Реферат: National varieties of English

o 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 class feature.

· 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: /æ/ → [æjə]; /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 [hæzənt] because there already exists a word hadn't pronounced [hædənt].

· 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 /æ/ and considerably liberal accents have /ɑ:/, Southern American English may have a new vowel diphthong /æɪ/, as in aunt /æɪnt/ and gas /gæɪs/. 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 class of words illustrated by caught , walk, cost, log and law .The diphthongal extreme is illustrated by laundry which may have [ɔ], [ɒ], [ɑ], [ɔʊ],[ɒʊ] or [ɑʊ]. “Short-o” words may have [ɔ] and [ɒ] :log and mock usually have [ɔ]; log may also have variants with [ɒ], [ɒʊ] and [oʊ]; donkey may have [ɑ],or [ɔ], or [ɒʊ], or [ɔʊ].

[æ] is normally used in dance and ask,though a diphthongal variant [æɪ] is frequent ,as in [æɪsk] 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.