Broad vs Narrow Transcription of R

I had a question from someone about why they see different symbols for the R sound even though people are talking about the same one...

The symbol \r\ may be a broad description of the R sound overall, or it might more specifically represent the trilled R. Jim Johnson gives you an introduction to this concept of Broad vs Narrow or Phonemic vs Phonetic transcription with regards to the R sound, getting into a couple of additional R symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Here's a transcript of the video:

I want to talk about a couple of different symbols for the R sound in the phonetic alphabet.

So this is actually a question that someone had for me, making an inquiry, And in the Accent Help materials, the symbol that we will tend to use for the R sound primarily is this upside-down R. So it's this turned R.

Well oftentimes you'll see, in many other materials, you'll see this more regular looking R. Well technically when you deal with it on the phonetic chart, this is a trilled R. So this would be RRR, as opposed to "red." "Red." So they are very different Rs.

That said, when you're dealing with Broad Transcription, which is where you're simplifying the symbols that you're using, and you're maybe talking about them more phonemicly, just the basic sense of what sounds are, it's very common just to use this one to express all R sounds.

I really wish that they would have reversed this, because this one is so commonly used in so many different accents and languages, but they use this one for the trill, and this one for that sort of regular R, the one that so many different people will use when it is expressed like this. Sometimes they actually may mean this one, but that leads to a lot of confusion so we have pretty consistently utilized this one.

But I will say I do regret one decision is that we tended to use it in all positions, whereas I think that when you're dealing with the R sound after a vowel you're actually more accurately representing it with this schwa with the rhoticity diacritic on it, which would be "rear" - the way that that R after the vowel tends to be a little bit lighter. So sometimes when this is used it would mean the trilled R, but sometimes it really just means the R sound overall ,representing these, and a number of other symbols.

So that's a quick explanation from a question that I had about the difference between these two R's. There might not be any difference, but there might very well be. It's all contextual.

Keep in mind that the IPA is a tool that people use, and different people are going to use a tool differently. Hopefully they're not pounding in nails with a wrench, but sometimes they are...

For more info check out AccentHelp.com.