American English Phonological Features on Singapore Radio

Wee, L.H. 2008. Phonological Patterns in the Englishes of Singapore and Hong Kong. World Englishes, vol.27.3/4:480-501, 2008

BELLS90 Proceedings, 2020

Presented are the results of a survey about English pronunciation attitudes and preferences aimed at first-year students of English language and literature. The main aim of the survey was to shed light on the advance of General American (GA) as the preferred pronunciation model in recent years. The survey questions cover the main features that distinguish GA from SBS (Southern British Standard), such as rhoticity, t-voicing, articulation of the bath and lot vowels as well as the presence of the low back merger. The majority of respondents report that they prefer using GA, while they prefer listening to SBS. The results suggest, however, that the majority of test subjects use a mixture of sorts, with few students being consistent in their usage of specific pronunciation features.

International …, 2003

Data from three acoustic cues to stop voicing is analyzed for the effect of phrasal accent in a corpus of read radio news speech from a single speaker of American English. The results show that VOT, Closure Duration and F0 are significant cues to voicing for stops in ...

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2018

This study examines language attitudes towards different varieties of English through listener judgments of speaker and speech traits; in addition, the study explores the relationship of these judgments to the intelligibility, as well as the perceived accentedness and comprehensibility, of varieties of Asian English and General American English. While a great deal of research has examined the intelligibility, accentedness, and comprehensibility of English, including varieties of Asian English, no research to date has examined the relationship between language attitudes and the aforementioned dimensions of Asian English speech. That is, little is known about how listeners' judgments regarding speaker and speech traits relate to intelligibility, as well as how such judgments relate to the way in which the listener evaluates the accentedness and comprehensibility of the speaker's speech. The current study addresses these issues through an examination of listener reactions to three varieties of Asian English (Hong Kong English, Singapore English, and China English), as well as American English.

CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research - Zenodo, 2022

This study investigates the intonational patterns dominant in the speech of Nigerian Television Broadcasters. Given that there exists a Standard Nigerian English Variety (SNEV), this study seeks to investigate the features of the intonational patterns dominant in this variety within the enclaves of Received Pronunciation (RP) for possible features of localization of the English language in Nigeria. The SNEV is found amongst the elite class but this study shall focus on News Broadcasters in Nigeria. The objectives of this study are to examine the intonational patterns dominant in the speech of Nigerian Television Broadcaster`s, investigate the features of intonational patterns in SNEV and compare the intonational patterns of SNEV and that of RP using acoustic cues. The entire broadcasting system was surveyed and a total of six (6) television stations were randomly selected. Twelve (12) broadcasters-six (6) males and six (6) females were randomly selected to form the experimental class for this study. The newscast and interview sessions of these broadcasters were recorded with the aid of a Panasonic tape recorder and transferred to Praat Object and Sound Recorder at the frequency of 44100Hz being the normal human hearing frequency. The fundamental frequency was set at F0. The intonational patterns were extracted using Praat Picture and the data were analysed acoustically. This work adopts the sonority theory by Saussure. The findings of this study include: the alternate rise and fall of pitch on syllables of words reflected in high pitch hertz as different from the RP; a medium of inconsistence in the pattern of the utterance of NIP where the speakers exhibited a sharp degree of voice fall and voice rising in alternating syllable of words; some unsteady pitch patterns between the NIP in comparison with the RPIP was also found and this is because Nigerian languages are tonal in structures as against the English language which is syllabic-timed; the speakers were unable to maintain the stress rules of English as this may not have been assimilated despite speech trainings.

The present article compares descriptions of American English vowels found in literature with the results of our own measurements of running speech recorded from NBC. On the basis of F 1 and F 2 measurements, it was found that front fowels (especially /z/) admit more variability than central and back vowels with regard to the difference between men (centralized) and women (more marginal). The differences between earlier studies and ours are interpreted as gradual downaward innovative shifts most notably of /e/ towards /z.+ and the latter towards /U. and /@.-

1994

In this short description of the features of Singapore English Pronunciation (SEP), Standard Southern British (SSB), roughly equivalent to the older term Received Pronunciation (RP), will be used as a convenient reference point. Other varieties of English, such as those used by well-educated Americans or Australians, could also be used as models, and most of the points made in this

