THE SOUND AND STYLE OF AMERICAN ENGLISH
A Course in Foreign Accent Reduction
INTRODUCTION
Dr.David Alan Stern
I WANT TO REDUCE MY ACCENT. WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO FIRST?
There are two basic skills you must learn right away if you want your speech to sound more American. First, you must learn the correct INTONATION. Intonation means the pitch changes and rhythms of a language or dialect. Once you begin Americanizing your intonation, native speakers will almost immediatlely become more comfortable with your speech and begin following your ideas much more easily. Second, you must change the way you move your moth muscles during the speech. Every language or dialect hs a unique way its speakers move their mouths. This leads to the language's special \resonance or voice tone. To reduce your accent, you must stop using the muscles as you did with your first language and substitute movements that produce this uniquely American tone. The first two-thirds of this audio contains exercises that teach you to produce American intonation and voice tone.
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Course #1
LESSON 1: THE MUSIC OF AMERICAN SPEECH
IN THIS LESSON THE TAPE TEACHES YOU THE INTONATION (PITCH CHANGE) PATHERN WHICH IS CHARACTERISTIC OF WELL SPOKEN,
STANDARD AMERICAN ENGLISH When it is spoken well, American speech has what I call a JUMP UP and STEP DOWN pattern of pitch change. that means that, inside each phrase or unit of thought, the pitch jumps up to a higher note on an early, important word. Then, it steps down a little bit on each syllable that follows within that unit. Most speakers of English as a second language do not use this JUMP UP and STEP DOWN pattern. People from some languages use little or no pitch change. In other languages, speakers use upward glides in pitch to emphasize ideas. With its JUMP UP / STEP DOWN pattern, American English does neither of these things.
Listen to the instructions and examples on the tape. They show you exactly how to do the simplest form of the JUMP UP and STEP DOWN pattern. After the first few demonstrations, the tape asks you to listen to the samples and apply the pattern yourself to sentence Group I. The first time through, try using the pattern only once in each sentence by jumping in pitch on the words that I've underlined.
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INTRODUCTION
1. GOOD MORNING. 2. GOOD MORNING.
3. I'M VERY HAPPY TO SEE YOU TODAY. 4. CALL HIM ON THE OFFICE TELEPHONE.
5. GOOD MORNING I'M VERY HAPPY TO MEET YOU. 6. I'M VERY HAPPY TO SEE YOU.
7. I'M VERY HAPPY TO SEE YOU TODAY.
SENTENCE GROUP I
1. I'M VERY PLEASED TO MEET YOU. 2. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR CALLING.
3. I'D LIKE TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT FOR NEXT THURSDAY. 4. I'M GOING OUT OF TOWN AT THE END OF NEXT WEEK.
5. I WON'T BE BACK IN THE OFFICE TILL THE FOLLOWING MONDAY. 6. THERE'S TOO MUCH NOISE ON THE STREET WHERE WE LIVE. 7. I DON'T WANT TO GO THERE ANYMORE.
8. MY CAR BROKE DOWN ON THE FREEWAY THIS AFTERNOON. 9. MY OFFICE IS ON THE THIRD FLOOR, RIGHT ACROSS FROM THE
ELEVATOR. 10. I'LL NEVER BE HOME ON TIME IF I KEEP GETTING TELEPHONE
CALLS. Of course, there aren't any totally right or totally wrong places for beginning these JUMP UP and STEP DOWN units. In many phrases and sentences, you have a choice of more than one place where you can begin the pattern by jumping up in pitch. Similarly, there are many atatements in which you can use a JUMP UP and STEP DOWN pattern two, or three, or perhaps even four times. Of course. the longer the sentence, the more often you'd be able to begin a new pattern by jumping up and stressing a new idea. The tape will give you several examples of this principle using the last sentence from Group I. 10A. I'LL NEVER GET HOME ON TIME IF I KEEP GETTING TELEPHONE CALLS.
Next, the tape shows you how you can use more than one JUMP UP and STEP DOWN pattern in the first five sentences from the group. Try those sentences again, this time jumping up in pitch twice during each sentence. 1. I'M VERY PLEASED TO MEET YOU. 2. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR CALLING.
3. I'D LIKE TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT FOR NEXT THURSDAY.
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4. I'M GOING OUT OF TOWN AT THE END OF NEXT WEEK.
