What is a "schwa"? Does an English learner need to know what a "schwa" is? SCHWA AND ENGLISH SPELLINGDefinition 1The mid-central, neutral vowel sound typically occurring in unstressed syllables in Eng

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What is a "schwa"? Does an English learner need to know what a "schwa" is?

SCHWA AND ENGLISH SPELLING

Definition 1

The mid-central, neutral vowel sound typically occurring in unstressed syllables in English, however spelled, as the sound of:
- a in alone and sofa,
- e in system,
- i in easily,
- o in gallop, and
- u in circus.

Definition 2

The weak vowel sound in some syllables that is not emphasized, such as the first syllable of "about" and the second syllable of "given", or the ə symbol that represents this sound.

"For the most part, the schwa vowel sound in a two-syllable word is identified by the 'uh' pronunciation and sound.

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) shows the 'schwa' vowel as [ə].

A Simpe Definition

It's a vowel that can't remember the sound it's supposed to make, so it scratches its head and goes "uh?"

Children often spell:

- chocolate as choclat,
- separate as seprate, or
- memory as memry.

The schwa vowel is thus omitted.
The vowel sound schwa is also found in two-syllable words such as alone, pencil, syringe, and taken.

Children commonly misrepresent the schwa vowel and spell these words:
- ulone for alone,
- pencol for pencil,
- suringe for syringe, and
- takin for taken.

These aforementioned misunderstandings generally disappear as the child advances in his reasoning and knowledge of the English language, and learns conventional alternatives for representing sounds.

So... Does an English learner need to know about the schwa vowels? What do you think?

9 мая 2017 г., 0:23

Комментариев · 6

K.P. makes a great point. IPA isn't as clear-cut as is often assumed, especially when it comes to vowels.

To be honest, I've never understood how linguists decide at what point a slight change in lip/jaw/tongue position consitutes a separate phoneme. /ɪ/ and /ə/ are so close together in English that they're virtually indistinguishable in some dialects of English. On the other hand, the English word "pool" and the French word "poule" both contain a /u/ vowel, yet the two words sound very different.

Moreover, IPA as it's used for language learning is based on British RP pronunciation, which flattens the variety caused by different native accents - a phonologist would transcribe "pool" as /pʉ:l/ in Australian English, but for language learning purposes it's still written as /pu:l/.

Anyway, the important point is that you shouldn't assume that just because a phonemic symbol exists both in your native language and target language it means the actual sounds are identical, schwa being a notable example of this.

10 мая 2017 г.

Michael, indeed it is the name of a Hebrew sign.

But it is commonly applied by linguists and philologists... to a number of sounds and phenomena:((( Highly reduced or unspecific mid-central or mobile or...

Unfortunately, [ə] (and 'schwa', the term) is not the same in different languages.

In French it is a phoneme, not a sound. It's most 'schwaish' realisation is labialized (unlike the English sound) - like œ. Other time it is omitted, other time it is like /e/ or /ø/.
And I'm afraid, English [ə] is unlike Russian [ə] and I'm afraid, French is not the only langauge where it is complicated, and I'm afraid there are languages where it is something more exotic.

It is a weakness of IPA:(

9 мая 2017 г.

Michael, KP, Sudeep, and Alan...

Thank you all for contributing to this discussion. All your comments were quite informative.

11 мая 2017 г.

Thank you very much, Richard for bringing this topic. I didn't know much about this topic but you made it simple and clear with definition and examples.

I think the English learners should have the basic knowledge about this so that they can make a clear distinction while writing and speaking, at least, it will be easier to pronounce some words correctly. For example, if someone is not aware of this, then he may pronounce "about" as it is or as "Ebout" with stress in the first syllable. So, by having a bit knowledge about this subject, one can avoid such small mistake related to pronunciation.

9 мая 2017 г.