ORTHOEPY AND ORTHOPHONY: THE TERMS AND THE NOTIONS

The article is concerned with two related linguistic terms, orthoepy and orthophony, as well as the concepts they describe and their refl ection in lexicographic practice. The division of the phenomena of pronunciation norms into orthoepic (connected with the inventory of phonemes) and orthophonic (the sphere of realizations), based on L. V. Shcherba’s two types of “pronunciation errors” (phonetic and phonological), was introduced into Russian linguistic theory and teaching practice by Mirra Veniaminovna Gordina (French Phonetics 1973; 1997). Developed, later on, by Ludmila Alekseyevna Verbitskaya, it formed the basis for the description of the Russian pronunciation norms (Russian Orthoepy 1976; Let’s Speak Correctly! 1993 and subsequent editions). The article substantiates the rationale for both terms, refl ecting the two levels, viz. the level of phonemes (units of language) and the level of their realization in speech. Both are subject to codifi cation of literary standards. At the phoneme level, it is done in dictionaries (orthoepic and possibly encyclopedias and bilingual) by means of broad or narrow transcription; the realization level is usually described in textbooks of phonetics of a given language, including manuals for foreign learners. It should be observed that the notions in question have diff erent addressees: for speakers of a “literary language,” orthoepy in the narrow sense (the choice of phonemes and place of accent, rather than realizations) is important, while for foreign learners and speakers of dialect or substandard, orthoepy in the broad sense, including orthophony is necessary.