Native or not?

Jasper   Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:34 am GMT
I listened to the sample again. I just can't hear the words well enough to judge an accent, but I insist--insist!--that her intonation is strange!!

Need-some-help, please have the speaker repost; the volume is much too low.
Chinese   Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:06 pm GMT
I have never heard any Chinese speaking English like she did. Clearly, that's not a Chinese accent.
Lazar   Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:04 pm GMT
Even when I turn the volume down and focus more on intonation than phonology, she still doesn't sound non-native to me.
Lazar   Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:09 pm GMT
<<I listened to the sample again. I just can't hear the words well enough to judge an accent, but I insist--insist!--that her intonation is strange!!

Need-some-help, please have the speaker repost; the volume is much too low.>>

If you can't even hear the phonology, then how can you jump to the conclusion that she's Chinese? I can hear the recording pretty well when I put my computer at full volume, and the phonology sounds completely native. The intonation just sounds like someone reading a text aloud for the first time.
Jasper   Mon Aug 18, 2008 4:58 pm GMT
Lazar, I can see your point of view.

I am handicapped with my speakers; even at "full blast", what I hear could be described as somebody in the next room speaking just loudly enough to be overheard. With this in mind, the intonation is the first thing that is heard. I--along with two or three other posters---maintain that the intonation is odd to say the least.

If you want to assume that she's a native, then I would submit that the intonation she's using is a deliberate affect; a tone that one would use if she were reading a fairy tale to a child.

This is possible, Lazar. I hear a sing-song, clipped intonation very similar--if not identical--to a Chinese native. But as we have said, this could be a deliberate affect.

If I put my ear all the way to the speaker, individual words are heard. I agree with you that she probably sounds native in that aspect, with some AAVE influences. I submit to you, however, that some of the pronunciation is odd; did you notice this? If she is indeed an African-American native, she certainly does not sound like the African Americans around Reno.

I probably shot at the hip by trying to assess her accent with a much-too-low volume, but please remember, Lazar, two or three other posters did the same thing.

I hope she rerecords.
Lazar   Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:09 pm GMT
<<If you want to assume that she's a native, then I would submit that the intonation she's using is a deliberate affect; a tone that one would use if she were reading a fairy tale to a child.>>

I agree; I think it's a kind of reading intonation. Maybe spontaneous speech would be better.
Jasper   Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:44 pm GMT
Lazar, you can say that again!

Also, it needs to be louder, so we can hear the words without putting our ears directly on the speaker...
Jasper   Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:56 pm GMT
An afterthought: This has been a learning experience for me. I guess I am a little embarrassed because I was fooled.

From now on, I don't think I will try to assess an accent unless I can hear the speaker clearly...
Guest   Tue Aug 19, 2008 7:01 am GMT
She is definitely a native speaker. People rarely have proper intonation when they are reading some random text. It's not like she's a newscaster or a professional voice artist. She sounds like a bored teenager reading something random she doesn't care about just for the sake of proving she speaks English.
Jasper   Tue Aug 19, 2008 6:30 pm GMT
Guest, you--and Lazar--are right. I made a hasty judgment based on a very low volume with inadequate speakers; never again. (I should have believed Lazar the first time--I consider him a reliable source.)

That being said, I did hear some of the words--the words that I could HEAR--pronounced oddly, seemingly inconsistent with AAVE. Do you agree?
Guest   Wed Aug 20, 2008 3:05 am GMT
Doesn't sound very AAVE to me. Sounds like general American English.
Guest   Wed Aug 20, 2008 3:24 pm GMT
Did anyone else hear her trill some of her r's? And her s's and sh's sound a little odd to me. She could be a native portuguese speaker. Or a native english speaker with a latin american influence to her accent who isn't the greatest at reading aloud.
need_some_help   Tue Aug 26, 2008 9:06 am GMT
Ok, some new info: she refused to provide a better sample, however, she fessed up she's not a native. She's a Pole, having lived in the US (dunno the exact location) for quite a few years and graduated from an American school.

Thank all of you for your contribution.