Phonetic Transcription: History

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according to what types of segments they are based on – words, syllables, or consonants and vowels. Certain features of speech are associated with longer segments than others; for example, stress and intonation, which in many writing systems are not marked, are associated with stretches of speech such as the syllable, word, or sentence. Types of Transcription A transcription can never capture all the nuances of speech. The amount of detail it attempts to include in its text will vary according to its purpose. A system intended for the specialist linguist investigating a language never previously studied would often need to allow the recording of as many as possible of the various nuances of sounds, pitch variations, voice quality changes, and so on. Such a transcription may be called ‘impressionistic,’ and is unlikely to be helpful to anyone other than a specialist. Proceeding from this initial transcription, the linguist can deduce the way in which the sound system of the language is structured, and can replace the impressionistic transcription with a ‘systematic’ one, which records in its text only the elements that are crucial for conveying the meanings of the language. This type of transcription may well form the basis for a regular writing system for that language, and is called a ‘phonemic,’ or ‘broad,’ transcription. For use in teaching the spoken language, however, it may be helpful to transcribe some of the subphonemic sound differences likely to present problems to the learner. This kind of transcription may be called ‘allophonic,’ or ‘narrow.’ If detailed comparisons are to be made between this language or dialect and another one, showing the more subtle sound distinctions, the transcription may begin to resemble the impressionistic one, but as it is the result of a prior analysis, it will still be systematic. Conventions may be supplied to show the way in which the broad transcription is realized phonetically in certain environments. For special purposes, such as recording the speech of the deaf, very complex transcription systems may be necessary, to cope with sound variations that rarely occur in the speech of those without such a disability (see later, discussion of the International Phonetic Association). Notation Transcription systems need to employ a notation that allows them to refer to a sound unambiguously. The following approaches utilize some of the principles followed in effective systems of notation: Phonetic Transcription: History 397 1. To avoid ambiguity, each symbol used in the notation, in its particular environment, should be restricted to one particular sound or sound class (or, in some cases, groups of sounds, such as the syllable), and each sound, etc. should be represented by only one symbol. So, for instance, the symbol , which has different values in German and English orthography, would need to be confined to only one of those values. Conversely, the sound [s], which in English may be conveyed either by as in ‘supersede’ or as in ‘cede,’ must be limited to only one symbol. 2. The symbols used should ideally be simple, but distinctive in shape, easily legible, easy to write or print, aesthetically pleasing, and familiar to the intended users. If printing types are not readily available, the system will be limited in its accessibility and expensive to reproduce. 3. If the transcription is to be pronounceable (not all kinds are required to be), the sound values of the symbols must be made clear, through a description of the ways in which the sounds are formed, or through recorded examples, or by ‘key words’ taken from a language, provided that the accent referred to is specified. Some transcription systems include pieces of continuous text to illustrate the application to particular languages (e.g., those of Carl Lepsius and the International Phonetic Association (IPA); see later). 4. The symbol system should be expandable, particularly if it is intended to be used to cover all languages. As new languages are encountered, new varieties of sounds will have to be defined. Alphabetic Notations: Roman and Non-Roman Alphabetic notations (e.g., the Roman alphabet) are based on the principle of having one simple symbol to represent each segment. However, many transcription systems are not based on the Roman alphabet, because of the ambiguous values of some of its symbols, or because it has been found preferable to use ‘iconic’ symbols, intended to convey by their shapes the phonetic nature of the sound concerned, and/or to link related groups of sounds. One variety of iconic notation has been called ‘organic,’ because the shapes of its symbols are meant to suggest the organs of speech used to produce them. Shorthand systems characteristically are non-Roman and iconic, but not necessarily organic. Iconic systems have a number of drawbacks. Apart from the difficulties of reading and printing them, they cannot be easily expanded to incorporate sounds newly encountered. It is also less easy to adapt them as and when phonetic theory undergoes changes.