Language, 1990

This is a study of native English listeners' attitudes toward a sample of "standard" or "nearstandard" English accents. 370 informants have listened to recordings of speakers describing a cartoon and answered a set of attitude questions about the speakers/accents. The questions concerned perceived age, occupation, psychological qualities, job suitability, social significance, etc. The speakers and listeners also supplied similar information about themselves, which made it possible to relate answer profiles to speakers' and listeners' background data. The central concept of this study is DEGREE OF MODERNITY, i.e. the degree to which a speaker can be regarded as a traditional or a non-traditional, "modern", speaker. The DEGREE OF MODERNITY in a speaker was determined by means of a word pronunciation test including words that are in a process of phonetic change. On the basis of the result of this test, speakers were placed in either a MODERN or a TRADITIONAL group. In addition to this categorization, speakers were also subdivided according to age, sex and regional background, forming combinatory subgroups, such as OLD/MODERN, SOUTH/TRADITIONAL, etc. The characteristic features of this study, then, are (1) that it deals with the standard area itself, rather than a wide standard-dialect spectrum; (2) that it presents an objective method of subdividing speakers according to DEGREE OF MODERNITY. The introductory section contains a survey of relevant language attitude studies from around 1930 onwards and an introduction to the methods of this study. Then follow three basically parallel sections devoted to the age, sex and regionality aspects, respectively. In each of these sections, the informants are subdivided according to basically the same principle as the speakers. The main body of the text is a discussion, based on tests of significance, about how the various informant subgroups behave toward the various speaker subgroups and why. Tables accompany the discussion throughout. The main tendency in the AGE section is an upgrading of the combinatory subgroup OLD/TRADITIONAL in comparisons related to status. Adult informants unexpectedly show greater acceptance of MODERN accents than do young people, however. There are also indications that subgroups in which AGE and DEGREE OF MODERNITY do not harmonize, e.g. OLD/MODERN, are downgraded by the informants. In the SEX section we can notice a strong link between the subgroup MALE/TRADITIONAL and status traits. There are however interesting deviations in connection with traits to do with family and work relations. SOUTH/TRADITIONAL is the speaker subgroup to receive the highest ratings for several, particularly status, traits in the REGIONALITY section, but there are also striking exceptions, e.g. in the case of PLEASANTNESS.

2014

Studies of attitudes towards the Hong Kong English accent conclude that Hong Kong has a strongly exonormative orientation with little sign of endonormative stabilization. Hong Kong teachers of English still have a strong orientation towards (British or American) native-like accents in terms of acceptability and intelligibility. Sewell’s (2012) accent survey involving Hong Kong speakers and listeners using both questionnaire and error/variant-identification tasks concluded that the phonological features of accents are important determinants of listener responses, suggesting that local accents may be acceptable if they do not contain certain salient features of the Hong Kong English phonological inventory. In addition, an apparent correspondence between the acceptability and intelligibility characteristics of features was noted. This paper presents a partial replication of Sewell’s research using British listeners, indicating that, while there is not a great deal of diversity of opini...

