Based pronunciation standards of English

25)American - based pronunciation standards of English.
American English shows a lesser degree of dialect than British English due to the following factors:
a)the existence of standard English when 1^st English settlers came to America
b)the high mobility of population
c)internal immigration of different communities
Pronunciation is not homogeneous. The Eastern type is spoken in New England, in NYCity. It bears a resemblance Southern English, though there slight differences. The Southern type is spoken in South and South-East of the USA. It posses a striking distinctive feature-vowel drawl. It’s a specific way of pronouncing vowels ,consisting in diphthongization and thriphtongization of some pure vowels and monophthongization of some diphthongs. General American (northern, western) is spoken in Central Atlantic states (NY,NJersey). GA is known to be standard pronunciation of the USA. It is the form of speech used by the radio\tv. It is mostly used in scientific,cultural,buisnes intercourse.
Vowels:

1. 
   There is no strict division into long and short vowels in GA,but certain vowels are tense and likely to be accompanied by relative length. [i:]-seat.
   
2. 
   Classification of vowels is one of vowels is one of the most contrastive subject in GA. Diphtong is one phoneme,but it consists of 2 sounds, the pronunciation is not stable tense vowels may have diphthongal quality.
   
3. 
   Nasalization of vowels, when they are preceded or followed by nasal consonant. It is incidental.
   

Consonant:

1. 
   Intervocalic [t]is [d] – latter-ladder – vowel is shorter before [t].[t] may be dropped out – little-lil
   
2. 
   [x] is dark in all positions
   
3. 
   [r] – different articulated – greater retoflexion
   
4. 
   [j]-usually weakened\omitted between consonant and [u:]. News [nu:z]
   

Stress differences :

1. 
   French origin – in GA-final syllable
   
2. 
   Words ending –ory-ary-mony may have secondary,tertiary stress.
   
3. 
   Compounds have stress on the 1^st element in GA – weekend.
   

Non-systematic differences:

1. 
   Vase – [va:z]-[veiz]
   

«ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКАЯ ФОНЕТИКА АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА»
2010-2011 УЧЕБНЫЙ ГОД

1. Phonetics as a science: Definition of phonetics as a branch of linguistics; The connection of phonetics with different linguistic and non-linguistic sciences; Branches of phonetics.

2. Experimental phonetics: Methods of investigation (The direct observation method; The experimental method; The distributional method; The semantic method).
3. The aspects of speech sounds.
4. Physical properties of sounds.
5. The organs of speech and their functions: Active and passive organs of speech; The articulatory mechanism and its work.
6. Articulatory and physiological classification of English vowels in the works of Soviet, British and American phoneticians.
7. Articulatory and physiological classification of English consonants in the works of Soviet, British and American phoneticians.
8. Segmental and suprasegmental phonemes: The definition of the phoneme; The aspects of the phoneme; The functions of the phoneme.
9. Phonemes and Allophones: The principal allophone; The subsidiary allophones (types); Distinctive and non-distinctive features of phonemes; The invariant of the phoneme.
10. Connected speech: Lexical and function words; Strong and weak forms; Neutralization; Assimilation (types); Dissimilation; Accommodation; Elision; Intrusion; Linking (Fillers).
11. Syllable: Definition; Parts of syllable; Types and functions of syllables; The structure of the syllable.
12. The principal theories of syllable formation and syllable division.
13. The accentual structure of English words: Word stress (its types and functions); Sentence stress; Degrees of word stress; The factors that determine the degree and the place of stress.
14. English phonemes in writing: A grapheme; Simple and complex graphemes; Monographs, digraphs, trigraphs, polygraphs; Single-valued and multi-valued graphemes; Morphemic reference of graphemes; the notion of “orthography”; Syllabographs and morphographs.
15. Transcription and transliteration. Types of transcription.
16. Phonostylistics: The components of extralinguistic situation; The factors which result in phonostylistic varieties.
17. Intonation: Definition; The components of intonation and their functions.
18. The methods for recording intonation patterns in writing and advantages and disadvantages of these methods.
19. The most important nuclear tones in English. Simple and complex tones. High and low falling tones. The types of scales in English.
20. The most important elements in the pitch-and-stress pattern of an intonation group (An intonation pattern; The characteristics of an intonation group).
21. The pitch and sentence stress components of intonation and their graphical representation on the staves or in the line of text itself.
22. Territorial Varieties of English pronunciation. The orthoepic norm. The national language of England. Literary English. RP and GA.
23. Spread of English.
24. English-based pronunciation standards of English.
25. American - based pronunciation standards of English.