Lecture 8 Varieties of English Pronunciation Plan

Lecture 8 Varieties of English Pronunciation

Plan 1. The Orthoepic Norm 2. Pronunciation Varieties of British English 3. American English Pronunciation

List of Terms n n dialect the orthoepic norm

The varieties that are spoken by a socially limited number of people and used only in certain localities are called dialects. There are local and social dialects. Dialects have some peculiarities in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammatical structure. Every dialectal pronunciation is characterized by features that are common to all the other dialects of the language, and by a number of specific peculiarities of its own, that set it apart from all the other dialects. Dialects enrich a language and make it more lively and fresh, stimulate the development of a language, supply it with new lexical and syntactic means, cause modifications in the phonetic system.

The orthoepic norm of a language is the standard pronunciation adopted by the native speakers as the right and proper way of speaking. The orthoepic norm of a language comprises the variants of pronunciation of vocabulary units and prosodic patterns which reflect the main tendencies in pronunciation existing in a language. The orthoepic norm is based on the variants of pronunciation that are widely used in actual speech, reflects the main phonetic tendencies, and is considered to be acceptable by the educated. Wide currency, conformity to the main phonetic tendencies and social acceptability are three main conditions that are necessary for a variety to be accepted as a norm.

The pronouncing dictionaries record the well established pronunciations as first variants. The less frequent variants of pronunciation are generally recorded as secondary variants (e. g. again [ǝ'gen], [ǝ'gein]) The orthoepic norm involves prosodic phenomenon as well (e. g. generally agreed norm of loudness, recognized norm of tempo). The orthoepic norm is not constant and fixed for all centuries and generations. A variation of the orthoepic norm is a natural objective phenomenon, which reflects the development of a language. The orthoepic norm is not isolated from non standard pronunciations that are in current use.

In British English phoneticians generally distinguish three main regional types of pronunciation: Southern, Northern and Scottish regional types of English pronunciation. It is generally considered that the orthoepic norm of British English is "Received Pronunciation" (RP). Received Pronunciation is mainly based on the Southern English regional type of pronunciation, but it has developed its own features which have given it a non— regional character. RP is spoken all over Britain by a comparatively small number of Englishmen who have had the most privileged education in the country.

The main changes that have recently taken place in RP: n n n monophthongization of [ai] and [au] when followed by [ǝ] (e. g. "fire"['faiǝ] > ['faǝ]). centering of former [ou] to [əu] (e. g. “November” [nou vembǝ] → [nəu vembǝ] assimilation of the following sounds: [sj] > [ʃ], [zj] >[ʒ], [tj]> [tʃ], [dj]> [dʒ] (e. g. "issue", "situation", "education") use of the intrusive [r], which some 20— 30 years ago was carefully avoided by RP speakers (e. g. "the idea [r] of it“) diphthongization of the RP [i: ] and [u: ] which in final position are often pronounced with a glide (e. g. see [si: ] > [sij]) greater weakening of vowels in weakly stressed syllables, which results in the use of the neutral [ǝ] where the more conservative form had and has the stronger [i] (e. g. [bǝ'li: v] for [bi'li: v], ['intrǝstiη] for ['intristiη])

n the final [b], [d], [g] are now partially devoiced. But the distinctions between [b] – [p], [d] – [t], [g] – [k] are just as clearly marked, because [p], [t], [k] are fortis, while [b], [d], [g] are lenis (e. g. "cab - cap", “had – “hat”). On this account A. Gimson distinguishes three varieties of RP today: (1) the conservative RP used mainly by the older speakers (2) the general heard on the radio & TV (3) the advanced mainly used by the young RP speakers

D. Abercrombie divides English people by the way they talk into three groups: n RP speakers of Standard English n non RP speakers of Standard English n dialect speakers One of the best examples of a local dialect is Cockney. It is used by the less educated in the region of London.

American English (AE), which is a variant of the English language, has developed its own peculiarities in vocabulary, grammatical structure and pronunciation. The most widely used regional types of AE pronunciation are the Eastern, the Southern, and the General American types (GA). The peculiarities of GA lie in: (1) the pronunciation of sounds and sound combinations (2) the stress patterns of words (3) intonation

List of Literature 1. 2. 3. Борисова, Л. В. Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: учеб. пособ. для ин тов и фак. иностр. яз. / Л. В. Борисова, А. А. Метлюк; под ред. Л. В. Борисовой. – Минск: Выш. шк. , 1980. – 144 с. Леонтьева, С. Ф. Теоретическая фонетика современного английского языка: учеб. для студентов педагогических вузов и университетов / С. Ф. Леонтьева. – М. : Издательство «Менеджер» , 2004. – 336 с. Соколова, М. А. Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: учеб. для студ. высш. учеб. заведений / М. А. Соколова, К. Г. Гинтовт, И. С. Тихонова, Р. М. Тихонова. – М. : Гуманитар. Изд. Центр ВЛАДОС, 2004. – 289 с.

Summing-up Insert the necessary words. 1. … is the main prosodic communicative unit which is characterized by semantic unity expressed by all the language means: lexical, grammatical, prosodic. 2. … is the smallest prosodic unit. It has no meaning of its own, but it is significant for constituting hierarchical ly higher prosodic units.

3. … divide the speech continuum into units of different length and size. 4. The practice of alternate use of two languages is called …. 5. … is a process and a result of the interaction and mutual influence of the language systems being in contact.