1

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

Language and Linguistic
BA Semester-II
UNIT -3

Phonetic Transcription

Phonetic transcription (also known as phonetic

script or phonetic notation) is the visual
representation of speech sounds (or phones) by
means of symbols. The most common type of
phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet,
such as the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Introduction to phonetic transcription

With phonetic transcriptions, dictionaries tell you about the pronunciation of words. In
English dictionaries, phonetic transcriptions are necessary, because the spelling of an
English word does not tell you how you should pronounce it.

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 2

Phonetic transcriptions are usually written in the International Phonetic Alphabet

(IPA), in which each English sound has its own symbol. For example, the IPA-based
phonetic transcription of the word HOM E is hoʊm, and the transcription of COM E is kʌm.
Note that in spelling, these words are similar. They both end in OM E . But their phonetic
transcriptions are different, because they arepronounced differently.

Phonetic transcription is usually given in brackets, like this: /hoʊm/, /kʌm/. In a

dictionary, it looks like this:

Word stress
When a word has many syllables, one of them is always pronounced more strongly. This
is called word stress, and we say that the syllable is stressed. For example, in the
word BECOM E , the stressed syllable is COM E . If the stressed syllable
was BE , BECOM E would be pronounced .
Dictionaries tell you which syllable is stressed. The most popular system is to put a
vertical line (ˈ) before the stressed syllable in the phonetic transcription of the word. For
example, the transcription for BECOM E is /bɪˈkʌm/.

If a word has only one syllable (examples: PEN , WATCH ), dictionaries usually do not put
the ˈ stress mark before it. So they don’t write/ˈpen/ — they simply write /pen/.

Some dictionaries use other systems for showing word stress. For example, they may
put ˈ after the stressed syllable, or they may underline the stressed syllable.

The sounds of English and the

International Phonetic Alphabet
This chart contains all the sounds (phonemes) used in the English language.
For each sound, it gives:
• The symbol from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), as used
in phonetic transcriptions in modern dictionaries for English learners —
that is, in A. C. Gimson’s phonemic system with a few additional symbols.
The chart represents British and American phonemes with one symbol. One
symbol can mean two different phonemes in American and British English.
See the footnotes for British-only and American-only symbols.
• Two English words which use the sound. The underline shows where the sound is
heard.
• The links labeled AM and BR play sound recordings where the words are
pronounced in American and British English. The British version is given only
where it is very different from the American version.

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 3

vowels

IPA examples listen

ʌ CUP, LUCK AM

ɑ: ARM, FATHER A M BR

æ CAT, BLACK AM

e ME T, BE D AM
1

ə AWAY, CINE MA AM
2

ɜ:ʳ TURN, LE A RN A M BR
2

ɪ HIT, SITTING AM

i: SE E , HEAT AM

ɒ HOT, ROCK A M BR
3

ɔ: CALL, F OUR A M BR
45

ʊ PUT, COULD AM

u: BLUE , F OOD AM

aɪ FIVE, EYE AM

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 4

vowels

IPA examples listen

aʊ NOW, OUT AM

eɪ SAY , EIGHT AM

oʊ GO, HOME AM
6

ɔɪ BOY , JOIN AM

eəʳ WHERE , AIR A M BR

17

ɪəʳ NE A R, HERE A M BR 7

ʊəʳ PURE , TOURIST A M BR

7

consonants

IPA examples listen

b BAD, LAB AM

d DID, LA DY AM

f FIND, IF AM

g GIVE, FLA G AM

h HOW, HELLO AM

j YES, YELLOW AM

k CAT, BA CK AM

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 5

consonants

IPA examples listen

l LEG, LITTLE AM

m MAN, LE MON AM

n NO, TE N AM

ŋ SING, FINGER AM

p PET, MA P AM

r RED, TRY AM 8

s SUN, MISS AM

ʃ SHE, CRA SH AM

t TEA, GE TTING AM 9

tʃ CHECK, CHURCH AM

θ THINK, BOTH AM

ð THIS, MOTHE R AM

v VOICE, FIVE AM

w WET, WINDOW AM

z ZOO, LA ZY AM

ʒ PLEA SURE, VISION A M

dʒ JUST, LARGE AM

1. 1.Almost all dictionaries use the e symbol for the vowel in B E D . The problem
with this convention is that e in the IPA does not stand for the vowel in BE D ; it
stands for a different vowel that is heard, for example, in the German

