based in SE Asia, who teaches English language proficiency classes among other things, asked me what the correct response to this statement would be from the list of four options, because it appears on a test of English language proficiency. She said the teachers had all been arguing about it.<br />
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I'll post the item here and then you can let me know what you think the answer is.<br />
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A: I'll never go skiing again.<br />
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B: (select one)<br />
i. Me too.<br />
ii. Me so.<br />
iii. Me neither.<br />
iv. Me either.<br />
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Your responses please!Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-81475611334172974712012-09-10T09:54:00.000-07:002012-09-12T09:50:22.642-07:00The "cooperative rise" in Malay EnglishMy PhD student Noor Fadhilah Mat Nayan, who successfully defended her thesis on my birthday earlier this year, has written on intonation in Malay English - as opposed to Malaysian English - and has found an interesting feature (well, it's all interesting as far as I'm concerned but this is one of the most interesting bits). She calls this feature the "cooperative rise".<br />
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Unlike uptalk - also known as the high-rising terminal or HRT (see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> on this topic) - the pattern is not used in statements, which would commonly have a falling tone in my English but not that of my undergraduate students (I sometimes joke that I'm too young for one type of HRT and too old for the other! Ahem). The use of uptalk is common in American and Australian English and, in fact, its appearance in British English is sometimes blamed on the popularity since the 1980s of Australian soap operas, which usually feature younger speakers many of whom use uptalk. From the point of view of discourse meaning, one suggestion is that using a high-rising terminal at the end of a phrase is an appeal to the listener to be more involved in the conversation, and another is that it shows the reader is seeking approval from the listener in a sort of "inclusion in the social group" kind of way. <br />
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In Malay English, however, the cooperative rise identified by Noor seems to be doing something slightly different. Here's a transcript of an example, where the tones are indicated at the start of the tone unit as follows: R = rise, CR = cooperative rise, F = fall and L = level.<br />
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/ CR oK | CR we move forWARD | R STRAIGHT | F we going DOWN | F SOrry | CR we going DOWN | CR and THEN | CR move forWARD | CR go STRAIGHT | L and THEN | L we going to GO | CR we going to turn RIGHT | ... /<br />
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Stressed syllables here are marked with capitals. You can see that Malay English does not necessarily stress the same syllables as e.g. British English, which would have initial stress on <i>forward</i> in this passage. We found that the stress in polysyllabic words could be quite variable with e.g. <i>monastery</i> being stressed MONastery, monaSTERy and monaST'RY by the same speaker.<br />
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Noor's data is from map tasks and so the bulk of the interaction is spent giving directions. The CR is found to be statistically significantly different in pitch range and duration from the "normal" rising tone and seems to be used by Malay speakers of English to slowly guide the interlocutor in an encouraging and highly cooperative way, as if to say "let's work this problem out this together". There is no question that the listener is paying attention, as there might be with HRT, and no sense that the speaker is seeking social approval. There's a definite soothing, laid back feel about the speech ... and I have to say it sounds very attractive when you listen to the recordings. <br />
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Anyone who is <i>au fait</i> with the English spoken by Malay speakers will no doubt have come across this feature but nobody had documented it until now. We'll be writing some research papers on this soon so keep an eye out for them.<br />
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[Dear readers - I do apologise for not having posted anything in a while. Life has not got any less hectic - I'm now Head of the Department of English Language & Applied Linguistics for one thing - but I'll try to visit and update this blog more often.]<br />
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Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817242166326386497.post-31668459266918439672012-05-29T12:04:00.004-07:002012-09-10T08:58:29.633-07:00ELF at university ..?Wednesday 16th May 2012 saw the official launch of Southampton's <a href="http://www.southampton.ac.uk/cge/about/index.html">Centre for Global Englishes</a>, directed by Professor Jennifer Jenkins. I attended the event and it was truly superb.<br />
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Jenny also appeared in the <a href="http://bit.ly/JxSGpJ">Times Higher Education</a> on Thursday talking about the Centre and about issues around the English of international students studying in the US and UK. Apologies for the quote within a quote but: '"If you talk about internationalisation," the professor of global Englishes told Times Higher Education, "you have to extend that to the language people are using"' (<a href="http://bit.ly/JxSGpJ">see article</a>).<br />
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Jenny is no stranger to controversy. When the Lingua Franca Core (LFC*) came to attention in the late 90s and in Jenny's subsequent 2000 book, it shocked many in the English pronunciation teaching community and provoked a bit of a backlash (/understatement). The first time I gave an overview of it at UCL's <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychlangsci/scep">Summer Course in English Phonetics</a> during my <i>Teaching Pronunciation</i> lecture, I could feel the disapproval rising from some members of the audience like steam rising from a simmering pot.<br />
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(In another episode, when asked to give a keynote talk on advancements in pronunciation teaching at a conference somewhere in Central Europe, I presented the LFC framework and how one might use it pedagogically. At the end of the conference the organisers asked me - without warning - if I'd like to give the closing speech; when I asked what they'd like me to say, the response was: "It doesn't matter. We just want to listen to your beautiful RP accent." Well, I suppose there's room for both ... but I don't actually have RP.) <br />
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Anyway, back to the issue in hand: the English people are using - or, more specifically, the English overseas students whose L1 is not English are using - in academic contexts in e.g. the UK. Are students marked down for writing or speaking if they make words like "information" plural or miss off third person singular present tense final -s? Should they be if this does not impede intelligibility? <br />
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Having spent a term discussing issues such as this, I did actually question my own practice in the module <i>English in the World</i> when it came to marking assignments this year produced by L2 English speakers (this was before I attended the opening of the Centre) - but the thing is, would they thank me for not correcting their English? And anyway, we're not supposed to know which student is which because all the marking has to take place using anonymised scripts (like that works in a small group when you've discussed assignment outlines with each of them); if I've got a group of international and home students, how do I know which ones to apply ELF-influenced marking-criteria to? Do I just apply them to everyone? And how will the home students feel if I don't pick them up on very obvious mistakes? <br />
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... although of course if they've made the obvious mistake in the first place they might not realise I'd intentionally not commented on it.<br />
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ELF (that's English as a Lingua Franca - sorry for not glossing it sooner) and the LFC do not seek to prohibit students learning Standard English of any kind if that is their wish. In my experience - at least up to now - it very often IS their wish. They've come to the UK and they want to know what it is they are doing which is not "correct". I have no problem with this, but I will be discussing it with the MA and Erasmus groups in my <i>English in the World</i> class next year to see how they would like me to mark them when it comes to nearness to Standard English norms vs non-problematic ELF usage. Expect a report on that.<br />
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The fact that L2 students can and do get marked down for "poor English" can also lead to another issue: that of proof reading.<br />
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We do actually recommend some students get their draft work proof read, particularly if previous examples of their work have been very difficult to follow and our efforts at academic writing support are not proving heavy-duty enough. However, in more than one case over the years, the proof-reading has been so extreme that we are left questioning the provenance of the work. Could this student, of whose writing we have other samples, possibly have produced this piece of work? How much of it is the student's work in terms of ideas and how much of it comes from the proof-reader? What do we do in these cases? I won't go into detail here; you can see the sort of road an insistence on adherence to Standard English can sometimes take us down.<br />
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Well, as usual, I've raised lots of issues and have no immediate answers. Over to you.<br />
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*For a light-touch summary of the LFC's contents, <a href="http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/global-english-teaching-pronunciation">see this page provided by the British Council</a>.Jane Setterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08213725380324824711noreply@blogger.com11