Sixth recording

Link to recording

This week I concentrated on three things; vowels, consonants and connected speech. since I have been working on vowels and consonants for some time, I focused more on ensuring that my speech flows and that I do not stammer in between words.
To do this, I transcribed my archetype's speech. Then, I played the audio and read along for practice. The transcript allowed me to record myself continuously without having to revisit the archetype.

Fifth Recording

Link to Recording

This week I have practiced the same segment of my archetype's audio but with an additional sentence at the end. I decided to focus on my intonation and reduction of vowel and consonant sounds. Reduction proved particularly difficult for me. Pronouncing words such as interview, important and family required me to be attentive enough to remember that I had to omit a particular sound. Otherwise, such as in my natural speech, I caught myself pronouncing all sounds in these words.

Fourth Recording

Link to recording

This week, I paid more attention to my body posture as I practiced and I noticed that allowing more flexibility for my articulators helped me get closer to my archetype's pronunciation. Faster jaw movement, lip spreading and tongue movement played a big role in improving my pronunciation. I read the article on "vowels of North American English" and this was such a useful resource for me this week because it clearly described the postures for lax and tense vowels.

I practiced repeatedly and recorded myself many times, listening to each recording and noticing problem sections, then trying to fix them. I also practiced the shadowing technique, where I recorded myself over my archetype practicing to keep up with her rate of speech. I found this helpful because then I could move my articulators faster.

Listening to my latest recording gives me much hope that I can actually improve my pronunciation. Practicing consistently and repeatedly while paying attention to single words or phrases turned out to be so helpful. Deliberate practice indeed works! I am convinced I will improve more over time.

Third Recording

Link to recording

This week has been a continuation of last week's practice on Voice quality settings. After noticing the areas where my pronunciation varies most from my archetype's, I started focusing on one feature at a time. I have practiced openness/lip spreading when pronouncing back vowels and retroflexion when pronouncing /r/. I hope one can notice a slight improvement in pronunciation of the words "prom", "job" and "over"

Generally, reductions and producing the rhotic "r" are the greatest challenge I have. I feel that reductions are so random and that makes difficult for me to pay attention to all of them.

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.