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Notes on the chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet in Chinese

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2011

Fang Hu*
Affiliation:
Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijinghufang@cass.org.cn

Extract

The idea of having a version of the IPA chart in Chinese was initiated by a group of Chinese phoneticians and dialectologists in 2006. The situation that existed at the time was that the IPA terms used in mainstream Chinese textbooks and in classrooms were still following various older versions of the chart and principles. For instance, there were no approximants in the consonant chart; instead, the Chinese translation of the term ‘frictionless continuant’ was still listed in the consonant chart. After the revised IPA chart was released in 2005, Chinese phoneticians and dialectologists considered it a good opportunity to promote the updated IPA terminology in Chinese, reflected in a Chinese version of the chart. In the winter of 2006, the Phonetic Association of China organized an advisory committee and a working committee to undertake the translation. Following some months of e-mail communications among committee members, a meeting was organized at the Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, on 7 January 2007. Five members of the advisory committee and seven members of the working committee participated in the final discussion. At the meeting in Beijing, we worked out the 2007 version of the IPA chart in Chinese that is reproduced here. This chart was first published in the first issue of the Chinese journal Fangyan 方 言 [Dialect] in 2007. The copyright symbol at the top of the chart indicates that the Chinese version is a work of the Phonetic Association of China, which is, officially speaking, a member of the Linguistic Society of China. The intention of the Association in disseminating the chart has been to unify and clarify the traditions of Chinese phonetic usage, to standardize Chinese terminology for referring to speech sounds and categories, and to communicate and promote the knowledge of IPA practices to Chinese-speaking society.

Type
The International Phonetic Alphabet
Copyright
Copyright © International Phonetic Association 2011

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