The Change from Respelling to IPA in English Dictionaries: Increase in Accuracy or Increase in Prescriptivism?

Abstract

The extent to which a guide to the pronunciation of words is included in English monolingual dictionaries as well as the method used to render pronunciation varies across publishers as well as through time. This paper compares the respelling systems used between the late 1960s and the early 1980s and the motivation for the use of respelling as well as the reasons for a change to IPA in the last quarter of the twentieth century. It shows that, while the change to computer editing played a role, the main reason is the change in the market for monolingual English dictionaries, which shifted from native speakers to non-native learners. The paper argues that the change entailed an increase in prescriptivism, as respelling systems allowed an interpretation in different regional accents, which was lost with the change to IPA.