Good Scholarship

ɪf ju ˈstiːl frəm ˈwʌn ˈɔːθə | ɪts ˈpleɪʤərɪzm̩ || ɪf ju ˈstiːl frəm ˈmeni | ɪts rɪˈsɜːʧ

Key at bottom of page.

Commentary

if: Although if is monosyllabic function/grammatical word and is usually unstressed, it doesn’t have a weak form.

you: The symbol u represents the same vowel phoneme as the symbol uː. We use u in unstressed syllables and uː in stressed syllables. This distinction isn't very helpful for TEFL purposes and learners should simply treat the two symbols as the same. Because we are using two different symbols for one phoneme, this means our transcription isn't truly phonemic (phonemic transcription = one symbol for each phoneme).

from: When unstressed, as it usually is, from has the weak form /frəm/.

one: Numbers are usually stressed and don’t have weak forms.

it’s: When unstressed, as it usually is, the word is can have three different pronunciations, depending on the final sound of the immediately preceding word:

•          When the final sound of the preceding word is /s z ʃ ʒ ʧ ʤ/, then is has the form /ɪz/, e.g. Chris is well /ˈkrɪs ɪz ˈwel/.
•          When the final sound of the preceding word is a voiceless consonants (excluding the consonants listed above), then is has the form /s/ and forms a contraction with the preceding word, e.g. Jack is well /ˈʤæks ˈwel/.
•          If the final sound of the preceding word is voiced (i.e. a vowel or a voiced consonant (excluding the consonants listed above)), then is has the form /z/ and forms a contraction with the preceding word, e.g. John is well /ˈʤɒnz ˈwel/.

plagiarism: In the British tradition of phonetics, stresses which occur after the primary/main stress in a word are not usually indicated in transcription (except in compounds, e.g. post office /ˈpəʊst ˌɒfɪs/). For practical TEFL purposes, it isn’t usually important whether they are marked or not. In the case of the word plagiarism, however, a transcription without a such a stress mark is a little misleading. The transcription /ˈpleɪʤərɪzm̩/ suggests that the word contains a sequence of schwa /ə/ plus /r/ plus an unstressed vowel and that therefore the schwa /ə/ can be elided (as it often is in memory /ˈmemri/, factory /ˈfæktri/, corporate /ˈkɔːprət/, etc.), when in fact the following syllable is stressed, i.e. /ˈpleɪʤəˌrɪzm̩/ and the schwa /ə/ can’t be elided.

many: The symbol i represents the same vowel phoneme as the symbol iː. We use i in unstressed syllables and iː in stressed syllables. This distinction isn't very helpful for TEFL purposes and learners should simply treat the two symbols as the same. Because we are using two different symbols for one phoneme, this means our transcription isn't truly phonemic (phonemic transcription = one symbol for each phoneme).

research: The traditional pronunciation of this word is /rɪˈsɜːʧ/ and the new variant is /ˈriːsɜːʧ/. At the moment to two variants appear to be roughly equally common, meaning that the learner can use either. Some people perhaps use /ˈriːsɜːʧ/ for the noun and /rɪˈsɜːʧ/ for the verb, but there is no general rule and learners needn’t follow this pattern.

If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism. If you steal from many, it’s research.