Dumb Q about Phonics and Accents

[sweetnpetite]

OK- this is probably going to come off as sounding somehow ignorant or biggeted. But it is an honest question and it comes from honest ignorance.

I consider myself not to have an accent. I realize that those who I would say have an accent would say- "no it's *you* who have an accent. However, for the most part, I pronounce words the way they are shown to be pronounced in the dictionary- so I consider that 'not an accent.' For the sake of my question, this is what I mean.

OK- I remember wondering (and I guess I still do) how kids with an accent (be it southern or boston or whatever) learned to read. I don't mean it rudely (although I feel kind of rude asking, this seems a fairly safe place to ask such stupid questions)- but for examle- 'er' at the end of a word. If you're teacher pronouces it more like "u" [nev-u instead of never] I guess, how does the teacher explain what the er sound makes? Does she drop the accent? Does she skip the rule? Does she say that the er combination sounds like the short u sound?

Another example is 'ar' we learned that when the r stood by the a like this, the r made the a say it's name. [this was all done with letter people by the way, r was a bit of a meany)

Do they not use phonics or do they use it differently somehow. This is kind of a stupid question- but I've always wondered.
__________________

 

[TheEarl]

Sweet: By dint of being an American, you have an accent. And you learned that accent from everyone who was around you when you were growing up. Same happened to me - my parents had a different accent to our general area nad I turned out with my parent's accent, not that of my locale. Bear in mind that when you say that you speak by the dictionary definition that a) Dictionaries have local accents too (Presumably, you're not using the OED) and b) it's very difficult to judge your own voice, even via tape.

As to reading - it's very hard to read without an accent. Try putting on an English accent and reading this post and I guarantee (unless you have a talent for such things), that you will sound like an American trying to do an English accent. Therefore when parents read to their kids and help them to read, they will be doing it in their own accent, rather than by what the official phonetics are. Therefore I was taught that c-a-s-t-l-e was pronounced c-ar-stel (with a very very quiet t). Whereas I'm sure Gauche was taught that c-a-s-t-l-e was prounounced c-ah-sel.

The Earl

 

[neonlyte]

Sweet-p

I find myself mimicking accents quite readily, I've been mistaken for several 'english' speaking nationalities yet it's taken me years to become acceptable in Portuguese which is where I currently spend most of my life.

There is a lot of evidence to suggest babies learn language in the womb, obviously not words but intonation and apply learnt 'rules' of pronunciation as they begin to speak a language. It is odd that some people retain their 'native speak' even when living for a long time in a place where the local dialect is different, others adjust and become native speakers. I suspect it's something to do with hearing and corrolation of feedback between spoken words and how your brain tells you you should be saying it.

In other words - I don't really know.

 

[Boota]

I live in Indiana, and we have our own accent and pronunciations, as compared to anyone else I've heard. I try to avoid them, but sometimes you just step into what you hear. A common one is to put r's in where they don't belong, such as "Warshington, D.C.". They say a Hoosier is just a hillbilly who ran out of gas on the way to Michigan, and a lot of sound like it. LOL.

My cousin is one of those people who picks up accents very easily. In one year she lived in NYC, Atlanta, Georgia, San Bernadino, California, and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. By the time she ended up back here in Indiana, with that accent thrown back in the mix, it was an interesting time listening to her mix those accents all together. If an actor could do it that would make a very interesting character to listen to, even in delivering the most mundane dialogue. I've tried to copy it, and even though I can do all the accents, the idea of mixing them in the same sentence is very difficult.

 

[sweetnpetite]

But none of this answers my question of "how do they teach phonics" with an accent?

Is it official to teach that 'er' sounds like "uh" - do they/you consider it a 'silent r?'

Of course I don't use the oxford dictionary, I use an American one. But it's not a Michigan dictionary. (and yes, I know I have an accent. such as often pronoucing 'you' as 'ya'--stuff I never heard until I left my small town and began to hear other voices. But I don't *not* say "you" at all, it usually just comes out the lazy way I'm used to saying it. (if that makes sence) In other words, in school I was taught Y-O-U spell you, not ya.

