Pronunciation standards and dialects

First let us make clear what we mean by Standard English. This is that kind of English which is the official language of the entire English-speaking world, and is also the language of all educated English-speaking people. Standard English is a language, not an accent, and it is easily recognizable as Standard English when it is written down or spoken. There is, in Standard English a certain amount of regional variation, not perhaps, but very much. People who do not habitually use Standard English are said to use a dialect; they are so-called dialect-speakers. Dialect is any form of English which dif­fers from Standard English in grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and, of course, in pronunciation, too; though a difference in pronunciation alone is not enough to make a different dialect.

In England there are numerous ways of pronouncing Stan­dard English, but here the position is peculiar. There is one type of accent of England which is distinctively an accent but is not identified with any particular part of the country. In other words, it is a regional accent when the whole English-speaking world is taken into account, but within England itself it is non-regional. Some speakers speak with an accent, thus showing what part of the country they come from; some have no accent at all. This ‘accentless’ pronunciation may be called Received Pronunciation (RP). RP stands in strong contrast to all the other ways of pronouncing Standard English. In fact, English people are divided by the way they talk, into three groups:

(1) RP speakers of Standard English without any accent;

(2) RP speakers of Standard English with an accent;

(3) dialect speakers.

Everywhere else the division is into speakers of the standard language and speakers of dialect. The essence of RP is that it is non-regional type. RP arose not much more than a hun­dred years ago, in great public schools, and it is maintained and transmitted from generation to generation, mainly by people educated at the public schools. There is no question of deli­berate teaching it. It is picked up more or less unconscious­ly and, if it is not learnt in youth, it is very difficult to acquire later on in life.

Nowadays with the leveling of society itself and as a re­sult of broadcasting, which exposes all people to this pro­nunciation, more and more speakers from all regions are in­fluenced by RP quite unconsciously. It's difficult, however, to give a strict phonetic description of RP which will ap­ply to all the users of this style of speech. Speech beha­viour of two individuals is never entirely identical. More­over, the sounds of spoken language are always changing, slowly but constantly.

The essence of a standard pronunciation such as RP in England is a good and bad thing at the same time. The bad point lies in the fact that RP has long been considered to be a language privileged stratum of society. In older days those who spoke RP had practically a monopoly on being ac­customed to authority, having a liberal education, having interest (or some knowledge) in arts. Wow, although those who talk RP can justly consider themselves educated they are outnumbered these days by the undoubtedly educated people who do not talk RP. On account of the wide range of permis­sible variations, educated English is difficult to describe. Many speakers of educated English have an accent traceable to local speech habits or to the social sphere the speaker works. This divergence of accents, local or social, cannot certainly be regarded as a drawback.

The Received standard of English pronunciation undergoes a considerable change which is not at all surprising, nor is it disgusting. People who are over the age of thirty speak of ‘unintelligibility’ and ‘inarticulacy’ of younger people; though they all admit that this fact doesn't set up any di­scernible communication barriers. New patterns of speech are coming into being. Paradoxically, future fashionable RP stands of linguistically acceptable speech are probably lying about in the informal speech of younger people.

The most recent professional study of English pronun­ciation (J.C.Wells ‘Accents of English’ (1982) gives as the main causes of linguistic change the principle of 'least ef­fort ', 'persistent infantilism', 'splits', 'mergers', etc. But it seems much more likely that change comes about because of the adoption of already existing alternative features from other varieties of English.

The problem of Standard English is closely connected with the realization of traditional norms of English pronunciation, with the style. Twenty or thirty years ago in Britain there was a strong tradition of ‘stylishness’ in public speaking. Mow the situation is radically changed. With the democratization of the BBC (once regarded as the embodiment of perfect spoken English), the universities and other public institu­tions, has come a very marked change in the approach of most public speakers. As one might expect, this process is parti­cularly marked in younger speakers.

The formal rhetorical style (with which we associate RP) of public address has al­most disappeared. Instead most public speakers adopt an in­formal 'chatty¹ style trying to transmit a friendly and ac­cessible image to the audience. One of the markers of this change of approach is that slow colloquial style is very ra­rely heard. A new informal style is very rapid and less ex­plicitly articulated. There has always been a tendency for the English to ‘swallow’ the words and ‘mumble’ which co­exist with the clipped, precise fashion. This rather ‘throw-away’ style of articulation is very fashionable now. This is the style of articulation used in the most public speaking.

This new style introduced among English speakers influ­enced upon the traditional RP. As a result RP is more widely interpreted now, implying certain phonetic vowel and conso­nant qualities, and not only regarded as the pronunciation of the 'upper' class. The fact once again proves that RP is changing, and changes in the pronunciation and the applica­tion of English should be understood and tolerated by the English speakers as well as by English learners. So we may suggest that we shouldn't restrict the term RP to its origi­nal narrow confines but we'd rather apply this term to this wider usage of RP speaking.

