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Accent reduction, also known as accent modification or accent neutralization, is a systematic approach for learning or adopting a new speech accent. It is the process of learning the sound system (or phonology ) and melodic intonation of a language so the non-native speaker can communicate with clarity.
The accent gap Drew Harwell, The Washington Post Smart speakers (and the virtual assistants they house) offer voice control for so many connected devices it's hard to keep count.
English-language scholar William A. Kretzschmar Jr. explains in a 2004 article that the term "General American" came to refer to "a presumed most common or 'default' form of American English, especially to be distinguished from marked regional speech of New England or the South" and referring especially to speech associated with the vaguely-defined "Midwest", despite any historical or present ...
It has increasingly become known as a Mid-Atlantic accent, [7] [4] [5] or Transatlantic accent, [11] [6] [2] terms that refer to its perceived mixture of American and British features. In specifically theatrical contexts, it is also sometimes known by names like American Theatre Standard [ 10 ] [ 8 ] or American stage speech . [ 12 ]
Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markers is known in linguistics as General American; [6] it covers a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. but especially associated with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) can be used to represent sound correspondences among various accents and dialects of the English language. These charts give a diaphoneme for each sound, followed by its realization in different dialects. The symbols for the diaphonemes are given in bold, followed by their most common phonetic values.
Differences in pronunciation between American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) can be divided into . differences in accent (i.e. phoneme inventory and realisation).See differences between General American and Received Pronunciation for the standard accents in the United States and Britain; for information about other accents see regional accents of English.
Most General American accents, but not British ones, have undergone vowel mergers before /r/: the nearer–mirror and hurry–furry mergers, and some variation of the Mary–marry–merry merger, a total three-way merger being the most common throughout North America. [18] GA accents usually have some degree of merging weak vowels.