Some Confusing Words
Once more, José Pablo is asking some other interesting questions about English pronunciation.
Should island be pronounced with schwa or with a diagraph?
If we take the word island as a compound word, then its transcription must be /’aylænd/. However, if the word is pronounced quickly at a normal speed in one’s speech, it can get obscured. That is, the /æ/ gets reduced to schwa. It is very common for words in English to be reduced in terms of vowel clarity. To sum up, both transcriptions can be taken as correct, and the same goes for both possible pronunciations.
Should garden and brighten be pronounced with schwa?
Strictly speaking, these words contain a phenomenon called syllabic consonants. That is that the schwa disappears in certain environments. Because we do not study syllabic consonants in this course, in terms of transcriptions we do not use them. We tend to use a non-standard transcription in class. Eventually, we will use syllabic consonants in the next course.
Are hear and here homophones?
If we get to apply the use of Sandhi Forms in English, we can state that “YES, they are homophones.” Let’s keep in mind that in the standard American English Pronunciation, the word here is pronounced with lax “i” and not with tense “i.” It is no wonder that you can find native speakers whose pronunciation is alike for both words. But you can also find speakers who actually make a clear difference between the two words.
Thanks for your questions!
