seeking advice

[roger wright]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------



It is essential to use IPA.
That's what it's for.
                RW





--On 13 May 2003 10:21 -0400 Lyle Campbell
<l.campbell at LING.CANTERBURY.AC.NZ> wrote:

>
> Dear All,
>
> A second edition is being done of my textbook, 1998 Historical
> Linguistics:   an Introduction .  Edinburgh University Press (and 1999
> MIT Press) (Lyle Campbell), and I am writing to ask for advice.  Two
> questions have come up about which I would especially like to hear
> opinions.
>
> One is the recommendation that the spelling be changed from the British
> spelling of the first edition (with -ise, -isation, -our [colour],
> centre, tyre, programme, etc.) to follow American spelling conventions
> (with -ize, -isation, -or, center, tire, program, etc.) for the second.
> What do you think?  What is your advice, your opinion about this?
> (Edinburgh University Press apparently do not mind one way or the other
> now, though for the first edition they did want British orthographic
> conventions to be followed.  Some suggest it would be more accessible (=
> sell better?) with American spelling.  My guess is that for several other
> countries, which orthographic conventions are followed may matter little,
> but I wonder to what extent one or the other may be important for North
> America or for the UK?  In particular, I wonder whether it makes a
> significant difference in the US?  (The MIT edition has UK conventions,
> which were commented on by some reviewers).)
>
>
> The second recommendation is about the phonetic symbols used, and is
> probably subject to even stronger feelings:  some suggest that the book
> perhaps should be changed from the IPA symbols used to represent examples
> in the first edition to American phonetic usage.  What do you think?
> What is your opinion here?  In particular, it would be helpful to know
> whether IPA or American usage has any advantage or disadvantage for
> students in North America.  Possibly the differences are not so great (or
> at least frequent) except for some vowel symbols and for certain
> fricatives and affricates.   A problem, though, comes from the different
> conventions typically used in the traditions for different language
> areas.  For example, to use [y] for IPA [j] in Germanic examples just
> looks odd/wrong to some scholars.  However, to use [j] for American [y]
> just seems wrong to others when used to represent various American Indian
> languages, and various Romance languages, and others, where the scholarly
> tradition is with "y" not "j" -- (some readers probably noticed some
> inconsistency in this regard in this in the first edition, alas --
> sorry).  What advice would you offer?          There is a possible
> compromise, with, say IPA representations given first and then with the
> forms repeated in American phonetics in parentheses adjacent to the IPA
> forms.  (This might be OK for some forms, but it could get cumbersome
> when very many examples requiring phonetic notation are given in any one
> place.)   My question is whether there is enough advantage to make giving
> both IPA and American usage worthwhile?
>
>
> Finally, I would be very happy to receive any comments, advice,
> recommendations, or corrections which would be useful for the second
> edition.  (As a preview to the changes anticipated for the 2nd edition, I
> hope to correct the typos; I expect to cull out some of the less
> accessible examples and substitute hopefully better ones; I expect to
> make fairly substantial changes in the exercises of several chapters,
> taking out some that don't seem to work so well and also adding several
> new ones to give a better range from easy to intermediate to more
> challenging cases.  Also, I hope to update and improve the discussion of
> a few topics.)  Any feedback will be gratefully received.
>
> Many thanks in advance,
> Lyle
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Professor Lyle Campbell,
> Dept. of Linguistics
> University of Canterbury
> Christchurch, New Zealand
> Fax:   64-3-364-2969
> Phone: 64-3-364-2242 (office), 64-3-364-2089 (Linguistics dept)