МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ РФ
ФГБОУ ВПО «Ишимский государственный педагогический институт им. П.П.
Ершова»
Историко-филологический факультет
Кафедра иностранных языков
Реферат
на тему:
General American
Pronunciation
Работу
выполнил:
студентка
3 курса, 701 группы,
историко-филологического
факультета,
отделения
иностранных языков
Иванова
Ксения Анатольевна
Работу
проверил:
старший
преподаватель
кафедры
иностранных языков
Некоз
Владимир Васильевич
Ишим
2013г
Content:
1. Introduction………………………………………………………………….......3
2. General
American Pronunciation………………………………………………4
3. The
main types of American pronunciation…………………………………...7
4. The
main differences between Received Pronunciation and General American pronunciation………………………………………………………...9
5. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………13
6. Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….14
Introduction
“England, America, and
Australia will be speaking mutually unintelligible languages owing to their
independent changes of pronunciation.”
Henry Sweet
More than 300
million people in the world today speak English as their mother tongue, and
many differences between varieties of English do exist. But the differences in
terms of vocabulary, grammar, or spelling are remarkably small compared with
differences of accent. Accent is the term which linguists use when they
refer to the pronunciation features typical of people who belong to the same geographical
region or social class; speakers’ accents may also reflect their age, sex, level
of education, etc. It is difficult to say exactly how many accents of English
there are. Even within the United Kingdom, there are accents as varied as
Scottish English, Irish English, Welsh English, Cockney, a newly-emerged accent
called Estuary English, and many others. But as far as the teaching of English
pronunciation to foreign learners is concerned, the choice of a model accent
has traditionally been limited to what can be considered the two “standard”
accents in Great Britain and the USA.
General American
Pronunciation
In the United
States, this is an accent called General American, or GA. In
fact, the label “General American” covers a range of accents which don’t
exhibit any Eastern or Southern local colouring. General American is the
pronunciation used by the majority of the population of the United States and
by most US radio and TV announcers. It is also the model accent used in
teaching English in such parts of the world as Central and South America, the
Philippines, etc.
In Britain, the accent traditionally
considered to be the standard pronunciation model is known under the somewhat
strange name Received Pronunciation, or RP (where “Received” is
interpreted as meaning “generally accepted”). It is regarded as the appropriate
pronunciation model to be used in teaching English as a foreign language in
those parts of the world where British rather than American English is
traditionally taught. Although it is sometimes associated with the way educated
people in the south-east of England speak, RP is generally considered to be
regionally “neutral”: it is not an accent typical of any particular
geographical region in Britain, and can be heard anywhere in the country. Languages,
spoken by more than one nation, have several national variants of standard
pronunciation. One of such languages is English. As a result of the colonial
expansion of British Empire, the English language spread from the British Isles
to all the continents of the earth, and as the colonies and dominions gained
their independence and attained nationhood English became the national language
of several countries, such as the United States of America, Australia, New
Zealand and the greater part of Canada. It is native to many who live in India,
Israel, Malta, Ceylon, the Republic of South Africa.
All the English-speaking nations have
their own standard variants of English pronunciation, which possess many
features in common, because they are of common origin. At the same time, they
acquire varying number of differences due to the new conditions of their
development after separation from the British English and to the degree of
their connection with the British English after that separation.
Thus, there are the following
national variants of Standard English pronunciation:
1) Australian pronunciation standard;
2) New Zealand pronunciation
standard;
3) American pronunciation standard;
4) Canadian pronunciation standard.
New Zealand and Australian types of
pronunciation are British-based standards. Canadian pronunciation standard
exhibits features common with American English and British English. Like
American speakers, most Canadians use the retroflex [r] and dark [l] in all positions
and pronounce [æ] in place of [α:]. Some scholars consider Canadian pronunciation
American based standard .
The
major difference in American and English pronunciation is in intonation and
voice timbre. Americans speak with less variety of tone than the English.
American voice timbre seems harsh or tinny to the English, their's gurgling or
throaty to Americans. English conclusion: Americans speak shrilly,
monotonously, and like a schoolboy reciting. American conclusion: the English
speak too low, theatrically, and swallow their syllables.
The
more precise differences include:
Americans
pronounce the a in such words as ask, brass, can't, dance, fast,
grass, half, last, and path as a short, fiat [a]; the
English pronounce it more as the broad [a:] in father.
