The stfstem of American English consonants

X. RECEIVED AND GENERAL AMERICAN PRONUNCIATION

Read these texts as if you were readinglthem to a) children; b) students. Learn the poem by heart.

a) The Rooster

by Hilda I. Rostron

What would we do, I'd like to know, Without that bird That loves to crow?

Who wakes him up, I'd like to know, To tell him when It's time to crow.

8* аи

I'll get up early One day, too, And shout out: "Cock-a-doodle-doo-oo."

b) Still not Perfect

A small schoolboy often wrote: "I have went," instead of "I have gone". At last his teacher said:

"You must stay after school this afternoon and write 'I have gone' a hundred times.. Then you will remember it."

When the teacher came back he found a letter from the_boy on his desk. It said: ■

Dear Sir,

I have wrote "I have gone" a hundred times, and now I have went.

The English language is spoken in Great Britain, the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand and the greater part of Cana­da. It is native to many who live in India, Israel, Malta and Ceylon

All the national varieties of the English language have very much 4n common but they differ from standard pronunciation. Standard pronunciation is the pronunciation.governed by the orthoepic norm. It is the pronunciation of the educated circles. It is used by radio and television, and is regionally neutral.

In the British Isles the regional types of the English language are: (1) the Southern English, (2) the Northern English and (3) the Stand­ard Scottish.

In the United States of America the regional types of the American
variant of the English language are: (1) the Eastern type, (2) the South­
ern type, (3) the General American type (Northern, Midwestern,
Western). '

The social standard within Britain is the so-called Received Pro nunciationor RP. It is the teaching norm at schools and higher learn­ing establishments of the Soviet Union because of (1) the degree of understandability in English-speaking countries, (2) the extent of RP investigation, (3) the number of textbooks and audio-visual aids'.

In the United States of America the most wide-spread type is General American. Like RP in Great Britain GA in America is the social standard: it is regionally neutral, it is used by radio and TV, in scientific and business discourse, it is spoken by educated Americans'.

Since RP and GA are the most widely accepted types of pronuncia­tion the learners of English should know the principal differences between them.

The total number of RP and GA consonants differ in one phoneme, it is the GA /W. The rest of the RP and GA inventory of consonant phonemes coincides.

The main peculiarities in the pronunciation of GA consonants concern the following phonemes.

/r/

This sound is one of the most characteristic of GA pronunciation. In its articulation the tip and blade of the tongue are turned upward, toward the hard palate, the tip pointing to the area immediately be­hind the alveolar ridge (it does not touch it) — a retroflex position. Its pronunciation is accompanied by some slight protrusion of the lips.

The sides of the tongue are in contact with the bicuspid and molar teeth, as for /n/ or /d/. /r/ is more sonorous in GA than in

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