Representing the English Model: Phonemes, Physics and Fantasy
Peter Roach
University of Reading
Since the concept of the phoneme became widely accepted in the first half of the 20th century, there has been a "gentleman's agreement" that the phonemic transcription conventions used in pronunciation dictionaries (and more recently in many EFL dictionaries) should be considered exempt from the changes in the representation of phonic material that are brought about by the frequent alterations in theoretical positions in phonology. Consequently, our practice of transcribing could be considered to be in something of a historical backwater. Since the transcriptions used are highly idealized and also tend to use symbolizations that are at times divergent from IPA values, it is sometimes difficult for dictionary users to know how to interpret the information provided. It could be argued that the uniformity found among different dictionaries is to a significant extent due to the transcription conventions used. A less favourable view might be that those of us who work on such dictionaries are cataloguing the pronunciation of a fantasy being (the "ideal RP speaker") with a set of symbols designed specially for this purpose, though we should recognize that questionnaire data such as is used in the LPD provides a partial way out of this problem.
A development that is changing the way in which dictionary data is represented is the introduction of sound recordings on a CD-ROM that accompanies or in some cases replaces the printed dictionary. In such cases, the representation is a physical one which complements the symbolic one. There is an enormous potential for developing this facility further, but many issues remain to be addressed.
The present paper considers a particular problem that arises in this context: the Journal of the International Phonetic Association publishes "Illustrations of the IPA", providing descriptions of various languages and dialects, and I have recently written a description of English Received Pronunciation for publication in this series. This work has required a quest for an acceptable RP speaker, the analysis of a recording of the standard passage "The North Wind and the Sun" and an attempt at a phonemic and phonetic transcription of the recording. Phonetic, phonemic and physical issues arise, and these are briefly discussed. The differences between the idealized phonemic transcription and the detailed phonetic transcription are very significant.
Part of the sound-file of the speaker's recording can be previewed at
http://www.personal.reading.ac.uk/~llsroach/jipay.wav