 

[sweetnpetite]

offtopic

I live in Indiana, and we have our own accent and pronunciations, as compared to anyone else I've heard. I try to avoid them, but sometimes you just step into what you hear. A common one is to put r's in where they don't belong, such as "Warshington, D.C.". They say a Hoosier is just a hillbilly who ran out of gas on the way to Michigan, and a lot of sound like it. LOL.

My cousin is one of those people who picks up accents very easily. In one year she lived in NYC, Atlanta, Georgia, San Bernadino, California, and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. By the time she ended up back here in Indiana, with that accent thrown back in the mix, it was an interesting time listening to her mix those accents all together. If an actor could do it that would make a very interesting character to listen to, even in delivering the most mundane dialogue. I've tried to copy it, and even though I can do all the accents, the idea of mixing them in the same sentence is very difficult.

yeah, I have cousins from indiana. sometimes when I was a kid I would say things the way they did, as if I guess to show them that it was wrong, but they never noticed. I figured at the least they would get mad at me for making fun of them but they never did.

"They say a Hoosier is just a hillbilly who ran out of gas on the way to Michigan, and a lot of sound like it."

I never heard that. What do they say about Michigan? lol

 

[scheherazade_79]

Everyone has an accent, Sweetnpetite - the Queen, George Bush, the Pope, the gangsta rapper and the teacher of elocution. There's no such thing as 'no accent'.

As for the reading thing, the main way kidslearn is through imitation. If their teacher pronounces a written word in a certain way, the kid is likely to pronounce it in the same way - especially if they hear their parents and other people in their locality saying it in the same way.

Taking the Earl's example, I was always told that 'castle' was pronounced c-a-s-l - the 'a' being the same as the 'a' in 'cat'. Similarly, there's something genetic inside me that refuses to pronounce 'glass' to rhyme with 'arse'.

Despite all the schemes in place, there's no standardised way of pronouncing any combination of letters. That's what makes all accents different. How you pronounce a word when you see it written down depends entirely on where the person who taught you came from (as well as how everyone else around you pronounces it) rather than the method that's used to teach it to you.

Have I just written a load of bullshit or does some of that make sense?

 

[sweetnpetite]

Everyone has an accent, Sweetnpetite - the Queen, George Bush, the Pope, the gangsta rapper and the teacher of elocution. There's no such thing as 'no accent'.

As for the reading thing, the main way kidslearn is through imitation. If their teacher pronounces a written word in a certain way, the kid is likely to pronounce it in the same way - especially if they hear their parents and other people in their locality saying it in the same way.

Taking the Earl's example, I was always told that 'castle' was pronounced c-a-s-l - the 'a' being the same as the 'a' in 'cat'. Similarly, there's something genetic inside me that refuses to pronounce 'glass' to rhyme with 'arse'.

Despite all the schemes in place, there's no standardised way of pronouncing any combination of letters. That's what makes all accents different. How you pronounce a word when you see it written down depends entirely on where the person who taught you came from (as well as how everyone else around you pronounces it) rather than the method that's used to teach it to you.

Have I just written a load of bullshit or does some of that make sense?

It makes sence- but it doesn't quite answer my question.

Or at least it does if you don't learn reading by phonics but only by whole language [look at word, say word]

Phonics is a method of reading that teaches the 'code' or why C-A-T spells cat. 'Silent e', dipthongs, and so forth. What I want to know is, in say for example the south were many letters seem to be 'dropped' how is it tought that they sound? Or why don't people spell things differently depending on how they say it? (for example- rappers do this. If there song sais "fo sho" they won't write for sure in the liner notes)

For example- if I wanted to write out how a neighbor with a southern accent spoke- I could write it out and you could read it and it would sound that way. ie. "Ah nevah could figya thayat one owt" (or something like that) How would said southerner spell out simillerly my 'accent'? He/she would spell out her own words the same way I do- yet pronounce them differently. How could she then show my 'northern' accent. [keep in mind, I'm from Michigan- I don't have a new england accent or a canadian accent or a wisconsin accent]

Actually, that's two questions now. I understand you're points, but I still don't understand what I was wondering. Does that makes sence?

 

[neonlyte]

Sweet-p

I'm posting this article from yesterdays Independent newspaper, still doesn't precisely answer your question but it is 'reasoned' arguement.

