University of Cincinnati

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

University of Cincinnati UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date: 5-Oct-2009 I, Barbara E. Paver , hereby submit this original work as part of the requirements for the degree of: Doctor of Musical Arts in Voice It is entitled: Reconsidering Language Orientation for Undergraduate Singers Student Signature: Barbara E. Paver This work and its defense approved by: Committee Chair: David Adams, MM David Adams, MM Mary Stucky, MM Mary Stucky, MM Kenneth Griffiths, MM Kenneth Griffiths, MM 10/5/2009 223 Reconsidering Language Orientation for Undergraduate Singers A document submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in the Performance Division of the College-Conservatory of Music by Barbara E. Paver B.M. University of Arizona, Vocal Performance, June 1992 M.M. University of Cincinnati, Vocal Performance, June 1996 Committee Chair: David Adams, M.M. Abstract Paver, Barbara E. Reconsidering Language Orientation for Undergraduate Singers . Doctor of Musical Arts Document, University of Cincinnati, 2009. Foreign language lyric diction is a compulsory subject in all undergraduate vocal performance degrees in universities. However, the effectiveness of its teaching depends on the capacity of students to absorb the material, for which many are largely unprepared, due to their lack of previous language study. Further, native speakers of North American English experience difficulty in distinguishing reflex responses in their own speech from the proper articulations of foreign sounds. Initially, lyric diction textbooks addressing Italian, French, and German are reviewed for their content, pedagogical sequence, use of International Phonetic Alphabet, and exercises, with regard to their appropriateness for use at the undergraduate level. The role of phonetics in teaching lyric diction is then explored in relation to anatomy and physiology, as well as consonant and vowel formation. Consonant articulation and vowel formation as typically demonstrated by native North American singers are analyzed, and descriptive diacritics from the International Phonetic Alphabet are used to show the contrast between the native North American singers’ habits in speech and singing, and the articulatory adjustments necessary to form accurate foreign sounds. English vowel and consonant sounds are compared to sounds in Italian, German, and French with which they have allophonic relationships. Exercises are prescribed for the correction of North American accents in pronouncing Italian, German, and French. iii Contents Illustrations.....................................................................................................................................vi Acknowledgements.......................................................................................................................vii Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Review of Multiple-Language Diction Texts.......................................................... 4 A Handbook of Diction for Singers .............................................................................................4 Diction .......................................................................................................................................11 Diction for Singers ....................................................................................................................17 The Singer’s Guide to Languages .............................................................................................21 A Singer’s Manual of Foreign Language Dictions ...................................................................27 Chapter Two: The Use of Phonetics in Teaching Vowels ........................................................... 33 Adapting Basic Phonetics to Lyric Diction...............................................................................33 Introducing Phonetics to Beginning Diction Students ..............................................................36 North American Regionalisms and Vowels..............................................................................43 Chapter Three: Introducing Consonants: Place, Manner, and Voicing ....................................... 46 Narrow Transcription and Use of IPA Diacritics......................................................................50 North American English and Articulatory Reflex ....................................................................52 Conclusion..................................................................................................................................... 56 Bibliography.................................................................................................................................. 58 Appendix 1: Exercises for Vowel Formation................................................................................ 61 Exploring Sensations in the Vocal Tract...................................................................................62 Locating and Forming Specific Vowel Sounds.........................................................................63 Exercise One: Cardinal Vowels ............................................................................................64 Exercise Two: Tongue Vowels and Lip Vowels................................................................... 65 Exercise Three: Vowel Practice ............................................................................................65 Exercise Four: Secondary Vowels ........................................................................................66 Exercise Five: Contrasting Sounds .......................................................................................67 Exercise Six: Mixed Vowels.................................................................................................67 Exercises Seven: English Mixed Vowels..............................................................................68 Appendix 2: North American Vowel Formation .......................................................................... 70 Additional English Vowel Considerations................................................................................74 Diphthongs ................................................................................................................................75 Appendix 3: Consonant Allophones ............................................................................................. 79 Selected Adaptations from Peter Ladefoged’s Rules for English Allophones .........................80 iv Appendix 4: Exercises in Consonant Articulation........................................................................ 