Guidelines for the Behavior of Graduate Students of Phonetics
Prepared by Felicity Conditions
for distribution by the International Phonetic Association
The IPA symbol for a bilabial click is not called “the cervix,” even if it really looks like one.
Students must not giggle every time someone says “labial.”
Students are not allowed to start a letter-writing campaign demanding enfranchisement for voiceless phonemes.
Students must remember that the IPA only covers the sounds the human mouth can make.
Students are not allowed to ask the “cute” TA to produce difficult phonemes for them... slowly... over and over again.
“Only prats use Praat” was never funny, and still isn’t. Especially if the faculty use Praat.
There is absolutely no mystical significance to the fact that the IPA symbol for a voiced palatal implosive slightly resembles the helix symbol from the TV show Heroes.
Students are not allowed to erase everything on the vowel chart besides /a, e, i, o, and u/ and insist that the TA “teach the controversy.”
Students are not allowed to turn in papers written entirely in IPA.
Students may not be excused from discussions of tonal languages because they are tone-deaf.
There is no diacritic for “drunken voice.”
Students are not allowed to color in the “blank” areas on the vowel spectrograms.
Students are not allowed to convince wide-eyed, trusting first-years that the nasal ingressive voiceless velar trill will be officially added to the IPA chart next year.
Pivotal Moments in the History of Linguistics—John Miaou and Kean Kaufmann
