Each week, I will focus on a very specific area of phonology, and will engage in deliberate practice in that area for 30 minutes, four days per week. I will choose my focus area based on what we are currently covering in class, most likely in the following order:
- voice quality setting
- consonants
- vowels
- connected speech
- stress
- rhythm
- prominence
- intonation
Here is the video that I chose as my Archetype. I will focus on the 0:00-1:20 section of the clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAvHr9paSmc
I decided on a dialect of English rather than another language because I felt I would be better able to hear and judge my own progress. Also, I hoped that it would help me develop a better understanding of the quality of vowels and consonants in different varieties of English, which would in turn help me better explain these sounds to future students and help them improve their English pronunciation.
I chose Australian because I think it will be both difficult and interesting. Most of my English dialect exposure has been with American southern, American standard, and (through media) British varieties of English. I wanted to choose something that I was less familiar with so that I would be less likely to "naturally" gravitate toward the correct sounds based on experience and would have to put in significant effort to force myself to do it correctly.
I chose this archetype because it is of a female speaker who is speaking naturally. I did not want to choose a speech (like from a politician), a narrative (like the narrated cartoon Mary and Max), or a male speaker (like Steve Irwin) because I want to experience a natural speech pattern and fluency level that matches my own female voice and is more realistic. When I train students to speak in English I try to help them learn to speak naturally, so I felt it was only fair to apply these methods to myself as
well. Additionally, I liked this video because I find it ironic that I will be imitating a person with an Australian accent discussing her preference for and a peculiarity of said accent.
Here is a link to my initial recording:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41456124/Initial%20Attempt%20(1).mov
As my initial recording clearly demonstrates, this attempt of the accent comes off like a bad combination of British English patterns with a few Australian-like diphthongs occasionally thrown in. I've got a lot of work to do. The areas of most significant difference between my recording and the archetype are in vowel length and quality, connected speech (while maintaining these qualities), and rhythm. I have a few things that I need to work on in terms of prominence and intonation, but I expect these last two items will be easier to match than the others. I have chosen a relatively good archetype match for my own vocal quality, so while I do need to work on matching the attitude that is carried in my voice in certain sentences, it is definitely the sounds of the dialect that are going to give me the most difficulty They are tighter and shorter than British English in some places, but longer and more lax than my American English in other places.
In the next week I will focus on getting closer to an accurate vocal quality setting. I will try to match the tone and register of the speaker and start getting a feel for the ways I need to change the shape of my mouth to make this thing work. I am looking forward to discovering and utilizing online resources for this accent training, and I sincerely hope that by the end of this semester I will be able to produce an 80-second recording that will be only slightly offensive to Australian ears. Or at least sound not so much like a bad British accent.
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