Monroy-Casas, R. (2011). Systems for the Phonetic Transcription of English. Theory and Texts. Frankfurt: Peter Lang

Abstract

Monroy-Casas, R. (2011). Systems for the Phonetic Transcription of English. Theory and Texts. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. 280 pages. ISBN 978-3034300599 The history and practice of phonetic transcription of (chiefly British) English, has long been a major interest of mine. So I was very pleased to be able to see a new book on this subject especially as it's been written by my good friend Professor Rafael Monroy-Casas of the University of Murcia in southern Spain. This book has just appeared as the 106th volume of a series begun in 2001 entitled Linguistic Insights: Studies in Language and Communication from the international academic publishing house of Peter Lang of Bern, Switzerland. It's a smartly presented paperback whose 280 pages are well printed with certain very minor exceptions. It's divided into four main sections. The first, Phonetic transcription systems deals with the International Phonetic Association's alphabet and the typology of phonetic and phonemic transcriptions. The second section, From theory to practice, goes into detail on the transcription of the consonants and vowels, and describes English vowel variation as reflected in the so-called strong and weak forms. It's interspersed with some various transcription exercises. Its last few pages have a few items where ill-advisedly-small print is squeezed into presentational 'boxes'. The third section, Corpus of oral texts, provides in ordinary orthography eighteen passages, a varied mixture of monologues and dialogues in length ranging from a half to a whole page. They are mostly quite interesting and some even quite entertaining. Nothing is revealed about their sources but the names are given of the two male and two female readers who recorded them very effectively for the very useful accompanying CD which is, as is now customary, conveniently attached inside the book's back cover. This whole set of texts is used for each of the six types he selected for illustration in the fourth section Transcription systems for English, the major final division of the book. These are termed by the author: 1. EPD pp. 88ff[ie Jones's 'Simplified' type]; 2. Edinburgh pp 119ff[ie Abercrombie's type]; 3. Windsor Lewis pp 141ff; 4. EPD-14 pp 167ff; 5. EPD/LPD pp 191ff; 6. OPD pp 226ff. Comparing one version with another would've been much easier if at each page of a transcribed passage the corresponding page numbers had been given for each of the other five and for the corpus texts. At each of the six sections the transcribed passages are preceded by often detailed discussions and exercises. This ambitious work is in effect three books in one: a historical record, an account of the diverse current practices and an instructional manual. Its content is full of interest though at times a few matters perhaps might've been more felicitously expressed. Certain mainly minor items will be relevant to the interests of so few of its likely readers that they might well have been omitted. One such is a complete set of the eighteen passages transcribed into the computer-readable SAMPA notation. The most widely welcome material will probably be its lively selection of passages with their well-recorded accompanying CD. …