Is this the last word in linguistics?
For 40 years Noam Chomsky's ideas on language have held. Now, says Steve Connor, there's a new theory to get our tongues round

02 March 2005 - The Independent

Every healthy child is born with the vocal and mental equipment necessary to learn a language. Indeed, language - as opposed to simple sound communication - is one attribute that distinguishes humans from all other animals. And yet scientists find it difficult to understand why we speak so many different languages, with such a panoply of sounds and grammatical constructions.

For 40 years, the study of languages has been dominated by Noam Chomsky's idea of "universal grammar", a basic set of linguistic rules that are determined ultimately by our genes. Steven Pinker developed the idea further in his 1995 book The Language Instinct, in which he argued that language is not simply a cultural invention but a biological system, partly learned and partly innate. According to this idea, we are each born with a template for grammatical construction and it is our upbringing that determines which language we end up speaking as a mother tongue.

Not all linguistics scholars, however, are entirely happy with this idea. At the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC, the linguist Professor Andrew Wedel of Arizona University challenged the Chomsky model of universal grammar with his own view that language has an innate property of self-organisation.

In a nutshell, says Wedel, self-organisation is when a system evolves a large structure from repeated small-scale interactions between its smaller elements. "Sand dunes in the desert or ripples at the bottom of a streambed come about from the air or water flowing over them and the way individual grains of sand happen to bounce against one another," he says. "No individual sand grain knows that it is part of a sand dune or streambed. It is these repeated, small-scale interactions that, over time, result in this big structure that has a lot of order."

Language has an in-built capacity for self-organisation and it is this trait, rather than the universal grammar of Chomsky, that creates the wealth of mother tongues (some 6,000 or so) in the world. "Languages are the ripples in the dunes and the grains of sand are our conversations, generations talking to each other and learning things and slowly creating these larger ripples in time," Wedel says.

He has tested the idea by getting computers to talk to one another using a simple proto-language based on a continuum of vowel sounds ranging from the "eee" made when the jaw is closed to the "aaah" when the jaw is open. After running thousands of simulated "conversations" he found that the computers began to simplify the range of sounds they used and even worked out simple rules in an attempt to eliminate the possibility of misunderstandings resulting from two "words" sounding similar.

"The basic universal grammar model says that the lexicon and grammar algorithm are entirely separate from one another. They don't feed back to one another, they don't communicate much," says Wedel. "This particular model, on the other hand, suggests that the particular features of a lexicon may influence how grammar evolves, and vice versa."

The problem with the Chomsky model of language is that it has to accept many exceptions to the basic rules. "If you look very hard, you can find some group of people somewhere speaking a language that does it differently," Wedel says. "I think there is a big shift from the explanation from a single level, advocated by Chomsky, that one grammar algorithm is coded in our genes, to a more layered set of explanations where structure gradually emerges, over time, through many cycles of talking and learning."

 

[Remec]

As for the reading thing, the main way kidslearn is through imitation. If their teacher pronounces a written word in a certain way, the kid is likely to pronounce it in the same way - especially if they hear their parents and other people in their locality saying it in the same way.

Taking the Earl's example, I was always told that 'castle' was pronounced c-a-s-l - the 'a' being the same as the 'a' in 'cat'. Similarly, there's something genetic inside me that refuses to pronounce 'glass' to rhyme with 'arse'.

Have I just written a load of bullshit or does some of that make sense?

Made sense to me...and was even part of what I was considering adding to the conversation <g> (Specifically, I was also going to mention that I was taught 'castle' had the vowel sound of cat and a silent 't'.)

I agree with what everyone has been saying. That the impact and influence of those around you combine with that of those teaching and modeling language for you, and a bit of osmosis as you grow up...both pre and postnatally...to create your own way of speaking and saying things.

My family is from central Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Chambersburg, and Pottsville for the most part), but I first began talking in California and spent my early childhood in Georgia and Virginia. When I was in Albany, Ga for kindergarten, they made me take speech classes briefly due to not talking like the other kids. Today, I tend to slip in and out of various accents and dialects, just 'cause it's something I do.