85 Classifying Consonants.............................................................................................................85 Exercise One: Voicing ..........................................................................................................85 Exercise Two: Aural and Visual Connection........................................................................86 Place of Articulation..................................................................................................................86 Exercise Three: Place of Articulation: Initial Consonant......................................................88 Exercise Four: Places of Articulation: All Consonants.........................................................88 Manner of Articulation..............................................................................................................88 English Allophones ...................................................................................................................90 Exercise Five: Articulatory Target Practice: /d/, /n/, /t/, and /l/ allophones.......................... 91 Diacritic Symbols......................................................................................................................92 Exercise Six: Ear Training ....................................................................................................93 Pre-Phonatory Tuning ...............................................................................................................94 Exercise Seven: Pre-Phonatory Tuning.................................................................................94 Pilot Consonants........................................................................................................................95 Exercise Eight: Pilot Consonant /θ/ ......................................................................................95 Exercise Nine: Pilot Consonant /p/ .......................................................................................95 Appendix Five: Sample Language Orientation Syllabus.............................................................. 96 v Illustrations Tables Table 1: German-English Homophones.........................................................................................7 Table 2: Exercises in /i/ Vowel ....................................................................................................12 Figures Figure 1: TheVowel Tree .............................................................................................................23 Figure 2: The Consonant Flower..................................................................................................23 Figure
Recommended publications
  • Length and Voicing in Friulian and Milanese Francesc Torres-Tamarit
    Length and voicing in Friulian and Milanese Francesc Torres-Tamarit To cite this version: Francesc Torres-Tamarit. Length and voicing in Friulian and Milanese: Or why rule-free derivations are needed. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, Springer Verlag, 2015, 33 (4), pp.1351-1386. 10.1007/s11049-014-9271-7. hal-01677835 HAL Id: hal-01677835 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01677835 Submitted on 8 Jan 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. manuscript No. (will be inserted by the editor) Length and voicing in Friulian and Milanese Or why rule-free derivations are needed Francesc Torres-Tamarit Received: date / Accepted: date Abstract This paper claims that phonology should express the relationship between vowel length and obstruent voicing operationally rather than in parallel. The empirical focus in on Friulian and Milanese. The distribution of vowel length in Friulian is predictable from the under- lying laryngeal specification of obstruents. Stressed vowels are long before underlyingly voiced word-final obstruents although they devoice. This situation creates opacity. In the light of the interaction between vowel lengthening and final devoicing, this paper argues in favor of Harmonic Serialism, a version of Optimality Theory that combines constraint ranking with serial deriva- tions.
    [Show full text]
  • Koine Pronunciation 2012
    Παράρτημα γ´ Ἡ Κοινὴ Προφορά 217 Ἡ Κοινὴ Προφορά Koiné Pronunciation Notes on the Pronunciation System of Koiné Greek, (These notes are of a technical nature beyond language learning, intended primarily for teachers.) When a person wants to use living language methods to learn a language, one is required to make some choices about what kind of pronunciation system to use. As long as students only need to write Greek or to look at Greek on a printed page, the pronunciation system is not a very important issue. As soon as students set their sights on a higher goal and want to include language learning methodologies that will lead to a fluent control of the language, they must come to grips with the need to include audio and oral material in a program. And audio material for an ancient language means that decisions must be made about the kind of pronunciation system to be used. Principles Governing the Pronunciation in this Course # 1. The pronunciation system is primarily intended for persons wishing to learn Koiné Greek, the general Greek dialect used from the third century before the Common Era (BCE) to the fourth century of the Common Era (CE). In particular, the focus is on the Koiné Greek of what is historically the Roman period in the land of Israel, 63 BCE to 325 CE. # 2. The pronunciation should preserve the same significant sound distinctions that were used in the Roman period. This means that the pronunciation system should be phonemic. This term will be explained below. # 3. The pronunciation system should, as far as practical, be historical.
    [Show full text]
  • The Teachability-Intelligibility Issue: Vowel Length in Globenglish
    1 The teachability-intelligibility issue: vowel length in GlobEnglish RAFAEL MONROY-CASAS (Published in Gagliardi, C. & Maley A. (2010) ,EIL, ELF, Global English: Teaching and Learning Issues. Peter Lang: Bern) It is an indisputable fact that English has become not just a global language but the global language. There are other languages that can claim this prerogative (Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Italian, etc. – see Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 26, 2006), but none of these can question the privileged position English occupies as a world language. The ‘English factor’ in Graddol’s words (2007) is everywhere, and yet, despite this gratifying thought to both native and non-native speakers for what it means in terms of greater easiness of communication, there are a number of elements that can challenge the idea of a unified world system (Monroy, 2007). There is on the one hand, an increasing internal centrifugal movement, which, although observable in other linguistic systems, is particularly evident in the case of English, as titles like World Englishes (Kachru, 1985), The English Languages (Tom McCarthur, 1998), Englishes (Görlach,1991), More Englishes (Görlach 1995), Still more Englishes (Görlach, 2002), World Englishes (Jenkins, 2003), World Englishes (Melchers & Shaw, 2003) show; on the other, emerging pronunciation standards in nations like India, Singapore, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc., “each as ‘correct’ as any other” (Quirk, 1985: 2-3), are superseding normative models such as RP or GA as better options in a world where NNs (non-native speakers) with different linguistic backgrounds outnumber Ns (native speakers) (Graddol, 1997; 2006). No wonder that experts fear 2 that fragmentation could be a reality unless some action is taken.
