The Eighth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (Leeds, 1975) provided an opportunity, at a discussion seminar called specially for that purpose, ‘The larynx and language’, for phoneticians anxious to put phonation distinctions on a more systematic footing to appeal to specialists in the aerodynamic aspects of laryngal activity and in the physiology of the larynx to help them with criteria to define the phonation distinctions so far observed in languages. In introducing the topic at the discussion seminar E. J. A. Henderson confined her examples to Cambodian, to illustrate the ‘sepulchral’ phonation appropriate to what she terms the lower register (Henderson 1952: 157); but a number of languages are listed in Catford 1964 as making lexically distinctive use of phonation types, Danish, Hindi, Nilotic, Javanese, and Gujerati (p. 36); and Ladefoged 1971 lists some of these and a considerable number of others, including Sindhi, Zulu, Hausa, Wolof, and French (pp. 12–19). In part this article is a continuation of that attempt to attract the attention of instrumental phoneticians to problems posed by phonation differences in languages such as these; but to a large extent it results from a re-examination of various published accounts of phonation distinctions that I undertook in the course of teaching general phonetics. The most comprehensive of these accounts, and the one that I shall chiefly refer to, is Catford 1964, and the tape-recording in which he illustrates a number of the phonation types that he distinguishes in that article; but I have also drawn on Sweet 1877 (3rd edition, 1906), guided by Henderson 1971, Pike 1943, Heffner 1950, Abercrombie 1967, and Ladefoged 1971.

Particular voice qualities are often associated in people's minds with particular languages. This is evident in the literature which has been covered and reviewed by Laver (1975: Ch. 2). These qualities have been variously referred to with such terms as ‘organic basis or basis of articulation’ (Sweet, 1906: 74), ‘articulatory setting’ (Honikman, 1964), ‘a quasi-permanent quality’ (Abercrombie, 1967: 91) and ‘voluntary long-term muscular settings of the larynx and vocal tract’ (Laver, 1970: 525).

Before presenting the facts and discussions with which this writing is concerned, it may be helpful to clarify a few concepts, items of terminology, and transcriptional practices with which some readers may not be familiar. Much of my point of view depends on a prejudice that seems obvious to me, but is probably not shared by every reader: The difference between a phonological transcription (which employs underlying segments, partially altered, and accents written over syllabic peaks) and a phonetic transcription in square brackets (which employs symbols for actual sounds and uses ticks to indicate stress onsets—which vary in English with the tempo) is that the latter is as close to the sounds spoken and heard as possible. Although phonological analyses may and do eliminate redundancies (including complementarities), this seems to me inappropriate for transcriptions claiming to be phonetic—those that result from the output of the latest-ordered sound rules. Admittedly, one has to abstract somewhat (every utterance of a sound is slightly different), but I do not think we ought to abstract redundancies from phonetic transcriptions beyond those that are more or less inevitable and universal—the different forms of [k] in [ɑka, uku, ukɑ, ɑku] or the devoicing of sonorant consonants after tautosyllabic fricatives. A few compromises have to be made for the sake of practical utility, but I would say that they should be no more redundancy-free than is minimally necessary, and that they should represent the output of the latest low-level rule. Otherwise, they are, to some degree, phonological, not phonetic transcriptions.

The term parametric is a convenient term to use to refer to a view of the study of speech sounds in which the continuous activity of the organs of speech in the production of a stretch of speech is highlighted. Parametric phonetics offers an alternative view to the more familiar segmental or postural view, in which the state of the organs of speech for a particular single segment at a particular instance is investigated. The difference between the two approaches may also be referred to as dynamic and static, respectively; the dynamic parametric view draws attention to the movement of the organs of speech, whereas the static segmental or postural view draws attention to the position or posture of the organs of speech at a given moment. In my view, the two approaches do not contradict each other; they complement each other, both being theoretically acceptable. In this paper I am concerned with introducing the parametric approach into conventional phonetics courses at first degree and postgraduate level.

The susceptibility of nasals to devoicing in certain contexts did not escape the notice of the auditorally oriented early phoneticians and is included in many of the rigorous descriptions in the classic phonetics handbooks:

Sievers (1901: 169) remarks generally of sonorants: ‘Ist der Sonorlaut aber unsilbisch, so wird er durch den stimmlosen Nachbarlaut häufig ebenfalls stimmlos gemacht, wenigstens setzt bei Verbindungen wie sla, sna die Stimme oft erst nach der Einstellung des Mundes für l, n etc. ein, so daß der Eingang des l, n noch stimmlos gebildet wird’.

The present article is a preliminary analysis and detailed phonetic description of a taped conversation (between friends) as an example of the everyday linguistic habits of a teenager from Stockport. When the recording was made, she was sixteen years old (August 1975); she is the granddaughter of the main informant for Lodge (1966). She attended a comprehensive school in Stockport. As an example of a more formal style the informant was asked to read a passage from a newspaper.

Having followed with interest the recent exchange between Jack Windsor Lewis (JWL) and Julian Pring (JP) on the status of ‘linking’ and ‘intrusive’ /r/ and its place in teaching, I am prompted to intervene by the belief that a relevant and important point has been missed which also has wider implications for language teaching in general.

The informant, Mr. Labeguerie, aged 25 in 1978, is a native of the village of Milafranga (French: Villefranque), near Bayonne, in the Basque province of Lapurdi (Fr.: Labourd), in what is now the French department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques. He is a native speaker of both Basque and French. At the time of the recording here transcribed, he had lived for several years in London, where he regularly spoke Basque with speakers from the southern Basque provinces; this had some effect on his speech, notably the tendency to replace his native voiced uvular approximant with a voiced alveolar trill.

Fairly broad transcription. Stress is strong. Unstressed vowels are short, stressed vowels are half long unless before fortis (voiceless, double) consonants or consonant clusters, where they are short. Adjacent vowels are in hiatus and thus form two syllables, w, j are consonantal except when final or before a consonant where they represent the second element of falling closing diphthongs. , ã = a in W. Treger, ã in E. Treger. Contingent nasality before nasal consonants is not marked, ë, ä are e, a reduced towards ə except in the slowest, clearest forms of speech, θ = rounded ə. Lenis obstruent devoicing in final pausal position and in sandhi is marked .; fortis obstruent voicing in sandhi is marked ˅. h is a lenis, usually unvoiced, with some voicing possible between vowels and next to liquids; in final pausal position or in sandhi = x. m is a fortis. ɲ is a fortis; there is usually a j-glide between it and a preceding vowel, r is a light flap or trill; with some speakers it is ɻ; in some parts of Brittany it is R or B, but not in Treger; when written r it is not usually heard except in slow, clear forms of speech. I may be heard velarized in some districts, but not in Treger. t, d, n may be somewhat advanced towards a dental position, p, t, k may have slight aspiration except after s.

The following transcription of ‘The North Wind and the Sun’ was made from a tape recording of the speech of Dr. Charlotte Laughlin (Mrs. Billy Lee), who teaches at Howard Payne University, Brownwood, Texas. Dr. Laughlin is 26 years old and was born in Brownwood, Brown County, at the approximate geographical center of the state. She lived in Brownwood until she was 18, when she moved to Austin to attend the University of Texas. At 24, she moved back to Brownwood and has remained there since, save for foreign trips.