Lexicographic phonetics or phonetic lexicography?

1
Lexicographic phonetics or phonetic lexicography?
11th International Symposium on Lexicography,
Copenhagen 2-4 May 2002

• Wlodzimierz Sobkowiak
• School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University
• Poznan, Poland

2
Abstract

• Lexicographic phonetics is phonetics applied to
  the process of dictionary-making. While it has
  not been labeled as such, it has traditionally
  been concerned with issues such as the choice of
  accent and transcription to represent in
  dictionaries, the extent of dialectal,
  phonostylistic and idiosyncratic variation of
  pronunciation covered, the representation of
  stress and weak forms, etc. Authors have
  included Abercrombie, Gimson and Wells, among
  others.
• Phonetic lexicography is what dictionary makers
  and critics do when they ponder sound
  representation from the lexicographic
  perspective. Issues of relevance include the
  questions of consistency, the place and role of
  pronunciation in the microstructure of the
  dictionary, the treatment of pronunciation in
  learners' dictionaries, sound recording, playback
  and synthesis in electronic multimedia
  dictionaries, and others. Few (meta)lexicographer
  s have ever done substantial work in this area.
• Ultimately, the two pursuits cannot be clearly
  delimited, of course. They both cover, each from
  its own perspective, the little-explored ground
  of sound representation in dictionaries. Both
  the traditionally tackled issues and the new
  vistas are discussed in the paper.

3
Contents

• Is there the discipline of lexicographic
  phonetics (lexphon) and phonetic lexicography
  (phonlex)?
• Science?
• "Of no importance"
• Language is primarily spoken
• Phonetic lexicographers (?)
• Lexphon is nomological but phonlex is idiographic
• Rules vs. lists
• Consistency
• Respelling
• Pronunciation preference polls
• Conclusions

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Science?
Lexicographic phonetics (lexphon) vs. phonetic
lexicography (phonlex)

• A discipline must have its specific "(a) subject
  matter, (b) perspectives, (c) methods, (d) body
  of knowledge, (e) modes of discourse" (Wiegand
  1998 as quoted in Hartmann 2001120).
• "Lexicography is not yet a science. It may never
  be. It is an intricate and subtle art,
  requiring subjective analysis, arbitrary
  decisions, and intuitive reasoning" (Gove
  19677).
• "Unfortunately, the theory underlying the
  pronunciation component in a dictionary is too
  frequently difficult to discern" (Gimson
  1973115).
• "Pronunciation has too long been treated as a
  lexicographic art It is high time that it
  became a science" (Secrist 197854).

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"Of no importance"
Lexicographic phonetics (lexphon) vs. phonetic
lexicography (phonlex)

• "Some reputable scholars have considered the
  makeup of the pronunciation key to be 'of no
  importance whatsoever'" (Secrist 197845, quoting
  Hausholder Saporta 1975174).
• "I do not think it should be taken for granted
  that indication of pronunciation is a necessary
  part of an entry in a work of reference"
  (Abercrombie 1978119).
• "Zeichen sich die einsprachigen Wörterbücher des
  Deutschen dadurch aus, dass dort die Aussprache
  relativ unsystematisch, nicht selten nachlässig
  und gedankenlos, bisweilen sogar inkompetent
  behandelt wird" (Klein 1999).

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"Language is primarily spoken"
Lexicographic phonetics (lexphon) vs. phonetic
lexicography (phonlex)

• "Today, when we no longer regard speech as a
  degraded form of writing, the pronunciation entry
  in dictionaries should be accorded much
  greater importance" (Gimson 1973115).
• But the phon ? (trans) ? graph perspective still
  only appears in NLP-MRDs (e.g. Roach Arnfield
  1998). Entry order "Selbst Aussprache-wörterbüch
  er sind in der Regel orthographisch angeordnet"
  (Ternes 1989509 same in Muthmann 1998229).
  So, phonetic access (Sobkowiak 1994, 1998, 1999)
  is still impossible.