Finally, we need briefly review the problem of dialects in England. Dialects are the varieties of a language spoken by a socially limited number of people, or by people living in a certain area. So, dialectal differences may arise from different sources: social surroundings, class distinc­tion, education, occupation, etc. Dialects often preserve features which have disappeared from the language. Moreover, they remain free from the outside interference. Dialect stu­dies are particularly useful since they help to understand the history of a language, the development of its phonolo­gical system.

Varieties of English

In this chapter we'll give a brief outlook of three main varieties of English concerning pronunciation, distribution and phonetic realization of speech sounds, prosodic items.

The development of American English on the American con­tinent has a comparatively short history. It's generally as­sumed that American English, in its spoken form, is essentially Southern English standard of the 17th and 18th centuries as modified locally in the course of the last 2 centuries. American English is not just a variety of English more exact­ly Standard English. The history of American English is closely connected with the history of the country, with two large periods of settlers in America. Groups of immigrants first arrived from the Southern and Eastern parts of Britain; then the second large wave of immigrants included people from the North, Scotland and Ireland. American colonization, going deeply into the West (known as the Westward movement) sharp­ly divided the country into two parts, and the first settlers in America quickly lost contacts with the British Isles, and those living in the East preserved their connection with the Old World. Perhaps, the history of conquering America can partially explain the existence of three main variations: namely, the Eastern type, the Southern type and the so-called General American (GA) in USA national language.

Many American linguists specify the fact that the diversi­ties in pronunciation of various regional standards in the USA are not so marked as in Great Britain. Linguistic data proves the fact that the Eastern variety has but a few pecu­liarities and practically coincides with GA. The Southern American is spoken only in that part of the country in the South and has never spread north.

GAis the form of speech used by radio/television in scientific and business discourse, in universities, etc. GA is not attached to any particular part of the country and likeRP in England may be regarded as a regionally neutral variety. GA is the prospective pronunciation standard of American Eng­lish.

Here we'll consider the main differences between GA and RPwhich will be viewed in two large spheres: segmental phonetics and supra-segmental phonetics. On the segmental level the dif­ferences mainly concern the pronunciation of the individual consonant and vowel phonemes and their distribution. Conso­nants system includes an additional phoneme / / which is not listed within RP. The following consonants are proved to have their own peculiar pronunciation resulting in different manners of their phonetic realization: /r, l, t_, h, j/. As to a phoneme / /, it is a voiceless fricative consonant formed by rounding the lips and raising the back of the tongue nearly to the soft palate. The friction is always clearly audible. It's used in words spelt with ‘wh’ and is a counterpart to /w/.

There are a few differences in the systems of American and British vowels. In American English, if the vowel occurs in a word next to sonorant /m,n,n/ it possesses nasality, which is a common thing. In American phonetic transcription there is a symbol / = / which is used to indicate the highly retroflexed 'r' /as in words: fur, bird/. The same sound is heard in words hurry, courage, carry, worry. English words like 'ask, dance' are pronounced with /æ/. Diphthongs are, perhaps, the most controversial problem in English phonology. In GAwe distinguish only 5 diphthongs /ei,ai,oi,oυ, aυ / in compari­son with 12 in British English (8 diphthongs, 2 diphthongs with two glides and 2 diphthongoids).

The accentual structure of words in American English is also quite different. Polysyllabic American words have stres­ses on different syllables than English words. Consider some examples we've put to illustrate this difference.

BE AE

'garage ga'rage

'diagnose dia'gnose

'aristocrat a'ristocrat

'necessarily nece'ssarily

dic'tate 'dictate

American intonation is often said to be rather unemotional, dry, monotonous, colourless and indecisive in comparison with abrupt, explosive and manneristic English intonation. And this is really so. Americans speak on mid-level with mid falling or rising on a nuclear element. All unstressed syllables are pronounced on mid-level or low. Stress has a wavy rise-fall contour. American phoneticians have a peculiar way of marking intonation. Consider the following examples:

When is he coming? — When is he coming?

We may illustrate the type of GA intonation contour which has an approximation to the RP sliding head by the following example:

'Mexico 'city is extremely multinational.

Practically there is no difference between stressed syllables and a tonic stress, the latter is the last stressed syllable in a stretch.

In highly emotional and expressive speech the pitch dif­ference between stressed and unstressed syllables is even greater. Consider the following example.

He was a very good student in the group.

