Ўзбекистон республикаси олий ва ўрта махсус таълим вазирлиги самарқанд давлат чет тиллар институти инглиз тили ва адабиёти кафедраси

5. American English Pronunciation
American English which is a variant of the English language, has developed its own peculiarities in vocabulary, grammatical structure and pronunciation. There are three main types of AE pronunciation, the Eastern, the Southern, and the General American type.

The G.A. type of pronunciation is considered to be the standard pronunciation of American English. It is used by the majority of Americans, and is, therefore, less regional, where as the other two types of pronunciation are easily detected as either Eastern or Southern. G. A. is used by radio and TV in the USA.

The peculiarities of GA lie in

1. 
   the pronunciation of sounds,
   
2. 
   differences in the accentual structure of words, and
   
3. 
   intonation.
   

1. 
   Peculiarities of the pronunciation of GA sounds as compared to RP sounds are as follows:
   

1. 
   /r/ in GA is retroflexive, the tip of the tongue is curled back;
   
2. 
   /t/ between a vowel and a sonorant, or between two vowels the second of which is unstressed, is vocalized: it is a short voiced /t/. But the distinction between /t/ and /d/ is not neutralized. American easily distinguish the words in such minimal pairs as “writer-rider”.
   

E.g. “better, pity, battle, twenty” (Exception: “return”).

(c) /l/ is always dark, even before vowels (e.g. “film, look, like”);

(d) /ʃ/ is vocalized in words like “excursion” /ʒn/, “version” /ʒn/, “Persia” /ʒ/;

(e) /d/ is omitted after /l/ and /n/ (e. g. “ cold, old, sold, individual”);

(f) /k/ is omitted before /t/ (e. g. “asked” /æst /);

(g) /j/ is omitted before /u/ (e.g. “duty” /du:ti/, “student” /`studnt/ , “tutor” /tu:tə/, “new”/nu:/);

(h) /hw/ is used in words spelt with “wh” (e. g. “which, why, while, whine, wheel”);

(i) the use of the glottal stop /’/ instead of /t/ before /m, n, l, r, j, w/; (e.g. “certainly” / `sɜ:’nll/, “that one” /ðæt’wən/

(j) GA vowels are not differentiated by their length. D. Jones notes that all American vowels are long.

(k) /æ/ is used instead of /ɑ: (“path, grass, staff, laugh, can’t, last, pass, ask, half”) EXCEPTIONS: father, palm, balm, alms, March, part”);

(l) /æ/ in GA is wider and longer than /æ/ in RP, the Americans pronounce it with a twang (“ma”’, “can”);

(m) AE vowels are nasalized in all positions.

(n) In AE /ou/ is much less diphthongal than in RP. It may be represented as /o:/ or /o/.

G.P. Krapp writes: “In the British speech a great variety of diphthongal shadings occur, some of them are familiar in the exaggerated representations of Englishmen and their speech on the American stage”.

2) Peculiarities in the accentual structure of words in GA as compared to RP.

American speakers make much greater used of secondary stress in polysyllabic words than British speakers do. In words ending in “-ary, -ory, -ery, -mony, -ative” the syllable containing the but last vowel bears tertiary stress (i.e. stress is somewhat weaker than secondary stress).

E.g. ˈdictioˌnary, ˈterriˌtory, ˈmilliˌnery, ˈcereˌmony, comˈmuniˌcative.
(3) Peculiarities of GA intonation.

T he most frequent intonation contour for statements and requests in GA is the tune, beginning low, rising to a high level, and then steadily falling.