American English: Southern Michigan

Prevoicing and Aspiration in Southern American English

This paper reports on an investigation of voicing and aspiration of stops in Southern American English (SAE) and discusses theoretical implications of the findings for the features of contrast in SAE. Languages that have a two-way stop contrast generally fall into two categories: voicing languages (Russian, Dutch, Spanish) and aspirating languages (German, English, Mandarin). Many phonologists ...

Spanish listeners' perception of American and Southern British English vowels.

L2 studies demonstrate that learners differ in their speech perception patterns. Recent explanations attribute this variation to the different initial stages with which learners start their L2 development. Spanish listeners' categorization of Standard Southern British English and American English vowels is compared. The results show that, on the basis of steady-state F1 and F2 values, listeners...

Variation in Vowel Duration Among Southern African American English Speakers.

PURPOSE Atypical duration of speech segments can signal a speech disorder. In this study, we examined variation in vowel duration in African American English (AAE) relative to White American English (WAE) speakers living in the same dialect region in the South to characterize the nature of systematic variation between the 2 groups. The goal was to establish whether segmental durations in minori...

The ( North ) American English

American English File Series Evaluation Based on Littlejohn’s Evaluative Framework

Textbooks play a pivotal role in language learning classrooms. The problem is, among a wide range of textbooks available, which one is more appropriate for a specific classroom and a group of learners. In order to evaluate ELT textbooks, theorists and writers have offered different kinds of evaluative frameworks based on a number of principles and criteria. This study evaluates one example of s...