The idea of preparing an updated or revised recording that illustrates the symbols or categories of the IPA was first proposed by Ladefoged and Roach (1986). These authors noted (ibid.: 28) that ‘Thanks to John Wells and Susan Ramsaran we already have a cassette recording illustrating the symbols in the current chart.’ Of the many phoneticians who responded to the announcement of the meeting in Kiel, about 25 expressed interest in planning recorded illustrations of the revised alphabet. Acting as coordinator for this activity, I sent out a tentative plan for the illustrations as a starting point for discussion.

A uniform dialect of Canadian English (CE) encompasses a wider territory than that of any other regional variety (Priestley (1951); Woods (1979); cf. Scargill and Warkentyne (1972) for suggested subdivisions; cf. also Bernard (1969) versus Horvath (1985) for the scope of Australian English, another widespread variety). This is a result of converging influences in Canada of varieties of British English and of Northern and Midland American (von Baeyer 1977; Woods 1979). The components of CE are a distinctive body of lexical items marked foremost by compounding, with many borrowings from French and the native Indian languages (Avis 1973; Harris 1975; Gregg 1979), certain minor syntactic features along with the stereotypical use of ‘eh’ (Avis 1978; Bailey 1982; Chambers 1986), and a ‘General’ Canadian accent, recognized as urban and educated, spreading westward from Ontario to the Pacific, and affecting even eastern Maritime speech (Gregg 1984a; Avis 1986; cf. Kinloch 1983). Within this broad framework (Avis 1973, 1986; Gregg 1984a), however, certain social and regional distinctions appear when phonological variability is considered within the Labovian model of sociological co-variation (e.g. Labov 1966, 1972; Trudgill 1974; Milroy 1987). A comparison of phonological items from two recent and concurrent sociodialectal surveys, one in eastern Canada for Ottawa (Woods 1979) and the other on the Pacific Coast for Vancouver (Gregg 1984b), reveals certain points of phonetic divergence socially and regionally, together with differential rates of sound change (de Wolf 1988).

The question of whether to analyse the intonation of a particular language in terms of tune or tone has been extensively discussed for English; recent accounts include Gibbon (1976: 101–92), Ladd (1980: 14–16), Cruttenden (1986: 55–8) and Couper-Kuhlen (1986: 67–72). It cannot, for all that, be said to be resolved. When it comes to French, however, the question has scarcely been aired at all, although Crompton (1980) does discuss the related question of ‘configurations’ versus levels versus tonetic stress marks (the latter surely an unlikely candidate for annotating the intonation of a language without lexical stress).

The widely different topics covered by the two contributions to this second Educational Phonetics section reflect well the intended scope of this section of the Journal. Brown's paper addresses an issue of recurring interest to teachers of English, namely the status of post-vocalic /r/ in different varieties of English and the acceptability, or otherwise, of intrusive or linking /r/. Duckworth and Ball look at the usefulness of the IPA in its present version for the representation of dysfluent speech, and suggest alternatives which the Association might wish to evaluate as part of its current revision of the symbols for transcription.

This article examines two related phenomena concerning the English phoneme /r/: linking/intrusive /r/ and rhotic /r/. The former is usually discussed in RP-oriented pronunciation drill books and phonetics textbooks. However, unless one adopts the narrow view that RP is the only feasible pronunciation model in a given situation, it is not legitimate to discuss linking/intrusive /r/ without mention of the second phenomenon – rhoticity. Indeed, as is shown below, these may be thought of not as two separate phenomena, but as two branches of the same phenomenon. Further, it is argued that linking/intrusive /r/ is not of great importance in English pronunciation teaching world-wide, and that the potential advantages of rhoticity are often underestimated.

Clinical phoneticians and speech pathologists often face difficulties in transcription of a different nature from those which the general phonetician encounters. A wide range of speech disorders present at the clinic (see Crystal 1980, 1981, 1984), and in many cases a detailed phonetic description of speech is an important part of the analysis and diagnosis of a person's problem (see Carney 1979, on the dangers of inadequate description).

Erratum: By-laws of the International Phonetic Association (Journal of the International Phonetic Association 18(1), 6–7 (1988).

There is an error in the formulation of by-law (2). ‘Life members, who pay a one-time sum of 30 times the annual dues’ should read: ‘Life members, who pay a one-time sum of 15 times the annual dues’.

Errata: ‘Margaret Thatcher's pronunciation: An exercise in ear-training (Journal of the International Phonetic Association 18(1), 26–38 (1988).

LUKE [sic] VAN BUUREN

Speech Unit, Department of English, University of Amsterdam,

Spuistraat 210, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

The author's name on the title page (p. 26) should be ‘Lucas van Buuren’, rather than ‘Luke van Buuren’.

The calibrations on the vertical axis of the diagram on p. 27 are missing. The diagram should be as follows:

On p. 29, line 5, ‘…for women between A and E.’ should read: ‘…for women between A and e.’

On p. 37, line 19, ‘11a’ should be ‘11d’.