398 Phonetic Transcription: History Analphabetic Systems Analphabetic systems are not based on alphabetictype segments; instead, the symbols are composed of several elements, some of which resemble chemical formulas, each element representing one ingredient of the sound concerned (see later). Supplementing the Roman Alphabet The number of Roman symbols is far too limited to convey the sound distinctions needed. There are various ways of supplementing the basic alphabet (see Abercrombie, 1981): 1. Using ‘compound letters’ such as and (equivalent to [k(w)] and [ks], respectively, in English orthography) to stand for other sounds. Thus may be used to represent the Scottish sound represented by the in ‘loch.’ 2. Inverting and/or reversing the letters and giving them other values, e.g., [O e J M r V] are all phonetic symbols formed by inverting , respectively. 3. Adding diacritical marks to basic symbols, as in . These diacritics may be attached to the letter or placed somewhere adjacent to it. They are an economical way of enlarging the repertoire, because one mark can be used to change the value of a number of symbols; for example, [�] represents nasality and may be added above any vowel symbol. Conversely, being small, diacritics may be inadvertently omitted or obscured, they tend to reduce the legibility of texts, and they can be expensive to reproduce (though less so since the advent of computers). 4. Adapting symbols borrowed from other alphabets; examples of symbols taken from Greek by the International Phonetic Alphabet, with modification to blend with the roman font, are [y w b X] (see International Phonetic Association). Symbols may also be borrowed from another use, such as @), £, $, %, etc. 5. Using digraphs to represent simple sounds, as English orthography does in ‘thing,’ wherein and may represent the simple sounds [y], and [N], respectively. The symbols are easily accessible, but problems arise when these sequences are needed to convey actual sound sequences, such as the aspirated stop [th]. 6. Using different typefaces, such as UPPERCASE, italic, or bold (or even ). However, these are less satisfactory for use in handwriting, they may cause confusion with other conventional uses, such as emphasis, and they do not blend well with other fonts, unless specially adapted. 7. Less commonly, using spatial relationships. With respect to a median line, symbols may be placed on the line, above it, or below it. Braille makes use of this in certain of its symbols. For normal printing and writing this is not very satisfactory, as it interferes with legibility and can easily lead to errors. 8. Inventing entirely new symbols. Unless new symbols are relatively straightforward adaptations of Roman letters, e.g., inversions or addition of diacritics, they rarely survive. One that has survived is the IPA symbol for the velar nasal, [N], probably first used in 1619 by Alexander Gill. Nonsegmental Aspects of Speech In any language, English, for example, the position of the stress in the word may need to be indicated. This can be done by placing a raised mark before the stressed syllable, for instance, , or by highlighting the syllable in some way. Extra length can be shown by doubling the segmental symbol, as in Italian freddo ‘cold’, or by adding a diacritical mark, as in [a:]. Pitch is an essential feature of the words of ‘tone languages,’ such as Chinese, Thai, and Yoruba, and may be marked by accents over the vowel (e.g., [á] ¼ high, [à] ¼ low), or by numerals (e.g., the Mandarin Chinese segmental structure [ma] can have four different tones, distinguishing different words: [ma 1 ], [ma 2 ], [ma 3 ], [ma 4 ]). The intonation pattern of English may be indicated by marking the pitch of certain prominent syllables. The first person to try to provide a detailed system of notation for these features in English was Joshua Steele (see Steele, Joshua (1700–1791)). Other features are also sometimes treated as nonsegmental, notably nasality and ‘secondary articulations’ such as palatalization, velarization, and labialization, because they frequently overlap segmental boundaries. Traditional transcriptions have allocated these features to segments, adding diacritical marks to the vowel or consonant symbols, but some phonological analyses of speech have associated them with longer stretches by setting up an extra tier for them. The ‘prosodic analysis’ of J. R. Firth allocated ‘prosodies’ such as nasality and velarity to longer domains, including syllable part, syllable, word, and sentence (see Firthian Phonology). A similar idea lies behind the ‘autosegmental’ model of phonology. Historical Survey of Transcription Systems Examples of some of the different types of transcription systems can be found in the alphabets from early times.
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Phonetic Transcription: History

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