Билет № 15. Pronunciation

American English

American English pronunciation is characterized by a greater variety of standard forms than british English. In the united states there is no unique standard. There exist both a national standard (general American) and 2 major regional standards (eastern american and southern American) whose norms do not conflict with each other. The most widespread type of American standard pronunciation is general American.in GB any deviation from the norm (rp) is a social maker but no American accent has the prestige of RP. We can describe the 3 major types of American standard as systems in which common features prevail over divergencies.

1.the eastern type is spoken in New England. It bears a remarkable resemblance to souteren English, though there are some slight differences.

21 the southeren type is used in the south and south-east of the usa.it possesse a striking distinctive feature-vowel drawl, which is a specific way of pronouncing vowels and monophthongization of some diphthongs at the expense of prolonging (drawling) their nucleiand dropping the glides.

3.GA(northern and western American) is the form of speech used by radio and TV and also in all forms of official intercourse, it is the language of educated people. Differences between GA and RP: Vowels

1. there is no strict division into long and short in GA. A diphthongal quality of tense vowels contrasting to a monophtongal quality of lax vowels.

2. the inventory of ga diphthongs varies from three to twelve.we distinguish 5 diphthongs: ai, oi, ou, au, ei

3. nasalization of vowels when they are preceeded or followed by a nasal consonant.

4. some front vowels are distributed differently from RP.

5. sounds з, а, шва и крышка are different in articulation and distribution. (там еще куча всего в учебнике...я думаю, все подряд не надо) Consonants

1. г is pronounced between vowel and consonant or between a vowel and a silence.

2. 1 is fairly dark

3. j is omitted between a consonant and долгая U. stress

1. words of French origin tends to have stress on the final syllable.

2. some compound words have stress on the 1 syllable (unlike RP) 3.some words have first-syllable stress unlike RP.

tNfONAtiON IN AMERICAN ENGLISH

American English intonation differs from British English intonation mainly in unemphatic, or emotionally neutral speech. Preterminal pitch contour in RP is gradually descending stepping, in GA it. is mid-level or mid-wavy-level. The unstressed syllables in GA fall to a lower pitch, in RP unstressed syllables gradually descend. American English intonation produces an impression of level or monotonous melody. The GA and RP differences in the direction of the voice pitch may lead to functional or attitudinal differences. For example, "low head" in RP conveys detached, reserved, dispassionate, unsympathetic, unemotional, sometimes cold or dull attitude on the pant of) the speaker. In GA sentences like: Go out, Sit down, etc. pronommeedlwiith a» low head and low fall would sound quite normal. The GA general questions take a falling tone, in RP they are pronounced with the rising tone. The rising tone in GA general questions is used to show politeness, e. g. Are you Tady? USUa' *0Tm Are you | ready? polite form

The monotony of GA intonation is explained by the following factors: 1) pitch characteristics, 2) narrow range of the utterance, 3) slow tempo, 4) more complicated than RP rhythmical structure of intonation (RP unstressed vowels are characterized by qualitative reduction, in GA sounds in unstressed syllables are lengthened). The differences between GA and RP sound, accentual structure and intonation do not affect the main language structures, therefore GA is only a variety of the English language and cannot be considered! "American language" as some of the American linguists claim.

Given below are the diagrams in which vowel phonemes in Canadian English, General American and RP are summarized.1

The norms of GA and RP pronunciation are highly variable. The variability of standard pronunciation should be taken, into consideration when teaching spoken language

Дата добавления: 2015-05-31