Week 15: Reflections

This is my final post for this blog. This week I continued working on some of those problem areas listed in the last blog post, especially the sections that need to be longer and shorter and the quality of my vowels. Getting the velarization and nasalization right also continues to be a problem.

Here's the link to my last recording for the semester:

Final Recording!

When I compare this with the original, and then with some of the intermediate steps, here are some things that I notice:

*Whatever I am specifically working on that week tends to be better than other aspects. When I was working on vowels, my vowels were better. When I was working on rhythm, my rhythm was better, and so on. That's encouraging, because it shows that deliberate practice does work but it also shows how difficult it is to put all of the pieces together in a way that lasts, and it shows how the lack of deliberate practice in a particular area may cause the previous successes to atrophy.

*After a while, I developed my own expectations of what the archetype should sound like that were different from the actual archetype. I created this pattern where I was listening to myself and comparing with previous versions of my own speech rather than with the archetype first. This was especially apparent to me in the last third of the archetype. I've tried to address that problem in these last two weeks, but it still needs work. This helps me to understand how accents fossilize . Students of language may often fall into the pattern of trying to sound more like the mental image they have of a given target dialect rather than the genuine copy of that dialect. This is probably more pronounced when native speakers are not around to help out. I am sure that my Australian accent would have developed much more accurately if I'd had a real Australian giving me feedback. A recording is helpful, but it simply isn't the same thing.

*When I perform in front of the mirror, I notice that my mouth shape is not the same as my archetype's. I'm approximating the sounds in ways that are different from the natural speech of the image that I am trying to imitate. Again, without genuine feedback from a real person, I'm not sure that I can fix that.

*Another area of serious phonological difference is the way I make my /r/'s. I know from studying a few other languages that the /r/ sound is very difficult to change, and I can sense that in myself with this project. Especially in those situations where /r/ is intervocalic or when it is word final but spoken very quickly, it is VERY hard to do it accurately.

*Lastly, although I am a perfectionist and can sense all of these issues in my accent, overall I think that I am happy with the way that it turned out. I may not be able to say anything ELSE in a convincing Australian accent, but I think with this specific archetype I was successful at making it sound neither American nor British. That's an accomplishment. I'm particularly proud of the work that I put into accurate word stress, sentence final rising intonation, and the development of diphthongs. I did my best, and so I guess that's the best that I can do.

If I were ever to do something like this again, I would definitely want someone around who speaks the dialect natively who could give me more genuine feedback. Without that, the effort becomes wearying and loses its value quickly. If I had to do it over again, I would spend more time focusing on the vowels and find other archetypes to work with to expand my practice material. Instrumentalists never work on only one piece at a time, because they might die of boredom. They play their scales and exercises daily, yes, but they also work on multiple pieces simultaneously. I think that would have helped my motivation and perhaps increased my success in this project as well.

I would like to thank you for reading to the end of my blog. I hope that it was enjoyable.