bunyi /e/ huruf <e>

lebat vs lebar beda vs bedah nyaman yang nama n banana nama

IPA: International Phonetic Alphabets

think  tadi hadir Selasa child: t tick she d jump

nama [nama] name [neym] one Bone [bone] bone [bown] tape [tape] [teyp]

Topic 8
Transcription

Meeting 10

8. Transcription

8.1 Why is transcription needed?

Spelling or writing system or orthography is the way words are written by using an alphabet.
An alphabet is a set of letters used to write languages. There are several kinds of alphabet; for
example Roman alphabet, Arabic alphabet, Greek alphabet, etc. Spelling is supposed to also
reflect the pronunciation of words. And in many instances, this is indeed the case. For example,
BI writing system shows a quite consistent relation between spelling and pronunciation in the
sense that the way a word is spelt is also the way it is pronounced. Put differently, each letter in a
word is pronounced as it is spelt in the alphabet. Letter a, for instance, represents (i.e. is
pronounced) /a/ wherever it occurs. Similarly, letter k or t, represents sound /k/ or /t/ respectively
no matter what position it occupies. Therefore the word katak ‘frog’ is pronounced /katak/, rather
than */ketk/ for example. However, spelling and pronunciation are not always fully consistent.
BI is no exception. Consider the sounds spelled with letter e in words like merah ‘read’ and
memar ‘bruise’, where letter e is pronounced // in merah, but // in memar. Similarly, the
sequence of n and y in words like nyamuk ‘mosquito’ represents a different sound //, rather than
a sequence of two sounds /ny/.

As far as the relation between spelling and pronunciation is concerned, English has a ‘bad
reputation’ as a very inconsistent language in that it shows a great discrepancy between spelling
and pronunciation. Take letter u, for example, which represents at least five different sounds in
words like put, cut, busy, use, and difficult, or letter a, which represents six different sounds in
words like tame, sad, dark, ball, village, and many; or the same sequence of th represents // in
three, but // in they. Conversely, different (sequence of) letters represent exactly the same
sound, as in we, bee, tea, Caesar, receive, and seize, or to, two, too, through, threw, clue, and
shoe. Unfortunately English is not alone in this respect. There are many other languages that
show discrepancy like this. Therefore, in order to avoid confusion in pronunciation, what we
need is a way of representing each sound of a language with one symbol, or one-to-one relation.
This is what we mean by transcription.
 Transcription is the pronunciation of words written by using phonetic symbols. Each sound in
a word is represented by one symbol. The basic principle in transcription is one sound, one
symbol. In many cases the letters or the characters of the alphabet used in the writing system of a
language is sufficient to represent the pronunciation of each word of the language. In this
situation, there is no need for extra phonetic symbols. Yet, in other cases the letters of the
alphabet are not sufficient to represent the sounds of the language, or the way a word is spelt
does not reflect the way the word is pronounced, as in the case of schwa in BI or the English
vowels cited above. In this way additional symbols are needed. Thus, phonetic symbols used in
transcription are basically the letters of an alphabet plus extra symbols that are used to transcribe
the sounds that cannot be transcribed by using the existing letters of the alphabet. The most
popular and the most commonly used phonetic symbols to transcribe languages of the world are
those presented in The International Phonetic Alphabet, popularly known as the IPA (see Table
2.3 and Table 4.5 above).

8. 2 Phonemic Transcription (broad transcription) take /teyk] water [wtr] ei

vs. Phonetic Transcription (narrow/detailed transcription) take [theyk] [wDr]

There are two kinds of transcription: phonemic transcription or broad transcription and
phonetic transcription or narrow transcription. Phonemic transcription is called broad
transcription because what is transcribed is a phoneme that might represent several
phonologically interrelated sounds (i.e. allophones). Phonemic transcription does not give the
physical details of sounds (i.e. how a sound should actually be pronounced), but rather it
provides a representation of several different (but phonologically related) sounds. Thus, two
different sounds will be transcribed similarly if the two sounds can be proved to be phonetic
variants of an underlying representation (a phoneme). Phonemic transcriptions are traditionally
enclosed with slants (slanted lines), for example, the word peak is transcribed phonemically as
/pik/.

