Ed asks "Why should you pick up any accent? Learn speaking General American accent." Well, the General American accent is an accent.
I don't find the New York accent any less intellegent than any other. Nor do I find RP more intellegent than Cockney. It's a shame that some think this way. What really matters is what the person says. It is pitiful that actors and people in gerneral "standardise" their accent.
Brennus, you write "... velar r's exist in both Cockney and New York English ... lnguists classify them as a separate phonemes." I think you mean "phones" not "phonemes". They're both allophones of the same phoneme, /r/, that the rest of us use.
Quote-''Well, the General American accent is an accent.''
No, it's not. The General American accent is an accent, but it's not an accent.
Then I'm dreaming this thread because you contradict yourself here.
Dear Jim,
Brennus, you write "... velar r's exist in both Cockney and New York English ... linguists classify them as a separate phonemes." I think you mean "phones" not "phonemes". They're both allophones of the same phoneme, /r/, that the rest of us use.
For the sake of simplicity your classification will work and it seems to be the conventional one in linguistcs.
However, when linguists transcribe the various r sounds in other languages (flap, trill, uvular, strong trill, velar, palato-velar, Japanese etc. )phonetically they do use a different letter for each type (stimuli) of r making them, in effect, different consonants (and phonemes). In fact, the letter used by some linguists to represent the New York r doesn't look like an r at all but rather a barred elongated uvular u which I am unable to show on the internet.
Yeah, I'm not sure what exact phone you're talking about. However instead of using the IPA perhaps this would help.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-SAMPA
"... when linguists transcribe the various r sounds in other languages ... phonetically they do use a different letter for each ... making them, in effect, different consonants ..." yes, absolutely, but not different phonemes.
As you've noted they're transcribing these phonetically. A phonetic transcription is different to a phonemic one. Phonetic transcriptions show the phones whereas phonemic transcriptions show the phonemes.
Phonemes are only defined within a language/dialect. Phones cut accross all languages. Hence you can say that the Japanese "r" (the alveolar lateral flap, X-SAMPA's [l\]) is a different phone to the French "r" in "roi" (voiced uvular fricative, [R]) but it makes no sense to talk of their being different phonemes because they belong to different languages.
Similarly you can consider the vowel in "they" to be the same phoneme independant of accent. You can phonemically transcribe the word as /ðA/ (or /THei/ in Tom's alphabet) and this will do for most accents of English. However a phonetic transcription would look at whole lot different.
Transcribed phonetically "they" becomes [ðæI]. Surprised? Well, [ðæI] works for Aust., NZ and Cockney English but not for RP. In RP it's [ðeI] but in Californian English it's [ðe:]. However, these are all the same phoneme. The New Yorkers and the Cockneys might use a different "r" phone to the rest of us but it's still the same phoneme.
I'm australian, and not sure what accent to be working on for an acting role playing a new york latina woman. the cast has been told to work on a 'new york' accent but im wondering if perhaps i should swing a different way or maybe incorporate different accents into the 'typical' new york accent. any help would be great.
If you're going to be a Latina, shouldn't you speak with a Spanish accent?
No, not only Calofornian. It's the same with [ðei]: it's not only RP. Also I'd be very surprised if it were only Cockney & ANZ Eng. where "they" becomes [ðæI]. I was just giving an example. Thanks for the extra examples.
If you're going to be a Latina, shouldn't you speak with a Spanish accent?
That's so sad, what do you mean by a latina accent?
Did the character grow up in New York? If so, try to work on a standard New York accent (there are a wealth of sources), but add perhaps a bit of Spanish intonation and musicality.
''No, not only Calofornian. It's the same with [ðei]: it's not only RP. Also I'd be very surprised if it were only Cockney & ANZ Eng. where "they" becomes [ðæI]. I was just giving an example. Thanks for the extra examples.''
Jim,
What about [ðe]? Are there any accents where ''they'' becomes [ðe]? Mxsmanic said that he tells his students to pronounce ''they'' as [ðe].
Yeah, French people who can't pronounce "they" properly.