Phonetic representation

Phonetic transcription (also known as phonetic script or phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or phones). The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the International Phonetic Alphabet. Phonetic transcription (also known as phonetic script or phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or phones). The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the International Phonetic Alphabet. The pronunciation of words in many languages, as distinct from their written form (orthography), has undergone significant change over time. Pronunciation can also vary greatly among dialects of a language. Standard orthography in some languages, particularly French, English, and Irish, is often irregular and makes it difficult to predict pronunciation from spelling. For example, the words bough and through do not rhyme in English even though their spellings might suggest otherwise. In French, the sequence '-ent' is pronounced /ɑ̃/ in accent but is silent in 'posent'. Other languages, such as Spanish and Italian have a more consistent (but still imperfect) relationship between orthography and pronunciation (phonemic orthography). Therefore, phonetic transcription can provide a function that the orthography cannot. It displays a one-to-one relationship between symbols and sounds, unlike traditional writing systems. Phonetic transcription allows one to step outside orthography, examine differences in pronunciation between dialects within a given language and identify changes in pronunciation that may take place over time. Phonetic transcription may aim to transcribe the phonology of a language, or it may be used to go further and specify the precise phonetic realisation. In all systems of transcription there is a distinction between broad transcription and narrow transcription. Broad transcription indicates only the most noticeable phonetic features of an utterance, whereas narrow transcription encodes more information about the phonetic variations of the specific allophones in the utterance. The difference between broad and narrow is a continuum. One particular form of a broad transcription is a phonemic transcription, which disregards all allophonic difference, and, as the name implies, is not really a phonetic transcription at all (but at times coincides with it), but a representation of phonemic structure. For example, one particular pronunciation of the English word little may be transcribed using the IPA as /ˈlɪtəl/ or ; the broad, phonemic transcription, placed between slashes, indicates merely that the word ends with phoneme /l/, but the narrow, allophonic transcription, placed between square brackets, indicates that this final /l/ () is dark (velarized or pharyngealized). In North American English, there would be no difference at all between the pronunciation of little and the constructed word *liddle /ˈlɪdəl/ . Indeed, middle /ˈmɪdəl/; is a perfect rhyme of little in most North American accents. The advantage of the narrow transcription is that it can help learners to get exactly the right sound, and allows linguists to make detailed analyses of language variation. The disadvantage is that a narrow transcription is rarely representative of all speakers of a language. Most Americans, Canadians and Australians would pronounce the /t/ of little as a tap (t-/d-flapping). Some people in southern England would say /t/ as (a glottal stop; t-glottalization) and/or the second /l/ as or something similar (L-vocalization), possibly yielding . A further disadvantage in less technical contexts is that narrow transcription involves a larger number of symbols that may be unfamiliar to non-specialists. To most native English speakers, even those who don't merge /t/ and /d/ as in unstressed positions; the phonemic distinction between little the constructed word *leetle /ˈliːtəl/ is far more contrastive than little and *liddle; despite the cross-linguistic rarity of a phonemic contrast between and as in English.