On Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:10:51 +0000
Tom Zurinskas <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I hear it all ("ah"ll) the time in USA media. Segments of the population
> are outright refusing to say the phoneme "awe". Instead they say "ah".
> They are dropping the phoneme "awe" completely from their vocabulary. It's
> pandemic now. I recently heard two speakers in media talking (tahking)
> about "audio". One saying "ah-dio" and the other "awe-dio".
>
> This fad is not good. These words were not meant to be spoken that way as
> is obvious from their spelling - especially "au" and "aw".
>
> What ways do we have of correcting this and other mispronunciation fads that
> get into our language.
>
> tom z
In case you do not remember it, I will quote my response to your post
five years ago. It is not a fad which you have found now for the first
time. This only shows that the US dictionary makers have been too
conservative about the pronunciation they give and that they just cannot
handle it well in their own presentation of real speech.
On Mon, 13 Aug 2001 23:35:13 +0900
MAKINO Takehiko <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 13 Aug 2001 14:48:12 +0100
> Tom Zurinskas <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > To find GA pronunciation go to m-w.com, the Merrian-Webster site. The very
> > first page has a box up front to enter a word in. Type a word, hit enter,
> > then click on the speaker icon to hear it spoken in GA accent through your
> > computer speakers. Compare what you hear to what you see in the
> > pronunciation guide (IPA?). Any thoughts?
>
> It was amusing to listen to the pronunciation for words like "la" "ma",
> where two transcriptions are given and two speaker icons to match them.
> Both icons give me exactly the same pronunciations, with difference in
> pitch only. The person who pronounced those words was obviously
> inappropriate for the task.
In EPD 17, Jim Hartman gives "ah"-like pronunciation first for
"awe"-words, and this is indeed the type of pronunciation which I
usually come across when in the USA.
In addition, I would like to point out that the distinction between TRAP
vowel and DRESS vowel is neutralized (all sounding like DRESS) before
/r/ in most areas in North America. Thus <marry> sounds the same as
<merry>, and <arrogant> and <elegant> is a minimal pair differing only
in /r/ and /l/.
The Atlas of North American English by Bill Labov unraveled so much
about what have usually been lumped together under the label "General
American" pronunciation. It is not at all uniform.
In fact, Western cot/caught merger and Great Lakes Northern Cities Shift
are making it more and more diverse, and the choice among types is
preferable for ESL/EFL purposes. I personally prefer and would like to
promote (with Jim Hartman) the Western type partly because it has less
contrasts in vowels and is easier to learn.
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MAKINO Takehiko
Associate Professor
EFL Division, Faculty of Economics
Chuo University
742-1 Higashi-Nakano
Hachioji-shi, Tokyo 192-0393
JAPAN
Phone: +81-(0)426-74-3401
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
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