THE PAPER WORKING

THE INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET IN

AMERICAN ENGLISH AND BRITISH ENGLISH
SuBMIITED TO FULFILL an assigment English Voice and Accent
Lecturer : Mumu Abdurrahman,

Compied by:

Salsabila Azzahra Yusupana (1202040118)

Sri Annisa Asy Syahadah (1202040130)
Utari (1202040138)

MAJOR OF ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF TARBIYAH AND TEACHERY
ISLAM STATE UNIVERSITY SUNAN GUNUNG DJATI
BANDUNG
2020
 PREFACE

Thanks to The Almighty God who has given his blessing and mercy to The writers to
finish this paper assignment entitled “International Phonetic Alphabet” well. Don’t
forget salawat and peace always be upon the prophet Muhammad Saw. who has
brought us from darkness to the bright.

The writers also wishes her deep and sincere gratitude to The writers’s lecturer Mr.
Abdurrahman of English Voice and Accent subject in English Education Department
for giving writer this task and for those who have cooperated to do and finish this
paper, without them perhaps this paper will not be done and completed. This paper
contains the International Phonetic Alphabet from the definition to specific
discussion. So, readers can learn and know about the uses of the IPA (International
Phonetics Alphabet) and how to pronounce it in UK and US.

Hopefully, this paper can give a broader insight into the reader. The writers also
would like to apologize if there is a lot of error in typing or diction. Besides, this
paper has strengths and weaknesses. The strengths can be taken by the readers and
the other one can be used as evaluation for The writers. For critics and advice really
needed. Thank you.

Bandung, 29th November 2020

The writerss,

i
 Table of Content
PREFACE...............................................................................................................................i
Table of Contents..................................................................................................................ii
CHAPTER I..........................................................................................................................iii
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................iii
1.1. Background of The Paper....................................................................................iii
1.2. Problem Formulation...........................................................................................iv
1.3. Purpose of The Paper...........................................................................................iv
CHAPTER II.........................................................................................................................1
THEORY AND DISCUSSION.............................................................................................1
2.1. History of International Phonetic Alphabet.............................................................1
2.2. International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).....................................................................2
2.2.1. Definition of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)........................................2
2.2.2. Table of The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)......................................3
2.3. The differentiation of variation of sounds in the UK and US.................................4
CHAPTER III.......................................................................................................................7
CLONCLUSION...................................................................................................................7
3.1. Conclusion...................................................................................................................7
3.2. Suggest........................................................................................................................7
BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................................8

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

ii
1.1. Background
of The Paper

Language plays important role in human life. Language makes us can convey
what we want or feel and deliver it as a form of language. We are living in era of
globalization. It makes many companies and institutions require their employees
be able to speak English. Therefore, English being more important to have as
skills now.

According to history, English comes from a fusion of various dialects. That

means, English used by many countries with different dialects. It also produces
different pronunciations based on their origin countries’ dialects. We can true the
statement by learning English used in many countries. We can compare the
English used in India, Singapore, Spain, etc. In such a way we can find many
differences in their dialects and pronunciation.

People think that learning dialect and pronunciation is lack of important than
writing, listening, reading and speaking skills. Instead, pronunciation is a bridge
between us and native speaker. Pronunciation is a thing that people see on us
when speaking at first. Learning pronunciation helps us more fluent and natural
when speaking English and people can understand what we are talking easily.
Learning pronunciation also helps us learning dialects used by native speakers
such as American or British.

Learning dialects and pronunciation can do in many ways. We can begin by

learning to pronounce the sound of English in The International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA), learning the word stress and the phonetic transcription.
Moreover, we can choose role model in learning pronunciation and dialects.
There are two accents usually used in the world, we can learn and improve our
pronunciation and dialect from, those are American accent and British Accent.
We can learn and explore directly with native speakers. It will help us so much.
Indeed, learning both take our time and the effect will not be gotten directly. But
trust if we learn about it gradually, the result will be gotten optimally. The
writerss hope this paper can motivate readers to improve English skills,
especially in speaking how to pronounce words well and improve the dialect.

