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Journal Entry 5–Unravel Magazine - What’s in an accent?: An interview with Steven Weinberger

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Figure 1. Still from Unravel Magazine.

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The Speech Accent Archive is a project which was started by Steven Weinberger, a linguist professor at Georgia Mason University in Virginia. The purpose of which is to compare accents – and currently has recordings of individuals of 175 different countries and 381 languages.

     So why study accents? Weinberger states that one of our basic abilities is to listen to each other, and it’s one of the first things we pay attention to when meeting someone for the first time. Weinberger relates that people make assumptions  about others as soon as they speak. Once someone says hello, the listener can tell the person isn’t a local based on their unique way of pronouncing certain words in English – or their accent.

 

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einberger says that by collecting the accents of several people around the world, he hopes to, “become more understanding of different kinds of variety of language”. Weinberger is also interested in learning what makes German speakers sound German, and French speakers sound French” and “[h]ow is someone making their vowels . . . their consonants?” Weinberger is measuring his findings and figuring out what makes an accent, but is currently in need of funding to continue his project.


     People who are interested in adding their pronunciations to the archive, can do so by going to https://accent.gmu.edu/, and after answering a few questions on their background, will be asked to recite the phrase:

Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.

 

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einberger states this paragraph “has virtually all the sounds of standard American English. Not all of them, but virtually all of them”. Another great feature the archive does is that it gives the phonetic transcription of the person’s speech in which they can gauge how they are pronouncing each word. Weinberger says anyone can apply and submit their speech, however, they only take “really good quality samples”.

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Works Cited

Geleynse, Joyce. “alphabet-6916985_1280.” Pixabay, 22 Jan. 2022. https://pixabay.com/illustrations/alphabet-letters-decorated-letters-6916985/. Accessed 5 Sept. 2023.


Marcelo Russo de Oliveira - Coffee Tips Welcome. “pop-7112848_1280.” Pixabay, 04 Apr. 2022. https://pixabay.com/vectors/pop-heart-lips-background-7112848/. Accessed 14 Oct. 2023.


Teixeira, Maria Inês. "What’s in an Accent?: An Interview with Steven Weinberger." Unravel Magazine, 5 Oct. 2019, unravellingmag.com/articles/whats-in-an-accent/. Accessed 14 Oct. 2023.

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