Transcription

1. Kinds of transcription: narrow vs. broad
2. Suggestions/tricks for making better transcriptions
3. Common mistakes
4. Vowels in unstressed syllables

If you want to go beyond that, to try to describe how Kevin Russell pronounces the word in general, or further still to how English speakers pronounce it in general, then you have to start making abstractions -- you have to decide which details to include and which details to ignore.

It's common to distinguish between two kinds of transcription, based on how many details the transcribers decide to ignore:

• Narrow transcription: captures as many aspects of a specific pronunciation as possible and ignores as few details as possible. Using the diacritics provided in the IPA, it is possible to make very subtle distinctions between sounds.
• Broad transciption (or phonemic transcription): ignores as many details as possible, capturing only enough aspects of a pronunciation to show how that word differs from other words in the language.

• For English, a narrow transcription would note the difference between the [i] and [], and possibly more subtle details as well. A broad transcription would also need to note the difference, because the two words mean different things.
• For Canadian French, a narrow transcription would note the difference. Both [i] and [] occur in the language, but they never contrast, that is, they cause a difference in meaning, so a broad transcription could ignore the difference and write both as [liv]. [Footnote]

With the symbols we have so far, we are able to make broad transcriptions of Canadian English.

Well, if there's no difference in meaning between the two, then why not write it [lv]?
This would in fact be perfectly legitimate. But one of the unspoken principles of broad transcription is that, when you're given a choice between two symbols and when all other considerations are equal (sometimes even when they aren't), you'll pick the one that's easier to type.

• Pretend you're someone who can't spell (e.g., an advertising executive). How would you misspell this word if you wanted to deliberately misspell it? For example, you might misspell knight as night or nite -- which gives you some clues about which sounds are really there are which aren't.
  
• Compare the word to other words whose transcriptions you're more certain of. If two words are homonyms, their transcriptions should be identical. If two words rhyme, their transcriptions should end the same way.
  
• Decide how many sounds the word has and what the sounds sound like before you worry about which symbols to use for the sounds.
  
• We read left to right -- there's no law you have to write that way. Don't feel you have to get the symbol for one sound perfect before you move to the next. If you know the first consonant and the last consonant but aren't sure of the vowel in the middle, get the consonants down on paper and worry about the vowel later.
  
• When you're unsure of an individual sound, consider other words where that sound occurs. For example, if you're not sure what symbol to use for a vowel, what word would you get if you put that vowel between h_d or b_t?
  
• Read your transcription back out loud. Make sure it says what you think it says.
  
• When you read your transcription back out loud, pretend you're a very stupid computer who can't do anything more than play little sound clips one after the other. If the only thing that sounds strange about your reading is the pauses ([d -- -- g]), then your transcription is probably right. If it sounds like the computer is trying to say a different word or a nonsense word ([d -- o -- g]), you'd better try again.
  
• Pay attention to what you're doing with your body. Often phoneticians who are trying to transcribe an unfamiliar sound will imitate the sound as closely as they can and then choose the symbol more on the basis of what they're doing with their vocal tract during the imitation than on what it sounds like. If it doesn't feel like an [n], if your tongue body is touching your soft palate rather than your tongue tip touching just behind your teeth, then it's not an [n].
  
• Practise. Practise. Practise.
  • Do the exercises in the textbook.
  • Get more textbooks. Do their exercises too.
  • Do the exercises on the web page.
  • Transcribe words in your head while waiting for the bus.
  • Write your grocery lists in IPA.
  • Write your diary in IPA.
  • Read stories in IPA whenever you have insomnia.
  • ...

Square brackets

Silent letters

[c]

ng, nk

j

The A's

Capital letters

Unstressed vowels