The contributions of IPA in aiding teaching and learning of English speech sound

1. English speech sound

As far as the study of phonetics is concerned, it refers to phonetic production of English words originating from Received Pronunciation. When the English words are spoken following the rules of IPA, it is where English speech sound is produced. (Ashby, P. 1995)

3. IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)

It is an alphabet system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. It was devised by international phonetic association as a standardized representation of spoken language sound. It is used by lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech- language pathologist singer actors, constructed language creators’ translators. The following are the IPA of English language. (O’Grady, W. et al 2010)

CONSONANTS VOWELS

IPA	Examples		IPA	Example
b	bad lab		ʌ	cup, luck
d	did, lady		ɑ:	arm, father
f	find, if		ᴂ	cat, black
g	give, flag		е	met, bed
h	how, hello		ә	away, cinema
j	yes, yellow		ɜː	turn, learn
k	cat, bock		ɪ	hit, sitting
l	leg, little		i:	see, heat
m	man, lemon		ɒ	hot, rock
n	no, ten		ͻ:	call, four
ŋ	sing , finger		ʊ	put, could
p	pet, map		u:	blue, food
r	red, try		aɪ	five, eye
s	sun, miss		aʊ	now, out
ʃ	she, crash		eɪ	say, eight
t	tear, getting		əʊ	go, home
ʧ	check, church		ɔɪ	boy, join
θ	think, both		еә	where, air
ð	this, mother		ɪə	near, here
v	voice, five		ʊə	pure, tourist
w	wet, window
z	zoo, lazy
ʒ	pleasure, vision
ʤ	just, large

(Ball, M. & Rahilly, J. 1999)

2. The contributions of IPA in aiding teaching and learning of English speech sound

1. IPA helps to differentiate phonetic symbols from spellings of words.

IPA shows the way the spellings of the word is being transcribed; for example in English,

‘Th’ in the word ‘this’ is pronounced as /ð/

‘Th’ in the word think is pronounced as /θ/

‘Ph’ in the word ‘philosophy’ as /f/

‘Ch’ in the word ‘church’ as /ʧ/

‘O’ in the word ‘Monday’ as /ʌ/

‘O’ in the word ‘women’ as /ɪ/

(Ball, M. & Rahilly, J. 1999)

2. IPA provides phonetic symbols both for vowels and consonants.

IPA helps to provide phonetic symbols which are used by teachers and learners in transcribing English words. The transcription of words become consistently regardless the variation of other aspects like geographical location as well as cultural exposure; for example,

Vowel - monophthongs (/ɪ/, /e/, /æ/, /ɒ/, /ʊ/, /iː/, /uː/, /ɑː/)

- diphthongs (/eə/, /ɪə/, /ɔɪ/, /aɪ/, /eɪ

-Consonants (/ʒ/, /ʤ/, /f/, /ŋ/, /g/)

(Ball, M. & Rahilly, J. 1999)

2.3 It helps in identification of individual sound in a word.

It is not only checking on how the words are transcribed but also looking and checking on the individual sounds when pronouncing word. In words each spelling have its own sound for example the phoneme ‘p’ it occurs in phonetic transcription of ‘pin’ and ‘spin’ in the word ‘pin’ this phoneme ‘p’ is pronounced with aspiration (breathing), this aspirated /p/ sound has its own special symbol in the IPA as /ph/. In the word ‘spin’ the phoneme ‘p’ is pronounced normally. This normal /p/ sound is represented by /p/ in IPA. Other examples are such as,

Aspirated stops

[t^h] in the word ‘tick’ is transcribed as /t^hɪk/

[IC^h] in the word ‘keep’ is transcribed as/k^hi:p/

[P^h] in the word ‘pit’ is transcribed as /p^hɪt/

(O’Grady, W. et al 2010)

4. IPA helps students to know the meaning of words and their sounds.

Fore xample: mad as an infinitive verb is transcribed as /mæd/, the word read in simple present tense it is transcribed as /ri:d/ and in past and past participle it is transcribed as /red/.

Words ‘wright’, ‘write’ and ‘right’ have the same transcription, but have different meanings and spellings, they are all transcribed as /raɪt/

(Ashby, P. 1995)

4. IPA style is used in transcribing English vocabulary-words in the dictionary.

The vocabulary found in dictionaries such as in Advanced Oxford Dictionary, Macmillan dictionary and Collins dictionary have been given transcription; for example,

Vocabulary such as English /ɪŋglɪʃ/

Phonology/fənɒləʤi/

Work /wɜːk /

Library /laɪbrəri/

Laboratory/ləbɒrətri/

4. IPA is used by non native speakers of English when learning to speak English.

Orthography of English is different to the pronunciation of such words. So IPA is used to identify their differences. And therefore such learners use the English words properly in pronouncing and spelling the words correctly thus contributing to English speech sound production due to such difference; for example,

Spelling Pronunciation

Money /mʌni/

Man /mæn/

Mine /maɪn/

Good /gʊd/

(Ashby, P. 1995)

4. IPA has led the linguist to transcribed English words consistently and accurately.

This is seen in the use of phonetic alphabets with a one to one correspondence between sound and symbol. For example; there is no one to one correspondence between symbol and a sound in English language, the pronunciation of a symbol ‘o’ which is pronounced differently in

Go /əʊ/

Hot /ɒ/

Women /e/

More/ɔː/

The pronunciation of symbol “ough” which is pronounced differently in,

rough /ʌf/

through /u:/

bough /aʊ/

Though /əʊ/

(O’Grady, W. et al 2010)

4. IPA helps in classifying English language sounds as consonants and vowels

It helps to know the classification of vowel sounds as indicated in the vowel trapezium below.

monophthongs -short vowels

-Long vowels

Diphthongs -centring diphthongs

-Front and back closing diphthongs

Also consonant sounds are classified by voicing, place of articulation, and manner of articulation as indicated in the figure below.

(Ball, M. & Rahilly, J. 1999)

4. IPA helps all learners of English language to speak the same BrE because all acquire the same transcription of words. For xample in pronouncing words such as,

Book /bʊk/

Might / maɪt/

Valley/væli/

(Ball, M. & Rahilly, J. 1999)

Leaner of such BrE will pronounce the words in the same way because of the IPA they were taught.

2. CONCLUSION

IPA contributes very much in providing transcription symbols of various languages’ words in the world such as Greek, French, German and other many languages. This is to say IPA has provided Phonetic alphabets not only to English but also to other languages like ‘th’ in Greek it is /θ/ in the word ‘θeos’ meaning God.

REFERENCES

O’Grady, W. et al (2010). CONTEMPORARY LINGUISTICS: An Introduction. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Ashby, P. (1995). Speech sounds. London: Routledge.

Ball, M. & Rahilly, J. (1999). Phonetics: The science of speech. London: Edward Anold.