1.2. Problem Formulation

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 1.2.1. How is the history of The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)?
1.2.2. What is The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)?
1.2.3. What is part of The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)?
1.2.4. What is differentiate of variation of sounds in American English and
British English?

1.3. Purpose of The Paper

1.3.1. To know definition of The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)?

1.3.2. To know part of The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)?
1.3.3. To know the differentiate of variation of sounds What is differentiate of
variation of sounds in American English and British English?
1.3.4. To fulfill an assignment of English Voice and Accent subject

iv
 CHAPTER II
THEORY AND DISCUSSION

2.1. History of International Phonetic Alphabet

International Phonetic Alphabet or usually shortened to IPA was developed in

the 19th century to represent the pronunciation of languages. The International
Phonetic Alphabet was designed by the International Phonetic Association using
symbols of the alphabet in Latin and Greek alphabet with using a few
modifications. The concept of was first broached by Otto Jespersen in a letter
sent to Paul Passy of the International Phonetic Association and was developed
by A.J. Ellis, Henry Sweet, Daniel Jones, and Passy in the late 19th century. The
previous purpose was to standardize the representation of spoken language,
sidestepping the confusion caused by the inconsistent conventional spellings
used in every language. The IPA was also intended to supersede the existing
multitude of individual transcription systems. It was first published in 1888 and
was revised several times in the 20th and 21st centuries [1]. In The writers’s
opinion the IPA can help us to pronounce words in every language in the world
without have to know the context. In this case, everyone can learn how to
pronounce English easily. Moreover, today's ease of access will make it even
easier for everyone to see how to pronounce English properly and correctly.

One of the aims of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was to provide a
unique symbol for each distinctive sound in a language such as every sound or
phoneme, that serves to distinguish one word from another [2]. The IPA did not
become the universal system for phonetic transcription that its designers had
intended, and it is rarely used in America than in Europe [3]. Despite its
deficiency, it is widely used by linguists and in dictionaries, even though often
with some modifications [4]. In The writers’s opinion, the modification here has
found in several English dictionaries. Such as in Cambridge Dictionary and the
Oxford Dictionary have differences in the International Phonetic Alphabet
writing. And maybe this difference is the result of modifications made by the
linguist. For the example is word ‘injured’ in UK. In Cambridge Dictionary the
IPA is written by /ˈɪn.dʒəd/. Besides, in Oxford Dictionary the word is written
by /ˈɪndʒəd/.

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2.2. International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

2.2.1. Definition of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of

phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. The IPA is designed
to represent those qualities of speech that are part of lexical sounds in oral
languages, such as phones, phonemes, intonation, and the separation of
words and syllables [5]. Here it is known that the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA) does not only have a function as a phoneme to see how to
read words in English. But it also helps us to know how the separation of
words and syllables in English.

The symbols are composed of one or more elements of two basic

types, letters and diacritics. Letter is a grapheme (shape, stroke, or symbol)
of a writing system, we can find letters in 26 modern alphabets Latin
usually we use in writing activity and a letter contains one or more
phonemes (depending on the type of script), and these phonemes form a
sound from the language it speaks. Besides, diacritic or can be called as
diacritic mark is additional punctuation mark in letters can change the
phonetic value of the letter a bit, for example the (´) mark in á. Diacritic
usually used to remove any hesitation when pronounce a word that have
homograph in spelling. For the example words ‘read’ in present tense
pronounced as /ríyd/, but ‘read’ in pat tense pronounced as /red/. Besides,
we can use it personally when we want to remember how to pronounce a
word so we can make annotation using diacritic on the word. For the
example the word of ‘neighbour’ / nā-bər /. Diacritic also can be used
diacritic to show ownership such ‘Aneeda’s sheep’, the words tell us that
the sheep of Aneeda.

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) has many purposes in use. As

we can see IPA in dictionary to show the pronunciation of words there. It
also can help us to pronounce any languages without knowing the context
as The writerss mention before. Besides, the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA) can help us to agree the ambiguous sounds of a word. The
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) develops time to time [6]. This
development theory of IPA can accommodate new invention such emerge
new solution to fix old problem [7]. Today many medias can used to learn
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) like YouTube, Instagram, Journal,
book, etc. In this case The writers wants to give insight to readers in this

2
paper about International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as one of medias to
learn about.

