Vowel Sound Symbols and Schools of Transcriptions

Abstract

The recognition usually made between phonetics and phonology is that phonetics studies the physical or physiological aspects of speech, including its articulatory, aerodynamic, acoustic, auditory, and perceptual aspects, whereas phonology is concerned with accounting for variation in speech sounds in different but related languages and dialects, and within a given language in the environment of different morphemes, different positions within an utterance, word, or other speech sounds. A simple phonetic transcription is based on using the minimum number of different symbols, of the simplest possible and most familiar shapes. Whereas the allophonic transcription uses more than the minimum number of different symbols. In such transcription more than one symbol are used for one phoneme. A comparative transcription is the one in which all the symbols are not of the most simple and familiar shapes. It uses symbols some of which are more specific in their reference than these of a simple transcription. The problem of this research is that different symbols are used for the same sound representation in their way of transcription or the same symbols are used for the different sounds representations of different schools of transcriptions. This causes confusion for learners of English when their program uses different sources from different schools without mentioning these differences between these schools of transcriptions or when they use different dictionaries used different symbols of different school of transcriptions. It is hypothesized that confusion for learners of English because of the different or same symbols are used for the same phonetic representation in the phonetic transcription of different schools of transcriptions. The concern in this research is on program of these learners of English who learn phonetics and phonology text books of a certain school of transcription and their sources are taken from different schools of transcriptions or use different dictionaries used different symbols of different schools but nothing mentioned about these schools. Also, the concentration will be on the vowels not the consonants. The concentration will be on British and American schools of transcriptions. The aims of this research are to remove this confusion and build concrete program for teaching English for different levels of learners. Finding the similarities and differences between different schools of transcriptions in the use of the same and different phonetic symbols. Enable students to use different dictionaries (American or British) and understand their symbols easily. Developing the learners’ pronunciation abilities concerning different accents of English (American and British English).