5. I WON'T BE BACK IN THE OFFICE TILL THE FOLLOWING MONDAY. The tape now asks you to try an experiment. Read Sentence Group II very expressively, but with your current accent. While you're speaking, pay attention to exactly what you are doing to stress important ideas. Now,
translate the sentences in your first language; speak them enthusiastically, and see what you do to stress ideas. I hope that these exercises show most of you that you already know when to stress important words. But, in your old language or accent, you usedifferent tools of pitch or loudness to create the same effect. The tape then asks you to go back to the English sentences and try stressing the same important ideas you just discovered. This time, however, try using the new JUMP UP and STEP DOWN pattern instead of the tools from your old language. Listen carefullyto those instructions on the tape, and then try that experiment with the sentences in Group Two. For the first time, you will be trying to apply the JUMP UP and STEP DOWN pattern by yourself, without imitating a model on the tape.
SENTENCE GROUP II
1. I'D LIKE TO WELCOME ALL OF YOU TO THIS MEETING. 2. I'LL BEGIN BY INTRODUCING MYSELF TO YOU.
3. MY NAME IS _____________________ , AND I'VE BEEN PRESIDENT OF THIS COMPANY FOR THE LAST TEN YEARS. 4. I'VE SEEN A LOT OF CHANGES IN THAT TIME.
5. YES, WE'VE CERTAINLY MADE A GREAT DEAL OF PROGRESS. 6. BUT THERE IS STILL A LOT MORE TO DO IF WE'RE GOING TO CONTINUE TO GROW. 7. STARTING NEXT WEEK, WE WILL BEGIN A BRAND NEW PROJECT. 8. ALTHOUGH OUR GOALS ARE NEW, WE STILL NEED THE SAME DEDICATION AND THE SAME HARD WORK YOU HAVE ALREADY SHOWN US. 9. I HOPE THAT THE NEXT TEN YEARS OF PROGRESS WILL MAKE THE LAST TEN SEEM SMALL BY COMPARISON. At the end of Lesson #1, the tape tells you to try using the JUMP UP and STEP DOWN pattern in the little speech which results when you put
SENTENCE GROUP II together into a single paragraph. The under lined words are just suggestions for pitch jumps.
SENTENCE GROUP II (as a complete speech)
\ like to welcome all of you to this meeting. I'll begin by introducing myself to you. My name is David Alan Stern, and I've been president of this
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company for the last ten years. I've seen a lot of changes in that time. Yes, we've certainly made a great deal of progress. But there is still a lot more to do if we're going to continue to grow, Starting next week, we will begin a brand new project. Although our goals are new, we still need the same dedication and the same hard work you have already shown us. I hope that the next ten years of progress make the last ten seem small by comparison.\
LESSON 2: RELAXING THE LIPS AND FRONT MOUTH
IN THIS LESSON, THE TAPE TEACHES YOU TO OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND BEGIN SPEECH MOVEMENTS WITHOUT USING A LOT OF MUSCLE PUSH IN THE LIPS AND THE FRONT OF THE MOUTH. In every language and dialect, speakers form words with a different style of muscle movements. Each of these muscle styles creates a slightly different type of voice resonance. This resonance (which some people call \or \When the muscle style of your first language is used to speak a different language, the resulting voice tone creates a big part of what native speakers hear as a \
American English is formed with very little muscle work in the lips and the front of the mouth. Follow the instructions on the tape very carefully. You'll begin by relaxing the front of your mouth and producing the \After that you'll go on to other exercises where you speak the numbers, the days of the week, and the months of the year.
LESSON 3: CHANGING THE POSITION OF YOUR TONGUE IN THIS LESSON YOU LEARN TO BEGIN USE THE MUSCLES IN THE BACK OF YOUR TONGUE WHICH ARE NECESSARY TO CREATE THE RESONANCE OF AMERICAN ENGLISH.
This lesson begins one of the most important parts of your accent reduction process. To get the American speech style, you have to create most of the speech movement using the muscles in the back of your tongue. That process begins with a very simple step. You must be able to relax your tongue and put it into the specific shape which I call THE STARTING POSITION. On the next page there's a picture of a tongue being held in that position. As you play the tape, refer to this picture and look in a mirror while trying to recreate that same position and shape.
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