Peter Roach
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(interdental articulation). It is common to teach this articulation for / / and / / to learners of English who do not have a dental fricative in their native language, but it is comparatively rare to find interdental fricatives in native speakers of English (it is said to be typical of the Californian accent of American English); most English speakers produce / / and / / by placing the tip of the tongue against the back of the front teeth.
International Phonetic Association and Alphabet The International Phonetic Association was established in 1886 as a forum for teachers who were inspired by the idea of using phonetics to improve the teaching of the spoken language to foreign learners. As well as laying the foundations for the modern science of phonetics, the Association had a revolutionary impact on the language classroom in the early decades of its existence, where previously the concentration had been on proficiency in the written form of the language being learned. The Association is still a major international learned society, though the crusading spirit of the pronunciation teachers of the early part of the century is not so evident nowadays. The Association only rarely holds official meetings, but contact among the members is maintained by the Association's Journal, which has been in publication more or less continuously since the foundation of the Association, with occasional changes of name. Since its beginning, the Association has taken the responsibility for maintaining a standard set of phonetic symbols for use in practical phonetics, presented in the form of a chart (see the chart at the end of this book). The set of symbols is usually known as the International Phonetic Alphabet (and the initials I.P.A. are therefore ambiguous). The alphabet is revised from time to time to take account of new discoveries and changes in phonetic theory. The web-site of the IPA is http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipa.html
intonation There is confusion about intonation caused by the fact that the word is used with two different meanings: in its more restricted sense, 'intonation' refers to the variations in the pitch of a speaker's voice used to convey or alter meaning, but in its broader and more popular sense it is used to cover much the same field as 'prosody', where variations in such things as voice quality, tempo and loudness are included. It is, regrettably, common to find in pronunciation teaching materials accounts of intonation