General American English

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General American English, known in linguistics simply as General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm), is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans, encompassing a continuum rather than a single unified accent.[1][2][3] It is often perceived by Americans themselves as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics, though Americans with high education,[4] or from the North Midland, Western New England, and Western regions of the country are the most likely to be perceived as using General American speech.[5][6][7] The precise definition and usefulness of the term continue to be debated,[8][9][10] and the scholars who use it today admittedly do so as a convenient basis for comparison rather than for exactness.[8][11] Other scholars prefer the term Standard American English.[12][4]

Standard Canadian English accents are sometimes considered to fall under General American,[13] especially in opposition to the United Kingdom's Received Pronunciation; in fact, typical Canadian English accents align with General American in nearly every situation where British and American accents differ.[14]

Terminology

History and modern definition

The term "General American" was first disseminated by American English scholar

Atlas of North American English
identified these three accent regions—the Western U.S., Midland U.S., and Canada—as sharing those pronunciation features whose convergence would form a hypothetical "General American" accent.

Regarded as having General American accents in the earlier 20th century, but not by the middle of the 20th century, are the

Inland Northern United States,[23] and Western Pennsylvania.[5] However, many younger speakers within these regions have reversed away from mid-20th century accent innovations back towards General American features.[24][25][26][27] Accents that have never been labeled "General American", even since the term's popularization in the 1930s, are the regional accents (especially the r-dropping ones) of Eastern New England, New York City, and the American South.[28] In 1982, British phonetician John C. Wells wrote that two-thirds of the American population spoke with a General American accent.[12]

Disputed usage

English-language scholar William A. Kretzschmar Jr. explains in a 2004 article that the term "General American" came to refer to "a presumed most common or 'default' form of American English, especially to be distinguished from marked regional speech of New England or the South" and referring especially to speech associated with the vaguely-defined "Midwest", despite any historical or present evidence supporting this notion. Kretzschmar argues that a General American accent is simply the result of American speakers suppressing regional and social features that have become widely noticed and stigmatized.[29]

Since calling one variety of American speech the "general" variety can imply privileging and prejudice, Kretzchmar instead promotes the term Standard American English, which he defines as a level of American English pronunciation "employed by educated speakers in formal settings", while still being variable within the U.S. from place to place, and even from speaker to speaker.[4] However, the term "standard" may also be interpreted as problematically implying a superior or "best" form of speech.[30] The terms Standard North American English and General North American English, in an effort to incorporate Canadian speakers under the accent continuum, have also been suggested by sociolinguist Charles Boberg.[31][32] Since the 2000s, Mainstream American English has also been occasionally used, particularly in scholarly articles that contrast it with African-American English.[33][34]

Modern language scholars discredit the original notion of General American as a single unified accent, or a

television networks and other mass media.[23][35] Today, the term is understood to refer to a continuum of American speech, with some slight internal variation,[8] but otherwise characterized by the absence of "marked" pronunciation features: those perceived by Americans as strongly indicative of a fellow American speaker's regional origin, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. Despite confusion arising from the evolving definition and vagueness of the term "General American" and its consequent rejection by some linguists,[36] the term persists mainly as a reference point to compare a baseline "typical" American English accent with other Englishes around the world (for instance, see Comparison of General American and Received Pronunciation).[8]

Origins

Regional origins

Though General American accents are not commonly perceived as associated with any region, their

).