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 6

word SE E LE . The “proper” symbol for the BE D -vowel is ɛ (do not confuse
with ɜ:). The same goes for eə vs. ɛə.
2. 2.In əʳ and ɜ:ʳ, the ʳ is not pronounced in BrE, unless the sound comes before a
vowel (as in ANSWE RI NG , ANSWE R I T ). In AmE, the ʳ is always pronounced,
and the sounds are sometimes written as ɚ and ɝ.
3. 3.In AmE, ɑ: and ɒ are one vowel, so CAL M and COT have the same vowel. In
American transcriptions, HOT is written as hɑ:t.
4. 4.About 40% of Americans pronounce ɔ: the same way as ɑ:, so
that CAU G HT and COT have the same vowel. See cot-caught merger.
5. 5.In American transcriptions, ɔ: is often written as ɒ: (e.g. L AW = lɒ:), unless it
is followed by r, in which case it remains an ɔ:.
6. 6.In British transcriptions, oʊ is usually represented as əʊ. For some BrE
speakers, oʊ is more appropriate (they use a rounded vowel) — for others, the
proper symbol is əʊ. For American speakers, oʊ is usually more accurate.
7. 7.In eəʳ ɪəʳ ʊəʳ, the r is not pronounced in BrE, unless the sound comes before a
vowel (as in DE ARE ST , DE AR ANN ). In AmE, the r is always pronounced, and
the sounds are often written as er ɪr ʊr.
8. 8.All dictionaries use the r symbol for the first sound in RED . The problem
with this convention is that r in the IPA does not stand for the British or
American R ; it stands for the “hard” R that is heard, for example, in the
Spanish word RE Y or Italian VE RO . The “proper” symbol for the RE D -
consonant is ɹ. The reason r is used instead is that it’s easier to type and read.
9. 9.In American English, t is often pronounced as a flap t, which sounds
like d or (more accurately) like the quick, hard r heard e.g. in the Spanish
word P E RO . For example: LE TTE R . Some dictionaries use the t ̬ symbol for
the flap t.
special symbols

IPA what it means

The vertical line (ˈ ) is used to show word stress. It is placed before the
stressed syllable in a word. For example, /ˈkɒntrækt/ is pronounced like
ˈ
this, and/kənˈtrækt/ like that. Word stress is explained in our article
about phonetic transcription.

ʳ means that r is always pronounced in American English, but not in

British English. For example, if we write that FAR is pronounced /fɑ:ʳ/,
ʳ
we mean that it is pronounced /fɑ:r/ in American English, and /fɑ:/ in
British English.

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 7

special symbols

IPA what it means

However, in BrE, r will be heard if ʳ is followed by a vowel. For

example,FAR GON E is pronounced /ˈfɑ: ˈgɒn/ in BrE, but FAR OUT is
pronounced /ˈfɑ: ˈraʊt/.
i is usually pronounced like a shorter version of i: , but sometimes
i (especially in an old-fashioned British accent) it can sound like ɪ.
Examples: VE RY /ˈveri/,CREATE /kriˈeɪt/, PRE VIOUS /ˈpri:viəs/,ABILITY /əˈbɪlɪti/.

ə
l represents either a syllabic l or, less commonly, əl . Syllabic l is
ə
an l which acts as a vowel and forms a syllable, as
l ə ə
inLITTLE /ˈlɪt l/, UN CLE /ˈʌŋk l/.
ə
Instead of l , some dictionaries use a regular l , as in /ˈlɪtl/.
ə
n represents either a syllabic n or, less commonly, ən. Syllabic n is
an n which acts as a vowel and forms a syllable, as
n
ə
ə ə
in WRITTE N /ˈrɪt n/, LISTE N /ˈlɪs n/.
ə
Instead of n, some dictionaries use a regular n, as in /ˈrɪtn/.

Does this chart list all the sounds that you can hear in
British and American English?
No. This page contains symbols used in phonetic transcriptions in modern
dictionaries for English learners. It does not list all the possible sounds in
American or British English.
For example, this page does not list the regular t (heard
in this pronunciation of LE TTE R ) and the flap t (heard in this one) with
separate symbols. It groups them under a single symbol: t. (In other words,
it groups a number of similar sounds under a single phoneme, for
simplicity. To understand how sounds are grouped into phonemes, read the
article on phonemic transcription.)
So this page actually lists phonemes (groups of sounds), not individual
sounds. Each symbol in the chart can correspond to many different (but
similar) sounds, depending on the word and the speaker’s accent.
Take the phoneme p in the above chart. It occurs in the phonemic
transcriptions of PIN /pɪn/ and SPIN /spɪn/. In PIN , this phoneme is
pronounced with aspiration (breathing). This “aspirated p” sound has its

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 8

own special symbol in the IPA: pʰ. In SPIN , the phoneme is pronounced
“normally”; this “normal p” sound is represented by p in the IPA. So
the pphoneme represents two sounds: p and pʰ. (This can be confusing,
because p can mean both the p phoneme and the p sound.)