Phonetic transcription, on the other hand, provides detailed phonetic features of sounds. In
order to show these detailed features, phonetic transcription needs more phonetic symbols than
those normally used for phonemic transcription. Therefore in addition to the phonetic symbols
used for phonemic transcription, a number of specific markers called diacritics are required to
indicate precisely how a sound should be pronounced. That is why phonetic transcription is
called narrow (i.e. detailed) transcription because it indicates the exact pronunciation of each
sound in a word without worrying about whether or not a sound is a sub-member of a sound unit
(i.e. allophone of a phoneme). If needed, the phonetic transcription of a word can be very
detailed phonetically, giving all phonetic contents of sounds in the word. Take the word tenth for
an illustration. This word is transcribed phonemically as /tn/; but phonetically it is [thn],
showing that [p] is aspirated, [] is nasalized, and [n] is dental, rather than alveolar. This is
because in English, [t] is aspirated word-initially; a vowel is nasalized before a nasal consonant;
and the alveolar nasal [n] becomes dental nasal before a dental consonant. Similarly, the word
pin is transcribed /pn/ phonemically, but phonetically it is transcribed [phn], showing that
the /p/ is aspirated because it occurs word-initially, and the // is nasalized because it occurs
before a nasal consonant. Likewise, the word twice is transcribed /twas/ phonemically, but
[twas] phonetically, indicating that the /w/ becomes voiceless (by giving a small circle
under /w/) because it follows a voiceless stop. In phonemic transcription the features aspiration,
nasalization, dentalization of /n/, and voicelessness of glides after obstruents are ignored because
they are not distinctive (we will talk about distinctive features later in this book). It must be
borne in mind, however, that the phonemic and the phonetic transcriptions of a word can be the
same if none of the sounds in a word has two phonetic realizations, or if no particular emphasis
is given to the phonemic status of each sound in a word. Phonetic transcriptions are traditionally
enclosed with square brackets []. The following are some more examples of the phonemic and
phonetic transcriptions of English words.

Table 5.1: Transcriptions of Several English words

Words Phonemic Transcription Phonetic Transcription

pick /pk/ [phk]
speak /spik/ [spik]
tick /tk/ [thk]
stick /stk/ [stk]
kit /kt/ [kht]
sky /ska/ [ska]
pan /pn/ [phn]
nap /np/ [np]
beat /bit/ [bit]
three /ri/ [ri]
laugh /lf/ [lf]
love /lv/ [lv]
sing /sŋ/ [sŋ]
water /w/ [w] or [wD]
attack // [h]
skill /skl/ [sk]
come /km/ [khm]

1.3 Transcriptions in English Dictionaries

The discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation in English requires dictionaries of English
to show the pronunciation of each word (entry) contained in them so that learners of English can
use dictionaries for guidelines in pronunciation. For this, dictionaries should use phonetic
transcription because such transcription gives accurate pronunciation of a word. Unfortunately,
in order to show the precise pronunciation of a word, a number of extra symbols and diacritics
are needed. Such symbols (which might be unfamiliar to the learners) can be the source of
confusion, rather than the source of help. Besides, printing facilities are the other source of
problem because a number of phonetic symbols cannot be printed without specific characters. In
general, for the phonetic symbols that do not exist in the English alphabet, the printing machines
must be equipped with specific characters, for example the voiceless dental fricative // in words
like think or the mid lax back rounded vowel // in words like raw. This is not always easy. That
is why many authors of dictionaries ignore IPA phonetic symbols, and create their own way of
transcribing English words in order to tell how a word should actually be pronounced. But this is
not very helpful either because the same words might be transcribed differently by different
dictionaries. And this is indeed the case. Take, for example, the word these, which is
transcribed /iz/ in IPA, /iyz/ in Longman Dictionary of American English, /i:z/ in The
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, /thez/ in Websters New World Dictionary,
and /THiez/ in Echols and Shadily’s English-Indonesian Dictionary.

