Topic 5 (session A) - Sound > Alliteration and Assonance Revisited > Task B

Alliteration and Assonance Revisited

In a moment we will have a look at alliteration and assonance in one of the stanzas from Wilfred Owen's 'Anthem for Doomed Youth', which we have looked at before when we were learning about language levels. But first of all, let's have a bit more sounds practice.

Task B - A bit of practice with phonemic script

Below is one of the stanzas from 'Anthem for Doomed Youth', written using phonemic symbols. 'Translate' it into ordinary written English and then compare your version with the written original.

Note, by the way, that we have removed the punctuation and capitalisation (which you will have to guess), because these do not occur in speech. There is no lineation or spaces between the words, as they don't exist in speech either. So when you 'translate' the stanza you will need to add in the lineation and word spaces too! We have helped you a bit, though, in that the exercise you did on the Sound and Meaning page involved many of the words in this stanza.

/wɒtpɑ:sɪŋbelzfəði:zhu:daɪəzkætləʊnlɪðəmɒnstrəsæŋgərəvðəgʌnz
əʊnlɪðəstʌtrɪŋraɪflzræpɪdrætlkənpætəraʊtðeəheɪstɪɒrɪznz/

Once you're happy with your 'translation', check its accuracy.

check translation

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