Contemporary English pronunciation: geographical, social and stylistic variation.
Nowadays Phonetics is defined as an independent branch of Linguistics which studies the sound matter of the language, its semantic functions and the lines of its development. Phonetics began to be developed as a science in the 19th century.
The English language is the mothertongue of several countries, such as – GB, the USA, Australia and New Zeland. The English language is also used by greater part of the population of ‘Canada and the Republic of South Africa. The variants of the English language spoken in this countries have very much in common, but the differ from Standard English in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. The variants of a national language should not be confused with its regional types. In the British Isles the regional types of the English language are the following:
1) The Southern English (is known as Received English Pronunciation or orthoepic norm – is the standard pronunciation, adopted by native speakers as the right and proper way of speaking. It is used by the most educated part of the population, at the leading position in the Cabinet, the armed forces, the judiciary, BBC English, taught to foreigns)
2) The Northern English ( one of the main differeneces between Southern and Northern – the absence or present of particular phonemes, Northern English represents the earlier type of London English that was the standard in early 18th century. This type were carried to America that is why there are many features in common between American and Nothern English accent)
3) The Standard Scottish.( there are also some Irish dialects in Nothern Ireland)-importanr differences: rolled R, (born), the sound L is dark in all positions, non-existed in RP back-lingual phoneme similar to the Russian Х, (Koxt, HwitS).
Dialects of GB may be grouped in the followin way:
1) Southern dialects( Greater London, Cockney, Kent, Essex…)
2) Eastern dialects
3) Northern d
4) Scottish d
5) Western d
6) Dialects of Ireland
Cockney – is a social accent, the speech of the working class areas of the Greater London. Peculiarities – blood –через звук ЭЙ блейд, lady – через АЙ лайди; the sound H id often abscent: horse чит. как ОЗ, to have как ЭВ; the suffix – ing they use sound N; Initial sounds P, T, K are strongly aspirated (top).
In the USA the regional types of the American variant of the English language are the following:
1) The Eastern type( is spoken in Boston, Eastern New England and in NY. One of the difference between Eastern and RP – is the use of more advanced allophone of the sound a: than in RP. This vowel sound a: intermediate beween Э and a:, similar to the nucleas of the dipthong АЙ.
2) The Southern type(самый сложный) –Вирджиния, Техасб Флорида Луизиана). It posses a striking feature: vowel drawl( растянутость) – diphthongiazation of some pure vowels and monophthogazation of some diphtongs by prolonging the nucleus and dropping the glides.( that pronounced зИЕт, this – зИЕс, fine – фАан, high – хаа)
3) The General American type (also known as Western American) – is known as The Standard pronunciation of the USA. It is the form of speech used by the radio and TV, used in cultural, business and scientific intercourse. Spoken in the central Atlantic states – Огайо. It is the most widespread type of pronunciation. Peculiarities:
1) there is no division into long and short vowels
2) The number of diphthongs varies
3) Usually vowels and dipthongs have sound R between a vowel and a consonant (bird, force, star)
4) Naselization, when vowels are preceded or followed by a nasal consonant ( small, name)- this phenomena is also called an American twang
5) The sound L in all position is always dark(strong)
6) Intervocals sound T is usually voiced and it is often dropped (tweny)
7) The cluster of consonants WH pronounced like HW
8) The sonorant J is usually weekend or omitted between consonants (stupid – чит. стУпид)
9)The pronunciation of many words and their stress may be different (vase – вЕЙз, tomato –томейто, Asia – эйдж, balet – белЕй, wEekend
10) in intonation they use Medium level head instead of the descending steping head; midrising tone instead of the lowrising tone in general questions)
It is accepted that in British Isles and in the former British colonies the teaching norm is Received Pronunciation(RP). It is also called Standard English Pronunciation. RP is the teaching norm at schools and higher learning establishments in a great number of countries all over the world.
In the USA and Latin America the teaching norm is General American Pronunciation(GA).
Any national language has 2 material forms:
-written- the literary language
-spoken- the speech of the nation
The written form of a national language is usually a generally accepted standard and is the same throughout the country. But spoken language may vary from locality to locality. Such distinct form of a language are called dialects. These dialects may differ from others in following aspects:
1) in grammar
2) in vocabulary
3) in pronunciation
The inventory of the phonemes may be slightly differs. They may have phonemes not found in other dialects.
Thanks to economic, political and social factors one of the local dialects becomes the literary language of the country. And the pronunciation of other dialects begin to be regarded as uncultured, illiterated, substandard. But within the standard pronunciation of a language, there may be variants considered equally correct. A variant of standard pronunciation is used by educated native speakers, because it is this type of pronunciation, which they learn mainly at schools and colleges.
In Australia there is no geographical variations in pronunciation. But a great deal of variations can be classified according to the social criteria. They distinguish 3 groups of accents:
1) cultivated Australian (Used about by 10% of population – has considerable influence from RP)- самый культ)
2) broad Australian ( вульгарн) is used by about 30% of the speakers ( Australian twang)
3) General Australian- is spoken by the mainstream of educated Australian speakers and is treated as Australian Pronunciation Standard.