标准美语发音的13个秘诀 CD 1 Track 4

Chapter 1 American Intonation 1 

The American Speech Music                                         CD 1 Track 4 

What to Do with Your Mouth to Sound American 

One of the main differences between the way an American talks and the way the rest of the world talks is that we don't really move  our lips. (So, when an American says, "Read my lips!" what does he really  mean?) We create most of our sounds in the throat, using our tongue very actively 2. If you hold your fingers over your lips or clench 3 your jaws 4 when you practice speaking American English, you will find yourself much closer to native-sounding speech than if you  try to pronounce every ... single ... sound ... very ... carefully. 

If you can relate American English  to music, remember that the indigenous 5 music is jazz. Listen to their speech music, and you will hear that Americans have a melodic 6, jazzy way of producing sounds. Imagine the sound  of a cello 7 when you say, Beddy bada bida beader budder (Betty bought a bit of better butter) and you'll be close to the native way of saying it. 

Because most Americans came from somewhere  else, American Englis h reflects the accent contributions of many lands. The speech music has  become much more exaggerated than British English, developing a strong and distinctive 8 intona tion. If you use this intonation, not only will you be easier to understand, but you will sound much  more confident, dynamic, and persuasive 9.  

Intonation, or speech music, is the sound that you  hear when a conversation  is too far away to be clearly audible but close enough for you to tell  the nationality of the speakers. The American intonation  dictates  liaisons and pronunciation, and it  indicates  mood and meaning. Without intonation, your speech would be fl at, mechanical, and very conf using for your listener. What  is  the American intonation pattern? How is it different from other languages?  Foa egzampuru, eefu you hea ah Jahpahneezu pahsohn speakingu Ingurishu, the sound would be ve ry choppy, mechanical, and unemotional to an American. Za  sem vey vis Cheuman pipples, it sounds too stiff.  A mahn frohm Paree ohn zee ahzer ahnd, eez intonashon goes  up at zee end ov evree sentence,  and has such a strong intonation that he sounds romantic and highly emotional, but this may not be appropriate for a lecture or a business meeting in English. 

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+ Do not speak word by word.  

If you speak word by wo rd, as many people who learned "p rinted" English  do, you'll end up sounding mechanical and foreign. You may have  noticed the same thing happens in your own language: When someone reads a sp eech, even a native speaker, it  sounds stiff and stilted 10, quite

different from a normal  conversational tone. 

+ Connect words to  form sound groups.  

This is where you're going  to start doing something  completely different  than what you have done in your previous English studies. This part is the most di fficult for many people because it goes against everything they've been taught. Instead of thinking of each word as a unit, think of sound units.  These sound units may or may not correspond to a word written on a page. Native speakers don't say  Bob is on the phone,  but say [bäbizän the foun]. S ound units make a sentence flow smoothly 11, like peanut butter— never really  ending and never really starting, just flowingalong. Even chunky peanut butter is acceptable. So long as you don't try to put plain peanuts directly onto your bread, you'll be OK. 

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+ Use staircase intonation. 

Let those sound groups floating on the wavy 12 river  in the figure flow do wnhill and you'll get the staircase. Staircase intonation not only give s you that American s ound, it also makes you sound much more confident. Not every American uses  the downward staircase. A certain segment of the population uses rising staircases—generally, teenagers on their way to a shopping mall: "Hi, my name is Tiffany. I live in La Canada. I'm on the pep squad 13." 

What Exactly Is Staircase Intonation? 

In saying your words, imagine that they come out as if they  were bounding lightly down a flight of stairs. Every so often, one jumps up to anothe r level, and then starts down again. Americans tend to stretch out their sounds longer than you may think is natural. So to le ngthen your vowel 14 sounds, put them on two stairsteps instead of just one.  

We're here.  I

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The sound of an American speaking a foreign language is very distinctive, because we double sounds that should be single. For example, in Japanese or Spanish, the word  no is, to our ear, clipped or abbreviated 15. 

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When you have a word ending in an  unvoiced consonant—one that you "whisper" (t, k, s, x, f, sh)—you will notice that the prece ding vowel is said quite quick ly, and on a single stairstep.When a word ends in a vowel or a voiced consonant—one that you "say" (b, d, g, z, v, zh, j), the preceding vowel is said more slowly, and on a double stairstep.  

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There are two main consequen ces of not doubling  the second category of  words: Either your listener will hear the wrong word, or  even worse, you will always sound upset.  

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Consider that the words  curt 16, short, terse 17, abrupt 18, and  clipped all literally 19 mean short.  When applied to a person or to language, they take on the meaning of  upset  or rude.  For example, in the expressions  "His curt reply ...,"  "Her terse response...''  or "He was very short with me"  all indicate a 

less than sunny situation. 

Three Ways to Make Intonation 

About this time, you're coming to the point where you may be wondering, what exactly are themechanics of intonation? What changes when you go to the top of the staircase or when you putstress on a word? There are three ways to stress a word. 

+ The first way is to just get louder  or raise the volume. This is not  a very sophisticated way of doingit, but it will definitely command attention.  

+ The second way is to  streeeeetch  the word out or lengthen 20 the  word that you want to draw attention to (which sounds very insinuating).  

+ The third way, which is the  most refined, is to change pitch.  Although pausing just before changing the pitch is effective, you don't want to  do it every time, because then it becomes an obvious technique. However, it will make your audience stop and listen because they think you're going to say something interesting.