Formal or informal pronounciation

Il Anglesa   Thu Jul 28, 2005 12:58 am GMT
I found the following text about a book called "Lose your accent in 28 days".

>>> The second part struck me as particularly interesting, as the author identifies by chapter the standard phonetic situations which occur regularly in everyday speech. For example, joining words with articles or words with the same sounds. Another useful section “Everyday Speech Patterns” covers the typical shortening of words which are very common in our everyday speech: “Lemme” instead of “let me,” “gimme” instead of “give me” and “didja” instead of “did you.” Altogether “Lose Your Accent in 28 Days” covers 25 situations, which may help you, as they say, speak American>>>

I have a question mainly for native-speakers (of American English).
I heard "lemme" gimme" many times and I can say that majority of Americans pronounce like that, but is it kind of informal way to pronounce like that?
I went to many business meetings, listened to many book CD's, but I didn't hear that kind of pronounciation. All I heard was let me, give me etc.
What do you think, native-speakers?
I am very interested in the correct American English pronounciation at corporate/business level and not at "avarage street people" level.

Thanks in advance
Tom K.   Thu Jul 28, 2005 1:15 am GMT
That does look pretty informal. If you're giving a presentation to some executive board or something like that, you should avoid slurring things together like "lemme," and such.
Il Anglesa   Thu Jul 28, 2005 1:19 am GMT
Thanks Tom K.

Then I wonder why in these books for accent reduction the authors emphasize on "speak like an American " and they teach you to pronounce lemme, gime etc.....
Travis   Thu Jul 28, 2005 1:27 am GMT
These are definitely informal pronunciations. The matter is though that informal pronunciations (and grammar as well) are what are used in the vast majority of contexts in English-speaking North America today, and not being able properly understand and use such, and not using such when such would be *expected*, is something that will easily give someone away as being a non-native speaker, especially if one's accent is otherwise some sort of Northh American accent otherwise. The reason why you didn't hear such in book CDs and business meetings is that in those contexts primarily formal speech tends to be used; in the former case, one note is that many English-speaking North Americans will use formal speech when reading even if they would otherwise use informal speech.
Ekko   Thu Jul 28, 2005 5:00 am GMT
Americans usually dont say "let me" seing as its easier to say lemme.
You'll never see this in any kind of formal writing anywere.
And Il Angela, its basicly the same as saying "Do vai" instead of "Dove Vai"
: /
Mxsmanic   Thu Jul 28, 2005 5:43 am GMT
These pronunciations are informal only in the sense that someone making a formal public speech might be a bit more careful. In all other situations, these are the usual pronunciations. They are not substandard but are simply the product of speaking the language rapidly all day long; inevitably changes in pronunciation occur. Native speakers can also pronounce more carefully if they have to or want to.

It is not necessary for you to learn to use this type of everyday pronunciation, but it is important to recognize it when you hear it, because it is common in virtually all situations and in all walks of life. If you wish to pass for a native yourself, it wouldn't be a bad idea to learn the most prevalent "shortcuts" in pronunciation and use them yourself. Most of these concern expressions that are used with enormous frequency in spoken English and have been shortened as a result. Those that are transcribed in novels and what-not are the most common: gonna, gotta, gimme, lemme, dunno, etc. But remember that the transcriptions you see are always deliberate semi-phonetic representations of spoken English; one never actually writes this way in normal writing, just as one does not write "sépa" in French, even though normal native French speakers routinely pronounce "je ne sais pas" this way all day long.
greg   Thu Jul 28, 2005 6:24 am GMT
Rectificatif : *<sépa> serait plutôt <j'sais pas> ou <ch'ais pas> ou <chais pas> ou <chépa> car il s'agit de de [Sepa] (ou [Zsepa] à la limite), mais pas de *[sepa] en tout cas.

Précision : [Sepa] est la prononciation relâchée de <je sais pas> [Z@sepa]. Ce n'est pas la seule : il y a aussi [Zsepa].

La prononciation (familière ou soutenue) de <je ne sais pas> est [Z@nsepa] ou [Z@n@sepa].
D   Thu Jul 28, 2005 5:03 pm GMT
>one never actually writes this way in normal writing, just as one does
>not write "sépa" in French,

I wish more people understood this -- that written English is not tied to pronunciation. Lately, I have seen a lot of ``phontic transcriptions'' that take me a long time to decipher. Just because somebody speaks a non-general-AE dialect doesn't mean that they should misspell the words when they write them. The common spelling in written English is what enables speakers of different dialects to read each other's words at full speed.

So I am completely tolerant of nonstandard pronunciation, but quite intolerant of nonstandard spelling.
Mxsmanic   Sun Jul 31, 2005 10:09 am GMT
[sepa] is indeed an accurate transcription of some familiar pronunciations of "je ne sais pas."

There is no standard transcription or pronunciation of familiar pronunciations, by definition; they follow a broad spectrum between mere grunts and formal pronunciations. This being so, one can scarcely argue that one familiar pronunciation of "je ne sais pas" is any more correct than another. If one is that worried about pronunciation, there's always the standard pronunciation, which is well documented.
ekko   Wed Aug 10, 2005 7:26 pm GMT
Listening is the best way. Also, one step many people forget about is how words sound in a sentence as a whole. I know 4 people who can say a word perfectly, but wen they say a setence, it sounds like theyre stressing random words.
Paul   Sat Aug 13, 2005 9:48 am GMT
Most people, I find, speak differently in formal and informal settings.

