ENGLISH VOWELS

1. ENGLISH VOWELS 組員: 鄭李淑珠na1c0015 楊小萱 na1c0027 李嘉麟

2. Transcription and phonetic dictionaries Transcription: There are many different transcription of the vowels of English: Why: 1. Accents of English differ greatly in the vowels they use. 2. There is no one right way of transcribing even a single accent of English.

3. The set of symbols used depends on the reason for making the transcription. For example: * Aiming to reduce English to the smallest possible set of symbols: sheep; ship => [Gi:p]; [Gip] Luke; look => [lu:k]; [luk] O: reducing the number of vowel symbols X: only showing the differ in length , without in quality

4. *Noting both length and quality differences occur: sheep; ship => [Gi:p]；[GNp] * Most phonetics instructors and this book prefer: sheep; ship => [Gip]；[GNp]

5. Phonetic dictionaries: • English Pronouncing Dictionary, 16th => EPD 16 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) by Jones, Peter Roach, James Hartman, Jane Setter * Both British and American pronunciations ; and a CD

6. 2. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary 2nd edition => LPD 2 ( Harlow, U.K.: Pearson, 2000) by John Wells both British and American pronunciations Both EPD 16 and LPD 2 use [Gi:p];[GNp] only the vowel of bird is different: LPD 2 [M˜] EPD 16 [Mr]

7. 3. Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) by Clive Upton, William Kretzschmar and Rfal Konopka It gives a wider range of both British and American pronunciations than EPD 16 & LPD 2, and it uses a larger set of symbols and a more allophonic transcription than the other two.

8. Each of the three dictionaries shows the pronunciations typically used by national newscasters: Standard American Newscaster English => American English Standard BBC English => British English Caribbean British English [kWrN@biBn] American English [kB@rNbiBn]

9. Vowel quality Problems in describing vowels: • The terms we are using are simply labels that describe how vowels sound in relation to one another. They are not absolute descriptions of the position of the body of the tongue. • There are no distinct boundaries between one type of vowel and another. had [W] he [i] [W–D–eN–i] had – head – say - he he[i] had[W]

10. had [W] father [A] Scottish English do not distinguish between the vowels in cam and calm. Speakers with these accents pronounce both had and father with a vowel about halfway between the usual Midwestern American pronunciation of these two vowels.

11. the auditory vowel space The positions of the vocal organs in the vowel and tongue moving cannot be said precisely, unless we use x-ray or MRI to monitor the tongue. Therefore, we often simply use labels for the auditory qualities of the different vowels.

12. heed who D head mid low front had father

13. The labels here describe the way one vowel sound relative to another, not the articulations. Linguists have used terms such as acute and grave instead of front and back in the description of vowels. But, for a variety of reasons, these terms did not become widely used.

14. American and british vowels

15. heed food hid good hay bud author head had father bought bomb balm