StAmE pronunciation

The model for StAmE pronunciation presented here is composed of features that most highly educated speakers would not recognize as regionally or socially identifiable. For application of the model to particular words, the Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English (ODP; Upton, Kretzschmar and Konopka 2001) will be a useful reference. ODP features both British and American English transcriptions for comparison by readers, and offers many phonotactic (but not recognizably regional or social) variants. To these features may be added those characteristics that commonly occur in educated speech in different regions of the country, generally unnoticed and preferred by educated speakers within the region but often noticed and sometimes stigmatized by educated speakers from other regions. Table 1 lists general features first (“unmarked”), and some regional standard features in a second group (“marked”).