Vowel Analysis (heed, hid, head, had, etc)

This assignment was really interesting! When I recorded the words, I could hardly see some of the words - especially "who'd". As I started measuring, or rather writing the measurements Praat gave me, I noticed that they were way off from the author's measurements, which meant that my graph looks really weird. I don't know if it is simply demonstrating the difference between British English and American English, or I did not record/interpret the spectogram well. My graph does have the general shape as the author's but is shifted down and my [æ] and [ε] were reversed. I noticed that this is very different from the vowel chart on the "pocket-sized" IPA card, where [æ] and [ε] are very close. Also, on my graph [i] and [u] are close; they are both on the left side of my graph. I am guessing that I probably did something drastically wrong when recording my data from the spectogram. Nonetheless, this was a fun exercise

The second chapter of the reading was very interesting as well. I enjoyed reading about the different vowels of each language and trying (and failing) to imitate the vowels of Japanese and Danish.

Linguistic Profiling

I found that the information presented in the University of Washington @ St. Louis really disgusted me. It is horrible that Dr. Braugh (I know I didn't spell that right) was discriminated against both for his accent and his race. It reminded me of the test that Kenneth Clark did to make the case for Brown v. Board of Ed.: he asked small Black children which doll (either Black or White) they preferred. It turned out that the "preferred race" was white. This unfortunate trend resonates in accent discrimination as well. With regards to the other article, it is totally unfair to discriminate on the basis of accent if the person has the same qualifications as another applicant who speaks the "Standard" accent. I tend to think that if a person has an accent, it usually means that the person has learned English as a second language, and most of the time, they know the grammatical rules better than most native speakers.

The accent identification quiz was somewhat difficult for me. I was able to identify some of the Black speakers, but the Hispanic speakers to me really did not have a very strong accent. A lot of the time I thought the White speakers were Hispanic and vice versa, even though those are the two ethnic groups with which I spend the most time. The easiest to identify were the Middle Eastern and Indian speakers, they had the "stereotypical" accent that was very easy for me to pick up on. I also noticed that those who had maybe heard the nursery rhyme from early on were able to say it very fluidly.

praat spectrogram

After messing around with Praat for two hours, I decided to actually do the assignment, but a little differently. Because I am absolutely horrible at mimicking American accents, I had my roommate say the same sentence as I did. I said the sentence: I caught the fluttering bag. My roommate is Chicana (though she doesn't really have a "Spanish" accent) and is from East Palo Alto...basically five minutes from here. Though we both have relatively dondescript (I use this term loosesly) accents, there were sublte differences that were visible with the help of Praat.

Main audible differences: we say the word "caught" differently; she says it like "cot" and I don't, she says "fluttering" more like fluttereeng, and I say "bag" almost with a long "a" sound.

Main visual differences: The lines/darker areas indicating vowels...I think...are shorter on the specogram of my roommate's voice. In the spectogram of my voice, when I say the word "bag" the line drops, not the amplitude, but the blue line plummets when I prounounce the letter "a." When my roommate says "fluttering", on the spectogram, there is a "gap" between the time that she says the "fl" and "uttering" parts of the word...could this be an aspiration, as in "flHuttering?"

Praat is supprisingly entertaining to use, and it is very interesting to see how something that we think is so ubiquitous, like vocalization, is very diverse.

Class 29/8/08 and IPA

This class was extremely interesting for me! It was great to see where everyone is from and where the accent quiz placed them...it was really odd to see that some of you are from the East Coast, and the quiz placed you in the West. I also enjoyed explaining the last question of the quiz: do you think bag rhymes with vague? For the record: yes, bag can rhyme with vague...

Reading through the sounds listed on the IPA was entertaining as well. I found that I was completely incapable of pronouncing many of the sounds . My only question: Does it truly contain every vocalization used in human communication? It will also be very useful to me when I am explaining to others (at least those who know how to use the IPA) how to pronounce my words such as my name; I will no longer have to write it "phonetically" as Say-dee or Seri, depending upon with whom I happen to be speaking. I do have another question: who developed the symbols used in the IPA, and why are they primarily western "letters"?