Informally, I pronounce a double t as a d ie: budder, spudder instead of butter, sputter. I tend to harden up the double t in formal speech, but it is still not as hard as in a British accent.

I tend to slur two or even three wors together ie: "let's go" becomes "s'go"

I also tend not to open my mouth or move my lips very much when I speak (typical of the Ottawa Valley)

Older people ( as in 50s, 60s +, my mom especially) can barely understand me or most people my age (mid 20's) in our informal speech.

I guess you can just call this "Lazy English"

I probably sound like a completely different person when I am making important phone calls or speaking formally to a group. I generally got good marks when doing presentations in school.
Travis   Sat Aug 13, 2005 10:52 am GMT
For me at least, informal speech and formal speech are very strongly separated, and strongly differ in phonology, intonation, and prosody, and also differ with respect to syntax, morphology, and lexicon. The two differ, at least for me, most drastically with respect to phonology, intonation. In this regards, informal speech is very fast, practically monotone, effectively lacks enunciated boundaries between words, and is aggressively subjected to phonological processes such as assimilation, reduction, and elision. On the other hand, formal speech is, comparatively, very slow, very strongly intonated, has very distinct word boundaries, and not only are many phonological processes such as assimilation, reduction, and elision, which are normally present in informal speech, barely present, resulting in speech with far more complex consonant clusters and far less palatalization than in informal speech, but also many consonants are "overenunciated", with many stops that would be reduced or otherwise unaspirated in informal speech being aspirated, including word-finally. Furthermore, word that are even "normally" reduced from historical forms may use alternate stressed versions, generally for emphasis, which generally reflect the forms that the normal forms are reduced from, such as using /Sur\/ -> [Su:r\] instead of the normal /S@`/ -> [S@`] that is used in even most formal speech. Similarly, in informal speech, for certain words, different wordforms may be used from the "normal" formal versions, such as "forget" being pronounced /fr\@"gEt/ -> [fr\@."gE?] rather than the more "standard" /for\"gEt/ -> [for\."gE?].

With regards to syntax and morphology, informal speech for me is generally extremely heavily cliticized, unlike formal speech which is barely cliticized at all, and when it is, only the most "standardized" clitics are used, and then sparingly. Furthermore, informal speech uses primarily "new" modal forms, including modals inflected for perfect aspect, where formal speech will use primarily "old" modal forms, even though some "new" modal forms, such as "have to" and "need to", may be used in it, albeit in forms more reflecting how they are formally written than in informal speech. Another note is that while overall the subjunctive is productive to some degree or another, in informal speech the subjunctive is generally only used in certain kinds of subordinate clauses that normally require it, with subordinating conjunctions, whereas in formal speech both the past and the present subjunctive may be used freely in a productive fashion without the use of subordinating conjunctions. Another note is that "whom" has been for all practical purposes lost in informal speech, but its use is still productive in formal speech. There are also differences with personal pronoun usage, as where one would use the personal pronoun "one" in formal speech, "you" is always used in informal speech, and additionally the second person plural is always "you" in formal speech, whereas it is generally "you guys" or "you all" in informal speech. Furthermore, prepositional phrases including interrogative or relative pronouns operate differently in formal and informal speech, as in formal speech whole prepositional phrases including such elements may be brought to the head of a clause, like in German, whereas in informal speech only such interrogative or relative elements and in the case of demonstratives, any subelements, are brought to the head of a clause. Additionally, in certain cases in formal speech, one may use "old"-style negation, in particular with the non-auxiliary usage of "to have", as well as with some limited usage for effect with "to think" and "to know", whereas in informal speech the *only* cases where one may use "old"-style negation are with the main verb "to be" and in a few non-productive cases like "I think not." Overall, the syntax and morphology of formal speech often tends towards being somewhat archaic in comparison to that of informal speech, which can tend towards being somewhat "bleeding edge" with respect to such, except with it containing some conservatisms by the standards of English today overall, such as the retaining of both the past and the present subjunctive, if on a limited but still productive basis.

As for lexicon, in informal speech the vast majority of actual vocabulary usage is Germanic, except in cases where there are words with no good Germanic equivalents that are in active usage in English today, whereas in formal speech far more Romance/Latinate vocabulary is in active usage, often for cases where the words being used to have non-archaic Germanic equivalents. I doubt I need to expound on the subject further, as it's already been discussed to death on here.
Travis   Sat Aug 13, 2005 10:53 am GMT
Shit, I should have divided up my paragraphs above. My apologies.
Vera   Mon Aug 15, 2005 7:12 pm GMT
Talking of pronunciation rules, I would be grateful if anybody provides me with a reference on transcription rules used in discussions here.
Thank you in advance.
Vera again   Mon Aug 15, 2005 7:16 pm GMT
BTW, my dictionary gives pronUnciation, but pronOUncing, which are not complete synonyms.