영어 모음음소의 표기체계에 관한 연구

A System of English Vowel Transcription Based on Acoustic Properties

There are more than five systems for transcribing English vowels. Because of this diversity, teachers of English and students are confronted with not a little problems with the English vowel symbols used in the English-Korean dictionaries, English text books, books for Phonetics and Phonology. This study was designed to suggest criterions for the phonemic transcription of English vowels on the basis of phonetic properties of the vowels and a system of English vowel transcription based on the criterions in order to minimize the problems with inter-system differences. A speaker (phonetician) of RP English uttered a series of isolated minimal pairs containing the vowels in question. The suggested vowel symbols are as follows: 1) Simple vowels : /i:/ in beat, /I/ bit, /$\varepsilon$/ bet,/${\ae}$/ bat, /a:/ father, /Dlla/ bod, /$\jmath$:/ bawd, /u/ put, /u:/ boot /$\Lambda$/ but, and /$\partial$/ about /$\Im$:ll$\Im$:r/ bird. 2) Diphthongs : /aI/ in bite, /au/ bout, /$\jmath$I/ boy, /$\Im$ullou/ boat, /er/ bait, /e$\partial$lle$\partial$r/ air, /u$\partial$llu$\partial$r/ poor, /i$\partial$lli$\partial$r/ beer. Where two symbols are shown corresponding to the vowel in a single word, the first is appropriate for most speakers of British English and the second for most speakers of American English.