PHONETICS MANUAL.indd - HumBox

27. Which of the following languages make(s) use of lip rounding to distinguish
between vowels?
English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish.
28. Give the IPA symbols corresponding to the underlined vowels in one or more of
the languages indicated:
French:
German:
bonheur, soeur, deux, milieu, jeune, stupeur, peut-être.
Söhne, völlig, Körper, mögen, köstlich, Goethe, töten.
29. What words do you get if you reverse the lip rounding in the following
(concentrate on pronunciation, not on spelling)?
French:
German:
père, mère, ces, des, si, cri, heure, noeud
Heere, Hölle, Tier, Kölner, lügen, kennen, fühle
30. Rewrite in ordinary spelling:
French:
German:
[sœl], [famÔ], [idÔ]
[fÔg@l], [gœn@n], [hÔl@].
3.06 Focus on English
In this section, you will see how the cardinal vowel system can be used to identify and
characterize a few of the pronunciations of English vowels heard in the British Isles
and across the world.
One term you should note at this point is Received Pronunciation or RP (another Daniel
Jones invention). This slightly odd expression refers to the “standard British English
accent”, the one used for example by most BBC television and radio newsreaders and
presenters — or, in a somewhat more conservative form, by the Queen herself. (Hence
the expression Queen’s English, which is roughly equivalent; BBC English is another
term sometimes encountered). Middle-class pronunciation in England approximates
to RP. This is especially true in the South, as Received Pronunciation derives from
southern — particularly London — varieties, not from Midland, northern, Scots,
Welsh, Irish, etc.
As has been hinted already, the vowels of RP are not particularly close to the cardinal
values. The pronunciation is less tense than that of, say, standard French: the tongue
takes up positions that are less “extreme”, and the lips are less energetically spread
28 Vowels