Carnegie Mellon OLI
American English Speech
Mirrored from oli.cmu.edu · CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0
Mirrored from: oli.cmu.edu · Carnegie Mellon University
License: CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0
About this course
This course will be beneficial if you wish to learn how to communicate with the sounds and music of American English. The purpose is not to increase your vocabulary, nor to improve your grammar, but to deal with the sounds of the words that you speak. Your message is of primary importance, but it may not be understood if your pronunciation is imprecise, inconsistent, or regional. This course is particularly useful for actors or for others who need to speak to diverse audiences, such as when giving a business presentation.
You will have the flexibility of time to experience, at your own pace, aural and visual aspects of a sound. Within the course, students are assessed on their ability to recognize each sound in a variety of contexts and are given feedback on their particular answers.
In the context of effective speech, “Standard American” refers to a single standard, devoid of regional influences. Few people in the U.S. grow up speaking Standard American English Dialect; geography plays a major role in the way people speak. An accent or a dialect that could interfere with a clear exchange of ideas with those using a differing dialect or accent.
It is true that there is no official standard, but there is an understood range of acceptability for American English. As a professor of speech for actors, Baker-Shirer aims to teach a manner of speech that communicates the content of words with clarity and consistency.
“Standard American” is not a judgment of value; none of the numerous American dialects is superior to the others. Instead it is a standard for clear, consistent speech recognizable to listeners across dialects. It does not burden the listener with the extra cognitive load of filtering out regional differences before reaching the meaning or intent of the speaker. Speaking Standard American dialect means speaking English that will sound American—simple, unaffected and distinct, devoid of regional influences.
This course is divided into five sections or units:
Course details
What students will learn
By the end of this course, students will learn to:
Course outline
UNIT 1: American English Speech
Module 1: Succeeding in American English Speech
UNIT 2: Basics
Module 2: Introduction to the Basics
Module 3: Foundation in Sounds
UNIT 3: American English Intonation
Module 4: Music of Speech
Module 5: Deciphering and Creating Patterns
UNIT 4: Vowels
Module 6: Introduction to Vowels
Module 7: Front Vowels
Module 8: Back Vowels
Module 9: Mid Vowels
UNIT 5: Diphthongs
Module 10: The So-Called Long Diphthongs
Module 11: The Always Diphthongs
UNIT 6: The Use of Weak Forms of Words
Weak Forms
Other course details
This course remains under production, and doesn’t have an estimated completion time.
September 2012
Coming soon.
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