Distinction between consonants and vowels

Consonants and vowels are two different qualities of sounds that
are found almost in all languages of the world.
Consonants are defined as the sounds articulated by
temporary obstruction in the air stream which passes through the
mouth. The obstruction made by the articulators may be `total’,
`intermittent’, `partial’, or may merely constitute a narrowing
sufficient to cause friction. In the articulation of consonants almost
all articualtors are involved.
Vowels on the other hand are the sounds that are
produced without any obstruction in the air passage. Among all
articulators, only the tongue is involved in their production. All
vowel sounds are voiced and all of them are oral sounds as
during the production of them the soft palate is raised and hence
the nasal cavity is completely blocked.
Another important distinction is, that consonants often appear as
the marginal elements in syllables. They seldom form the nucleus,
or centre, of the syllable except in some cases. Usually there will
be a vowel at the center or nucleus of a syllable. You will learn
more about this in the rubric on Syllables and Syllable Structure
When it comes to describing and classifying consonants and
vowels show apparent distinction. Consonants are identified or
classified in terms of voicing, place of articulation, and manner of
articulation. Since there is no obstruction of the airstream in the

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 9

production of vowel sounds, and since all vowel sounds are

voiced and oral, we cannot describe vowels in terms of their place
of articulation, but are left with the manner, in which they are
produced.

The difference between consonants and vowels

There are five vowels and 21 consonants in English.

Vowels and consonants are sounds, not letters. Depending on your accent and how thinly you slice
them, there are about 20 vowels and 24 consonants.

The difference between vowels and consonants

A vowel is a speech sound made with your mouth fairly open, the nucleus of a spoken syllable.

A consonant is a sound made with your mouth fairly closed.

When we talk, consonants break up the stream of vowels (functioning as syllable onsets and codas),
so that we don’t sound like we’ve just been to the dentist for four fillings and the anesthetic hasn’t
worn off yet.

Consonants require more precise articulation than vowels, which is why children find them harder to
learn, and often end up in speech therapy after having become so cross at not being understood that
they’ve started hitting people.

Only a few children with severe speech sound difficulties (often called dyspraxia or apraxia)
sometimes need therapy to help them produce vowel sounds correctly.

Most syllables contain a vowel, though vowel-like consonants can occasionally be syllables. And to
complicate matters, many English vowels are technically two or three vowels shmooshed together.

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 10

(Just ignore the “c” with a cedilla, it’s slicing things a bit fine IMHO. Also ignore the “wh” if you say
“whale” and “wail” as homophones).

How consonants are produced

Saying consonant sounds involves constricting airflow in different locations in your mouth by:

• briefly stopping then releasing the air (“p”, “b”, “t”, “d”, “k”, “g”),
• diverting the airflow and associated resonance to your nose (“m”, “n”, “ng”),
• squeezing the air through a narrow space (“th” as in “thin”, “th” as in “then”, “f”, “v”, “s”, “z”,
“sh”, “zh” as in “vision”, “h”, and in posh dialects, “wh”),
• combining stopping then squeezing (“ch”, “j”), or
• narrowing the vocal tract (“w”, “y”, “r”, “l”).

Consonants that are like vowels – approximants

The last four consonant sounds on the above list – “y”, “w”, “r”, “l” – are produced with less mouth
constriction than other consonants, and in linguistics are called “approximants”.

Approximants occupy a kind of linguistic grey area between vowels and consonants, in fact “w” and
“y” are also known as semivowels.

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 11

There’s very little difference between the consonant sound “y” and the vowel sound “ee” as in
“see/sea/me”, and between the consonant sound “w” and the vowel sound “ooh” as in
“moon/rule/grew”.

These sounds are classified as consonants because they generally behave like consonants, that is,
they’re (in) syllable onsets not syllable nuclei.

