The Northern English Type of English Pronunciation

The main distinctions of the Northern type of English pr-n, as opposed to RP, are as follows:

1. /æ/ is more open & more retracted back, as in /a/ (e.g. “back”, “bad”)

2. /a:/ is fronted compared with RP /a:/ & it approximates to /æ/ in words

“Glass”, “laugh”, “after”.

(c) / / is used instead of /  / (e.g. “cup”, “love”, “much”).

(d) /o / is pronounced as a monophthongal /o:/ (e.g. “go”, “home”).

(e) /e/ or / : / are pronounced instead of /ei/ (e.g. “may”, “say”, “Take”).

The Scottish Type of English Pronunciation

The main distinctions of this type of pr-n, as compared to RP, are as follows:

(a) / : / is not used in the Scottish type of pr-n, instead of RP / : / they use the sequences /ir/, /er/ or / r/ (e.g. “bird” -/bird/, “heard”- /herd/, “word”- /w rd/, “beard”, “there”, “pure”, “poor”, “ sure”, etc).

(b) /u / is used instead of /a / (e.g. “down”- /dun /).

(с) The Scottish pr-n does not distinguish between /æ/ & /a:/ words like “bad”, “path”, ”grass”, “dance”, ”half”, “part” are pronounced with /æ/ & /a:/ or /ә/.

(d)All vowels are short. There is no distinction in the length of the vowels in words like “pull”, “pool”, “cot” & “caught”.

(e) /r / is not between or before vowels, as in “hurry ” & “brown”, but also after vowels as in “word”, “born”.

(f) A voiceless fricative / / is used to distinguish between “which” & “witch”, “whine” & “wine”.

(g) A backlingual fricative /x/ is used (e.g. “loch”).

One should distinguish between RP & “educated” regional type of pr-n (such as Southern, Northern & Scottish types of English pr-n), on the one hand, & local dialects, on the other.

One of the best examples of a local dialect is Cockney. It is used by the less educated in the region of London. Cockney has not been fully investigated, but there are certain striking peculiarities:

1. In Cockney the nucleus of the diphthong /ei/ is an almost open vowel, so that it reminds of /ai/ (e.g. “take”, “lake ”).

2. / æ / sounds like / / (e.g. “bag”)

3. /o / is / / (e.g. “potatoes” - / p ә'tai æ z / ).

(d) A nasalised /ai/ is used for /ai/ (e.g. “Buy potatoes & cabbages”- /bai p ә'tait æ z n' k b әd iz/).

4. /p, t, k/ are heavily aspirated.

5. /h/ does not occur; it may appear only in stressed position (“his”, “her’, “happened’).

6. The final /n/ sounds like /n/ (e.g. “something”, “evening”).

7. / / & / / do not occur, /f/, /v/ or /d/ are used instead (e.g. «thin»

/fin/, «father» -/fa:vә/, “this” -/dis/).

/fin/, “father”- /fa:v ә/, “this” -/dis/).

(i) The glottal stop is often heard instead of /p/, /t/, /k/ & between vowels (e.g. “I hope so”- /aiæ ? s /, “back door” - /b ?doә/, “thirty” -/fә:?i).

American English Pronunciation

English is spoken not only in Britain. It is the national language in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, & of a great part of the population in Canada. Each of those nations has its own orthoepic norm which exists alongside of regional types & numerous dialects.

Though the national languages have peculiar features of their own, which differentiate them from British English (BE) & from each other, they have much more in common. That is why they are considered to be variants of the same language, the English language.

American English (AE), which is the variant of the English language, has developed its own peculiarities in vocabulary, grammatical structure and pr-n. The most widely used regional types of AE pr-n are the Eastern, the Southern & the General American Types, the letter is spoken mainly in the Middle Atlantic States Region.

The GA pr-n is usually referred to as the standard pr-n of AE.

The peculiarities of GA lie in:

1) The pr-n of sounds & sound combinations;

2) Differences in the stress patterns of words;

3) Differences in intonation.

1. Peculiarities of pr-n of GA sounds & sound combinations as compared to those of RP:

1. /r/ in GA is retroflexive, i.e. the tip of the tongue is curled back;

2. /t/ is voiced between a vowel & a sonorant (as in “battle”,

“twenty”, or between two vowels the second of which is unstressed (as in “pity”, “better”). But the distinction between /t/ & /d/ is not neutralized, because the voiced /t/ is extremely short & resembles a one tap alveolar /r/. Americans easily distinguish between “writer” & “rider”, “latter” & “ladder”;

3. /l/ is always dark, even before vowels (e.g. “film, “look”);

4. / / is voiced in words like “excursion” - / n/, “version” -/ n/,

“Asia” -/ /, “Persia” -/ /;

5. /h/ is often dropped in weak syllables , but it is retained when the syllable is stressed (e.g. ‘an historical novel” - / әnis 'torikl

'n vl/, “I saw him” - /ai 's :im/, but “history” -/histri/, “him” -/him/);

6. /j / is omitted before /u/ )e.g. “duty’ -/du:ti/, “student” - /’studnt/,

“new” -/nu:/);

7. /d/ is omitted after /l/ & /n/ )e.g. “cold”, “old”, “individual”);

8. /k/ is omitted before /t/ )e.g. ”asked” -/æst /);

9. The glottal stop /?/ is used instead of /t/ before /m, n, l, r, j, w/ (e.g. “certainly” - /sә:?nli /, “that one” - / æ?w n/, etc);

10. GA vowels are not differentiated by their length. D. Jones notes

that all American vowels are long;

11. /æ/ is used instead of /a:/ in words which do not contain “r” in spelling “path”, “glass”, “laugh”, “can’t”, “last”, “grass”, etc. Exceptions: “father”, “palm”, “balm”, “alms”);

1. / æ / in GA is wider & longer than RP / æ /;

13. /o / is much less diphthongal than in RP. It may be represented as /o:/;

14. / ә/ tends to be monophthongized (e.g. “usually” - /ju әli/, “rural”

/rurәl/).

2.Peculiarities in the stress patterns in words in GA as compared to RP. American speakers make much greater use of secondary stress in polysyllabic words than British speakers do. In words which end in “-ary”, “-ory”, “-ery”, “-mony”, “-ative” the first syllable in the suffix bears tertiary stress (i.e. stress which is somewhat weaker than secondary stress). E.g. dictio nary, terri tory, milli nery, cere mony, com muni, cative.

3. Peculiarities of GA intonation.

The most frequent intonation contour for statements & requests in GA is the tune, beginning low, rising to a high level, & then steadily falling.

E.g. He asked me to do it. Or He asked me to do it.

You better do it. or You better do it.

The same type of falling intonation contour may characterize the so-called General questions in GA.

E.g. did he ask you to do it?

“Rising” tunes that rise from a low pitch level & end on a high pitch level occur with some General questions, especially in situations where a very polite form is desirable.

E.g. do you know him?

Though the so – called Special Questions are pronounced with a falling tone in both RP & GA, the difference lies in the pr-n of the Scale. If in RP it is usually the Descending Scale, in GA the whole utterance is generally pronounced on a level tone.

E.g. RP ‘Why haven’t you told me about it?

GA Why haven’t you told me about it?

Why haven’t you told me about it?

Another frequent intonational characteristic in GA is to end a sentence with a high-pitch fall-rise.

E.g. We certainly can.

LECTURE 8