I also appreciate the lucid explanations of statistics provided by Daniel Ezra Johnson, and the introduction to programming in R that I received from the R Study Group maintained by Joe Fruehwald. I thank Dennis Preston for his feedback on my interview instrument, and Tom Stroik for introducing me to the field of linguistics at UMKC. Finally, I thank Melanie Lusk for her pioneering work on language in Kansas City in the 1970s. If this work somehow finds its way to her, I would be thrilled by the opportunity to exchange notes. My family has been a source of constant support throughout my long tenure as a student. I'm especially grateful to my parents, Linda and Randy, and my mother-in-law, Cindy. Above all, I thank my wife and partner, Shelley, for her patience, kindness, and strength. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii List of Figures viii List of Tables xv Notes on Notation xxi Chapter 1: Kansas City and its Vowels 1.1. Kansas City 1.2. Studying Language Change 1.3. Previous Studies of Kansas City English 1.4. Summary Chapter 2: Method 2.1. Research Goals 2.2. Recruitment 2.3. Interviewee Demographics 2.4. The Interview 2.5. Measuring Vowels with FAVE 2.6. Kansas City Data 2.7. Statistical Measures Chapter 3: The Low Back Vowel(s) 157 3.25. Linear models of pre-stop LOT and THOUGHT F1 and F2 in casual speech among interviewees who perceive cot-caught the same 174 4.1. Conditioning effects on TRAP F1 180 4.2. Conditioning effects on TRAP F2 182 4.3. Outputs of linear models for TRAP and LOT F2 187 4.4. Linear models of TRAP and LOT F1 and F2 divided by interviewee perception of cot-caught minimal pair 190 4.5. Linear models of TRAP and LOT F1 and F2 divided by interviewee production of cot-caught minimal pair 191 4.6. Linear models of LOT F2 and TRAP F1 divided by interviewee perception and production of cot-caught minimal pair 192 4.7. Linear models of TRAP with following voiced consonant by interviewee birth year 197 xvii 4.8. Linear models of F1 and F2 of TRAP with following /s/ by interviewee birth year 4.9. Linear models of F1 and F2 of TRAP with following velar by interviewee birth year 4.10. Linear models of F1 and F2 of TRAP with preceding velar by interviewee birth year 4.11. Mixed effects regression of TRAP by interview task 4.12. ANOVA model of TRAP F1 and F2 by gender and class 4.13. Mixed effects regression of TRAP F1 and F2 by gender and class 4.14. Linear models of TRAP F1 and F2 by gender by birth year 4.15. Linear models of Euclidean distances and Pillai scores for PEN and PIN by interviewee birth year 4.16. Distances between PIN and PEN by perception and production of pin-pen minimal pair 4.17. Mixed effects regressions of F1 and F2 of PEN and PIN by style among interviewees who perceive pin-pen as different or close 4.18. Mixed effects regressions of F1 and F2 of PEN and PIN by style among interviewees who perceive pin-pen as same 4.19. Distances between PIN and PEN by style according to perception judgments xix 5.29. Linear models of distances between POOL and BULL by interviewee according to birth year 5.30. Linear models of distances between BULL and BOWL by interviewee according to birth year 5.31. Distances between POOL and BULL by perception and production of merger 5.32. Distances between BOWL and BULL by perception and production of merger 5.33. Linear models of BOWL F1 and F2 by interviewee birth year among interviewees who produce bowl-bull the same or close 5.34. Distances between POOL and BULL by style among interviewees who perceive a distinction 5.35. Distances between BOWL and BULL by style among interviewees who perceive a distinction 5.36. ANOVA model of POOL-BULL distances by sex and class 5.37. ANOVA model of BOWL-BULL distances by sex and class 5.38. Mixed effects regressions of F1 and F2 of BOWL and BULL by class 6.1. Mixed effects regression of conditioning effects on PRICE F1 6.2. Mixed effects regression of conditioning effects on PRICE F2 6.3. Linear models of F1 and F2 of PRICE with following voiceless consonants by interviewee birth year 6.4. Linear models of F1 and F2 of PRICE with following voiced consonants by interviewee birth year 6.5. ANOVA model of pre-voiceless PRICE F1 and F2 by gender and class 6.6. ANOVA model of pre-voiced PRICE F1 and F2 by gender and class 6.7. Linear models of F1 and F2 of PRICE with following voiceless consonants among middle class interviewees by birth year 6.8. Linear models of F1 and F2 of PRICE with following voiced consonants among working class interviewees by birth year 6.9. Mixed effects regression of conditioning effects on STRUT F1 xx 6.10. Mixed effects regression of conditioning effects on STRUT F2 6.11. Mixed effects regression of conditioning effects on STRUT F1 in primary stress position 6.12. Mixed effects regression of conditioning effects on STRUT F2 in primary stress position 6.13. Linear models of STRUT F1 and F2 by interviewee birth year 6.14. ANOVA model of STRUT F1 and F2 by sex and class 6.15. Linear models of STRUT F1 and F2 among males by interviewee birth year 6.16. Linear models of STRUT F1 and F2 among females by interviewee birth year 6.17. Linear models of distances between GULL and BOWL by interviewee according to birth year 6.18. ANOVA model of GULL-BOWL distances by sex and class 6.19. Linear models of GULL F1 and F2 by interviewee birth year 6.20. ANOVA model of GULL F1 and F2 by gender and class 6.21. Linear models of distances between GULL and pre-/l/ THOUGHT by interviewee according to birth year 7.1. Changes in Kansas City English according to Progress xxi NOTES ON NOTATION Through most of this research I use lexical sets based on Wells (1982) to refer to phonemes. These sets use keywords to represent vowel classes so that, for instance, FLEECE indicates the phoneme /i/ in words like feet, meat, bean, believe, etc. I use this notational set for accessibility-it gives linguists and non-linguists alike an immediate reference for the speech sounds under consideration in this research. This notational system also makes it very explicit when a token is being considered for its phonemic status versus its phonetic realization, in a way that might not be quite as clear with the conventional use of /i/ versus [i]. Lexical sets always point to phonemic status. I have made some modifications to the sets in Wells (1982) for this research. First, based on patterns general to many American Englishes (and described as such in Wells 1982), I assume that several of his vowel classes are not present in Kansas City English. These include the BATH class, which I assume to be part of the TRAP class,