Syllabic consonants

In many English dialects, the sound “l” can be a syllable all by itself in words like “bottle” and
“middle”. This is also true of the sound “n” in words like “button” and “hidden”.

In these words, the tongue has just said “t” or “d”, so it’s already in the right place to go straight into
the sound “l” or “n”, without saying a vowel first. However, we still write a “vowel letter” in this syllable
(le, on, en) and we say a vowel sound in other words with similar final spellings, like “giggle” and
“dabble”, “ribbon” and “beckon”, “happen” and “embiggen”.

The sound “m” can also act as a syllable in words like “rhythm” and “algorithm”, again because the
sounds “th” and “m” are physically very close together. In this case we don’t write a “vowel letter” in
the last syllable, but we do saya vowel sound in the last syllable of most words spelt like this, like
“autism” and “criticism”

Voiced and voiceless consonants

Some consonants are produced using your voice (“b”, “d”, “g”, “m”, “n”, “ng”, “th” as in “then”, “v”, “z”,
“zh” as in “vision”, “j”, “y”, “w”, “r”, “l”) and the rest are voiceless (“p”, “t”, “k”, “th” as in “thin”, “f”, “s”,
“sh”, “ch”, “h”).

Most consonants come in neat voiced-voiceless pairs – “p/b”, “t/d”, “k/g”, “th as in thin/th as in then”,
“f/v”, “s/z”, “sh/zh as in vision”, and “ch/j”

Try saying each of these sound pairs in turn, and you’ll notice that the main difference between each
pair is that you use your voice for the first sound, but not the second one.

If you are using your voice when you say the sounds “p”, “t”, “k”, “th” as in “thin”, “f”, “s”, “sh” or “ch”,
you’re saying them wrong. This can confuse about the difference between sounds, and/or cause
blending problems

The sound “h”, is also voiceless, but lost its voiced pair somewhere down the crack between Old and
Middle English, though its ghost still makes guest appearances as the spelling gh in words like
“thought”, “night” and “daughter”.

The nasal sounds “m”, “n” and “ng” don’t have voiceless pairs, but are made in the same spots in
your mouth as, respectively, “p/b”, “t/d” and “k/g”.

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 12

How vowels are produced

All vowel sounds are voiced, unless you’re whispering or speaking Japanese, Quebecois, or a North
American indigenous language like Comanche or Cheyenne.

Vowels are sounds produced with the mouth fairly open, and differ by mouth shape, for example “ee”
is a high front vowel and “o” as in “got” is a low back vowel.

Some vowels, like the “a” in “cat” and the “i” in “big”, are said with the mouth in the same position
from start to finish (monophthongs).

Some vowels, like the “ay” in “paper” and the “I” in “hi”, move from one mouth position to another
(diphthongs).

There’s also one vowel in English, the “you” in “human”, which is actually a combination of a
consonant and a vowel (“y” + “ooh”). But knowing this doesn’t help us spell it, there isn’t usually any
need to notice the little “y” sound, which in some dialects is omitted (think of how the word “news” is
pronounced in US English).

In the English we speak, in which the consonant “r” is only pronounced before a vowel, a few vowels
like the “ire” in “fire” and the “our” in “sour” contain three mouth positions (triphthongs). When
teaching spelling it’s best to treat these as two sounds (i…e + r, ou + r).

It should be noted that diphthongs are actually two sounds. This sort of excellent listening should
give rise to much rejoicing and praise, after which they can be told that spelling gets mighty
confusing if we slice these sounds so finely (e.g. the “ay” sound in paper contains two sounds, but
represented by only one letter), so we usually treat diphthongs as single sounds.

Consonant sounds spelt with “vowel letters”

Three English “vowel letters” are commonly used in spellings of consonant sounds, such as (the
links take you to wordlists for each spelling):

The letter E in the ve in “solve”, the se in “house” and “please”, the ce in “dance” and “ocean”, the ze
in “sneeze”, the the in “soothe”, the ed in “jumped” and “hummed”, the dge in “smudge”, and the che
in “avalanche”.

The letter I represents the sound “y” in words like “union” and “brilliant, plus it’s in the ti in “motion”,
the ci in “social”, the si in “pension”and “version”, the gi in “religion”, the sci in “conscious”, the ssi in
“passion”, and the xi in “anxious”.

The letter U is a common way to spell the consonant sound “w”, as in “queen” and “penguin” (we
usually write qu and gu, not kw, cw or gw), and is also part of the gu in “guess”, the gue in “league”,
the qu in “liquor”, the que in “boutique”, and the “bu” in “build”.

