Speech Accent Archive

Author:

Steven H. Weinberger

Subject:

Humanities

Institution Name:

Center for History and New Media|English Department at George Mason University

Collection:

Center for History and New Media

Grade Level:

Post-secondary

Abstract:

The speech accent archive is established to uniformly exhibit a large set of speech accents from a variety of language backgrounds. Native and non-native speakers of English all read the same English paragraph and are carefully recorded. The archive is constructed as a teaching tool and as a research tool. It is meant to be used by linguists as well as other people who simply wish to listen to and compare the accents of different English speakers. This website allows users to compare the demographic and linguistic backgrounds of the speakers in order to determine which variables are key predictors of each accent. The speech accent archive demonstrates that accents are systematic rather than merely mistaken speech. All of the linguistic analyses of the accents are available for public scrutiny. We welcome comments on the accuracy of our transcriptions and analyses.

Course Type:

Learning Module

Languages:

English

Material Type:

Activities and Labs, Audio Lectures, Readings

Media Format:

Audio, Graphics/Photos, Text/HTML, Downloadable docs

Conditions of Use:

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0