Journal of The International Phonetic Association, 1994

2010

The meaning of 'International English' Sociophonics Wells' 'standard lexical sets' for vowels The Natural Phonetics approach and the Diaphoneme Different symbols found in dictionaries and textbooks Vowels On vowels & vocoids-A necessary introduction The length of the English vowels and diphthongs The vowels & diphthongs oí International English The native-like accent oí International English The vowels of the three neutral accents The American monophthongs The British monophthongs The socio-diaphoneme /a/ The other vowel diaphonemes The diphthongs of the three neutral accents The British centering diphthongs and triphthongs Hyper-precise speech Consonants On consonants & contoids Phonation types & positions of the glottis The consonants of English Nasals Stops Flapped t (not only American) Stop unexplosion The laryngeal stop British glottalization Lénifions Stop-strictives (or 'affricates') Constrictives (or 'fricatives') Bibliografische Informationen http://d-nb.info/1008718211 digitalisiert durch 6 Contents-The Pronunciation of English around the World 25. Approximants 26. The 'whole truth' on English r 27. Laterals Part 3. Microstructures 28. Non-systematic differences for some words 29. Unstressed syllables 30. Reduced forms 31. Everyday-speech simplifications 32. American dissimilation of r 33. Some morphonological remarks 34. Stress (or word stress) 35. Sentence stress Part 4. Macrostructures 36. Prominence, rhythm, and pauses 37. Pitch, rate, and phono-texts 38. A first approach to intonation 39. A second step towards intonation 40. On preintonemes & intonemes 41. The intonation of the three neutral accents 42. Questions 43. Intoneme modifications 44. Parentheses & quotations 45. Considerations on communicative 'roles' 46. Considerations on intonation Part 5. Superstructures 47. Paraphonics 48. Paraphonic use of pitch 49. Other paraphonic elements Part 6. Transcribed texts 50. Conversations 51. Literary texts 52. The sample text: International, American & British neutral pronunciations Part 7. Mediatic accents 53. About 'mediatic' accents 54. Mediatic American pronunciation (or 'General American) 55. Mediatic British pronunciation (or 'Estuary English') Part&. Supplementary accents 56. Traditional British-English pronunciation 57. Affected British-English pronunciation 58. American pronunciation in black-and-white 'talkies' Contents 2. Territorial Accents

2004

In previous research evidence for the effects of stress and accent on phonetic variation is based on laboratory speech. In the present paper, we report on a study of the effects of accent on the acoustic cues for stop voicing and place of articulation in the speech of four announcers from the Boston University Radio News corpus. The results show

2020

Although much work has investigated various aspects of African American English (AAE), prosodic features of AAE have remained relatively underexamined (e.g. McLarty 2018; Thomas 2015). Studies have, however, identified prosodic differences between AAE and European American English (EAE) varieties, with AAE speakers found to have generally more dynamic prosody than EAE speakers. Despite these findings, the extent to which listeners perceive these differences remains unclear, as well as which specific phonetic features, alone or in concert, contribute to the differences. To address this gap in knowledge, this dissertation project utilized the Rapid Prosodic Transcription (RPT) task developed by Cole et al. (2010, 2017) to determine how much sensitivity listeners have to prominence variation in conversational speech excerpts from male and female African Americans and European Americans from North Carolina. Crucially, participants are drawn from three different listener groups, who represent a range of experience with AAE and EAE speech: African American listeners from North Carolina, European American listeners from North Carolina, and European American listeners from Oregon. In addition to examining listeners in terms of their v regional background and ethnicity, listeners' own self-reports about their experience with AAE are used to further explore the role of experience in prominence perception. Results indicate that African American voices are heard as having significantly more prominences in their speech than the European American speakers, a finding in line with prior literature on production-based differences. Further, findings identify some differences between the listener groups, but also show that the listeners generally attend to linguistic factors in similar ways for these voices despite different regional backgrounds, ethnicities and self-reported experiences with AAE. The methodological approach and findings in this dissertation provide a a new avenue for sociolinguistic research on prosody, while also providing insights on the relationship between production and perception.