Hey, folks!
Long time no see.. literally and virtually, right? So this post, as the title suggests, will be all about Phonetics. For the past month, I have been trying to tune in my ears to discover trends in American pronunciation, and to my surprise, there is much more to talk about than I expected! I came to the US with the idea of doing research in thie field and eventually compile an activity book to teach American pronunciation back home. Having knowledge of RP/GB as background, would help me make a contrastive analysis of distinctive features, like the different types of "o" sounds, or the flapped /t/ and /d/, the dark /l/ in all positions and so on. But I have discovered that it's much more overwhelmingly different than I originally thought! Today I’m going to discuss some vowel variations I found interesting, but I also have some more things to say about suprasegmental and other segmental features. Disclaimer! So... I've been here for a month and a over a week now, and these are the features I've been able to isolate so far. I haven't done much research yet, just read a little bit about some of these features, and I haven't carried out any type of test, just asked some friends how the say certain words and if they rhyme with some other words to see what their perception of these sounds was. What I mean to say is that this is by no means a reliable source, just a starting point for future research. 1) Vowels My previous (and limited) knowledge of General American made no substantial distinction between the GB FLEECE, KIT, DRESS and STRUT vowels and the American ones, whereas the rest of the vowels were, according to my perception, the ones that were clearly different. For example, it is common knowledge that the TRAP vowel is more advanced, although I didn’t know before that before /m, n/ the tongue position for this vowel is raised and sometimes even followed by a glide. This, I have learnt recently, is called /æ/ tensing. I also knew that there was no distinction between the LOT vowel and the BATH vowel in words such as “dog” and “father”, and I also knew that some words that in GB take the THOUGHT vowel are sometimes produced with this same vowel [ɑ], but it was never clear for me when this took place. For those speakers who make no distinction between these sounds, the variant they use is this back vowel which may sometimes be produced with rounded lips. I have come to realise that it is possible a speaker to speaker variation or a regional characteristic. My original plan was to try and see which spellings corresponded with which type of “o” sound, but it appears to be much more complex than that. Those speakers that have a different vowel for words such as “pot” and “thought”, produce the first one as a centralized, rather advanced, back vowel [ä], and the second one higher up in the mouth with a more rounded lip position. A vowel that was way more different than I expected was the STRUT vowel. My previous perception, without actually giving it much thought, was that that it was more advanced than the GB one. However, when one of my professors kept of repeating the world “culture” I couldn’t help but write it down in my notebook with a question mark. Probably because of the influence of the dark /l/, this vowel is way more retracted than I previously thought. I kept on repeating the GB version in my head to compare it with this one and given that both are affected by the velarized resonance of the dark /l/, I came to the conclusion that these are two different sounds. I asked a friend to say the word for me several times, and to tell me if he thought this word rhymed with “pull” and he said it did. That got me thinking about both vowels actually, the STRUT and the FOOT vowel, especially when followed by a dark /l). To my perception, the latter sounds opener than the one in GB, and the former is rather retracted and maybe even somewhat closer than its GB partner, and both sounds strike me as similar to the RP LOT vowel, only somewhat closer and with less (or no) lip rounding. As far as diphthongs are concerned, I knew that American English –being a rhotic accent- would have less sounds than GB, so I knew I wouldn’t hear many (if at all…) centering diphthongs. I also knew that the starting point for the PRICE and FACE diphthongs would be more advanced. But there were some diphthongs that got me thinking and although I’m not sure about their occurrence and whether it is a speaker to speaker or a regional variation or whether it only affects some words or all, I felt it was worth writing about them! The first one is the diphthong in the word “yeah”, which I expected it to be some sort of a central glide, though I knew that it is basically non-existent in contemporary GB. I’ve heard different versions of this word, both of them with a monophthong. The first one was similar to the /ɛː/ sound found in GB, only shorter and more open. The second version was a vowel similar to the bath vowel, but also shorter and closer. Or at least this is what my ears have perceived… I’ll look into it soon! The other expression that I wrote down as “interesting” is the word “so”. Phonemically, this word is transcribed with the closing diphthong /oʊ / in American English. However, I have heard many speakers produced a monophthong that just omits the close vowel at the end. I have found this change when speakers are hesitant, fishing for words or making connections in their minds as they speak. I haven’t heard this diphthong change in any other contexts so far. I had actually planned to write more and cover some consonants and intonation patterns, but this post ended up being way longer than I expected, so I’ll keep my thoughts for the next one! Looking forward to reading your comments (hopefully I’ll learn some more from you!!)
0 Comments
|
AuthorI'm Lucia Fraiese, an EFL teacher from Buenos Aires, Argentina, teaching English to international students in Perth, Western Australia. I have specialised in Phonetics and Phonology, and have taught General English, English Literature, English Phonetics, and Spanish as a Foreign Language. I'm also a Fulbright Alumnus. Take a look at the 'about' section for more information! Archives
March 2020
Categories |