Is it okay always to pronunce unstressed vowels as schwa?

Question

Recently I am reading Mastering the American Accent by Lisa Mojsin. Here are some quotes from this book:

The vowel within the unstressed syllable is reduced and becomes a neutral, short vowel called the “schwa” and is pronounced as /ə/.

According to it, it seems that all unstressed vowels can be pronounced as schwa.

There are many examples in this book. For instance, the letter e in enjoy is unstressed, so it is /ə/. But in fact, enjoy in many dictionaries is pronounced as /ɪnˈdʒɔɪ/.

Please help me to figure out the correctness of the line above. Is it okay always to pronunce unstressed vowels as schwa?

No. I breather when I sleep, but this does not mean that I sleep when I breathe. The schwa is an unstressed vowel, but not all unstressed vowels are schwas. Consider the word volcano. That has two unstressed vowels, neither of which are schwas. Here's another example. Blue bottomed baboons are mammals, but not all mammals are blue bottomed baboons. For example, humans aren't blue-bottomed baboons, and neither are cats. — Araucaria - Not here any more., Jul 01 '23 at 10:29
@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. So, the statements from that book are wrong? — chenzhongpu, Jul 01 '23 at 10:36
At least, the letter e cannot be pronounced as /ə/ in enjoy. — chenzhongpu, Jul 01 '23 at 10:38
The book looks wrong to me. I think the unstressed initial vowel in *enjoy, entail, enlighten,...* is normally enunciated as /ᵻ/, which is definitely *not* a schwa. Well, it's not just me who thinks that - it's the first phonetic transcription given for all those words in the full Oxford English Dictionary. — FumbleFingers, Jul 01 '23 at 11:07
Does this answer your question? What is the difference between /ɪ/ and /ə/? — FumbleFingers, Jul 01 '23 at 11:22
...also What's the difference between /ɜ/ and /ə/? and What is the difference between /ʌ/ and /ə/? and Why does the schwa sounds like an 'e' in some words?, among others. — FumbleFingers, Jul 01 '23 at 11:28
There is free variation between the KIT vowel and schwa in British English, and also apparently from the comments in Gen Am. — Araucaria - Not here any more., Jul 01 '23 at 13:11
"According to it, it seems that all unstressed vowels can be pronounced as schwa." Can you cite the part of the book that says that? Your quotation begins "the vowel . . .", so without context I can't tell whether it means a specific vowel or all vowels. — MarcInManhattan, Jul 02 '23 at 13:24

gotube · Answer 1 · 2023-07-01T18:01:59.500

No, it is not correct that all unstressed vowels are pronounce as schwa. Most are --maybe around 90%-- but certainly not all.

Take the word "envy" from your examples. It's pronounced /'ɛnvi/. Note the unstressed /i/ at the end. It cannot be pronounced */'ɛnvə/.

Diphthongs are usually not reduced when unstressed. The word "borrow", for instance, is pronounce /'bɔroʊ/. Note the unstressed /oʊ/ at the end. There may be varieties of English where that word is pronounced /'bɔrə/, but they're far from standard.

The preposition "on" is also pronounced /ɑn/ rather than /ən/. The latter pronunciation would usually be understood as "in" or even "and" rather than "on".

Is it okay always to pronunce unstressed vowels as schwa?

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