Week 14: Final Recording and Reflection

Finals week is approaching, and here is the final blog post for my deliberate practice which I have been doing since the beginning of the semester. In this post, I would like to recall the practices that I have done, note down the progress I made, and evaluate the problems that I still face in learning Received Pronunciation accent. I will also note down the pronunciation features that I have worked on, and the materials, resources, and techniques I used throughout the semester. 

I started my practices focusing on the voice quality setting during the second week because the first week I only described my archetype. During this second week, I learned the posture of our lips, tongue, and jaw when pronouncing British English. I really think that it was a good start for it helped me realize the distinction between the target accent with my daily accent. Therefore, I think I made a good progress compared to my first recording that I posted when presenting my archetype. These five features of Received Pronunciation, namely spread lips, close jaw, creaky voice, falling intonation, and non-rhoticity, are important features to learn if we want to be fluent in British Pronunciation. When trying to understand these features, I found it easier if I had the visual. Thus, I used video trailer from Jane Eyre as the visual since my recording is audio only. By having video, can see the movement of the lips and jaw. The description and examples in the video from bbclearningenglish.com also helped me for this practice.  This video is a good resource video for teaching English phonemes. It is very clear and completer with examples. Here is the video:

However, knowing these features only was not enough for me to be able to speak fluently in Received Pronunciation accent. Therefore, throughout week 3 to week 13, I learned phonological features, both segmental and suprasegmental features, of Received Pronunciation accent, tried to analyze my archetype based on the certain features that I learned during the weeks, and tried to imitate the archetype. I practiced my consonants and vowels during week three and four, trying to focus more in certain consonants and vowels that I found more difficult to pronounce, especially because these phonemes are not exist in my native language. I still used the above video to help me analyze my archetype, and to guide my practice in imitating my archetype. Other features that I learned during my practices were connected speech, stress, prominence, rhythm, and intonation.

I found that I learned a lot by trying to analyze my archetype, and then imitate it. This is a good way of learning pronunciation. I can see the differences in my first recording and my last one even though it is still far from being perfect. I still need to practice more on certain features of English. I could hear the improvement on my production of consonants and vowels even though I still need to improve some phonemes such as the voiced dental fricative /ð/, and the full aspiration of voiceless stops which is distinctive to British English for consonants, and /ɔː/ and some diphthongs for vowels. For learning vowels, I found that learning the differences between North American English and British English has helped me a lot in my practice, and this following Youtube video is particularly useful:

Other than consonants and vowels, I think I made some progress in connected speech and stress even though my production is not very accurate. However, judging from the length of my recording, it can be seen that my effort to connect the last sound of a word with the first sound of the following word works quite well. I also could hear improvement in the stress placements both in word-level and sentence-level stress. The intonation pattern is also improving because of my understanding of stress patterns, prominence, and rhythm.

Thus, I could say that I have learned a lot through this deliberate practice on Received Pronunciation accent. It has given me several practical insights into the teaching and learning of pronunciation especially British English accent. I have found several useful websites and videos that can be good resources to teach pronunciation. Also, the practices of analyzing the archetype has improved my diagnostic skills which can be useful for my future teaching practices.

Here is my final recording:

Finally, if I can do this practice differently, I would like to choose a different kind of archetype, not the one in which the person is reading a story like my current archetype, but rather one with free speech. I feel like I can learn a lot more features if my archetype is a free speech especially on rhythm and intonation I believe. It will be more challenging to analyze I am sure, but it means that I will learn a lot too.  

Week 13: Suprasegmental features_prominence and intonation

This time I tried to focus my practice on prominence and intonation. I read again my blog post for week 8 on prominence and week 9 on intonation trying to recall what I have learned and accomplished, and what I should practice on more. I listened to my recording on intonation several times trying to figure out whether or not I put the prominence on the right words. I also tried to listen to my intonation patterns.

listening to the recording several times, I can hear that I really tried hard to put the prominence on the most important words so that sometimes they do not sound natural. However, I think the overall intonation patterns are quite accurate since there are not many variations in terms of prominence placing and intonation patterns in my archetype since it is only someone reading a story. I guess if the person is telling a story instead of reading it, the intonation would be quite different.

