Consider the transcription of the following text about the school and some of its roles in society. If you want to check out the real text, read it from your course handbook.
First of all, it may be important to consider that a whole lot of words in English have alternative pronunciations, especially if these alternatives involve weakening (= the use of weak forms of pronunciation in unstressed syllables). Consequently, we may say (and, therefore, transcribe) words in different ways. For instance, we may say environment in one of, at least, three ways, namely, /ɪnˈvaɪərən mənt/, /ɪnˈvaɪrn̩mənt/, or /ɪnˈvaɪrəmmənt /, the last one including assimilation of /n/ to /m/. In the text transcribed above, I have shown some of these possibilities. You'll find that a number of alternatives appear in italicized symbols. As I've just said, this means that there are more options than the one given.
What other examples have you found in this transcription? I'd like to hear you all on this!
Hi!,
ReplyDeleteI'm not quite sure whether the examples we are supposed to look for are those only regarding weak forms and/or the ones related to any variety of pronunciation... Whatever the case, I think that the word "excellent" could also be pronounced, for the sake of speed, without "shua" on the second syllable... A further example would be the word "determine", whose last syllable, I believe, can also be pronounced using "shua"...
Hi teacher !! Here I am with Tamara and we want to know if you can upload the transciptions for the rest of the paragraphs of the pages 6,7 and 8, so we can correct them.
ReplyDeleteThe number of the paragraphs are: 2,4 and 6.
Thank you very much ...
Regards,
Micaela and Tamara
Hi everyone! Camila, you're right. Most of the words with alternative pronunciations involve weak form words. However, as said above, in unstressed syllables we can have VOWEL WEAKENING. So, as you say, EXCELLENT can be pronounced without /ə/ on the second syllable. Another example would be the possessive determiner OUR, which can be pronounced /aʊə/, or /aə/, or simply /aː/. This would also be a case of COMPRESSION. And a further example can be CULTURAL, with /ˈkʌltʃərl̩/and /ˈkʌltʃrl̩/as possible forms.
ReplyDeleteMicaela, Tamara and everyone interested in adjustments:
ReplyDeleteWe'll be checking transcriptions on our last lesson before the test. This is June 22, 2011. SO I'll be looking forward to seeing many of you there.
Hi teacher! the last class we could`nt check all the transcriptions.. I want to know if you can upload them before the written exam thanks!Silvana
ReplyDeleteHi teacher!sorry but I don´t uderstand why in the word students(followed by "groups",fourth line) there is assimilation. I thouqht that
ReplyDelete-nt endings was an exception of the rule of elission(between two consonants).What I mean is that I don´t understand why the -ŋ ending.THANKS!
The blog is very useful and well organized, Thanks a lot!
ReplyDeleteHi teacher! thanks for the transcriptions! Best
ReplyDelete