First, a little history. This was in response to market forces, since specialist teachers of pronunciation for EFL had been using IPA for many years. Since then, many others have followed suit. The transcription of English consonants in IPA is not subject to any disagreement. The remainder are as shown in the box.
Primary stress is shown by the mark ', placed before the syllable concerned.
Secondary stress, if shown at all, is indicated by a similar mark below the line. It achieved this parsimony by transcribing the English vowels quantitatively . Many phoneticians were dissatisfied with this scheme, feeling that the difference in vowel quality was at least as important as that of quantity. They preferred to use a scheme in which each vowel was shown by a separate letter-shape, without the use of length marks. This qualitative scheme was particularly popular among speech therapists and students of speech and drama.