Rules and phonetics: an updated look

Abstract

This article is comprised of two distinct parts. The first one analyzes the conceptual scope of the phonetic rules. It describes the codifying centres, the normative referents, and the codification criteria that have been used to construct the phonetic rules of Catalan. It also describes the initiatives that have been carried out to complement and adapt the phonetic rules to the concrete needs of the language users, and it analyzes different sociophonetic studies with the aim of describing general trends in the phonetic, social, and dialectal use of Catalan, which have to be at the basis of any normative proposal. The second part of the article presents the results of a pilot study on the impact of the phonetic rules on 54 Catalan speakers from Lleida, Barcelona and Girona, who have undergone a production test and a test on subjective evaluation of different phonetic phenomena. The results obtained have allowed for the observation of four differentiated behaviours: 1) awareness and/or assimilation of the normative proposals, 2) lack of awareness of what the rules say or implicit rejection of the rules, 3) questions concerning the rules, and 4) self-assessments of the rules. The pilot study corroborates the idea that the Catalan language rules have to aim at integrating phonetic and dialectal variation in the language into them.

Keywords: phonetic rules, Catalan phonetics, orthoepy, orthology, codification, phonetic variation.