What I learned from my recording this week is that when I focus on some features, I tend to put my attention primarily on these certain features and probably miss some other features. For example, in my recording for week 9, I focused on intonation, so the intonation patterns are quite accurate, but I feel that I was loose in segmental features such as vowels such as /æ/ in began that I pronounced as /bi'gʌn/ and consonants such as /θ/ in north that I pronounced as a glottal stop. I also missed some non-rhotic /r/ as in there, letter, and surprising. 

Here is my recording for this week:

For this recording, I really tried to not only pay attention on prominence and intonation, but still my recording is absolutely not 100% accurate. I think I still missed the /θ/ in north and also some non-rhotic /r/. For me, it is quite a challenge to not pronounce the /r/ sound since the /r/ in my native language, Indonesian, is a flap /r/ in which the /r/ is rolled. Also, I am more exposed to North American English with its rhotic /r/. Thus, if I am not really pay attention to that particular feature while speaking, I will tend to mispronounce it.

Week 12: Suprasegmental features_connected speech, and stress

For this blog post, I have been practicing again my speech paying attention more on the suprasegmental features of the Received Pronunciation accent particularly on the connected speech, and stress. I choose to focus on these features because these will be the bases of my practice next week on prominence, rhythm, and intonation.

Connected Speech

This feature is important to be discussed with L2 learners of English, since in spoken English the words are not produced in isolation to each other. Instead, these words are "run together" which often referred to as connected speech (Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 2010). From my reading on the book, I took notes some of the typical connected speech that occurs in English which I think I should work on in order to enhance my speech. These typical connected speech features are as follows:

• Contractions, blends: they occur when the boundary between two words are blurred. 
• contractions occur when the blurring is conventionalized such as he's for he is or he was and we've for we have. 
• blends occur when the blurring is not conventionalized such as who'll for who will, and there'd for there would. 
• there are also some phrase reductions that commonly occur in spoken English such as gonna for going to, wanna for want to, hafta for have to, and kinda for kind of.

In the archetype I only found one sample of contraction, that is, who'd for who had.

• Linking: it is when native speakers are connecting the sound of one syllable with the sound of the next syllable to avoid the speech being choppy. This may occur between two words or between two syllables within a word.
• insertion of glides
• insertion of /y/ glide following /iy/, /ey/, /ay/, and /ɔy/.
• word-internally: being, staying, crying, toying
• between words: be able, Roy Adams, stay up
• insertion of /w/ glide following /uw/, /ow/, /aw/.
• word-internally: bluish, going, however
• between words: do it, go away, now is

In the archetype, I found some /y/ insertions, that is, in the animal, see it, and the office.

• intervocalic consonant sharing in VC + V sequences:
• keep out → kee͜p͜out
• dream on → drea͜m͜on
• McIntosh apple → McInto͜sh͜appple

In the archetype, there are some intervocalic consonant sharing such as was a veterinary, that area, put on, an official, and letter implied. 

• Resyllabification in CC + V sequences: this occur when a word or syllable ending in a consonant cluster (CC) followed by a word or syllable with a vowel sound in its initial position. The final consonant of the cluster is often pronounced as part of the following syllable, such as in
• lef/t͜arm 
• wep/t͜over
• hat/s͜off
• adapt͜able

I found three resyllabifications in the archetype: district of, herself in, and picked up.

• lengthened articulation of consonant with geminate consonants: this occur when the final consonant sound of a word is identical with the initial consonant sound of the following word. The two consonant sounds are then pronounced as one single, elongated articulation of the consonant. They are not produced twice. 
• stop pushing [pː]
• rob Bill [bː]
• quick cure [kː]
• less serious [sː]   

I found two lengthened consonants in my archetype: deserted district, and street tower.

