时间:2019-02-16 作者:英语课 分类:词汇大师(Wordmaster)


英语课

Broadcast: December 8, 2004


AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: VOA's prince of pronunciation.


RS: Jim Tedder 1 has been with VOA for 25 years. He works in the English production branch, and is one of the news readers in Special English. But he's also the creator -- and voice -- of the online VOA Pronunciation Guide.


AA: The guide is used not only in-house, but also by competing international broadcasters and by American radio and TV networks. In fact, just about anyone in the world who needs to know how to say a name in the news might find it just a click or two away.


RS: Stay tuned 2 for the address. But first, some background from Jim Tedder. Since our schedules are different, we called him at home to talk about the pronunciation guide.


JIM TEDDER: "It's been online about five years. It now has about 5,000 names in it, spelled phonetically 4 and then pronounced with an audio file with it. And it's been a tremendous success. It's been a great deal of satisfaction."


RS: "Let me ask you something, Jim. How do you know what's right? How do you know how to pronounce a name or a word?"


JIM TEDDER: "It's a strange situation, in that people will ask me that question a lot. They ask it as if they know or think or suspect that somewhere, written in stone by the hand of God, there is a correct and a non-correct, a right and a wrong way, to say things.


"When you're dealing 5 with a person's name, we have a methodology that we have set up, and the methodology is pretty simple. When dealing with a person's name, we try to go to that person himself or herself and say 'how do you say it?' Most of the time this isn't possible when you're dealing with international leaders. So we go down one notch 6 on the priority list and we contact their office. If that doesn't work, the next line down is that I go to the various language services at VOA and talk to people there.


AA: But when it comes to geography, there's a different methodology.


JIM TEDDER: "Again, let me refer to what I said earlier: For person's names, we want to say the name as that person says it. Place names are an entirely 7 different matter. We chose many years ago at VOA to use the Merriam-Webster Geographic 8 Dictionary as our main guide.


"When we talk about a place name, I get amused a lot of times because people will say 'well, what's correct? Webster gives two different pronunciations.' Well, if you read the fine print in the front of Merriam-Webster's dictionaries, essentially 9 what they say is, they are not the pronunciation police. They're not in the business of saying 'this is correct and that is wrong.' What they are in the business of doing is have their lexicographers do research and say 'we have tried to find out how to pronounce this place name, and we have found that most people in that area of the world, in that area of the country, pronounce it this way."


"Or they may have a comma after that pronunciation and have another pronunciation. Most people in the United States, I think, who have not read the methodology would say 'oh, OK, Webster's prefers the first pronunciation because they listed it first.' Big mistake. What Webster say is, 'we have to put something first. We aren't saying this is preferred over that. What we're saying is that educated, informed individuals -- some of them say this, some of them say that.'


RS: So what do international broadcasters do when they try to find how to pronounce a place name -- and there are variations?


JIM TEDDER: "And here's an example. There's a prominent city that shows up in the news every day almost in Iraq, M-O-S-U-L. That's one spelling of it. It can be pronounced a number of different ways. But one way is mo-SOOL, the other is MO-sill."


RS: "Very different."


JIM TEDDER: "Very different, to the point where I think an international broadcaster, editors, should say we're going to standardize 10 this. We're not going to say that one is right and one is wrong. But for the sake of our listeners' understanding what it is we have to say, we're going to settle on this and make that our standard and hold people to that. At VOA over the years sometimes that has been enforced to a greater degree than others. Right now it's not being enforced for place names. For persons' names, again, a different item."


AA: We'll hear more from VOA's Jim Tedder next week. So how do you find the VOA Pronunciation Guide? You can go to voanews.com and click on the link at the bottom of the page. You'll also find a link at our site, voanews.com/wordmaster.


RS: One technical note: Jim says he would have preferred to use the International Phonetic 3 Alphabet for the entries. But it's pretty complex for most people who aren't professional announcers. So you'll find a system of phonetic pronunciation that's easier to use.


AA: And here is one more address. It's our e-mail address:..............With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.


 



n.(干草)翻晒者,翻晒机
  • Jim Tedder has more. 吉姆?特德将给我们做更多的介绍。 来自互联网
  • Jim Tedder tells us more. 吉姆?泰德给我们带来更详细的报道。 来自互联网
adj.调谐的,已调谐的v.调音( tune的过去式和过去分词 );调整;(给收音机、电视等)调谐;使协调
  • The resort is tuned in to the tastes of young and old alike. 这个度假胜地适合各种口味,老少皆宜。
  • The instruments should be tuned up before each performance. 每次演出开始前都应将乐器调好音。 来自《简明英汉词典》
adj.语言的,语言上的,表示语音的
  • Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。
  • English phonetic teaching is an important teaching step in elementary stages.语音教学是英语基础阶段重要的教学环节。
按照发音地,语音学上
  • In actual speech, a phoneme is realized phonetically as a certain phone. 在实际会话中,音位总是以某个音素的形式得以体现出来。
  • Though phonetically alike, they are written with different ideographs. 虽然语音相同,它们的书写却不同。
n.经商方法,待人态度
  • This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
  • His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。
n.(V字形)槽口,缺口,等级
  • The peanuts they grow are top-notch.他们种的花生是拔尖的。
  • He cut a notch in the stick with a sharp knife.他用利刃在棒上刻了一个凹痕。
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地
  • The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
  • His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。
adj.地理学的,地理的
  • The city's success owes much to its geographic position. 这座城市的成功很大程度上归功于它的地理位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Environmental problems pay no heed to these geographic lines. 环境问题并不理会这些地理界限。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
adv.本质上,实质上,基本上
  • Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
  • She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。
v.使符合标准,使标准化
  • We will extend and standardize legal services and provide effective legal aid.拓展和规范法律服务,积极开展法律援助。
  • There is a drive both to standardise components and to reduce the number of models on offer.正在为实现零部件标准化和减少推出的型号数量而努力。
学英语单词
acid annealing
aleurone cells of endosperm
anoxic pore water
antenna long-wire
Arleux
augmental off-gas system
authorized data list
brought to the table
buffer plate
buried drain
calonectris leucomelas
canister-shot
capacity resistence time constant
chronosequence
coal cassification
coherent processing system parameter
coloured vase
composite depreciation method
constaff
constant current potentiometry
convenien
coroner's court
crushing force
deposition of radioactive dust
dinicotinoylornithine
EFR
Environmental Study Conference
fan-brake
free-thinning
gamma ray dosimeter
H. & S.
haloform
hanged around
haptically
Hartley, Marsden
headiness
hearthwares
hinchcliff
hogling
immunity resistant
insect bar
interspousal
ipsm
Julian Alps
Kven
lead totanate ceramics
Macewen's operation
mental arithmetic
misspender
muldaur
multienzyme complex
narchinol
national defence economics
national-savings
neighborhood parks
neosurrealists
newton's friction law
North Plains
obad
operation elements
optimal rate of mark up
Oterben
output of systems analysis and design
Pediapred
peer acceptance
pestalotia aucubae hara
potassium carbonate peroxyhydrate
preoptive control
product-mixes
promurit
puristical
pyridoxine hydrochloride
residual-ore deposit
resoundable
revives
room mining
San Salvador
Savona
Sechuana
sederunt
shed the blood of someone
single sweep
soil stratigraphy
soil test
SSI (secondary side inspection)
substrate orientation
sweettalks
take breath away
thyroidism
ticker-tape
toogh
town-hall
trachelomonas pseudobulla
trouble-free
two-byte conversion
vacuum bypass
valley shape factor
vertical slit arc-chute
wagon wheel grain
water-tight regulations
woolner
Yucatan Current