Re: Schwa and [V]: Learning the IPA

From: David J. Peterson
"In my opinion, this is just another one of those IPA myths they've cooked
up (i.e., when stressed, the "schwa" vowel in English is [V]; when
unstressed, it's [@]; this is because schwa can never be stressed in
English).  I believe it has no basis in reality whatsoever. If you hear this
sound (which occurs in Vietnamese), it becomes obvious that it doesn't exist
in most (if not any) dialects of English I've ever encountered.  Further, I
don't know what arguments were ever put forth to suggest that schwa can't be
stressed in English.  To me, it sounds like no one wanted to bother to do
the actual study, or that, if it has been done, no one has read it,
or wants to cite it, and so the [@]/[V] myth persists.
-David"


David,
I respect your opinion, but I've heard [V] from many speakers in southern
England. I, personally haven't got it in my phoneme inventory, because I
usually have [U] for /V/, but I can imitate [V] when I have to. Since I'm an
actor I'm often asked to modify my accent and [V] is definitely something
British stage actors have to be able to produce. I don't always use [U] for
/V/, because when I modify my colloquial English to a more formal variety I
say [@] for /V/, as many Northerners do, when avoiding sounding "too"
Northern. I also use this modification when talking to Americans, because
I've found that many of them have difficulties understanding my Northern
(British) English in normal allegro speech.
To cut a long story short - I'm afraid that neither /V/ nor [V] are a myth,
but simply something that was transcribed from RP rather than the more or
less regionally influenced varieties of English.
Dan

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