6.2. Major accent types: British and American

Generally speaking, the main defining feature of British-oriented accents is the absence of post-vocalic r which makes them all non-rhotic (л-less) compared to North-America-oriented accents which are predominantly rhotic (r-ful). However, within each country there are regionally marked accents: the Scottish, the Irish and some other provincial accents on the British Isles are rhotic; in the U.S.A. the Southern, the Eastern and Afro-American types of English accents are non-rhotic. These distinctive features become social markers. In the States they describe Bostonians as pronouncing the phrase with a long a but without r. The cah was pahked in Hahvahd yahd.

Another important point should be made about the speech communities of the U.K. and the U.S.A.: at present they are described as multicultural, which is especially true of the USA, the country of immigrants, with the Anglo-Saxon culture dominating and the English language being a unifying power in the nation. In spite of the diversity of languages and accents of various ethnic groups, as well as the differences in regional standards we can still describe American standard accent as that of GA (General American). We will compare GA (American Network English) with RP (BBC English). The difference in cultural norms across the two nations is also reflected in the status of the pronunciation models: RP is a social prestige accent spoken by a tiny minority of the population, estimated at 3-5% only, while the proportion of GA speakers in the U.S.A. is much higher, estimated at 33% of the population.

Most of the distinctions are found in the system of vowels which was affected by the preservation of r in GA (as is known from history, in Southern British English it was vocalised).

6.2.1. Vowels

a) There are 20 vowels in the system of RP and 15-16 vowels in GA: because /•was not vocalised, GA lacks centring diphthongs (ending in /з/); the retroflexed vowels /э:г/ and /a*-/, stressed and unstressed, are among those features that noticeably distinguish GA from RP. All vowels occurring before r within a syllable are likely to become "r-coloured" to some extent:

RP here [hia], hair [hez],pure [pjua]; GA here [hir], hair [her], pure [pjur];

b) American English in most of its variants lacks the short rounded vowel /r>/, it is replaced by a vowel /a:/ which is similar to RP vowel in father:

RP lock [Ink], dog [dng], stop [stop]; GA lock [la:k], dog [da:g], stop [sta:p].

The RP vowel /то/ сап also be replaced by a long vowel /o:/: RP long [\щ], forest [fnnst], orange [ormdjj], sorry [sun] GA long [h:rj\, forest [fo:nst], orange [o:nnd^\, sorry [so:n].

GA is not as strictly codified as RP. There is considerable variability in GA vowels in the open back area. Fewer and fewer Americans distinguish the vowel of lot [la:t] from that of thought [o:].

c) Most of the American linguists do not use the transcription system which allows us to distinguish long and short vowels in GA. Vowel length in American English is generally considered to be conditioned by phonological environment, so the long/short distinction described for RP is not usually present. GA is commonly described as having lax (historically short) vowels, tense (historically long) vowels and wide diphthongs. Lax vowels are lower and made with less oral tension: they do not usually end syllables. Experimental data showed that in reading pairs of words with contrasting historically long (tense) and historically short (lax) vowels RP speakers demonstrated, on the average, the ratio of 1.5:1, while with GA speakers the ratio is only 1.2:1. In certain contexts the contrast disappeared altogether.

d) The American /ae/ vowel is somewhat closer than the RP /ae/ and seems to be evolving into an even closer vowel in many speakers, so that the phrase Merry Mary married sounds as if all the accented vowels are identical. Notable is the fact that /ae/ is used not only in the same words as RP /ae/ but also in many words in which RP has /a:/ when there is no letter r in spelling (often before a combination of /s/ with another consonant). In phonology it is called a difference in distribution of the phoneme:

RP dance [da:ns], ask [ask], pass [pa:s]; GA dance [dsens], ask [desk],pass [paes].

e) The diphthong [эи] is more rounded in GA:

RP go [дэи], home [Ьэит]; GA go [qou], home [houm].