Theories about prevalence

Linguists have proposed multiple factors contributing to the popularity of a rhotic "General American" class of accents throughout the United States. Most factors focus on the first half of the twentieth century, though a basic General American pronunciation system may have existed even before the twentieth century, since most American English dialects have diverged very little from each other anyway, when compared to dialects of single languages in other countries where there has been more time for language change (such as the English dialects of England or German dialects of Germany).[40]

One factor fueling General American's popularity was the major demographic change of twentieth-century American society: increased

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant communities in the remainder of the country: namely, the West, the Midwest, and the non-coastal Northeast.[44]

Kenyon, author of American Pronunciation (1924) and pronunciation editor for the second edition of Webster's New International Dictionary (1934), was influential in codifying General American pronunciation standards in writing. He used as a basis his native Midwestern (specifically, northern Ohio) pronunciation.[45] Kenyon's home state of Ohio, however, far from being an area of "non-regional" accents, has emerged now as a crossroads for at least four distinct regional accents, according to late twentieth-century research.[46] Furthermore, Kenyon himself was vocally opposed to the notion of any superior variety of American speech.[47]

In the media

General American, like the British

Second World War, with the patriotic incentive for a more wide-ranging and unpretentious "heartland variety" in television and radio.[49]

General American is thus sometimes associated with the speech of North American radio and television announcers, promoted as prestigious in their industry,

Southern American accent in response to media portrayals of Southerners as stupid and uneducated.[50][51]

Phonology

Typical General American accent features (for example, in contrast to British English) include features that concern consonants, such as

LOTTHOUGHT merger among at least half). All of these phenomena are explained in further detail under American English's phonology section
. The following provides all the General American consonant and vowel sounds.

Consonants

A table containing the consonant phonemes is given below:

Consonant phonemes in General American
Labial Dental Alveolar Post-
alveolar
Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m
n
ŋ
Stop
p b
t
d
k ɡ
Affricate
Fricative
f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ h
Approximant
l
ɹ
j (ʍ) w

