Thoughts on In-Class Discussion of Sept. 29 (Regional Accents, IPA)

I thought today's class was extremely interesting, particularly the discussion of the differences we found between our accents. For the most part, the accent quiz was accurate in pinpointing our accents, and I think that with a few additions it might have been improved, as we discussed. One possible addition to the quiz that I thought of afterward was the difference in pronunciation of the word "aunt," which I personally pronounce so the "au" rhymes with the "a" in father. Also, instead of just asking about "fill" and "feel," it might have helped to ask about "full" and "fool" which to me sound different, but to some people in my dorm are pronounced the same.

I noticed in the more detailed language dialect map that many major urban areas have their own particular dialects, some famous (such as Boston or New York) and others less so (Bay Area Urban). I think this makes sense, given the high concentration of people from different backgrounds in one place interacting all the time, that a new hybrid dialect might appear and develop independently of the surrounding areas. I also noticed a similar effect in mountain areas, with the Smoky, Appalachian, Ozark, and Rocky Mountain ranges all having their own distinct way of speaking; this makes sense too given the geographic isolation of these places and the lack of significant mixing with people from other areas (this same effect is true for the Georgia and Carolina shore islands with Gullah). We noticed in class that the borders of the Southern and Midland areas are changing, expanding, and I think this is natural too given the migration of people and the population patterns -- the Midwest and South are growing, while some areas of the Inland North are even declining in population as their people seek economic opportunities elsewhere. This migration would bring with it linguistic changes, a blurring of boundaries, as seen in the map.

Lastly, I'd like to comment on the IPA alphabet and how cool I thought it was. It's always been confusing for me to try and explain what a sound is using just the English alphabet, especially when I have to explain something from Hindi (which I am learning) to a non-Hindi speaker. Hindi is completely phonetic, so a letter is pronounced a certain way, or, at most, two ways; it's nice to see an international system that I can apply to sounds in Hindi, English and Spanish and any other language. At first it looks strange, but I began to get the hang of it after a while. I definitely did not understand some of the subtleties between the letters (particularly between velar and uvular) but after feeling that certain sounds in foreign languages are just beyond me, it's amazing that just using the placement of your tongue and shape of your mouth you can indeed make any sound, for any language, as long as you know how to do it precisely. I find it a little hard to believe that every single sound in every language is mapped by that chart, and I'm sure that some subtle variations might exist between two categories (as with vowels), but for the most part it seems like a great tool for linguists but also for people learning languages to help with pronunciation.

I'm looking forward to working with Praat and seeing how different sounds actually look on the spectrograph, and learning how to differentiate between them visually as opposed to just aurally.