Week 5: Vowels

This week, I studied diagrams of vowel quadrangles from Macquarie University and practiced making the sounds with different words. What I noticed most (and had also noticed just by listening) is that the high /i:/ and /I/ vowels are very close together and extremely frontwards in the mouth. Also, the high back vowel /u/ is really more forward, high and central than in NAE, and this one vowel and the diphthongs associated with it make a big difference in the overall cadence of the dialect. Additionally, I was quite astonished to see the trajectory of vowel movement localized so frontwards for so many of the diphthongs. This really provided me with visual evidence for why it seems like Australians have a "chewing" vocal posture. Rather extreme movement is required.

 

 


I also divided my archetype into three sections, and transcribed the vowels in the entire passage using the Cox and Evans (1997) Australian English transcription system provided by Macquarie University (http://clas.mq.edu.au/phonetics/phonetics/ausenglish/index.html, see screen shot below). I decided to diagram these words using the Australian symbols because I hoped it would help my eyes and my mouth get connected on pronouncing these vowels in ways that are different from American English  Using the NAE equivalents might cause me to hear in my head the wrong sounds, but if I associate the altered symbols with the production of  those vowels in a different location or with a different diphthong movement pattern, then I might be able to make more accurate phonemes more quickly.

Over the course of week 5 I transcribed my three sections and practiced. Here are copies of my transcription notes:

Finally, here is the resulting audio recording of my week 5 work.

Week 5 Attempt: Vowels

I recorded the speech more slowly this time, to try and get as close to the full vowel sounds as I can.

Next week I'll work on making it sound more natural when spoken swiftly. I also plan to use Praat next week to analyze the quality of some of my vowels and compare them and improve my overall vowel quality. If I have time, I may look for some vocal articulator exercises to help warm myself up before practicing and activate some of the lazy muscles in my face.

Weeks 3-4 Vocal tone and r-coloring

During weeks 3 and 4 of the semester I did practice, but I did not do so 8 separate times. Here I record the progress that I did make.

First, I chose to work on several different things related to my vocal tone (going off of the voice quality settings) and ended by analyzing the r-coloring of my speaker.

Days 1 and 2: On these days, I carefully analyzed the vocal tones of my speaker. After comparing my recording from week #2 with the original, I noticed that overal my voice sits at a higher pitch, and there is too much tension in the way I make most of my vowels sounds. I needed to both find a way to relax my jaw so that more of my vowels are rounder and further back, and also carefully monitor when and how my speaker inflects her voice. I started by marking with intonation lines where the voice goes up and down, and highlighting places of extreme rises or falls. I also noted places where the speaker pauses and goes up or down slightly, so that I could get a visual picture of what it is I needed to be saying. I then spent some time practicing this. Below are images of the pages I used for this practice.

            

On days 3-4, I re-recorded with audacity and tried to compare. This was good for comparing length of words and shape of the sound, but not so much for the quality of vowels that I was aiming at.However, close intensive listening to specific sections of the recording and comparing it to my own cause me to notice how very important small changes in stress and tone from word to word in a sentence can alter the understanding of dialect. In those places where I stressed the "wrong" syllables, the vowels are the wrong length and the wave forms different in size. Additionally, I noticed that many of the vowels produced by my Architype have rounder wave forms than mine. In week 5, I plan to look at the two audio files (mine from week 4 and the archetype) and compare them in Praat rather than audacity. Later in the semester, when we discuss rhythm, I also hope to make a chart of the rhythm of the specific words.

Archetype: "It wasn't a recorded message, It was a person"

    

Me: "It wasn't a recorded message, It was a person"

Lastly, I analyzed the recording for R-coloring. I had noticed that at times the /r/ sounds very american like, and at other times it sounded very British like (r-less). This evaluation caused me to see that "r-full" and "r-less" are not simply an on-off option switch, but rather a continuum. When I listened to my own recording, I recognized myself doing all kinds of funky things with the "r"s to try and sound un-American in my first two recordings, even trilling one of them, but I certainly haven't been making them consistently "Australian". Below are my observations of the patterns.

I practiced this as well. Finally, I made my week 4 recording. Here is the link to it:

Aussie Accent attempt 3

Analysis: Overall I am pleased with my development in this recording. I feel that the vocal quality is better, my r sounds are better, and my vowels are getting closer. I think this is primarily due to my attempts to change the shape of my mouth and look at myself in the mirror to try and imitate my speaker. This has been helping with the vocal shape. My archetype has a "ringing" tone to some of her high dipthongs, and I hit it a couple of times in this recording, although not entirely. There are places where I seem to fall out of charcter, but I've still got some time to work on it.

My plan for next week is to analyze Praat diagrams of my speech compared with my archetype, transcribe key vowel sounds and try to get a feel for the movements in the vowel quadrangle needed to imitate this speaker.