The sound “you” as in “human” is actually a combination of a consonant and a vowel (y+ooh),
though it’s mostly spelt with vowel letters: U as in human, U…E as in tune, EW as in few, UE as in
cue or EU as in feud. Nouns that start with this sound like “unicorn”, “ute” and “Europe” thus start
with a a vowel letter but a consonant sound, which is why we say “a unicorn”, “a ute” and “a
European”, not “an unicorn”, “an ute” or “an European”.

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 13

Vowel sounds spelt with “consonant letters”

The obvious one here is the letter Y, weirdly called a consonant letter despite mostly representing
vowel sounds, in words like “my”, “duty”and “gym” (no, I haven’t been doing enough exercise lately
either).

This probably happened because traditional phonics focuses too much on first letters in words,
where the letter Y represents a consonant sound (except in words like “Yvette” and “yttrium”).

On top of all this, there are heaps of vowel sounds spelt with two, three and four letters which
contain “consonant letters”, mostly the letters W, Y, R and L. Here are some examples:

The letter W is in the aw in “saw”, the ew in “new” and “grew”, and the ow in “how” and “show”.

The letter Y is in the ay in “play”, the ey in “grey” and “valley”, the oy in “boy”, the ye in bye, the y…e
in “type”, and the yr in “myrtle”. All four letters representing the vowel sound in the word “myrrh” are
supposedly “consonant letters”.

The letter R is in the ar in “car”, “warm” and “scarce”, the er in “her”, the ir in “bird”, the or in “fork”,
the ur in “curl”, the air in “hair”, the are in “care”, the ear in “hear”, “learn” and “bear”, the ere in
“here”, “there” and “were”, the eer in “beer”, the oar in “soar”, the ore in “sore”, the our in “pour”,
the oor in “door”, the eur in “poseur”, the aur in “Minotaur”, and in the English we speak and write,
the r in “flour”, re in “centre” and our in “harbour”.

The letter L is in the al in “calm” and walk, and the ol in “yolk”.

The ghostly letters G and H are in the igh in “high”, the ough in
“thought”, “drought”, “though”, “through” and “thorough”, the eigh in “weight”, the augh in “caught”,
and the aigh in “straight”.

The letter H is also in the ah in “galah”, the eh in “meh”, the eah in “yeah”, the oh in “John”, the ooh
in “pooh”, and the uh in “duh”. If I can write it and you can read and understand it, it’s a real word.

So, what’s the difference between vowels and consonants?

which letters are vowels and which letters are consonants,
• Vowels and consonants are sounds not letters,
• Vowels are the loud sounds that form the nuclei of each syllable, and consonants separate
them.

• The letters B, C, D, F, J, K, M, N, P, Q, S, T, V, X and Z are mainly used to spell consonants,

• The letters A and O are mainly used to spell vowels, and
• The letters E, G, H, I, L, R, U, W, Y are used as/in spellings representing both vowels and
consonants

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 14

Diphthong

Definition
The diphthong is the union that occurs between two different vowels that are placed
continuously within the same syllable and may be formed by an open vowel such as e, e, o,
and a closed vowel such as i and u. The process by which one vowel sound moved to
another is known as gliding, this is the reason why a diphthong is also called “gliding
vowel”. Another types of names to refer to this type of sound are compound vowels,
complex or moving vowels. It is important to mention that the sound change that converts a
single vowel into a diphthong is known as diphthongization.

Characteristics of English diphthongs

Their main characteristics are the following:

• Both vowels have to be lax.

• The first one is the most important in terms of stress. This means that, for
example, in diphthong [aɪ], sound [a] is much longer and stronger than sound [ɪ].
• Vowels pronunciation take place through a glide, that is, through a continuous and
very smooth movement from the first vowel to the second, in other words, they are
not articulated distinctly.

Types

There are two different types of diphthong, and these can be:

• Closing: this type of diphthong is the one in which the last vowel is near-high. As
the two vowels need to be lax, there are only two different possibilities [ɪ] and [ʊ].

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed

 15

• Centering: these ones ends in a vowel [ə] (schwa).

It is important to mention that diphthongs [aɪ], [eɪ], [ɔɪ], and [aʊ] can be found in British
and American English, and [əʊ] only in British.

E-content edited by : Dr. Haroon Rasheed