Joshua Steele and the Melody of Speech

Abstract

In 1776 Joshua Steele published a work describing and illustrating his system for transcribing the suprasegmental aspects of speech. Despite certain shortcomings, that method allowed transcriptions of relative duration, pitch, and clause terminals to be recorded as accurately as those sound attributes could be observed. The work was discussed, and its utility investigated at the time, particularly by a group corresponding on linguistic issues with the president of the Royal Society. But by the end of the eighteenth century, Steele's method was largely neglected, primarily because the requisite technological assistance for putting it to use had been unavailable, though partly because academic attention had mainly turned from descriptive to historical linguistics. Nevertheless, the value of Steele's pioneering effort was recognized by Melville Bell and A. J. Ellis. Thus its formulations were absorbed into the main stream of nineteenth century descriptive work, albeit not without creating an exaggerated image of their faults.