Second recording

Link to recording

I have been working on voice quality settings this week. First, I reviewed an article on voice quality settings to learn what this meant and to find guidelines for practice.

I practiced keeping my jaws and lips more open when pronouncing the vowel "o" as in job, prom and gonna. I practiced omitting word final sounds where necessary, such as in /t/ in "date" and not releasing /t/ in interview and important. Also, I practiced retroflexion whereby I tried to curl my tongue tip backwards when pronouncing prom and  product.

While some of these voice quality features are easier to produce (e.g. retroflex "r" and a more open "o"), some features are quite difficult to learn and require more practice especially omission of sounds. In my current recording, I feel that my pronunciation f the retroflex "r" and open "o" have improved.

In the coming week, I will practice more on voice quality features as  I focus more attention to consonant deletion or modification in pronunciation.

My first recording

My first recording

Most noticeable differences between the archetype and my own pronunciation.

The intonation of my archetype is more pronounced than mine both in questions and statements. I will work on my intonation as I continue practicing to ensure that I sound close to my archetype. Also, her pronunciation of both vowels and consonants is noticeably different. I do pronounce some of the sounds she omits, such the /t/ in “date”. While some of her vowels are more open e.g. /o/ in “prom”, mine are more closed. Her speech is more connected and rapid while mine is slower. I realize that I do pronounce distinct words when speaking English, so I may have to work on speech rate as well. Lastly, her stress patterns on particular words or syllables in a word are noticeable and make it easy to understand her speech. I will practice several times before achieving that stress pattern. These are some of the areas that I should work on sufficiently to sound close to my archetype.

This week, I will work on my voice quality. I hope to improve on my tone and perhaps intonation as well. I will also focus on the rate of my speech because I think it is important to keep up or get close to the speed of my archetype.

My archetype

Why I chose this video...

I chose this video because the girl in it is a native American English speaker. This video consists of continuous speech that is well paced and that I can follow comfortably for my practice. More importantly, this short video has a range of features that I intend to examine, such as intonation, rhythm, stress and pronunciation of vowels and consonants among other features. This girl asks questions, utters statements and changes her voice quality in a typical American English manner, thus providing me with the best archetype for practice in my phonology course.