Plus, according to a professor I had once, standard American English just wasn't something my tongue and brain wasn't comfortable doing. The important thing she said was that I was aware of how words are normally pronounced and make the mental effort to choose whether or not I was going to say them like that.

And, it does take mental exercise sometimes...ta speak da way Ah'm s'posed ta, an' not da way Ah do...know what ah mean? Eh?

 

[Remec]

I agree with what everyone has been saying. That the impact and influence of those around you combine with that of those teaching and modeling language for you, and a bit of osmosis as you grow up...both pre and postnatally...to create your own way of speaking and saying things.

Rereading...and realized I've wandered afar from the question at hand too.

I had this come up in a voice and diction class I took, and I've forgotten what the answer was.

I think it partially has to do with the fact that modern phonics uses its own alphabet...for the most part...and that spelling is taught through a combination if several different approaches. Mostly memorization and rote exercises...ie, write your spelling words 10 times each...use each word in a sentence...etc...and that phonics and phonetics are just a part of the whole mix.

I passed the question by my wife (a schoolteacher) and she said also that most people's spelling vocabulary is more fully built by their reading. That's why when you falter over a word you write it down several ways and take the one that 'looks' right, you don't say it several ways and write down the one that 'sounded' right.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

But none of this answers my question of "how do they teach phonics" with an accent?

Is it official to teach that 'er' sounds like "uh" - do they/you consider it a 'silent r?'

Of course I don't use the oxford dictionary, I use an American one. But it's not a Michigan dictionary. (and yes, I know I have an accent. such as often pronoucing 'you' as 'ya'--stuff I never heard until I left my small town and began to hear other voices. But I don't *not* say "you" at all, it usually just comes out the lazy way I'm used to saying it. (if that makes sence) In other words, in school I was taught Y-O-U spell you, not ya.

Not everyone learns to read phonetically. In fact, when you read, I suspect you read in an accentless manner unless the author injects some clue as to how a person should sound.

Common usage will also trump proper english. My teachers railed against saying A'int and Ya'll. that didn't stop anyone from using them, you just made a concious effort not to when you were in english class. I know the corect manner of sying words, but I still use the common useage I learned as a child. Thus I am forever at odds with people up here who get on me about Ya'll, then say youse guys ten minutes later.

What you know is correct, will, more often than not, bow to common useage. Language is, after all, a means of communicating. I can't understand a true boston accent. But a bostonian who moves to Edwards Mississippi will end up sounding like a native within a few years. they still know it isn't correct to say y'all, but it gets thepoint across and beats constantly repreating yourself or explain a word.

 

[TheEarl]

Sweet: I thought I had answered your question. When reading is taught using phonics, it will be taught with the accent of the teachers.

My parents taught me to read an a in the middle of a word as an arrr sound. Glass, castle, bath. G and L make a GL noise. The a on it's own makes an arrr noise. Two s's make a ssssss noise, like a snake. GL-arrr-ssssss. Oh look, it spells glass.

Whereas Scheh's parents/teachers taught her that an a on its own in the middle of a word is an ah! noise. GL-ah-ssss. Oh look, it spells glass in a Welsh accent.

The Earl

 

[gauchecritic]

Very good point about the way a word looks rather than sounds Remec, which implies that we don't read with accent. In fact reading something written in dialect is quite a difficult process.

I don't recall being taught to read by being shown a word and its pronounciation, rather reading progressive books on a one to one basis.

Teachers, as far as I'm aware don't actually teach pronounciation so much as vocabulary. Making reading more difficult by insisting on specific pronounciation will ultimately slow down learning and except in exceptional circumstances matters not a jot.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Very good point about the way a word looks rather than sounds Remec, which implies that we don't read with accent. In fact reading something written in dialect is quite a difficult process.

I don't recall being taught to read by being shown a word and its pronounciation, rather reading progressive books on a one to one basis.

Teachers, as far as I'm aware don't actually teach pronounciation so much as vocabulary. Making reading more difficult by insisting on specific pronounciation will ultimately slow down learning and except in exceptional circumstances matters not a jot.