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Phonetic lexicographers (?)
Lexicographic phonetics (lexphon) vs. phonetic
lexicography (phonlex)

• Syrinx is hiring a phonetic lexicographer
  "Duties will include overseeing the phonemic
  transcriptions of the lexical entries, as well as
  liaising with other linguists to insure
  uniformity in the syntactic and semantic
  information of the lexemes writing conversion
  rules to other varieties of English
  reviewing the phonemic symbols used presently at
  Syrinx and in other dictionaries writing
  conversion rules to go from one set of phonemic
  symbols to another". http//english.uq.edu.au/lin
  guistics/ jobs.html posted March 28th, 2001
  last accessed April 18, 2002

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Rules vs. lists (1)
Lexphon is nomological but phonlex is idiographic

• "Dictionaries are such language resources which
  are seldom perceived or categorized as rule-based
  or rule-fostering. To be sure, they are orderly
  presentations of language material but
  dictionary contents are popularly regarded as
  little more than a listing of items with no
  overall linguistic structure beyond alphabetic
  ordering But the rules are inevitably there,
  and the learner is bound to assimilate them
  inductively in direct proportion to his/her use
  of the dictionary " (Sobkowiak 199795-6).
• "It cannot realistically be seen as part of the
  dictionary's function to teach the sound system"
  (Brazil 1987161).
• "It is possible, therefore, for the dictionary to
  provide the information about a word that a
  speaker needs to arrive at its pronunciation by
  rule" (Brazil 1987166).

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Rules vs. lists (2)
Lexphon is nomological but phonlex is idiographic

• "The foreign learner will expect his information
  on pronunciation to be given clearly at the point
  of entry not to rely on general rules"
  (Gimson 1981251).
• "The typographic complexity with stacked /?/-/?/
  in LDOCE WS could have been avoided by giving,
  for instance, only /?/ with a simple conversion
  rule stated in the introduction" (Gimson
  1981258).
• Rules are hidden "Die Transkription erscheint
  nur für das Leitwort, nicht für Ableitungen und
  Zusammensetzungen, z.B. Micro Robert traskribiert
  citron aber nicht citronnier. Dies hat den
  Nachteil, daß gerade die schwierigeren Wörter
  nicht transkribiert werden" (Ternes 1989514).
  Piotrowski (198740) gives the example of
  say-says.

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Rules vs. lists (3)
Lexphon is nomological but phonlex is idiographic

• "In ELT one is faced with the choice between
  teaching the rule (so that again variants need no
  mention) and listing the variants at each entry
  (leaving the rule to be inferred or ignored)"
  (Wells 198547 examples linking/intrusive /r/
  syllabic sonorants). "The purpose served by
  pronunciation indication in dictionaries is
  ... to advise the user who is unsure of the
  spoken form of a word by recommending a suitable
  pronunciation for it" (Wells 198545 my emphasis
  -- WS).
• "The phonological behaviour of words in context
  and its representation deserves equal attention"
  (Magay 1979103). "An adequate stress shift
  notation is probably of far greater importance
  for the advanced foreign speaker than for the
  native speaker" (Broeders Hyams 1984171).
  Similarly Cowie (199986-7, 98, 107), Ternes
  "Satzphonetik" (1989515).
• "I believe that the user of an EFL dictionary has
  the right to expect advice not only on the
  pronunciation of a given word, but also
  sublexical units on the one hand, such as common
  letter/phoneme clusters (e.g. word-final syllabic
  sonorants) or morphemes, and supralexical units
  on the other, such as idioms (Broeders 1987),
  collocations, and possibly even larger
  linguistically salient entities" (Sobkowiak, in
  press). Related vocalizing whole phrases and
  sentences in learner MRDs, now feasible through
  Text-to-Speech Synthesis).

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Rules vs. lists (4)
Lexphon is nomological but phonlex is idiographic

• Phon/trans sensitive to frequency? "The first
  pronunciation given is believed to be the most
  usual one with some alternant forms rivalling
  the first-given in perceived frequency" (Roach
  Hartman 1997vi).
• "Vowels in frequently-used words reduce more
  often than in relatively rarely-used words"
  (Fidelholtz 1975208).

