Phonetic notation systems

Jo Verhoeven & Allen Hirson
Table of contents

Phonetic notation systems have long been used as an essential tool in the phonetic description of languages of the world and also more generally in other branches of the linguistic sciences. In this article, one of the most widely used phonetic transcription systems will be discussed in detail, i.e. the alphabet of the International Phonetic Association. This alphabetic system is firmly rooted in a strong international phonetic tradition which emerged in the last decades of the 1800s. Before going into this transcription system, however, it may be useful to define the subject area of phonetics, which is done elegantly in Abercrombie (1967) by making a rigorous distinction between the concepts of language and medium. Distinguishing language from medium is distinguishing patterns from their material embodiment. “Language, we could say, is form, while the medium is substance” (Abercrombie 1967: 1). In other words, language refers to the underlying abstract patterns and rules of the language, while the medium acts as its vehicle, i.e. it externalizes language in some form mediating between ‘speaker’ and ‘listener’. Linguistics is the discipline that studies language, while phonetics can be appropriately regarded as the study of the medium of spoken language: “The study of the medium of spoken language, in all its aspects and all its varieties, constitutes the subject of phonetics. Phonetics is concerned with the medium as used in speaking all human languages (…), and as used in all styles of speech (whether supposed to be good or bad, normal or abnormal)” (Abercrombie 1967: 2).

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