What is the purpose of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)?

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) serves the essential function of providing a standardized system for transcribing speech sounds across different languages. This standardization is crucial in linguistic studies, speech therapy, and language teaching since it allows for accurate representation of how words are pronounced, regardless of the language or dialect. With the IPA, each symbol corresponds to a specific sound (or phoneme), which helps in capturing the nuances of speech that may be lost in traditional orthographic writing systems. This uniformity facilitates clear communication among linguists, educators, and speech professionals, making it easier to study and analyze phonetic characteristics of language.

While the IPA can indeed support the teaching of pronunciation rules and simplify aspects of speech production, its primary purpose lies in its role as a transcription tool that transcends individual languages, ensuring that phonetic information is represented universally. The other options, while related to aspects of language and communication, do not encapsulate the primary purpose of the IPA as effectively as the correct answer does.