National varieties of English

lengthen certain vowels,they make the single vowels (monophthongs) into diphthongs and triphthongs .The articulation is more lax and unprecise and it is this rather than the rate ,or speed , of speech which characterizes “the southern drawl”. Few generalizations can be made about Southern pronunciation as there is great variation between the regions of the South , between older and younger people, and between people of different ethnic backgrounds.

The following features are characteristic of older SAE:

Lack of yod-dropping, thus pairs like do/due and toon/tune are distinct. Historically, words like due, lute, and new contained /juː/ (as RP does), but report says that the only Southern speakers who make a distinction today use a diphthong /ɪu/ in such words. They further report that speakers with the distinction are found primarily in North Carolina and northwest South Carolina, and in a corridor extending from Jackson to Tallahassee.

The distinction between /жr/, /ɛr/, and /er/ in marry, merry, and Mary is preserved by some older speakers, but few young people make a distinction. The r-sound almost becomes a vowel, and may be elided after a long vowel, as it often is in AAVE. The following phenomena are relatively wide spread in SAE, though the extent of these features varies across regions and between rural and urban areas. The older the speaker, the less likely he or she is to display these features:

The merger of [ɛ] and [ɪ] before nasal consonants, so that pen and pin are pronounced the same, but the pin-pen merger is not found in New Orleans, Savannah, or Miami (which does not fall within the Southern dialect region). This sound change has spread beyond the South in recent decades and is now found in parts of the Midwest and West as well.

Lax and tense vowels often neutralize before /l/, making pairs like feel/fill and fail/fell homophones for speakers in some areas of the South. Some speakers may distinguish between the two sets of words by reversing the normal vowel sound, e.g., feel in SAE may sound like fill, and vice versa.

Mean formant values for the ANAE subjects from the Southern U.S. (excluding Florida and Charleston, SC). The red symbol marks the position of monophthongized /aɪ/ before voiced consonants. The distinction between /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ is preserved mainly because /ɔ/ has an upglide. /eɪ/ is backer and lower than /ɛ/.

The following features are also associated with SAE:

The diphthong /aɪ/ becomes monophthongized to [aː]:

Most speakers exhibit this feature at the ends of words and before voiced consonants but not before voiceless consonants; some in fact exhibit Canadian-style raising before voiceless consonants, so that ride is [raːd] and wide is [waːd], but right is [rəɪt] and white is [ʍəɪt]. Many speakers throughout the South exhibit backing to [ɑːe] in environments where monophthongization does not take place.

Others monophthongize /aɪ/ in all contexts, as in the stereotyped pronunciation "nahs whaht rahs" for nice white rice; these speakers are mostly found in an Appalachian area that includes eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina and Northern Alabama (the "Inland South"), as well as in Central Texas. Elsewhere in the South, this pronunciation is stigmatized as a working>

The "Southern Drawl", breaking of the short front vowels in the words "pat", "pet", and "pit": these develop a glide up from their original starting position to IPA| [j] , and then in some cases back down to schwa: /ж/ → [жjə]; /ɛ/ → [ɛjə]; /ɪ/ → [ɪjə].

The "Southern Shift", a chain shift following on as a result of the Southern Drawl: the nuclei of /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ move to become higher and fronter, so that, for example, instead of [ɛjə], /ɛ/ becomes a tenser /ejə. This process is most common in heavily stressed syllables. At the same time, the nuclei of the traditional front upgliding diphthongs are relaxed: /i/ moves towards [ɪi] and /eɪ/ moves towards [ɛi] or even lower and/or more retracted. The back vowels /u/ in boon and /oʊ/ in code shift considerably forward.

The distinction between the vowels sounds of words like caught and cot or stalk and stock is mainly preserved. In much of the South, the vowel found in words like stalk and caught has developed into a diphthong [ɑɒ].

The nucleus of /ɑr/ card is often rounded to [ɒr].

/z/ becomes [d] before /n/, for example [wʌdn̩t] wasn't, [bɪdnɪs] business, but hasn't is sometimes still pronounced [hжzənt] because there already exists a word hadn't pronounced [hжdənt].

Many nouns are stressed on the first syllable that would be stressed on the second syllable in other accents. These include police, cement, Detroit, Thanksgiving, insurance, behind, display, recycle, TV, guitar, and umbrella.

The distinction between /ɜr/ and /ʌr/ in furry and hurry is preserved.

In some regions of the south, there is a merger of [ɔr] and [ɑr], making cord and card, for and far, form and farm etc. homonyms.

The distinction between /ɪr/ and /ɪər/ in mirror and nearer, Sirius and serious etc. is not preserved.

