Broad Transcription and Narrow Transcription Differences

 

Broad Transcription and Narrow Transcription

a.      What is transcription?

b.      What are differences between broad and narrow transcription?

Transcription is a way of recording speech sounds in writing using phonetic symbols. This is also called phonetic writing. The difference between a broad and a narrow transcription is relative rather than absolute. A broad transcription gives relatively less detail than a narrow transcription. Usually, phonemic transcription is broad and phonetic transcription is narrow.

Let us now consider what phonemic and phonetic transcriptions are. Phonemic transcription uses only the distinctive sound features of a language which are called phonemes. It does not show all the finer details of pronunciation. Thus, as it gives less detail, it is called a broad transcription. For example, the phonemic or broad transcription of the word 'pin' would appear as /pin/, where we have used the phonemes /p/, /1/ and /n/. Phonetic transcription, on the other hand, uses phonetic symbols for various sounds and also adds diacritics to them to show in detail how a particular sound is pronounced. Thus, it is narrow as it gives relatively more details. The phonetic or narrow transcription of the word 'pin' may appear as [p^h in], where we have used, along with the phonemes /p/, /1/ and /n/, a raised [h] and the diacritic [] to show the aspiration of [p] and the nasalization of [1] respectively. These additional features are not the distinctive sounds of English, as they do not cause meaningful differences between words.

The point-by-point differences can be shown as:

Broad Transcription	Narrow Transcription
A broad transcription gives relatively less details.	A narrow transcription gives relatively more details.
Generally, phonemic transcription is broad.	Generally phonetic transcription is narrow.
It uses only the distinctive sound features of a language (phonemes).	It uses phonetic symbols for various sounds and also adds diacritics to them to show in detail how a particular sound is pronounced.
It ignores minor variations in pronunciation or focuses only on essential phonemes.	It captures more phonetic detail, including allophones and subtle variations in pronunciation.
The purpose of the type is to represent the basic sounds that distinguish words in a language.	The purpose of this type is to capture precise pronunciation details.