Phonetics: Identifying Vowels 1.1
This exercise is designed to help you become familiar with the vowels of Standard English at the introductory level.
The focus here is to become acquainted with vowel space in terms of height and section of the tongue. There are several ways to symbolize vowels: e.g., in terms of the actual symbols (IPA vs. NA) and how to represent diphthongs. At the introductory level, it will be assumed that the vowel sound in 'bake' is [e] and thus a monophthong, whereas, at a more advanced level, this sound would more likely be transcribed as [ej], [ey], [eɪ], or [ei] (depending on the transcription system used), and thus as a diphthong. This will also hold true for the sound [o], which is often transcribed as a diphthong: [ow], [oʊ], or [ou].
Remember also, that due to the dialectal richness of American English, pronunciations of vowels vary from speaker to speaker. The transcriptions in this exercise are based on an East Coast Mid-Atlantic "standard" dialect.
For the diphthongs [aj], [aw], and [ɔj], we will present the alternative transcriptions. Note that transcriptions like [aɪ] and [ai] are not meant to be taken as a segment [a] + another segment [ɪ] or as a segment [a] + another segment [i]; diphthongs are independent, unitary sounds, and thus a word "containing (an) [aɪ]", like prize, cannot be said to "contain (an) [ɪ]" just because it has the diphthong [aɪ].
The focus here is to become acquainted with vowel space in terms of height and section of the tongue. There are several ways to symbolize vowels: e.g., in terms of the actual symbols (IPA vs. NA) and how to represent diphthongs. At the introductory level, it will be assumed that the vowel sound in 'bake' is [e] and thus a monophthong, whereas, at a more advanced level, this sound would more likely be transcribed as [ej], [ey], [eɪ], or [ei] (depending on the transcription system used), and thus as a diphthong. This will also hold true for the sound [o], which is often transcribed as a diphthong: [ow], [oʊ], or [ou].
Remember also, that due to the dialectal richness of American English, pronunciations of vowels vary from speaker to speaker. The transcriptions in this exercise are based on an East Coast Mid-Atlantic "standard" dialect.
For the diphthongs [aj], [aw], and [ɔj], we will present the alternative transcriptions. Note that transcriptions like [aɪ] and [ai] are not meant to be taken as a segment [a] + another segment [ɪ] or as a segment [a] + another segment [i]; diphthongs are independent, unitary sounds, and thus a word "containing (an) [aɪ]", like prize, cannot be said to "contain (an) [ɪ]" just because it has the diphthong [aɪ].
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