    [Show full text]
  • Part 1: Introduction to The
    PREVIEW OF THE IPA HANDBOOK Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet PARTI Introduction to the IPA 1. What is the International Phonetic Alphabet? The aim of the International Phonetic Association is to promote the scientific study of phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. For both these it is necessary to have a consistent way of representing the sounds of language in written form. From its foundation in 1886 the Association has been concerned to develop a system of notation which would be convenient to use, but comprehensive enough to cope with the wide variety of sounds found in the languages of the world; and to encourage the use of thjs notation as widely as possible among those concerned with language. The system is generally known as the International Phonetic Alphabet. Both the Association and its Alphabet are widely referred to by the abbreviation IPA, but here 'IPA' will be used only for the Alphabet. The IPA is based on the Roman alphabet, which has the advantage of being widely familiar, but also includes letters and additional symbols from a variety of other sources. These additions are necessary because the variety of sounds in languages is much greater than the number of letters in the Roman alphabet. The use of sequences of phonetic symbols to represent speech is known as transcription. The IPA can be used for many different purposes. For instance, it can be used as a way to show pronunciation in a dictionary, to record a language in linguistic fieldwork, to form the basis of a writing system for a language, or to annotate acoustic and other displays in the analysis of speech.
    [Show full text]
  • SSC: the Science of Talking
    SSC: The Science of Talking (for year 1 students of medicine) Week 3: Sounds of the World’s Languages (vowels and consonants) Michael Ashby, Senior Lecturer in Phonetics, UCL PLIN1101 Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology A Lecture 4 page 1 Vowel Description Essential reading: Ashby & Maidment, Chapter 5 4.1 Aim: To introduce the basics of vowel description and the main characteristics of the vowels of RP English. 4.2 Definition of vowel: Vowels are produced without any major obstruction of the airflow; the intra-oral pressure stays low, and vowels are therefore sonorant sounds. Vowels are normally voiced. Vowels are articulated by raising some part of the tongue body (that is the front or the back of the tongue notnot the tip or blade) towards the roof of the oral cavity (see Figure 1). 4.3 Front vowels are produced by raising the front of the tongue towards the hard palate. Back vowels are produced by raising the back of the tongue towards the soft palate. Central vowels are produced by raising the centre part of the tongue towards the junction of the hard and soft palates. 4.4 The height of a vowel refers to the degree of raising of the relevant part of the tongue. If the tongue is raised so as to be close to the roof of the oral cavity then a close or high vowel is produced. If the tongue is only slightly raised, so that there is a wide gap between its highest point and the roof of the oral cavity, then an open or lowlowlow vowel results.
    [Show full text]
  • Vowel Length/ Duration in Geminated and Non-Geminated Arabic Words
    =================================================================== Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 Vol. 18:4 April 2018 India’s Higher Education Authority UGC Approved List of Journals Serial Number 49042 ================================================================ Vowel Length/ Duration in Geminated and Non-geminated Arabic Words Asmaa Adel Abdulrahman and Dr. L. Ramamoorthy =========================================================== Abstract This paper investigates vowel length in Arabic and how it gets affected by neighboring consonants, in particular when it occurs in geminated or non-geminated phonetic environment in words. The paper examines vowel length before and after geminated and non-geminated consonants. It also focuses on the length of geminated/non-geminated consonants themselves and the proportion between them. The present study also investigates the proportion of vowels to consonants in the words and the proportion of geminated words to their non-geminated counterparts as a whole. Eighteen geminated and non-geminated Arabic words are selected and recorded randomly by the researcher who is a native speaker of Arabic. The data were recorded at the Phonetics Lab of the English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad/India. It was concluded that gemination in Arabic affects vowel and consonants as well as total length/ duration of the word as a whole. It is also observed that some vowels/ consonants have greater proportion than their non-geminated counterparts. The whole words were also affected by germination in terms of length and duration. Keywords: Duration, Gemination , Arabic,Vowels, consonants, Acoustic analysis. 1. Introduction Arabic is the mother tongue of over 400 million people. Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) _ the descendant of Classical Arabic branches into 22 vernacular dialects in the 22 Arab countries, each country having its own regional vernacular variety (Humran.A and Shyamala.K.C.