What does a learner of English need to do if faced with such different transcriptions of the
same word? In this way a learner needs to learn the pronunciation keys of the dictionary he or
she uses in order to know how a sound is transcribed. The pronunciation keys are usually given
at the beginning or inside the back cover of a dictionary. These keys will tell how consonants and
vowels are transcribed. The following tables show the transcriptions of several English vowels
and consonants in the most frequently used dictionaries in Indonesia. Peak pick dig kick

Table 5.2: Dictionary Transcriptions of English Vowels

IPA i  e   u  o    
Long. Dict. of AE iy  ey   u  ow    
The Adv. Learner i: i ei e  u: u ou    
American Heritage e i a e a o o o o u a 
o o
Websters e i a e a o oo o o u a 
o
Random House e i a e a o o o o u o 
o o
Echols and Shadily ie i ei e  uw u ow   a 

Notes: IPA (The International Phonetic Alphabet), Long. Dict. of AE (The Longman Dictionary
of American English), American Heritage (The American Heritage Dictionary), Websters
(Websters’s New World Dictionary), Random House (The Random House Dictionary), Echols
and Shadily (Kamus Inggris-Indonesia).
 Table 5.3: Dictionary Transcriptions of Some English Consonants

IPA     t d  j  
Longm. Dict. of AE     t d  y r t
The Adv. Learner     t d  j r t
American. Heritage th th sh zh ch j ng y r t
Websters th th sh zh ch j ng y r t
Random House th th sh zh ch j ng y r t
Echols and Shadily th TH sy zy c j ng y r t

The following table shows how the words theme, those, shoot, measure, jump, hot, and cheap are
transcribed by the above dictionaries.

Table 5.4: Dictionary Transcriptions of Several English Words

theme this shoot book jump hot cheap

IPA im s ut bk dmp ht tip
Longm. Dict. of AE iym s uwt bk dmp ht tiyp
The Adv Learner Dict. i:m is u:t buk dmp ht ti:p
American Heritage them this shoo boo jump hat cep
t k
Websters them this shoo book jump hat cep
t
Random House them this shoo boo jump hot cep
t k
Echols and Shadily thiem THis syuwt buk jmp hat ciep

To conclude, spelling is the way a word is written, while transcription is the way a word is
pronounced. In languages where the relation between spelling and pronunciation is inconsistent,
transcription is needed to show the pronunciation of a word. There are two kinds of
transcriptions; phonemic transcription and phonetic transcription. Phonemic transcription gives
transcription of distinctive sounds (or the underlying representation of sounds); while phonetic
transcription provides the surface (nondistinctive) representation of speech sounds. Dictionaries
of English give varied transcriptions of English speech sounds. Therefore, learners of English are
expected to learn the pronunciation keys of the dictionary he or she uses in order to be able to
pronounce English words correctly.

&&&&&&&&&&

IV. Exercises
 Provide phonemic transcriptions for the following English words using the IPA.
English three eight theater shoes language America measure garage thanks
massage message

1. Write the following in regular English spelling

a. ay dst khl th sey ay lv yu I

b. haw m ay spowst th lv wt yu
c. hwrvr yu gow ay wl bi hir wey fr yu
d. aym ayn layk  khndl n  drk hw yu tl mi t yu lv mi
e. khawn yr blz nt y thrblz
f. nr weyst  mt k awt phipl yu d layk
g.  dey du  gd did t brz  smayl  d th  feys  n
h.  mowst rlks rkriey frsz r  h r slip myuz  lftr
i. hv fey n d l th slip w l  myuzk si  fni sayd  layf
j  hl nd hp w bi yrz

2. Write the following in phonetic transcription.

a. Don’t judge people by their relatives.

b. Read more books and watch less t.v.

c. Believe in love at first sight.

d. Never laugh at anyone’s dreams.

e. Trust in God, but lock you doors.

f. When you say: “I’m sorry”, look the person in the eye.

g. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

h. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

i. True peace of mind comes from accepting the worst.

j. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

ooooo000ooooo