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Consistency (1)
Lexphon is nomological but phonlex is idiographic

• Intra- and inter-dictionary "Perhaps
  lexicographers should take a cue from political
  leaders, and organize a summit conference of
  dictionary editors, to attempt to agree at least
  on some common principles or procedures for
  indicating pronunciation" (Secrist 198238).
• "Transcriptions are not thought of as one
  whole but are provided word after word"
  (Piotrowski 198745).
• "It goes without saying that, whatever method of
  indicating pronunciation is adopted, it should be
  consistently and correctly used in the body of
  the work" (Abercrombie 1978124).

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Consistency (2)
Lexphon is nomological but phonlex is idiographic

• "To the familiar appeals for transcriptional and
  stylistic consistency of dictionary phonetic
  representations I would like to add mine for
  what, in need of a better term, I call
  phonological consistency. This consistency will
  normally result from conformity of
  representations with the established phonological
  rules of the language" (Sobkowiak 199798).
• Transcriptional bi-uniqueness "konsequente
  eins-zu-eins Entsprechung Laut-Zeichen und
  Zeichen-Laut" (Ternes 1989512).
• "If, however, one's goals are clarity, ease of
  recognition and speed of perception, then some
  compromise with strict phonemicity seems in
  order" (Secrist 198235).
• Related consistency between transcription and
  recorded or synthesized audio in MRDs.

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Respelling
Lexphon is nomological but phonlex is idiographic

• Secrist (1978 and 1981) is against (automatic)
  respelling in ENL dictionaries. Paikeday (1993)
  is for, and against IPA.
• Magay (1979103) "The international (and
  interlingual) character of the IPA system ought
  to be more generally recognised".
• Broeders Hyams (1984166) "Re-spelling would
  obviously only be at all helpful if it were done
  in terms of the spelling conventions of the
  native language".
• Gimson (1973120) "I would strongly recommend
  that we undertake research to discover the
  relative ease with which dictionary users can
  identify sounds by means of, say, IPA symbols as
  against respelling methods".

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Pronunciation preference polls
Lexphon is nomological but phonlex is idiographic

• "Unfortunately, I now regard the procedure which
  I employed to be suspect For one thing, I
  asked my British colleagues to record and order
  what they considered to be the current standard
  alternatives. For some this meant that they
  recorded variants possible in their own speech
  but for others it was a question of noting their
  impression of what others did" (Gimson 1973118).
• "Such questionnaires seem to me unlikely to
  elicit from nonlinguist, nonphonetician
  questionees very much in the way of unguarded
  pronunciations, or very accurate symbolizations"
  (Artin 1973126).
• "At first sight it may seem absurd to try to
  carry out a pronunciation survey by using a
  written questionnaire. It would certainly be
  unwise to ask people to report on their own
  pronunciation performance speakers are
  notoriously unreliable in reporting on their own
  speech. However this method is acceptable in a
  survey of pronunciation preferences" (Wells
  199910 1932 phonetically naïve subjects).

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Conclusions

• Many issues (activities, methods, hypotheses,
  analyses) in lexicography and metalexicography
  are crucially contingent on the choice of
  perspective (vide Wiegand 1998) lexiphonetic or
  phonolexicographic. The methodological character
  of the former is primarily nomological, that of
  the latter mainly idiographic. The tension
  between the two methodological perspectives is
  clearly visible in the dictionary treatment of
  pronunciation. There appears to be a growing
  bias towards rule-based approaches in this area.
  Dictionaries should benefit from this trend by
  avoiding (some of the) wild idiosyncrasies of
  earlier editions.

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Thank you
11th International Symposium on Lexicography,
Copenhagen 2-4 May 2002

• Wlodzimierz Sobkowiak
• School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University
• e-mail sobkow_at_amu.edu.pl
• office web page http//elex.amu.edu.pl/ifa/staff/
  sobkowiak.html
• private web page http//elex.amu.edu.pl/sobkow