Give a genereal American phonological and phonetic distinction

General American (GA), also known as Northern American or Western American spoken in the central Atlantic States: New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin and others. GA pronunciation is known to be thepronunciation standard of the USA. There are some reasons for it. GA is the form of speech used by the radio and television. It is mostly used in scientific, cultural and business intercourse.

· There is no strict division of vowels into long and short in GA, though some American phoneticians suggest that certain GA vowels are tense and likely to be accompanied by relative length: [i:] in seat, [U:] in pool.

· It has been estimated that 2/3 of American population pronounce [r] and 1/3 omit it. Thus GA is rhotic in words like far, core, etc.

· One more peculiar feature of pronunciation of vowels in American English is their nasalization, when they are preceded or followed by a nasal consonant

· There are four mixed or central vowels in GA: [з], [ə], [٨], [a]. They differ markedly from RP vowels in articulation and distribution.

· since GA is a rhotic accent with non-prevocalic [r], it has the consequence that the following RP vowels (derived historically from vowel + [r]) do not occur in GA: [iə] in dear – GA [dir], [εə] in dare – GA [deir], [uə] in tour – GA [tur].

· In GenAm [Ʒ] is used in final unstressed syllables ending with -ion, or -ia, as in Asia['еiƷə], excursion [iks'зrƷn], version ['vзrƷn],

· In yes-oe-no questions GA does not give stress to the auxiliary verb at the beginning of the question.

Билет 9

Literary pronunciation/standard of pronunciation is defined by its norm. There is a variety of viewpoints on language norms in present-day linguistics. In sum, this variety can be reduced to the following two approaches:______________________

Norm can be described as a set of actual realizations of the language system accepted by the educated speakers as correct, preferable

1) Norm is a collectively accepted and socially relevant representation applied to a language.

Based on the above-given viewpoints on language norms, the following definition of [pronunciation norm can be given:

PRONUNCIATION NORM is a set of parameters describing that phonetic shaping of spoken form of a national language which at a given time is 1) generally considered correct, 2)ltatistically relevant and/or 3) enjoys social prestige. Speaking in another way pronunciation norm is a set of pronunciation forms and rules of their usage widely adopted by educated speakers in a social community.

Pronunciation norm must not appear for EFL learners as a set of rigid regulations,fixed once and for ever. It is dynamic in nature i.e. liable for changes m the course of time, in language diachrony (мовна діахронія). At any particular time in the evolution of an accent, in language synchrony (мовна синхронія), there are likely to be a number of different, co-existent, realizations of phonemes, word pronunciation forms - pronunciation variants not only as between accents, but also between generations and social groups, because no linguistic change can occur all of a sudden.

2.Relationship:

r-harmful,full of energy,to male things happen, persistent

e-means work hard and connects things together

l-light, spacey,famines

a-means a lasting and spread out widely

t-dreamer, designer, traveler,who follows his or her star,temptation

i-moves up up,light, and a bit tense

o-the source and the beginning of all

n-thoughtful,wise, noble

sh-hard to get through, protects, smth that need to be cared for

i--moves up up,light, and a bit tense

p-no secrets here, everything is open

Білет № 10

1. Speak on «FREE» phonemic or accentual variation.

Free phonemic variation – alternation of different phonemes within the phonemic structure of words, a speaker speaking in a single accent is free to choose between 2 or more pronunciation forms of a particular word. Free means that the alternation of certain phonemes within a word or the change of the place of stress don’t result in the change of meaning, but in the variant pronunciations of the same word. Permissible variation of the phonetic and accentual structures of words appears to be a striking feature of RP/BBC English and GenAm. Free phonemic variant pronunciations are not typical of Ukrainian or Russian.

2. Give your own classifications of vowels and consonants for irrespective according to Margaret Magnus’s idea of phonosemantics.

Margaret Magnus «Dictionary of English sound», each phoneme, each sound in a word is meaningful – she made a classification of sounds. IRRESPECTIVE:

Short i – moves up up up, light and a bit tense

R – handful, full of energy to make things happen

S – sexy, strong, flexible

P – no secrets here, everything is open

Short e – work hard and connect things together

K – snoby, secret

T – dreamer, designer, the traveler who follows his/her star

V – faithful, servant not the master

Білет №11

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