3
2.2.2. Table of The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

4
2.3. The differentiation of variation of sounds in the UK and US

In this paper will be focused on how the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
used in American English and British English after we know about what is the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in the previous discussion. American
English and British English have been become a reference in our country,
Indonesia. This is because both are commonly used in the world.

American English and British English have differences in some aspects. Those
are in spelling, pronunciation, grammatical, number, and vocabulary. If listener
cannot understand well, the listener might be able to get misunderstanding to
what speaker said. But people don’t know about the difference. Many people in
Indonesia mix between American English and British English unconsciously. It
is because study about International Phonetic Alphabet is not studied in school
or if it’s studied perhaps just slightly. People in Indonesia can learn about it
more in College, and this is a distinction for college students who take English
Education Major.

To know more the application of the International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA) in

American English and British English, below have been presented a table that
might use to comprehend about. This table is used to be pronounced by native
speaker in a video the writers has been attached in separate form.

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

No. Vocabulary
AE/US BE/UK
1 Survival /sərˈvaɪvl/ /səˈvaɪvl/
2 Miserly /ˈmaɪzərli/ /ˈmaɪzəli/
3 Overcome /ˌəʊvərˈkʌm/ /ˌəʊvəˈkʌm/
4 Ethereal /ɪˈθɪriəl/ /ɪˈθɪəriəl/

5
 5 Compare /kəmˈper/ /kəmˈpeə(r)/
6 Persuade /pərˈsweɪd/ /pəˈsweɪd/
7 Repair /rɪˈper/ /rɪˈpeə(r)/
8 Discombobulate /ˌdɪskəmˈbɑːbjuleɪt/ /ˌdɪskəmˈbɒbjuleɪt/
9 Kerfuffle /kərˈfʌfl/ /kəˈfʌfl/
10 Solitude /ˈsɑːlətuːd/ /ˈsɒlətjuːd/
11 Solipsistic /ˌsɑːlɪpˈsɪstɪk/ /ˌsɒlɪpˈsɪstɪk/
12 Obfuscate /ˈɑːbfəskeɪt/ /ˈɒbfəskeɪt/
13 Spare /sper/ /speə(r)/
14 Importance /ɪmˈpɔːrtns/ /ɪmˈpɔːtns/
15 Encourage /ɪnˈkɜːrɪdʒ/ /ɪnˈkʌrɪdʒ/
16 Adopt /əˈdɑːpt/ /əˈdɒpt/
17 Armed /ɑːrmd/ /ɑːmd/
18 Govern /ˈɡʌvərn/ /ˈɡʌvn/
19 Nevertheless /ˌnevəðəˈles/ /ˌnevərðəˈles/
20 Neighbour /ˈneɪbər/ /ˈneɪbə(r)/
21 Hockey /ˈhɑːki/ /ˈhɒki/
22 Neither /ˈniːðər/, /ˈnaɪðər/ /ˈnaɪðə(r)/, /ˈniːðə(r)/
23 Injured /ˈɪndʒərd/ /ˈɪndʒəd/
24 Ignore /ɪɡˈnɔːr/ /ɪɡˈnɔː(r)/
25 Perhaps /pərˈhæps/ /pəˈhæps/, /præps/
26 Honorable /ˈɑːnərəbl/ /ˈɒnərəbl/
27 Vagabond /ˈvæɡəbɑːnd/ /ˈvæɡəbɒnd/
28 Wrathful /ˈræθfl/ /ˈrɒθfl/
29 Mature /məˈtʃʊr/, /məˈtʊr/ /məˈtʃʊə(r)/, /məˈtjʊə(r)/
30 Overrate /ˌəʊvərˈreɪt/ /ˌəʊvəˈreɪt/
/dɪˈzæstrəs/
31 Disastrous /dɪˈzɑːstrəs/
32 Debonair /ˌdebəˈner/ /ˌdebəˈneə(r)/
33 Demonic /diˈmɑːnɪk/ /diˈmɒnɪk/
34 Spurious /ˈspjʊriəs/ /ˈspjʊəriəs/
35 Squalid /ˈskwɑːlɪd/ /ˈskwɒlɪd/
36 Steadfast /ˈstedfæst/ /ˈstedfɑːst/
37 Abhorrent /əbˈhɔːrənt/ /əbˈhɒrənt/
38 Towards /tɔːrdz/ /təˈwɔːdz/
39 Literature /ˈlɪtrətʃər/, /ˈlɪtrətʃʊr/ /ˈlɪtrətʃə(r)/
40 Incorporate /ɪnˈkɔːrpəreɪt/ /ɪnˈkɔːpəreɪt/