Vowels

Monophthongs of General American without the cot–caught merger, from Wells (1982, p. 486). [e] and [o] are monophthongal allophones of /eɪ/ and /oʊ/.
Diphthongs of General American, from Wells (1982, p. 486).
Vowel phonemes in General American
Front Central Back
lax tense lax tense lax tense
Close ɪ i ʊ u
Mid ɛ ə (ʌ)
Open æ ɑ (ɔ)
Diphthongs   ɔɪ  
  • Vowel length is not phonemic in General American, and therefore vowels such as /i/ are customarily transcribed without the length mark.[a] Phonetically, the vowels of GA are short [ɪ, i, ʊ, u, eɪ, oʊ, ɛ, ʌ, ɔ, æ, ɑ, aɪ, ɔɪ, aʊ] when they precede the fortis consonants /p, t, k, tʃ, f, θ, s, ʃ/ within the same syllable and long [ɪː, iː, ʊː, uː, eːɪ, oːʊ, ɛː, ʌː, ɔː, æː, ɑː, aːɪ, ɔːɪ, aːʊ] elsewhere. (Listen to the minimal pair of kit and kid [ˈkʰɪt, ˈkʰɪːd].) This applies to all vowels but the schwa /ə/ (which is typically very short [ə̆]), so when e.g. /i/ is realized as a diphthong [i̞i], it has the same allophones as the other diphthongs, whereas the sequence /ɜr/ (which corresponds to the NURSE vowel /ɜː/ in RP) has the same allophones as phonemic monophthongs: short [ɚ] before fortis consonants and long [ɚː] elsewhere.[clarification needed] The short [ɚ] is also used for the sequence /ər/ (the LETTER vowel). All unstressed vowels are also shorter than the stressed ones, and the more unstressed syllables follow a stressed one, the shorter it is, so that /i/ in lead is noticeably longer than in leadership.[59][60] (See Stress and vowel reduction in English.)
  • /i, u, eɪ, oʊ, ɑ, ɔ/ are considered to compose a natural class of tense monophthongs in General American, especially for speakers with the cot–caught merger. The class manifests in how GA speakers treat loanwords, as in the majority of cases stressed syllables of foreign words are assigned one of these six vowels, regardless of whether the original pronunciation has a tense or a lax vowel. An example of that is the surname of Thomas Mann, which is pronounced with the tense /ɑ/ rather than lax /æ/ (as in RP, which mirrors the German pronunciation /man/, which also has a lax vowel).[61] All of the tense vowels except /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ can have either monophthongal or diphthongal pronunciations (i.e. [i, u, e, ö̞] vs [i̞i, u̞u, eɪ, ö̞ʊ]). The diphthongs are the most usual realizations of /eɪ/ and /oʊ/ (as in stay [steɪ] and row [ɹö̞ʊ], hereafter transcribed without the diacritics), which is reflected in the way they are transcribed. Monophthongal realizations are also possible, most commonly in unstressed syllables; here are audio examples for potato [pəˈtʰeɪɾö̞] and window [ˈwɪndö̞]. In the case of /i/ and /u/, the monophthongal pronunciations are in free variation with diphthongs. Even the diphthongal pronunciations themselves vary between the very narrow (i.e. [i̞i, u̞u ~ ʉ̞ʉ]) and somewhat wider (i.e. [ɪi ~ ɪ̈i, ʊu ~ ʊ̈ʉ]), with the former being more common. /ɑ/ varies between back [ɑ] and central [ɑ̈].[62] As indicated in above phonetic transcriptions, /u/ is subject to the same variation (also when monophthongal: [u ~ ʉ]),[62] but its mean phonetic value is usually somewhat less central than in modern RP.[63]
  • nasal consonant (that is, before /m/, /n/ and, for some speakers, /ŋ/).[64] This sound may be narrowly transcribed as [ɛə] (as in Anne and am
    ), or, based on a specific dialect, variously as [eə] or [ɪə]. See the chart for comparison to other dialects.
/æ/ raising in North American English[65]
Following
consonant
Example
words[66]
New York City,
New Orleans[67]
Baltimore,
Philadelphia[68]
Midland US,
New England,
Pittsburgh,
Western US
Southern
US
Canada, Northern
Mountain US
Minnesota,
Wisconsin
Great Lakes
US
Non-prevocalic
/m, n/
fan, lamb, stand [ɛə][69][A][B] [ɛə][69] [ɛə~ɛjə][72] [ɛə][73] [ɛə][74]
Prevocalic
/m, n/
animal, planet,
Spanish
[æ]
/ŋ/[75] frank, language [ɛː~eɪ~æ][76] [æ~æɛə][72] [ɛː~ɛj][73] [~ej][77]
Non-prevocalic
/ɡ/
bag, drag [ɛə][A] [æ][C] [æ][69]
Prevocalic /ɡ/ dragon, magazine [æ]
Non-prevocalic
/b, d, ʃ/
grab, flash, sad [ɛə][A] [æ][D][79] [ɛə][79]
Non-prevocalic
/f, θ, s/
ask, bath, half,
glass
[ɛə][A]
Otherwise as, back, happy,
locality
[æ][E]
  1. ^ a b c d In New York City and Philadelphia, most function words (am, can, had, etc.) and some learned or less common words (alas, carafe, lad, etc.) have [æ].[70]
  2. ^ In Philadelphia, the irregular verbs began, ran, and swam have [æ].[71]
  3. ^ In Philadelphia, bad, mad, and glad alone in this context have [ɛə].[70]
  4. Canadian Shift.[78]
  5. ^ In New York City, certain lexical exceptions exist (like avenue being tense) and variability is common before /dʒ/ and /z/ as in imagine, magic, and jazz.[80]
    In New Orleans, [ɛə] additionally occurs before /v/ and /z/.[81]

The 2006

Atlas of North American English surmises that "if one were to recognize a type of North American English to be called 'General American'" according to data measurements of vowel pronunciations, "it would be the configuration formed by these three" dialect regions: Canada, the American West, and the American Midland.[88]
The following charts (as well as the one above) present the vowels that these three dialects encompass as a perceived General American sound system.

