Regional Dialect Variation within the United States of America

204,  Linguistic Seminar SS 2004 Dagmar Hecher  

Table of  contents  

1.  Introduction  3

2.  The sounds of American English  3

2.1.  Consonant phonemes  3

2.2.  Vowel phonemes  4

3.  American English dialect regions  5

4.  The South  6

4.1.  The origins of Southern American English  6

4.2.  Characteristics of the regional variety of the South  7

4.2.1.  The retroflex r  7

4.2.2.  The r-coloring  7

4.2.3.  Voiced fricative z versus unvoiced fricative s  7

4.2.4.  Light l versus dark ɫ  8

4.2.5.  The approximant j  8

5.  Eastern New England  8

5.1  The origins of the variety spoken in Eastern New England  8

5.2.  Characteristics of the regional variety of Eastern New England  9

5.2.1.  The retroflex r  9

5.2.2.  The r-coloring  9

5.2.3.  hw and w  10

5.2.4.  The approximant j  10

6.  The Central Midland  10

6.1  The origins of the variety spoken in the Central Midland  10

6.2.  Characteristics of the regional variety of the Central Midland  11

6.2.1.  The retroflex r  11

6.2.2.  Voiced fricative z versus unvoiced fricative s  11

6.2.3.  The approximant j  11

7.  Conclusion  12

  References  12

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204, Linguistic Seminar, SS 2004 Dagmar Hecher

1. Introduction

I chose to take a closer look at the different dialect regions within the United States of

America because during the last semester at university I had been trying to adopt the

American English accent into my own speech, and I wanted to learn where all the

things the teachers had told l me to do had their origins.

At first I wanted to deal with each and every of the ten dialect regions within the

US, looking at all the phonemes which in some way characterized them. After I had

done some research I learned that this way I would have had to spend a year on that

paper, instead of the planned two months. So I decided to concentrate only on three

Northern American dialect regions: Eastern New England, the South and the Central

Midland.

After writing the first part of my paper, including the study on the dialect spoken

in the South, I found out that my topic was still too big. That was why I made the final

decision to leave out the vowels in my study and to concentrate mainly on

consonants, with the exception of the r-coloring. This turned out to be a research field

easily big enough for my first paper of that kind.

2. The sounds of American English

2.1. Consonant phonemes

In American English there are 24 phonetic symbols describing the consonant sounds: [p] as in ‘people’ [b] as in ‘bee’

[t] as in ‘table’

[k] as in ‘cat’

[f] as in ‘fan’ [ɵ] as in ‘thin’ [s] as in ‘sip’ [ʃ] as in ‘shape’ [ʧ] as in ‘chin’ [m] as in ‘mouse’

[n] as in ‘nose’ [ŋ] as in ‘bring’ [h] as in ‘hip’

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204, Linguistic Seminar, SS 2004 Dagmar Hecher

The consonant sounds of American English can be classified according to how and where they are produced:

The /h/ sound is often described as a voiceless vowel. When producing the /h/, the mouth is already in the position of the following vowel, but there is no vibration of the vocal coards, which would be when producing a vowel.

Typical of Standard American English in contrast to Standard British English is the use of the so called ‘flapped /t/’. In words like ‘better’, ‘butter’, ‘city’, ‘Seattle’, ‘daughter’, the /t/ is voiced and articulated at the tooth ridge like a /d/, but much shorter. The symbol indicating a flapped /t/ is [t].

Even though there is only one phonetic symbol for the /l/ sound, in Standard American English there are two different ways of pronouncing it. When pronouncing a word like ‘lead’, the tip of the tongue touches the tooth ridge. This /l/ sound is referred to as ‘light /l/’. When pronouncing a word like ‘deal’, the tip of the tongue does not touch the tooth ridge, but the back of the tongue is raised towards the soft palate. This /l/ sound is called the ‘dark /l/’. The symbol representing a dark /l/ is [ɫ].

2.2. Vowel phonemes

In American English there are twelve phonetic symbols describing the vowel sounds: [ɪ] as in ‘kit’ [u:] as in ‘shoe’

[e] as in ‘pet’ [æ] as in ‘cat’

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