[Ads-l] Dictionary transcription (was RE: A book for (some of) us)

[Geoffrey Nathan]

I want to thank Ben for this very helpful
guide, and for the pointer to the discussion
of Labov (and consequently other variationist's)
transcription systems.

As a bit of background, Margaret Winters and I
have a project looking at spontaneous folk phonetic
transcriptions, and a surprising number of naive
undergraduates are using the V+h notation to
represent lax vowels. I've been wondering where
they might have picked it up, since it's not
much used in ordinary user's dictionaries.

Parenthetically, my first linguistics class was an
introduction to linguistics taught by Al Gleason
(H.A.Gleason Jr.), and the Trager-Smith system
was what I learned first as an undergraduate
linguistics student. But 2018 Wayne State undergraduates
almost certainly never picked it up that way.

Geoffrey S. Nathan
WSU Information Privacy Officer (Retired)
Emeritus Professor, Linguistics Program
https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/an6993
geoffnathan at wayne.edu

From: Ben Zimmer<mailto:bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Thursday, January 7, 2021 3:04 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Dictionary transcription (was RE: A book for (some of) us)

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Subject:      Re: Dictionary transcription (was RE: A book for (some of) us)
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The Wikipedia page on "pronunciation respelling for English" has a
comprehensive listing of phonetic spelling systems used by dictionaries and
other references.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_respelling_for_English

The <Vh> notation isn't common among dictionaries, but it often gets used
in variationist sociolinguistics, following William Labov. Josef Fruehwald
has a post on the development of the Labovian system on his blog:

http://val-systems.blogspot.com/2018/07/why-does-labov-have-such-weird.html

--bgz


On Thu, Jan 7, 2021 at 8:31 AM Geoffrey Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
wrote:

> Can someone point me towards resources on the history of
> American dictionary-style transcription systems.
> This seems to be a rather difficult subject to investigate.
> In particular, I'm interested in 'V+h' notations.
>
> Geoff
>
> Geoffrey S. Nathan
> WSU Information Privacy Officer (Retired)
> Emeritus Professor, Linguistics Program
> https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/an6993
> geoffnathan at wayne.edu
>
> From: Laurence Horn<mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Sent: Thursday, January 7, 2021 8:20 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: A book for (some of) us
>
> [EXTERNAL]
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      A book for (some of) us
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> An addition to the not particularly crowded bookshelf of novels about
> lexicographers.  Looks like fun, and there's a shout-out to Jesse in the
> review.
>
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/books/review-liars-dictionary-eley-williams.html
>
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