Pure vowels

Pure vowels (monophthongs)
Wikipedia's
IPA
diaphoneme
Wells's
GenAm
phoneme
GenAm
realization
Example
words
/æ/ [æ] (listen)[89] bath, trap, yak
[eə~ɛə~æ][90][91][92] (listen) ban, tram, sand (pre-nasal
/æ/ tensing
)
/ɑː/ /ɑ/ [ɑ~ɑ̈] (listen)[93] ah, father, spa
/ɒ/ bother, lot, wasp (
father–bother merger
)
/ɔ/ [ɑ~ɔ̞] (listen)[93][94] boss, cloth, dog, off (
lot–cloth split
)
/ɔː/ all, bought, flaunt (
cot–caught variability
)
/oʊ/ /o/ [oʊ~ɔʊ~ʌʊ~] (listen)[95][96][97] goat, home, toe
/ɛ/ [ɛ] [89] dress, met, bread
/eɪ/ [e̞ɪ~eɪ] (listen)[89] lake, paid, feint
/ə/ [ə~ɐ][60] (listen) about, oblige, arena
[ɨ~ɪ~ə][98] (listen) ballad, focus, harmony (
weak vowel merger
)
/ɪ/ [ɪ~ɪ̞][99] (listen) kit, pink, tip
/iː/ /i/ [i~ɪi] (listen)[89][failed verification] beam, chic, fleece
happy, money, parties (
happY tensing
)
/ʌ/ [ʌ̟] (listen) bus, flood, what
/ʊ/ [ʊ̞] (listen)[99] book, put, should
/uː/ /u/ [~ʊu~ʉu~ɵu] (listen)[100][96][101][95] goose, new, true

Diphthongs

Diphthongs
Wikipedia's
IPA diaphoneme
GenAm realization Example words
/aɪ/ [äɪ] (listen)[95] bride, prize, tie
[äɪ~ɐɪ~ʌ̈ɪ][102] bright, price, tyke (price raising)
/aʊ/ [aʊ~æʊ] (listen)[89] now, ouch, scout
/ɔɪ/ [ɔɪ~oɪ] (listen)[89] boy, choice, moist

R-colored vowels

R-colored vowels[103][104]
Wikipedia's
IPA diaphoneme
GenAm realization Example words
/ɑːr/ [ɑɹ] (listen) barn, car, park
/ɛər/ [ɛəɹ] (listen) bare, bear, there
[ɛ(ə)ɹ] bearing
/ɜːr/ [ɚ] (listen) burn, first, murder
/ər/ murder
/ɪər/ [iəɹ~ɪəɹ] (listen) fear, peer, tier
[i(ə)ɹ~ɪ(ə)ɹ] fearing, peering
/ɔːr/ [ɔəɹ~oəɹ] (listen)[105] horse, storm, war
hoarse, store, wore
/ʊər/ [ʊəɹ~oəɹ~ɔəɹ] (listen) moor, poor, tour
[ʊ(ə)ɹ~o(ə)ɹ~ɔ(ə)ɹ] poorer

See also

Explanatory notes

  1. ^ Some British sources, such as the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, use a unified symbol set with the length mark ː for both British and American English. Others, such as The Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English, do not use the length mark for American English only.

