Differences in setting, intonation and rhythm

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 434.

Setting

One of the most noticeable differences between GA and NRP setting is that American vowels are influenced by r-colouring, affecting adjacent consonants as well as vowels. For example, in partner, not only the vowels are affected but also the /1/ and the Ini. The body of the tongue is bunched up to a pre-velar position and the root of the tongue is drawn back in the pharynx. As compared with NRP, American English also appears more coloured by semi-continuous nasalisation running throughout speech. Many Americans, particularly of educated varieties, have noticeable creaky voice (see Section A4).

Intonation

Much of what has been said about British intonation applies to GA intonation with this important difference: American intonation tends to have fewer of the rapid pitch changes characteristic of NRP, and rises and falls are more spread out over the whole tune. A very typical pattern, for instance, is this sort of rising tune for questions:

Did Meg get my message?

Perhaps because of these differences, American English is sometimes claimed to strike a British ear as ‘monotonous'. On the other hand British English intonation is said to sound ‘exaggerated' or ‘affected' to Americans.

Rhythm

A second difference concerns rhythm. American English, because of a tendency to lengthen stressed checked vowels (e.g. trap) and an apparently slower rate of delivery, is stereotyped by the British as ‘drawled'. British English, because of the general tend­ency to eliminate weakly stressed vowels, together with an apparently more rapid rate of delivery, seems to strike many Americans as ‘clipped'.

1.3 You will hear more people from different parts of the UK. Listen as many times as you need and write brief notes about what they say. Analyse phonetic features of regional varieties of English that you hear on the recording.