American shorter, flatter [a] is just a continuation of the way
first colonists from Southern England pronounced it; the English dropped this
pronunciation in the 18th century and began to use the broad [a:] (this
same change took place in parts of New England and the South, giving some
Americans the pronunciation of aunt as "ahnt" and vase as
"vahz").
On the
other hand, most Americans sound the short [ o ] in such words
as box, hot, lot, not, pot, and top almost as the broad [a:]
in father, while the English (and some New Englanders) give it a more
open sound, with the lips rounded.
And
some are just unique pronunciations of individual words. Such miscellaneous
differences in pronunciations include:
ate, Americans say "eight"—"et" is an accepted
English pronunciation.
been, Americans say "bin"—the English say "bean."
clerks-
"dark."
either,
neither, most Americans say, "e-ther,
ne-ther"—"I-ther, nither" is the English pronunciation.
issue,
Americans say "ish-you"—the English say "is-sue."
leisure,
most Americans say "le-sure"—the English say
"laysure."
lieutenant,
Americans say "lew-tenant"—the English say
"lef-tenant."
nephew,
Americans say "nef-hew"—the English say
"nev-hew."
schedule,
Americans
say "sked-ule"—the English say "shed-ule."
The main types of American pronunciation.
In the United States there may be
distinguished three main regional variants of standard pronunciation:
1)the Eastern type of standard
pronunciation;
2)the Southern type of standard
pronunciation;
3)the Western (Midwestern, Northern,
Central Western) type of standard pronunciation.
The Eastern type is spoken along the
East coast of New England and in New York City; it bears a close resemblance to
the Southern English pronunciation which is explained by close contacts of the
New England States with Britain during the colonization of America. But there
are, of course some slight differences.
The Southern type is spoken in the
South and South-East of the USA. Its most striking distinctive feature is the
so called Southern drawl, which is a specific way of pronouncing vowels,
consisting in the diphthongization of some simple vowels and monophthongization
of some diphthongs at the expense of prolonging (“drawling”) their nuclei and
dropping the glides (ex. that [ðæiet] ,cute [kjuət], fine [fα:n]). Southern
American pronunciation has some features in common with RP, such as the
dropping of [r] after [з:], and [ə] the use of
clear [l] before a vowel and others. Some linguists consider Southern American
pronunciation non-standard, as it is peculiar only to that part of the country
and has not spread north.
The Western American is spoken in the
central Atlantic States: New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin and others. It is not
only the most widespread type, but also, like RP in Great Britain, the least
regional in character, which is why this type of pronunciation is called
General American (GA). It is close to modern Northern British Pronunciation.
These three dialects posses certain features
in common that are characteristic of American pronunciation in the whole. But
GA pronunciation is the national pronunciation standard of the USA, as it is
the form of speech used by radio and television, in scientific, cultural and
business intercourse. Besides in two important business centers – New York and
St. Louis – GA is the prevailing form of speech and pronunciation, though New
York is situated within the territory where Eastern American is used, and St.
Louis is within the region of Southern American.
The main differences between Received Pronunciation
and General American pronunciation.
The most significant differences
between GA and RP are:
a) within the consonant system;
b) within vowel system;
c) within the accentual system;
d) within the intonation system.
a) Consonants.
The phoneme [l] exists in GA only in
the form of its dark variant [l], which is slightly darker than the RP dark [l]
and occurs both before vowels and [j] in which positions clear variants are
used in RP and after a vowel or between a vowel and a consonant (as in RP):
Ex. RP GA
look [luk] [luk]
In GA the intervocalic [t] as in
“pity” and [t] between a strongly stressed vowel and a sonorant as in ‘partly’
is most normally voiced. The result is neutralization of the opposition between
[t] and [d] in this position (ex. latter – ladder). The original distinction is
preserved through vowel length with the vowel before [t] being shorter.
GA speakers may drop [l] in words
like “twenty”, “little”. Thus “winner” and “winter” may sound identical.
In the pronunciation of GA [r] the
top of the tongue is curled back further than in RP so that a wider air passage
is formed. This process is called retroflexion. However, when preceded by [t,
d, θ, ∫] the phoneme [r] is articulated in both GA and RP almost identically.