References

Citations

  1. ^ Van Riper (2014), pp. 123.
  2. ^ a b Kövecses (2000), pp. 81–82.
  3. ^ Wells (1982), pp. 34, 470.
  4. ^ a b c d Kretzschmar (2004), p. 257.
  5. ^ a b c Van Riper (2014), pp. 128–9.
  6. ^ Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (1997). "A National Map of the Regional Dialects of American English" and "Map 1". Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania. "The North Midland: Approximates the initial position|Absence of any marked features"; "On Map 1, there is no single defining feature of the North Midland given. In fact, the most characteristic sign of North Midland membership on this map is the small black dot that indicates a speaker with none of the defining features given"; "Map 1 shows Western New England as a residual area, surrounded by the marked patterns of Eastern New England, New York City, and the Inland North. [...] No clear pattern of sound change emerges from western New England in the Kurath and McDavid materials or in our present limited data."
  7. PMID 16454310. See also: map
    .
  8. ^ a b c d e Wells (1982), p. 118.
  9. ^ Van Riper (2014), pp. 124, 126.
  10. ^ Kretzschmar (2004), p. 262.
  11. ^ a b Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 263.
  12. ^ a b Wells (1982), p. 34.
  13. ^ a b Boberg (2004a), p. 159.
  14. ^ Wells (1982), p. 491.
  15. ^ a b Van Riper (2014), p. 124.
  16. ^ Van Riper (2014), p. 125.
  17. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 146.
  18. ^ Van Riper (2014), p. 130.
  19. ^ Van Riper (2014), pp. 128, 130.
  20. ^ Van Riper (2014), pp. 129–130.
  21. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 268.
  22. ^ Harbeck, James (2015). "Why is Canadian English unique?" BBC. BBC.
  23. ^ a b c d Wells (1982), p. 470.
  24. ^ Driscoll, Anna; Lape, Emma (2015). "Reversal of the Northern Cities Shift in Syracuse, New York". University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics. 21 (2).
  25. ^ Dinkin, Aaron (2017). "Escaping the TRAP: Losing the Northern Cities Shift in Real Time (with Anja Thiel)". Talk presented at NWAV 46, Madison, Wisc., November 2017.
  26. ^ Wagner, S. E.; Mason, A.; Nesbitt, M.; Pevan, E.; Savage, M. (2016). "Reversal and re-organization of the Northern Cities Shift in Michigan" (PDF). University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 22.2: Selected Papers from NWAV 44.
  27. ^ Fruehwald, Josef (2013). "The Phonological Influence on Phonetic Change". Publicly Accessible University of Pennsylvania Dissertations. p. 48.
  28. ^ Van Riper (2014), pp. 123, 129.
  29. ^ Kretzschmar (2004), p. 262: 'The term "General American" arose as a name for a presumed most common or "default" form of American English, especially to be distinguished from marked regional speech of New England or the South. "General American" has often been considered to be the relatively unmarked speech of "the Midwest", a vague designation for anywhere in the vast midsection of the country from Ohio west to Nebraska, and from the Canadian border as far south as Missouri or Kansas. No historical justification for this term exists, and neither do present circumstances support its use... [I]t implies that there is some exemplary state of American English from which other varieties deviate. On the contrary, [it] can best be characterized as what is left over after speakers suppress the regional and social features that have risen to salience and become noticeable.'
  30. ^ Kretzschmar 2004, p. 257: "Standard English may be taken to reflect conformance to a set of rules, but its meaning commonly gets bound up with social ideas about how one's character and education are displayed in one's speech".
  31. ^ Boberg (2004a)
  32. ^ Boberg, Charles (2021). Accent in North American film and television. Cambridge University Press.
  33. ^ Pearson, B. Z., Velleman, S. L., Bryant, T. J., & Charko, T. (2009). Phonological milestones for African American English-speaking children learning mainstream American English as a second dialect.
  34. ^ Blodgett, S. L., Wei, J., & O'Connor, B. (2018, July). Twitter universal dependency parsing for African-American and mainstream American English. In Proceedings of the 56th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers) (pp. 1415–1425).