Every semantically important word has a salient feature, which means that a stressed syllable is pronounced with a sudden rise and then sudden fall. The more important the word is the more salient it becomes. However, the presence of salient syllables does not suggest the monotony of Ameri­can intonation doesn't exist. It does, almost every long contour is pronounced with the typical American mid-level contour ‘drawled^’ sounds in unstressed syllables. This ten­dency is observed in neutral as well as in emotional speech. Summing up, we may conclude that the intonational divergences between GA and RP, mainly concerning actual speech, together with differences in lexical and grammatical usage allow us to claim that by the mid XXI century they may become, though not quite different, but noticeable variants of English within one common basic structure.

Australian English has its own history, which is compara­tively short (less than two centuries). Australian speech began as a leveling and generalization of a number of English local dialects, as well as Standard English. Australian Eng­lish pronunciation is in itself remarkably unified: there are no local dialects in Australian English. Observed diffe­rences can only trace the social or family background, the age, the school, the speaker has. However, the linguistic uni­formity of Australian English doesn't suggest that all Aus­tralian speak alike.

Within the range of Australian pronun­ciation we may distinguish: Cultivated Australian, General Australian and Broad Australian. General Australian is the type of pronunciation most widely used in Australia. As with American English, in Australian English we find differences both in the pronunciation of phonemes, in the pronunciation and stressing the words, as well as in intonation. The latter is, perhaps, the least investigated component of the Austra­lian English phonetic system. It would be suffice to mention the fact that Australian intonation is rather monotonous, rhythmically slow and more deliberate than English.

In addition, Australian English is exercising a strong influence from American English. Differences between Australian Eng­lish and British English do not go beyond the limits of va­riation within the English language.

The status of Canadian English as that of a literary va­riety of English is so far controversial. Some consider that it has no status as an independent literary variety. The prac­tice of teaching English was a long history in Canada. Two centuries ago they began to teach RP at schools, it was the only official standard of English. Gradually, though, Cana­dian English started to develop features of its own. Cana­dian English has long been under the influence of various languages. The large proportion of English speaking popula­tion of Canada uses a language very close to American English, but the influence of French and two polar varieties of Eng­lish upon Canadian pronunciation, surely, brought about some specific results.

The system of Canadian English vowels and consonants coincide with American English: there is differentiation between long and short vowels, a tendency for diphthongization of a /i/ in word final position, the pronunciation of /æ/ instead of /a: /, words like ‘hurry, worry, derby’ are pronounced with /з:/. In stressing words there is a tendency to follow the GA pattern, especially in polysyllabic words where the suf­fix can have a secondary stress as in 'dictio,nary ('dictiona­ry - RP).

The analysis of Canadian English intonation proves its mixed character: Canadian English partially resembles RP and partially GA (step-like contour and mid-level wavy con­tour accordingly), or rather it shows the correlation bet­ween GA and RP - the correlation that leads to appearance of a peculiar Canadian pronunciation which is neither Ameri­can nor English, it's a complex different from both. The Ca­nadian pronunciation is still on its way of standardizing.

PRACTICE SECTION

Introduction

The suggested practice part in English intonation and pronunciation is based on the advanced level of proficiency when speakers are more concerned with ‘what’ to say rather than ‘how’ to put it grammatically and lexically accurately. High level of language awareness serves as a good basis for developing fluency in speech performance, which implies solving different communicative tasks. Good pronunciation doesn’t only include correct reproduction of appropriate sounds and sound patterns in connected speech but it requires understanding the meaning of the message, and the ability to make oneself understood in the ‘normal’ way when exposed to competent native speakers of English.

Learning pronunciation and intonation begins with listening to spoken English used in ‘real’ interactions where certain ideas are conveyed and certain aims are achieved. The knowledge of the intonation system enables us to acquire a more proficient level of speech competence, helps us interpret the meaning of utterances and produce our own utterances while trying to get to the listeners the main information, or making them act accordingly.

Feeling in control of the language, one is using, will reduce undesirable awkward situations and misunderstanding between the user of English and the native English speakers.

This section will help listen, primarily, to ‘what’ speakers mean, and only then, ‘how’ they say it. Study items in intonation and sounds contain concise but informative instruction. One will be able to work out for himself the most important ideas concerning intonation in general.

It may be recommended to carry out a thorough pragmatic analysis of every communicative situation presented in the section as well as to study in detail the tone group division, placement of the tonic, non-tonic stresses, and rhythmic arrangement of syllables. This will add to the ability of accurate interpretation of messages.

The section doesn’t contain any practical assignments only study items, since the aim is limited to mere introduction into the intricate intonation structure of spoken language. A new look on teaching and learning English (i.e. starting with pragmatics which manifests itself in connected speech and written texts) is offered, which helps understand how the choice of lexical items, grammar structure, textual connectives and intonation structure depend on the speaker’s pragmatic aim, which can be achieved only if the listener is fully aware of the pragmatic means, including phonetic, used in communication.

So, this section will help communicate in English more efficiently, and sound right.

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