This advice-column-style blog for SLPs was authored by Pam Marshalla from 2006 to 2015, the archives of which can be explored here. Use the extensive keywords list found in the right-hand column (on mobile: at the bottom of the page) to browse specific topics, or use the search feature to locate specific words or phrases throughout the entire blog.
Transcribing a Frontal Lisp
By Pam Marshalla
Q: How do you transcribe a frontal lisp?
There are many ways to designate a frontal lisp–
- Some therapists do like to write it as Th/S (using IPA symbols, of course.)
- Some place a right-facing arrow under the phoneme, to indicate that the tongue is protruding forward.
- Some draw a circle between a downward-facing caret and an upward-facing caret, indicating the tongue is between the upper and lower teeth.
- Some simply write D for distorted, but I think that is the lamest of all because it doesn’t tell you anything about how it is distorted.
- The IPA diacritic is a three-sided box indicating the teeth. The open end faces down. Your basic phonetics text should have this last one.