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The OLI American English Dialect course supplies the necessary reinforcement of dialectical structure, audio, production technique and phonetic representation for each sound. The student has the flexibility of time to experience, at his own pace, aural and visual aspects of a sound. Within the environment, participants are assessed on their ability to recognize each sound in a variety of contexts and given feedback on their particular answers.
Course Description
This course is divided into six sections or units:
- Foundations of Speech: This first unit of the course is an overview of some of the basic concepts that will lay a foundation for your study of the Standard American English dialect. These concepts include sound identification, voiced and voiceless sounds, syllabification, and aspiration and unaspiration of the three stop-plosive consonant groups.
- Intonational Patterning of American English: The next unit of this course attends to the music of Standard American English Dialect and is most essential to support and increase meaning. The techniques involved in successful vocal dynamics include: vocal range, tempo, pacing, inflection and the pause.
- Vowels: The vowels unit will introduce you to the pure vowel sounds of the dialect. As the tone carriers, vowels are an important part of your speech and there is a great deal of subtlety between some of these sounds. Here we will introduce you to the fifteen vowel sounds of the dialect in three categories, front, mid, and back vowels.
- Diphthongs: This unit will build on what you learned in the vowels unit by introducing the ten diphthongs of the dialect. In the Standard American English Dialect there are five "so called" long diphthongs and five always short diphthongs of r.
- Consonants: (Coming Soon) This unit introduces the second big component of speech, consonants. These are sounds that interrupt, or change the sound coming from the vocal tract. They are described according to vibration, the place and manner of articulation. There are sixteen voiced consonants and ten voiceless consonants in Standard American English Dialect.
- Weak Forms: The Weak forms unit will introduce you to the concept of stress in speech. More specifically weak forms of certain words in the English language exist to increase clarity and understanding, while subordinating the unessential. The following parts of speech are usually weakened in continuous speech: Articles, Conjunctions, Auxiliary Verbs, Personal Pronouns and Prepositions.
What do we mean by "Standard American"?
In the context of effective speech, "Standard American" refers to a single standard, devoid of regional influences. No one is born speaking a standard American English Dialect, Geography that plays a major role in the way people speak. Everyone comes from "somewhere", thus every person speaks with regionalisms, 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; choosing one of the numerous American dialects as superior. Very few if any Americans grow up learning the Standard American dialect. 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. Standard American means speaking English that will sound American - simple, unaffected and distinct, devoid of regional influences.
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