I think Earl sort of answered my question, (and sorry guys for resurecting an old thread, i couldn't resist commenting) but perhaps I went to a strange school becuase my teachers certainly *did* teach pronunciation. Perhaps that is particular to my region or my school. I even remember being taught that some words have more than one proper pronunciation- for example 'root' can be pronced to ryme with boot or foot. (and you can look it up in the dictionary if you don't believe me, lol) Which clearly students in Lansing were not taught because my ex boss used to insist that my pronunciation was *wrong* when I know damn well it's not (and it's not a matter of accent either, the word has 2 pronunciations)

Now if you look in the dictionary, where they show the way a word is pronounced, they don't show pronunciations of different accetents- like thay don't show fla*vor [flave-or or flave-uh)... if any of my rambling makes any sence.

 

[BlackShanglan]

The thing about phonics is that the system has never worked universally anyway. Almost as soon as one learns to use phonics, one learns that there are words that don't work that way. I was a spontaneous reader, but was eventually introduced to phonics when I began school. I remember coming home and explaining the theory to my mother, and saying how exciting it was that one could spell out any word at all and figure out how to say it. She smiled and encouraged me, but also suggested that I get the dictionary and see whether that system worked with the word "debris." I can still remember her writing it out at the kitchen table, and me puzzling over it, knowing that it wasn't going to be "deh-briss" and trying to work out what it would be. I suspect that accents work to some extent in that way as well; we are already accustomed to words that do not follow the usual phonetic pronunciation, and so if one grows up pronouncing "wash" as "worsh," one assumes either that "-ash" is pronounced "-orsh" in all words, or that "wash" is one of those words that doesn't match its spelling closely.

The most interesting thing I learned about phonetics came from an exercise that asked us to phonetically spell the word "can (tin can)" and then "can (to be able to)." I thought this very silly, as they are obviously the same word. Then I used each in a sentence and realized that I say "I kin/k'n do that," but ask for a "kan" of beans. More amusingly still, I'd say "I kan say it that way when I stress it, but when I don't I kin hear myself revert." It's quite interesting.

Shanglan

 

[elsol]

Uh... ask a bilingual person.

Spanish and English differ by what three letters...

Say 'Roberto' and then have a native spanish speaker say it. Same exact letters, but I bet we'll say the word completely differently.

Letters can represent different sounds to different people, different cultures, some sounds don't exist in some languages... i.e. the Spanish rolling r is a beatch for some english native speakers because the sound isn't a part of the english language. My girlfriend didn't learn to role her R's until she watched a daily spanish tv show where the main character's name was Roberto.

In the same way, mean can mean nasty or a numerical average of a set of numbers... R can be used to represent the r in rowburrtoe and Rrobearto

'Proper pronounciation' is just someone's judgement of which of those is correct within a single language.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[the captians wench]

I remember learning little things like "when two vowles go walking the first one does the talking" complete with little stick figure arms and legs attached to the letters. My teacher then did teach the phonics as you've stated, but out in the world I learned what I heard. I tend to pick up on accents easily too. And I have a habbit of taking on the pronunciations that who ever I'm talking to uses (which can be quite interesting as I'm finding out my area is a lot more diverse than I thought). I've even been known to slip into the accent of the person I'm refurring to at the time. Which can also be fun when I'm talking to some one from Kentucky about some one in Ireland. When I read, all those little rules play in my head. So when I'm reading something, and if I were to read it out loud, for the most part, other than the subtle differences between vowel pronunciations, I would sound like those little rules. But if I talk to you then the lazy way my vocabulary has been set into my brain is going to be more prominate. I think it has a lot to do with sight verses memory. I don't visualize a word before I say it durring a normal conversation, but if I'm reading it's right there infront of me. Tho this may be one of the reasons my spelling is so poor. I was always taught to spell words as they sound. Well if the way I usually hear a word is different than the actual way it's "supposed" to be pronounced then I'm not going to spell it correctly by sounding it out. For instance I've had to correct myself frequintly throughout this entire thing because the way I say "pronounce" would be "pernounce" but while I'm typing here I keep saying "pro-now-n-s" to be able to spell it correctly.

 

[angelicminx]

Skipping the replies right now, I'll read later, I promise. I was a substitute teacher at the Preschool/ Kindergarten level for 3 or 4 years. I live in Kentucky. I wondered the same thing. The veteran teachers drop the accent and enunciate the sound.