What is the difference between broad and narrow transcription?

Broad transcription and narrow transcription serve different purposes in phonetics, particularly in the representation of speech sounds.

Broad transcription focuses on capturing the essential phonemic elements of spoken language, providing a simplified representation that includes only the basic sounds of a language (phonemes) without going into the intricate details of how those sounds may vary in different contexts. It emphasizes the abstract categories of sounds rather than the specific, contextual nuances.

Narrow transcription, on the other hand, goes into greater detail, capturing the allophonic variations—these are the slight differences in pronunciation that can occur depending on the phonetic environment. It includes diacritics and other markers to indicate these subtle variations, making it a more precise representation of speech as it occurs in real-time communication.

The correct answer highlights that broad transcription represents phonemes while narrow transcription captures detailed variations. This distinction is essential for understanding the different levels of analysis that phonetic transcription can achieve, allowing linguists and researchers to convey not just what sounds are produced, but also how they are articulated in various contexts.