In pre-vocalic position [r] in GA is accompanied by lip-rounding. The phoneme
[r] of GA differs from its RP counterpart not only in articulation, but also in
distribution, since it is pronounced between a vowel and before a consonant or
after a vowel in the word final position (ex. turn [tз:rn],
bird [bз:rd], star [stα:r]).
The sonorant [j] is usually weakened
or omitted by GA speakers between a consonant (especially a forelingual one)
and [u:] (ex. news [nu:z], student ['stu:dənt], suit [su:t], tube [tu:b],
stupid ['stu:pid] etc.).
The use of the cluster [hw] in words
spelt with the initial diagraph “wh” makes in GA sound differently such words
as “which” and “witch”, “whether” and “weather”, “where” and “ware”, which are
considered homophones in RP.
b) Vowels.
In GA there is no strict division of
vowels into long and short. According to D. Jones, all American vowels are
long.
The distinction between monophthongs
and diphthongs in GA is not very concrete. Some diphthongs have monophthongs as
their phonemic variants, some monophthongs have diphthongs as their phonemic
variants. Russian phoneticians distinguish five diphthongs in GA [ei, ai, oi,
au, əu].
Glottal stop is made by GA speakers
before initially stressed vowels (ex. in India).
The nasalization of GA vowels when
they are preceded or followed by a nasal sonorant is called an American twang.
It results from the lowering of the soft palate while the vowel is pronounced
(ex. man, manner, candy, fine, small, name, etc.).
GA speakers use the [æ] phoneme in
many words which have the vowel [α:] in RP (Ex. ask [æsk], past [pæst], dance
[dæns], path [pæθ] etc.).
In all words which have the [o] in RP
the [Λ] phoneme is pronounced in GA (ex. hot [hΛt], rock [rΛk], bother [bΛðə],
dog [dΛg] etc.).
In unstressed position the vowel [ə]
is pronounced in GA and corresponds to [əu] and [i] in RP.
Ex. RP GA
fellow ['feləu] ['felə]
tomorrow [tə'morəu] [tə'mΛrə]
Non systematic difference between GA
and RP involve pronunciation of individual words or groups of words.
Ex. RP GA
either ['aiðə] ['i:ðə]
tomato [tə'mα:təu] [tə'meitə]
c) Accent.
In words of French origin GA tends to
have stress on the final syllable, where RP has it on the initial one.
Ex. RP GA
ballet ['bælei] [bæ'lei]
Some words have first syllable stress
in GA whereas in RP the stress may be elsewhere.
Ex. RP GA
address [əd'res] ['ædrəs]
adult [æ'dΛlt] ['ædΛlt]
Some compound words have stress on
the first element in GA and in RP they retain it on the second element.
Ex. RP GA
week'end 'weekend
ice-'cream 'ice-cream
Polysyllabic words, ending in -ory,
-ary, -mony, have tertiary stress in GA (ex. laboratory, dictionary, secretary,
testimony).
d) Intonation.
GA intonation differs from RP
intonation mainly in unemphatic, or emotionally neutral speech. The English
speech for Americans sounds “affected” and “pretentious” or “sophisticated”.
And for the English Americans sound “dull”, “monotonous”, “indifferent”. The
monotony of GA intonation is explained by the following factors:
1) pitch characteristics (since
pre-nuclear contour in RP is gradually descending in GA it is mid-level);
2) narrow range of the utterance (in
GA the voice doesn’t fall to the bottom);
3) stow tempo;
4) complicated rhythmical structure
of intonation (the unstressed syllables in RP gradually descend, the unstressed
syllables in GA fall to a lower pitch, besides RP unstressed vowels are
characterized by qualitative reduction, while GA sounds in unstressed syllables
are lengthened).
GA general questions take a falling
tone, in RP they are pronounced with the rising tone. The rising tone in GA
general question is used to show politeness. Requests and leave-takings in RP
are usually pronounced with a Rise, whereas in GA they may take a Fall-Rise.
Conclusion:
General American, like British Received Pronunciation and
most standard language varieties of many other societies, has never been the
accent of the entire nation. However, it has become widely spoken in many
American films, TV series, national news, commercial ads, and American radio
broadcasts.
General American is also the accent
typically taught to people learning English as a second language in
the United States, as well as outside the country to anyone who wishes to learn
"American English". In much of Asia and some other places English as second
language teachers are strongly encouraged to teach American English no matter
their own origins or accents.
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