The distinction between /ʊər/ and /ɔr/ in poor and pour, moor and more is not preserved.

The l's in the words walk and talk are occasionally pronounced, causing the words talk and walk to be pronounced /wɑlk/ and /tɑlk/ by some Southerners. Some older speakers have a phenomenon that resembles the trap-bath split. Where General American accents prescribe /ж/ and considerably liberal accents have /ɑ:/, Southern American English may have a new vowel diphthong /жɪ/, as in aunt /жɪnt/ and gas /gжɪs/. In the speech of the South there are subareas and gradations of social status, as reflected in speech ,to be found nowhere else in the country .Generally speaking ,SA has unique differences in the manner of articulation .Southerners lengthen certain vowels,they make the single vowels (monophthongs) into diphthongs and triphthongs .The articulation is more lax and unprecise and it is this rather than the rate ,or speed , of speech which characterizes “the southern drawl”. Southern American English is also typified as an “r-less” (non-rhotic)regional standart of AE pronunciation .standart SA generally adheres to the following patterns . In SA final and preconsonantal [ɾ] is usually omitted, as in far [fa:] and farm [fa:m] .Intervocalic [ɾ] frequently drops out , as in very [‘vɛ:ɪ] and Carolina [kə’lɑ:nə]. The linking [ɾ] , as in far away [fɑ:ə’weɪ], is rare.

Normally [з] and [ə] replace the GA [ɝ] and [ɚ] , as in bird [bзd] and sister [‘sɪstə].

Consequently , southerners use the diphthongs [ɪə] , [ɛə], [ʊə], though [ə] may occasionally drop out . Therefore , fierce may be [fɪəs] or [fɪ:s] , poor may be [pʊə] or [poə] or [po].

[ɑ:] , [ɑ] and [ɔ], as in cart ,coat and caught , are usually clearly differentiated. On the other hand , caught some times diphthongizes as [kɔʊt] , approaching ambiguity with coat [koʊt]. The shift to [ɔʊ] characterizes the whole>

[ж] is normally used in dance and ask,though a diphthongal variant [жɪ] is frequent ,as in [жɪsk] for ask.

5. American English intonation

In the opinion of many American linguists the most important differences between British and American pronunciation involve innovation rather than pronunciation proper.

British intonation is often characterized as having “wider melodic curves" and “more rapid changes” than AE intonation. As a result of such intonation patterns, the speech of an Englishman sounds “abrupt, explosive, manneristic” to American ears. At the same time American speech often sounds “unemotional, rather dry, sometimes hesitating,monotonous,colorless and indecisive” to an Englishmen All these observations are very impressionistic.However,to do justice to American scholars , we should say that some of these observations are not groundless.

Over the past decade a number of electro-acoustic analyses in this country and abroad have thrown some light on the differences between AE and BE intonation systems.

Since most research and specialist literature is largely devoted to the study of intonational differences of General American and RP, the following analysis will mainly concern itself with these two varieties of English.

The GA intonation has a general resemblance to that of RP. These are ,however ,quite a few noteworthy points of difference ,both structural and functional.

The most characteristic RP pre-terminal pitch contour in emotionally neutral speech is the so called “gradually descending stepping head”, in which the stressed syllable syllables are made prominent by means of a step down in pitch .

The counterpart GA pre-terminal contours that have a wide occurrence in emotionally neutral ,or unemphatic speech are:

1)a level pre-terminal contours

2)a wavy-level pre-terminal contour.

The level pre-terminal contour starts at a medium pitch and remains fairly even until the final rise or fall.The eveness of the tone is often not affected by any stressed syllables that may occur.

The mid-wavy-level contour is,actually,a variant of the mid-level contour:every stressed syllable has a wavy like motion , or a slightly rising-falling pitch .The unstressed syllables that precede or follow the stressed one are intoned on a lower pitch level .The “waves” are realized on the same medium pitch level. Sructural differences in the pre-terminal part concern the general movement the pitch contour :GA mid-level or mid-wavy-level vs RP descending-stepping contour and also the position of unstressed syllables intervening the stressed ones:in GA the unstressed syllables in the level and mid-wavy-level contour show a greater tendency to fall to a lower pitch ; in RP in down-stepping sequence of stressed syllsbles the intervening unstressed syllables the intervening unstressed syllables may from either a gradual descent or may be said on the same pitch as the previous stressed syllable.

The development of the English language in Australia has its own history , which is comparatively short one : less than two centuries. The chief reasons for the development of Australian speech are linguistic and historica ,though, as the majority of Australian linguists state ,it is difficult to trace them very satisfactorily.