• unreleased consonant in stop + stop or stop + affricate sequences: this occurs when a stop consonant is followed by another stop or affricate. The first stop is not released to facilitate the linking.
• pet cat
• soap dish
• blackboard
• good jury

• Assimilation: this occurs when a given sound takes on the characteristics of a neighboring sound. The assimilated sounds can either precedes or follows the conditioning sounds, or two sounds influence each other (reciprocal) 
• plural form /s/ versus /z/ which is influenced by the precedings sound, whether it is voiced or voiceless.
• bags → /g/ is voiced → /baeg → z/
• backs → /k/ is voiceless → /baek → s/
•  -d ending in past and past progressive 
• moved → /v/ is voiced → /muwv → d/
• fished  → /ʃ/ is voiceless → /fiʃ → t/
• in grandpa, the /p/ causes /nd/ to be pronounced as /m/

for this practice, I focused only on these three features since these three are the connected speech features that I noticed in my archetype.

Stress

For the stress part, I practiced both word-level and sentence-level stress, paying attention to the reduced vowel as well as prominence. I re-used my transcription for my post on stress and prominence for the practice this time. I need to do my practice on stress again since I realize that this feature is not present in my native language, but it is an important features of English. So I find the need to always practice it over and over again. 

After several times practicing, and several attempts recording my speech, here is the recording for this week:

Next week, I will focus my practice on prominence, rhythm, and intonation. 

Week 11: Segmental feature_vowels

On my last blog post, I discussed my practice on consonants. This time, I will focus my practice on vowels of Received Pronunciation accent. The same as with consonants, I feel like my vowels are still not really accurate. Therefore, I tried to practice again. I still used the same website that I used to practice my consonants, that is, BBC Learning English. I also practiced by imitating the words from the videos until I was sure that I imitate them accurately (at least based on my listening).

My first attention was on the low back vowel as in the words job, north, and dog. I learned from the video in the above website and also the video that I embedded on my fourth week blog post that in order to produce this vowel sound in RP accent, the lips are rounded which is different from NAE accent in which the lip is not rounded but the jaw is dropped. Also, I focused my practice on the vowels that are lengthened due to the non-rhotic /r/ sound in RP. If the vowels are preceding /r/, the vowels become longer since the /r/ is dropped such as in the words nurse, work, there, and superb.

Here is my recording after practicing several times:

For the next practice, I will focus on suprasegmental features of the Received Pronunciation accent. 

Week 10: Segmental feature_consonants

So far, I have trained myself to speak with the Received Pronunciation accent for more than 9 weeks, but I still feel that my accent is not close enough to this British accent. Thus, I decided to go back and repeat practicing again focusing on the segmental features, especially on the consonants for this blog post. I found the best website to practice with since it has a pronunciation part with videos covering both the consonants and also the vowels. However, for this time I will only focus my practice on consonants. I will practice more on the vowel afterward.

I decided to practice my consonants again after I listened again all my recordings from week one to week 9, and I realized that along the way as my focus shifted to the suprasegmental features, my control over the segmental features was loosened. BBC Learning English is the webpage that I used to practice my consonants again. I watched the video and repeat after it when prompted. I did it several times for each consonant to make sure that I produced similar sounds.

As I read through my notes on week three, I did some more practices on certain consonants that are the salient features of British accent. I worked on my non-rhotic /r/ for I tend to pronounce my /r/. I also worked on dental fricatives /ð/ and /θ/ especially the /θ/ in the word North which I do not know why I almost always pronounced it as a glottal stop. I also worked on the plosives in the voiceless stops /p/, /t/, /k/ tried to make sure that I always pronounce them correctly and clearly. Glottal stops were also one of main focuses during my practice since I sometimes forgot to produce these sounds instead of /t/ and /k/. I also practiced pronouncing the velarized /ɫ/ at the end of a syllable in the words sentimental, feel, and beautiful.

Here is my recording after practicing for several times:

When I listened to this video again, I can hear that I put to much effort in pronouncing some of the consonants because I wanted to pronounce them correctly, so that they do not feel so natural. For example, when I am pronouncing the word north, I can hear that it took me longer to pronounce the final syllable /θ/ because I wanted to make sure that I pronounced it correctly. Through more practice on these consonants, however, I am sure that they will come more naturally. For the next blog post, I will focus on the vowel.