General american / network english as the american english pronunciation standard

1. Contemporary sociolinguistic situation in the USA.

2. General American phonological and phonetic description.

1. Contemporary sociolinguistic situation in the usa

The development of American English on the American continent has a comparatively short history. Its starting point was the English language of the 17^th century when first English settlers came to America. However, in the course of time American English has drifted considerably from British English. The treatment of American English is as the national variant of English in the USA.

As regards pronunciation, American English is not homogeneous. Traditionally three main groups of regional American English educated accents are distinguished:

1. the Eastern type (New York city and its environments, and New England east of the Connecticut river);

2. the Southern type (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and parts of Maryland, West Virginia and Oklahoma);

3. the Western type or General American (the rest of the USA).

General American (GenAm) is treated as the pronunciation standard of AE, and represents the literary norm, while Southern American and Eastern American represent regional types of AE literary pronunciation.

2. General American phonological and phonetic description

   0. Segmental differences at the phonological level

1. Systemic (differences in phonemic inventory)

With the exception of a possible // (/hw/) there are no deviations in GenAm from RP consonantal systems (e.g. which [hwt]).

There are two areas of systemic difference between GenAm and RP within the vocalic systems:

1. in the area of low back vowels. GenAm has no low back RP vowel //, and those words which have // in RP are pronounced with unrounded /: ()/ in GenAm, e.g. cod, spot, pocket. Also in words such as law, taught, walk, awe where British speakers pronounce /:/, GenAm speakers have //.

2. GenAm does not have centering diphthongs //, //, //. Sound sequences /r/, /er/, /r/ are pronounced instead.

2. Structural specification

GenAm is a rhotic accent where /r/ can occur , unlike RP, before consonants and before pauses.

c) SELECTIONAL differences

1) Words which in RP have /:/, in GenAm have //, such words have /n/, /s/, /f/, // after a vowel, e.g. ask, answer, can’t, dance, pass, grass, cast.

2) some words and names spelled er are pronounced /:/ in RP, but /r/ in GenAm, e.g. clerk, derby, Kerr.

3) words ending in -ile tend to be pronounced /al/ in RP but /l/ or /l/ in GenAm, e.g. hostile, missile, fertile, fragile, futile.

0. Segmental differences at the phonetic level (realizational differences)

The most salient differences of realization among the GenAm consonants lie in the allophones of /r/, /t/, /l/, /j/, //, nasal consonants.

1) the retroflex pronunciation of /r/ is one of the most characteristic features of GenAm.. Its main features are: a) having the tongue in the central position, as for //, b) the tongue tip is curled high toward the back of the mouth, but not touching anywhere, c) having the back of the tongue low and the sides of the tongue slide along the back part of the tooth ridge as along two rails, d) the movement of the tongue always begins by a motion toward the back of the mouth.

2) the pronunciation of /t/ is highly variable in GenAm. (A) GenAm speakers tend to pronounce a voiced alveolar tap/flap intervocalically before a weakly stressed vowel. In the dictionaries it is shown by the symbol []. It sounds like a quick English /d/, e.g. city, better, latest, forty, party. (B) After /n/ GenAm [] can optionally be elided. Accordingly, GenAm winter [wnr] can sound identical to winner [wnr].

3) the pronunciation of /l/. GenAm speakers tend to produce a darker, more velarized allophone [] in all positions, whereas RP speakers produced a very distinct clear or light allophone in prevocalic position and [] in postvocalic position.

4) the pronunciation of /j/:

Yod Dropping: /j/ is not pronounced in the combination of /j/+/u:/ after t, s, d, e.g. tube, suit, student, news.

Yod Coalescence (coalescent assimilation): /t/+/j/, /d/+/j/ before a weak vowel are assimilated into /t/, /d/, e.g. educate [edket], factual [fktl].

5) // vocalization: in GenAm // is vocalized in final weak syllables ending with -ion, -ia, e.g. Asia [e], version [vn].

6) nasal twang: nasality is found in vowels adjacent to m, n, , thus the preceding vowel sounds nasal, e.g. manner, candy. Nasal twang is treated by some American phoneticians as a defect of American speech.

PHONIC SUBSTANCE OF LANGUAGE AND WAYS OF ITS DESCRIPTION

Outline

1. Pronunciation as a way of materializing of oral form of language.

2. Phonic structure of language and its components:

2.1. The system of sounds. 2.2. The syllabic structure.

2.3. Word/lexical stress. 2.4. Intonation.

3. Units of language vs. speech.

4. Ways of description of the phonic substance of language.