Based on the pronunciation that pronounced by the native speakers, the common
difference can be found is in the spelling. Have a look to the table, in British
English usually /r/ is silenced when /r/ doesn’t have any vowel even in the middle

6
of the word or at the end of the word. Besides, /r/ with vowel is pronounced even
it is in the middle or at the end of the word. For the example is on the word
‘Govern’ in US pronounced by /ˈɡʌvərn/, but in UK pronounced by /ˈɡʌvn/.
Another example on the table is word ‘Repair’ in US the word is pronounced by
/rɪˈper/, but in UK the word is pronounced by /rɪˈpeə(r)/. Moreover, in some
words vocal ‘o’ pronounced ‘ɑ’ in US, but pronounced ‘ɒ’ in UK. It produces
different sound. The writerss will give two examples to describe more. For the
example on the table is word ‘Obfuscate’, in US the word is pronounced by
/ˈɑːbfəskeɪt/ but in UK the word is pronounced by /ˈɒbfəskeɪt/. The other one is
word ‘Adopt’, in US the word is pronounced by /əˈdɑːpt/ but in UK the word is
pronounced by /əˈdɒpt/.

American English and British English also have other differences besides out of
the table. As already explained that between American and British English has
differences in vocabulary. For the example, in US usually use ‘pants’ to refer to a
piece of clothing that covers the lower part of body and each leg. However, in UK
usually use ‘trousers’ to call it. Then, between American English and British
English have another difference that is on their grammatical. For example, in
American English usually use at to state times ‘at’. However, in British English
usually use ‘on’ to state times.

The differences above that The writerss stated emerge much confusion in our
people. They are confused about what is better to use, American English or
British English. In this case, The writers can give the opinion that both English is
good. However, we only need to choose one to continue in use. The problem here
is many people using mixed English, between American English and British
English. It can emerge misunderstanding if the responder doesn’t understand well.

7
 CHAPTER III
CLONCLUSION

3.1. Conclusion

Therefore, after read the paper can be known that The International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on
the Latin script. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is not only having a
function as a phoneme to see how to read words in English. But it also helps us
to know intonation to pronounce words in English and how the separation of
words and syllables in English. It was developed in the 19th century to represent
the pronunciation of languages and the concept of was first broached by Otto
Jespersen. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) develops time to time. The
new theory can accommodate new solution to fix old problem. The International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) has some parts. There are consonant (pulmonic),
consonant (non-pulmonic), diacritic, vowel, suprasegmental, and tones and word
accent. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) used in American English and
British English. In both English can be found several differences. One of the
differences is on how both English pronounce and It can be known based on the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that has been written in dictionaries.
Besides, the sounds of American English and British English have others
differences.

3.2. Suggest

BIBLIOGRAPHY

8
[1] Britannica, T. E. (2020, May 18). Britannica. Diambil kembali dari International
Phonetic Alphabet: https://www.britannica.com/science/science
[2] Britannica, T. E. (2020, May 18). Britannica. Diambil kembali dari International
Phonetic Alphabet: https://www.britannica.com/science/scienc

[3] Britannica, T. E. (2020, May 18). Britannica. Diambil kembali dari International
Phonetic Alphabet: https://www.britannica.com/science/scienc

[4] Britannica, T. E. (2020, May 18). Britannica. Diambil kembali dari International
Phonetic Alphabet: https://www.britannica.com/science/scienc

[5] Association, I. P. (1999). A guide to use the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[6] Association, I. P. (1999). A guide to use the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[7] Association, I. P. (1999). A guide to use the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.