    [Show full text]
  • Ohne Lös SS 11 Slides III NN
    Semester Outline Introduction to English Phonology and Phonetics 1. Phonetics and phonology: basics (& introducing transcription) 2. English consonants Dr. Nadja Nesselhauf 3. English vowels 4. Beyond the phoneme (connected speech, suprasegmentals etc.) 5. Accents of English English Vowels: Outline Phonetic Classification of Vowels Phonetic criteria for the classification of vowels: 1. Classification of vowels - tongue shape (tongue height = closeness/openness + part of tongue which is highest = frontness/backness) 2. English monophthongs - lip shape (rounded vs. unrounded or spread vs. neutral vs. round) - constancy of tongue/(lip)-shape (diphthongs vs. 3. English diphthongs monophthongs) - position of velum (oral vs. nasal vowels) - duration (long vs. short) 1 Classification of Vowels: Classification of Vowels: Extreme Vowels Extreme Vowels [i]: [u]: extremely extremely front and back and close close Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 59 Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 59 Classification of Vowels: Classification of Vowels: Extreme Vowels Extreme Vowels [a]: [@]: extremely extremely front and back and open open Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 60 Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 60 2 Classification of Vowels: Classification of Vowels: Vowel Diagram Cardinal Vowels (D. Jones) “si” “gut” “thé” “Rose” “même” “Sonne” “la” “pas” Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 61 Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 61 Classification of Vowels: Cardinal Vowels (D. Jones) Vowels in the IPA chart Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 61 Daniel Jones pronouncing the cardinal vowels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UIAe4p2I74 3 Alternative Vowel Chart Vowels - a Continuum… (Primary Cardinal Vowels) George Bernard Shaw: Pygmalion (Preface: “there are touches of [Henry] Sweet in the play”): HIGGINS: Tired of listening to sounds? PICKERING: Yes. It‘s a fearful strain.
    [Show full text]
  • Contrastive Modelling of the Intonation of Recapitulatory Echo Interrogative Sentences in Modern American English and Cuban Spanish
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Nottingham ePrints Garcia Romero, Gilberto (2013) Contrastive modelling of the intonation of recapitulatory echo interrogative sentences in modern American English and Cuban Spanish. MA(Res) thesis, University of Nottingham. Access from the University of Nottingham repository: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13527/1/AN_INTONATIONAL_ANALYSIS_OF_THE_INTERR OGATIVE_SYSTEMS_IN_MODERN_ENGLISH_AND_CUBAN_SPANISH_2012.pdf Copyright and reuse: The Nottingham ePrints service makes this work by researchers of the University of Nottingham available open access under the following conditions. · Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. · To the extent reasonable and practicable the material made available in Nottingham ePrints has been checked for eligibility before being made available. · Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not- for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. · Quotations or similar reproductions must be sufficiently acknowledged. Please see our full end user licence at: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/end_user_agreement.pdf A note on versions: The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher’s version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription.
    [Show full text]
  • Constraints on Structual Borrowing in a Multilingual Contact Situation
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons IRCS Technical Reports Series Institute for Research in Cognitive Science 5-1-2005 Constraints on Structual Borrowing in a Multilingual Contact Situation Tara S. Sanchez University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports Part of the Linguistics Commons Sanchez, Tara S., "Constraints on Structual Borrowing in a Multilingual Contact Situation" (2005). IRCS Technical Reports Series. 4. https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports/4 University of Pennsylvania Institute for Research in Cognitive Science Technical Report No. IRCS-05-01 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports/4 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Constraints on Structual Borrowing in a Multilingual Contact Situation Abstract Many principles of structural borrowing have been proposed, all under qualitative theories. Some argue that linguistic conditions must be met for borrowing to occur (‘universals’); others argue that aspects of the socio-demographic situation are more relevant than linguistic considerations (e.g. Thomason and Kaufman 1988). This dissertation evaluates the roles of both linguistic and social factors in structural borrowing from a quantitative, variationist perspective via a diachronic and ethnographic examination of the language contact situation on Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, where the berian creole, Papiamentu, is in contact with Spanish, Dutch, and English. Data are fro m texts (n=171) and sociolinguistic interviews (n=129). The progressive, the passive construction, and focus fronting are examined. In addition, variationist methods were applied in a novel way to the system of verbal morphology. The degree to which borrowed morphemes are integrated into Papiamentu was noted at several samplings over a 100-year time span.
