LINGUIST List 12.2166

Wed Sep 5 2001

Qs: American Pronunciation, L2 Corpora/German

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Larry Trask, American pronunciation
2. Nicole Schumacher, learner corpora of Italian learners of German

This is a question about the transcription of American English 
pronunciation.

I am currently serving as a consultant to the next (third) edition of
the Oxford English Dictionary (OED 3). Pronunciation is not part of
my brief, but an issue has arisen in the representation of American
pronunciation.

Unlike its predecessors, OED 3 plans to provide both standard British
pronunciation (RP) and General American pronunciation, where these
differ. Fine. Now, even though both transcriptions are to be
presented within phoneme slashes, the transcriptions given are not
meant to be phonemic, but rather some kind of compromise between
phonemic and phonetic transcription. Fine up to a point, I guess.

But now comes the problem. The editors have decided to represent the
familiar American "tapped /t/" (US "flapped /t/") by the symbol /d/.
So, for example, the word 'atom' will be transcribed /'aedm/ ('' =
schwa), just like 'Adam'. This surprises me.

I have queried the decision, but I have been told that the
dictionary's policy is to keep diacritics and special symbols to a
minimum, and so, in order to represent the tapped /t/, the dictionary
will use /d/, instead of the phonetically accurate IPA fishhook
symbol, or instead of /t/ plus a voicing diacritic, as found for
example in John Wells's pronouncing dictionary. The thinking behind
this is that the voicing of the /t/ in this position is more salient
than its tapped nature.

Now, I am unhappy with this. I'm American myself, and, like probably
all Americans, I pronounce 'atom' and all other such words neither
with phonemic /d/ nor with phonetic [d]. As far as I'm concerned,
'atom' has phonemic /t/, and its phonetic nature as a (typically
voiced) tap is merely a predictable allophonic fact about /t/.
Accordingly, transcribing 'atom' as /'aedm/ is unacceptable to me --
in spite of the fact that 'atom' is phonetically homophonous with
'Adam' in my casual speech (though certainly not in my careful
speech). However, the editors assure me that "most American readers
will feel the essential rightness of such a phonetic transcription".

Are the editors right? Given the admitted limitations of the
transcription system available to the dictionary, is it true that
Americans will generally prefer /d/ to /t/ to represent the tapped /t/
in words like 'atom'?

One final point. I have a version of Canadian Raising, and, in my
accent, 'writer' and 'rider' are not homophonous at all, even though I
pronounce both with taps, because the two diphthongs are very
different in quality. But I haven't yet seen any relevant entries,
and so I don't know what the dictionary's policy will be with these.

If you have a view on this, please reply privately to me, and I'll
post a summary of responses to the list.


Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larrytcogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: (01273)-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: (01273)-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)

Dear colleagues,
does anyone know if there are corpora with data of advanced Italian
learners of German? I work in the field of German as a foreign language
and I am writing my thesis on Tense as a Learning Object for Italian
Learners of German. Therefore I am interested in data of Italian
learners, especially in written data of advanced learners. I'll be glad
to post a summary of answers. Thanks in advance.
Nicole Schumacher

- 
Nicole Schumacher
Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin
Philosophische Fakultaet II
Institut f�r deutsche Sprache und Linguistik
Unter den Linden 6
10099 Berlin
Tel. 0049 (0)30 20939-683
Fax 0049 (0)30 20939-729
http://www2.hu-berlin.de/daf/