Glides of Closing Diphthongs and Their Phonemic Symbols

Abstract

There is no consensus on the phonemic symbols for closing diphthongs, the FLEECE and the GOOSE vowels. There is some disagreement about whether a vowel symbol or a consonant symbol should be used for the second element of a diphthong to indicate its glide (the direction of the off-glide). There is also disagreement about whether the vowel phonemes of FLEECE and GOOSE should be considered monophthongs or light closing diphthongs. This paper reviews the development of the previous representative studies and considers the significance of these studies on the basis of phonetic and phonological theories. The most recent, Lindsey (2019), is a theoretically groundbreaking interpretation and can be considered the most convincing both phonetically and phonologically. However, for applications in English language teaching, it is preferable to continue to use the phonemic symbols of the widely used English pronunciation dictionaries of Jones et al. (2011) and Wells (2008).