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The Pronunciation of English
in Scotland. By William Grant, M.A., (1913) Lecturer on Phonetics to the
Provincial Committee for the Training of Teachers, Aberdeen.
This manual, which appears under the auspices of the Cambridge University
Press, may be said to break new ground. The late Dr. Sweet, Professor Wyld,
Mr. Jones, and other well-known phoneticians have expounded the phonetics of
Southern English; the late Dr. Lloyd has done the same for Northern English;
but it has been reserved for Mr. Grant to deal in a scientific and
systematic manner with the Scottish variety of Standard English. The author
is to be heartily congratulated on the success he has achieved.
The book falls into three parts. Part I deals in a simple, clear, and
comprehensive manner with the analysis and synthesis of speech sounds as
found in the pronunciation of Standard English and Scottish, with
interesting and instructive side glances at dialectal variants; Part II
gives phonetic transcriptions of texts as they would be spoken by the
educated middle classes of Scotland; Part III contains a series of questions
and exercises on the subject-matter of Part I. Finally, in the second of two
appendices will be found a careful and useful summary of the main
differences between Southern English and Standard Scottish set down in
parallel columns.
Altogether the book is one that cannot fail to do much to advance that
branch of the study of English which up to the present time has been far too
much neglected in most of our schools. We mean the study of the spoken as
contrasted with the written word. The hope expressed by the author in his
modestly worded preface that his book will prove useful to teachers of
English of all grades in our Scottish schools, to lawyers and ministers and
all those who, in the course of their calling, have to engage in public
speaking, will no doubt be fulfilled so far as the first-mentioned class is
concerned. It will, we fear, take some time before the lawyers and the
ministers are reached.
George Smith
The Pronunciation of English in
Scotland (pdf)
PREFACE
THIS book is intended
primarily as a Phonetic Manual for the use of students in Scottish Training
Colleges and Junior Student Centres, but it is hoped that it may prove
useful to teachers of English of all grades in our Scottish schools, to
lawyers and ministers and all those who, in the course of their calling,
have to engage in public speaking. Foreigners, too, may find that the more
conservative pronunciation of educated Scotland as depicted in this volume,
is easier to acquire than the Southern type of English, and all students of
language should be interested in the study of the Scottish variety of
Standard English.
As the Scotch Education Department has recommended the study of Phonetics in
its Memorandum on the teaching of Modern Languages (p. 5) and in its
Memorandum on the teaching of English in Primary Schools (p. 8), and as our
Training Centres have incorporated the subject in their time-tables, it has
become practically obligatory for all teachers of language. Phonetics as the
best basis for Modern Language study, is now generally admitted except in
quarters “hopelessly obscurantist.” We are also firmly convinced that some
phonetic training in the early stages of the school curriculum is a
desirable thing because it cultivates the observing faculties of the child,
appeals to an intelligent interest in facts, and has an important bearing on
clear, distinct enunciation, correct pronunciation and expressive reading.
Further it is a preparation for the work of the Modern Language Department
and for the study in the higher English Classes of the development of
English Speech.
A special book for Scottish Students is rendered necessary because the
phonetic basis of educated Scottish speakers differs in many respects from
that of Southern English, and further because our teachers have peculiar
difficulties to overcome in dealing with pupils whose everyday speech is
Scottish Dialect or Gaelic. Such difficulties cannot be successfully tackled
without some definite phonetic knowledge and practice such as we have set
forth in this work.
The book is divided into three parts with an Appendix. Part I deals with the
manner and place of formation of the various sounds and the changes they
undergo in combination with each other. The general plan follows the lines
of Mr Daniel Jones’s Pronunciation of English and the corresponding
definitions and descriptions in the two volumes are made to agree as far as
possible. Part I also enumerates the variations from Standard speech and
gives suggestions for the correction of errors of pronunciation.
Part II consists of a series of texts written in the speech of the educated
middle classes of Scotland (see p. 4). The alphabet used is that of the
International Phonetic Association. The student who can use this alphabet
easily for reading and writing may be regarded as possessing a fair
knowledge of elementary phonetics.
Part III contains a series of questions on the subjectmatter of Part I which
will be found useful for students who wish to test their own knowledge and
for teachers I who desire to test the results of their instruction.
The Appendix contains (1) the ordinary English spelling of the phonetic
texts in Part II, (2) an account of the chief differences between Scottish
and Southern English, (3) advice to teachers on the subject of the teaching
of reading.
I have to express my obligation to the following authors and publishers for
kindly allowing me to reproduce copyright matter: Messrs Sampson Low,
Marston and Co., for the illustrations of the Larynx (fig. 2) which are
taken from Voice, Song and Speech by Browne and Behnke, Messrs George Bell
and Sons for the poem of Calverley (No. 8), Mr E. F. Benson and his
publishers Messrs Methuen for the passage from Dodo (No. 20), Mr Austin
Dobson and his publishers Messrs Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner and Co. for
the poem entitled The Cures Progress (No. 18) Mr Wilfrid Meynell (Francis
Thompson’s literary executor) and Messrs Burns and Oates for Thompson’s poem
Daisy (No. 11), The Walter Scott Publishing Company for the passage from
Lowell’s My Garden Acquaintance (No 16).
I desire to acknowledge the kindness of Mr Gavin I Greig in permitting me to
use a scene from Mains Wooing and to record his dialect pronunciation and
intonation (No. 21). I take this opportunity also of thanking Dr Smith,
Director of Studies, Aberdeen, and Mr Jackson, Lecturer on Phonetics,
Dundee, for their interest in this work and their many useful suggestions.
Very special thanks are due to Mr Jones, the general editor of this series
of Phonetic Texts, for many helpful suggestions and criticisms. I am
indebted to him also for most of the matter in the following paragraphs 14,
17—21 with notes, 35, 185—188, 194—202, 216—221, for help in connection with
the intonation curves in Dodo (No. 20), and the Southern English rendering
of the passage from The Mill on the Floss (No. 19).
W. G.
December, 1912. |
