Re: Pronunciation

As Russ says, the vowel sound in 'luck" and "duck" is not
a schwa, it's the upsidedown v symbol in IPA. The reason for the
existence of IPA is that the Roman alphabet does not allow you to
adequately make a one to one correspondence between vowels and vowel
sounds, especially when you move between languages.

> For example, the schwa sound is the
> same whether produced in a stressed or unstressed
> syllable. 
Nelson

The point about the schwa (IPA inverted e, I have been using * in this
thread)is that it only occurs in unstressed syllables (AC Gimson).

> NUL uses the
> upside-down V for the -eu (French) sound in 'book'.

Book (IPA curly u) does not have the same vowel sound as the French eu
(IPA oe touching)as in professeur. In English loan words from French
such as masseur where the final syllable is stressed the IPA symbol is
3: with the 3 backward. 

I think what this illustrates is the flexibility and accuracy of IPA
over systems that use the Roman alphabet as a guide to sound values.
The IPA can also be used to transcribe connected speech accurately.

However, I don't use IPA that much in teaching, except for the schwa
and a few others where necessary. I advise learners using a dictionary
to look at the phonetic transcription of new words as an aid to
pronunciation and use the guide at the front if they are not sure of
the symbols. Most of them go to an electronic dictionary anyway for
the sound, and out of class I can't stop them. It may be dalek quality
but it's usually not too bad for accuracy. IPA is ok for the odd nudge
as to what souind is needed but it's a bit academic and I want
learners to really listen out for the sound and hear, remember and
reproduce that sound, not turn it into a written phonetic form.

Dick Tibbetts










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