LIN228H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Vocal Tract, Received Pronunciation, General American
Document Summary
Phoneticians divide sounds into two basic categories: segments and suprasegmentals. Vowels are made with no major obstruction in the vocal tract so that air passes through the mouth fairly easily. Consonants involve some type of obstruction in the vocal tract. Suprasegmentals involve a variety of things such as stress, pitch, intonation, and length. Transcription is the use of phonetic symbols to write down the way an utterance is pronounced. When we speak of accents, we mean only the features of the dialect regarding pronunciation. Received pronunciation (rp) is an upper-class accent often heard from announcers for the bbc. This accent has little regional variation, and is spoken by only about 3-5% of the population in britain. In america, there is no single prestige accent for the entire country, rather, each region has a certain amount of social variation. General american (ga) is spoken in the central and western areas.