    [Show full text]
  • The Phonological Domain of Tone in Chinese: Historical Perspectives
    THE PHONOLOGICAL DOMAIN OF TONE IN CHINESE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES by Yichun Dai B. A. Nanjing University, 1982 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGRFE OF MASTER OF ARTS In the pepartment of Linguistics @ Yichun Dai 1991 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY July 1991 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. APPROVAL NAME: Yichun Dai DEGREE: Master of Arts (Linguistics) TITLE OF THESIS : The Phonological Domain of Tone in Chinese: Historical Perspectives EXAMINING COMMITTEE: Chairman: Dr. R. C. DeArmond ----------- Dr. T. A. Perry, Senior ~aisor Dr. N. J. Lincoln - ................................... J A. Edmondson, Professor, Department of foreign Languages and Linguistics, University of Texas at Arlington, External Examiner PARTIAL COPYR l GHT L l CENSE I hereby grant to Simon Fraser University the right to lend my thesis, project or extended essay (the title of which is shown below) to users of the Simon Fraser University L ibrary, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. I further agree that permission for multiple copying of this work for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this work for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Title of Thesis/Project/Extended Essay Author: (signature) (name 1 Abstract This thesis demonstrates how autosegmental licensing theory operates in Chinese.
    [Show full text]
  • Phonetics and Phonology (ENG507) VU
    Phonetics and Phonology (ENG507) VU Phonetics and Phonology ENG507 VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY OF PAKISTAN ©Copyright Virtual University of Pakistan Phonetics and Phonology (ENG507) VU Table of Contents Pg. Lesson No. Lesson Title Topics No. INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE-I Introduction to the Course Learning 001 7 Why Studying Phonetics and Phonology? 002 7 Lesson No. 1 Focus Language - English 003 8 Aims and Objective of the Course 004 8 Evaluation Criteria for the Course 005 8 Introduction to Vowels and Consonants 006 8 INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE-II Introduction to English Vowels 007 9 Introduction to English Diphthongs 008 9 Lesson No. 2 Introduction to English Consonants 009 10 IPA Transcription of English Sounds 010 11 Introduction to Phonology 011 11 Introduction to Phonetics 012 11 INTRODUCTION TO KEY CONCEPTS IN PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY (P&P)-I Phonetics vs. Phonology 013 12 Lesson No. 3 Introduction to Key Concepts in Phonetics and Phonology 014 12 Types of Phonetic Studies 015 13 Articulatory Phonetics 016 13 Acoustic Phonetics 017 14 Auditory Phonetics 018 14 INTRODUCTION TO KEY CONCEPTS IN PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY (P&P)-II Experimental Phonetics and Phonology 019 15 Generative Phonology 020 15 Lesson No. 4 Articulatory Phonetics-I 021 16 Speech Production 022 16 Sound Waves 023 17 The Oro-Nasal Process 024 17 ARTICULATORY PHONETICS-II Articulatory Gestures 025 18 Manners of Articulation 026 18 Stop: Oral and Nasal 027 19 Lesson No. 5 Fricative 028 19 Approximants 029 19 Additional Consonantal Gestures 030 19 Trill, Tap and Flap 031 20 ©Copyright Virtual University of Pakistan 1 Phonetics and Phonology (ENG507) VU ARTICULATORY PHONETICS-III The Waveforms of Consonants 032 21 The Articulation of Vowel Sounds 033 21 Lesson No.
    [Show full text]
  • From "RP" to "Estuary English"
    From "RP" to "Estuary English": The concept 'received' and the debate about British pronunciation standards Hamburg 1998 Author: Gudrun Parsons Beckstrasse 8 D-20357 Hamburg e-mail: [email protected] Table of Contents Foreword .................................................................................................i List of Abbreviations............................................................................... ii 0. Introduction ....................................................................................1 1. Received Pronunciation .................................................................5 1.1. The History of 'RP' ..................................................................5 1.2. The History of RP....................................................................9 1.3. Descriptions of RP ...............................................................14 1.4. Summary...............................................................................17 2. Change and Variation in RP.............................................................18 2.1. The Vowel System ................................................................18 2.1.1. Diphthongisation of Long Vowels ..................................18 2.1.2. Fronting of /!/ and Lowering of /"/................................21 2.2. The Consonant System ........................................................23 2.2.1. The Glottal Stop.............................................................23 2.2.2. Vocalisation of [#]...........................................................26
    [Show full text]