English Vowel Detail "-a-" [ʌ]

I.                   Phonetic Description

[ʌ] The name of this symbol is “open-mid back unrounded vowel”, “Central-Mid Unrounded Short Vowel” or “low-mid back unrounded vowel”, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is [ʌ], graphically a rotated lowercase vee (called a turned V, though it was created as a small-capital [ᴀ] without the crossbar), and both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as either a wedge, a caret, or a hat. In transcriptions for some languages (including several dialects of English), this symbol is also used for the near-open central vowel.

II.                   Production

a.              The center of the tongue is raised just above the fully open position.

b.             No contact being made between the tongue and the upper molars.

c.              The lips are neutrally open.

d.             The opening between the jaws is neutrally wide open.

e.              The soft palate is raised.

f.              The vocal cords are vibrating.

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III.                   Distribution (Position)..

Position	Words	Meaning
Initial	Oven	An enclosed space shaped like a box and usually as a part of cooker.
	Onion	A round while vegetable with many layers inside each other.
	Ultimate	Being or happening at the end of the process.
Medial	Done	used to indicate that the speaker accepts the terms of an offer.
	Honey	a sweet, sticky, yellowish-brown fluid made by bees and other insects from nectar collected from flowers.
	Mother	a woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth.
Final	-	-

IV.                   Spelling

u	Under Uncle Us Culture Public
o	Of Oven Shove Comfortable Wonderful
ou	Country Southern Enough
oo	Flood Blood
oe	Does

V.                   Problem for Indonesian Students

There is no serious problem for Indonesian students to pronounce English [V], because Indonesian [a] is identical to that of English.