  35. ^ Labov, William (2012). Dialect diversity in America: The politics of language change. University of Virginia Press. pp. 1–2.
  36. ^ Van Riper (2014), p. 129.
  37. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 190.
  38. ^ Bonfiglio (2002), p. 43.
  39. ^ "Talking the Tawk". The New Yorker. Condé Nast. 2005.
  40. .
  41. ^ Kretzschmar (2004), pp. 260–2.
  42. ^ Bonfiglio (2002), pp. 69–70.
  43. ^ Bonfiglio (2002), pp. 4, 97–98.
  44. ^ Van Riper (2014), pp. 123, 128–130.
  45. ^ Seabrook (2005).
  46. ^ Hunt, Spencer (2012). "Dissecting Ohio's Dialects". The Columbus Dispatch. GateHouse Media, Inc. Archived from the original on September 28, 2021.
  47. Hal Leonard Corporation
    . p. 163.
  48. ^ Fought, John G. (2005). "Do You Speak American? | Sea to Shining Sea | American Varieties | Rful Southern". PBS. Archived from the original on December 8, 2016.
  49. .
  50. ^
    National Public Radio
    . Retrieved July 11, 2007.
  51. ^ a b Safer, Morley (August 13, 2006). "The Colbert Report: Morley Safer Profiles Comedy Central's 'Fake' Newsman". 60 Minutes. Archived from the original on August 20, 2006. Retrieved August 15, 2006.
  52. ^ Nosowitz, Dan (August 23, 2016). "Is There a Place in America Where People Speak Without Accents?". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved October 12, 2019.
  53. .
  54. ^ .
  55. .
  56. .
  57. ^ Ennser-Kananen, Halonen & Saarinen (2021), p. 334.
  58. ^ Tsentserensky, Steve (October 20, 2011). "You Know What The Midwest Is?". The News Burner. Archived from the original on November 18, 2018. Retrieved December 13, 2018.
  59. ^ Wells (1982), pp. 120, 480–481.
  60. ^ a b Wells (2008).
  61. ^ Lindsey (1990).
  62. ^ a b Wells (1982), pp. 476, 487.
  63. ^ Jones (2011), p. IX.
  64. ^ Boberg, Charles (Spring 2001). "Phonological Status of Western New England". American Speech, Volume 76, Number 1. pp. 3–29 (Article). Duke University Press. p. 11: "The vowel /æ/ is generally tensed and raised [...] only before nasals, a raising environment for most speakers of North American English".
  65. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 182.
  66. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 173–174.
  67. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 173–174, 260–261.
  68. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 173–174, 238–239.
  69. ^ a b c Duncan (2016), pp. 1–2.
  70. ^ a b Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 173.
  71. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 238.
  72. ^ a b Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 178, 180.
  73. ^ a b Boberg (2008), p. 145.
  74. ^ Duncan (2016), pp. 1–2; Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 175–177.
  75. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 183.
  76. ^ Baker, Mielke & Archangeli (2008).
  77. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 181–182.
  78. ^ Boberg (2008), pp. 130, 136–137.
  79. ^ a b Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 82, 123, 177, 179.
  80. ^ Labov (2007), p. 359.
  81. ^ Labov (2007), p. 373.
  82. ^ Wells (1982), p. 487.
  83. ^ a b Wells (1982), p. 121.
  84. ^ a b Wells (1982), pp. 480–1.
  85. ^ Wells (1982), p. 132.
  86. ^ Wells (1982), p. 485.
  87. ^ Roca & Johnson (1999), p. 190.
  88. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 144
  89. ^ a b c d e f Kretzschmar (2004), pp. 263–4.
  90. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 180.
  91. ^ Thomas (2004), p. 315.
  92. ^ Gordon (2004), p. 340.
  93. ^ a b Wells (1982), p. 476.
  94. ^ Wells (1982), p. 145.
  95. ^ a b c Heggarty, Paul; et al., eds. (2015). "Accents of English from Around the World". Archived from the original on April 29, 2011. Retrieved September 24, 2016. See under "Std US + 'up-speak'"
  96. ^ a b Gordon (2004), p. 343.
  97. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 104.
  98. ^ Flemming, Edward; Johnson, Stephanie. (2007). "Rosa's roses: Reduced vowels in American English". Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 37(1), 83–96.
  99. ^ a b Wells (1982), p. 486.
  100. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 154.
  101. ^ Boberg (2004b), p. 361.
  102. .
  103. ^ Kretzschmar (2004), pp. 263–4, 266.
  104. ^ Wells (1982), pp. 121, 481.
  105. ^ Wells (1982), pp. 483.

Bibliography

Further reading

External links