PRONUNCIATION

PRONUNCIATION.
1. The act or result of producing the sounds of SPEECH, including ARTICULATION, INTONATION, and RHYTHM.

2. The sound system of a language: German pronunciation.

3. An accepted standard of sound and rhythm for elements of spoken language: the proper pronunciation of ‘controversy’; the mispronunciation of vowels.

4. The phonetic representation of a sound, word, etc.: see TRANSCRIPTION. Because of the vagaries of the spelling system of English, most larger dictionaries have since the 18c provided guidance on the pronunciation of words, usually immediately after the headword of an entry, and either in a system of respelling or, since the end of the 19c, in phonetic symbols. EFL learner's dictionaries published in the UK currently use the INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET to represent the phonemes of RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION (RP), an ACCENT of England that has served as a pronunciation model (the target at which the learner aims) since the early 20c. Some learners' dictionaries provide AmE equivalents. Works that concentrate on pronunciation alone include Daniel JONES, An ENGLISH PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY (EPD, 14th edition, revised by A. C. Gimson, 1977), and J. C. Wells, The Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (1990). In dictionaries for native speakers, respelling systems are generally preferred in the US, while in the UK publishers are currently divided, some favouring respelling, others (such as Oxford University Press) moving over to IPA symbols. See BBC ENGLISH¹, BBC PRONUNCIATION UNIT, ELOCUTION, MISPRONUNCIATION, ORTHOEPY, PHONETICS, PUBLIC SCHOOL PRONUNCIATION, SPELLING PRONUNCIATION.