Linguistic evidence which would make it possible to follow the development of Australian speech almost does not exist. Historical knowledge of early Australian immigration is not very sufficient or precise , particularly in the matter :what parts of England the transported convicts and early free settlers came from .

Australian speech,as well as Australian pronunciation , has always been subject to debate . Australian diphthongs resembling the Cockney diphthongs have been heard in some type of Australian speech from early times. Some general remarks concerning the origins of Australian pronunciation are ventured by A.G. Mitchell and A.Delbridge ,Australian linguists, who have done a thorough investigation of Australian pronunciation . They maintain that Australian is in its origins a town speech ,since the overwhelming number of convicts and early settlers were from the towns , it was in its origins a working class speech, the language of people who were poor and for tye most part unskilled, it included ways of speech characteristic of many parts of England , Scotland , Wales and Ireland. The authors conclude that since all these forms were brought in Australia ,and this had ever happened in England ,Australian speech began as a levelling and generalization of a number of English local dialects. Moreover speech developed in Australian in a society in which there has been constant movement from place to place and social mobility from the beginning.These internal population movements , added to mobility in the social structure itself , have provided the conditions in which the national variety of English has developed in Australia . Australian English is a non-rhotic variety of English spoken by most native-born Australians. Phonologically, it is one of the most regionally homogeneous language varieties in the world. As with most dialects of English, it is distinguished primarily by its vowel phonology.

6. Vowels

Australian English vowels are divided into two categories: long, which includes long monophthongs and diphthongs, and short, all of which are monophthongs. Australian English long vowels mostly correspond to the tense vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation (RP) as well as its centralising diphthongs whereas its short vowels correspond to the lax vowels. A number of vowels differ only by the length. There are two families of phonemic transcriptions of Australian English: revised ones, which attempt to more accurately represent the phonetic sounds of Australian English; and the Mitchell-Delbridge system, which is minimally distinct from Jones’ original transcription of RP. This page uses a revised transcription based on Durie and Hajek (1994) and Harrington, Cox and Evans (1997) but also shows the Mitchell-Delbridge equivalents as this system is commonly used for example in the Macquarie Dictionary and much literature, even recent.

/ɪ/ for example kit, bid, hid. (M.-D. /ɪ/.) The target for this vowel tends to be tenser than in other varieties of English.

/e/ for example dress, bed, head. (M.-D. /ɛ/.) For some Victorian speakers this phoneme has merged with /ж/ in pre-lateral environments, and thus the words celery and salary are pronounced alike (Cox & Palethorpe, 2003). See salary-celery merger.

/ж/ for example trap, lad, had. (M.-D. /ж/.)

/a/ for example strut, bud, hud. (M.-D. /ʌ/.)

/ɔ/ for example lot, cloth, body, hot. (M-D. /ɒ/.) This vowel also forms the first part of the diphthong [ɔʊ] (gold, hold, pole, etc.), though remains distinct from [ɔ] before l in words such as [pɔl] "poll" (dehorned cattle) and so on.

/ʊ/ for example foot, hood. (M.-D. /ʊ/.)

/ə/ for example about, winter. (M.-D. /ə/.) As in most varieties of English, this phoneme is used only in unstressed syllables.

/iː/ for example fleece, bead, heat. (M.-D. /i/.) Includes an onset to the high front vowel, except before laterals (Palethorpe & Cox, 2003).

/ɪə/ for example near, beard, hear. (M.-D. /ɪə/.) This sound is traditionally transcribed with a diphthongal glyph; however, it is usually pronounced as a diphthong (or disyllabically) only in open syllables; in closed syllables, it is distinguished from /ɪ/ primarily by length (Cox, 2006; Durie & Hajek, 1994). It is primarily distinguished from /iː/ by the significant onset in the latter.

/eː/ for example square, bared, haired. (M.-D. /ɛə/.)

/жː/ for example bad, tan. (M.-D. /ж/.) This sound is traditionally transcribed and analysed the same as the short /ж/, but minimal pairs exist in at least some Australians’ speech (Blake, 1985; Durie & Hajek, 1994). See the bad-lad split.

/жɪ/ for example face, bait, hade. (M.-D. /eɪ/.) Includes a significantly lower first element than in many other dialects of English.

/жɔ/ for example mouth, bowed, how’d. (M.-D. /aʊ/.) The first element may be raised in broad accents.

/aː/ for example bath, palm, start, bard, hard. (M.-D. /a/.).

/əʉ/ for example goat, bode, hoed. (M.-D. /oʊ/.) The onset factually begins