International accent.

Italian linguist Luciano Canepari puts forward a proposal for an international native-like accent of English. Among the features of this proposal:

Use of [Q] rather than [A] in hot, lot, etc
Use of [{] rather than [A:] in last, dance, etc
Use of [tj, dj, nj] sequences in tune, dune, new
Possible [4] for /t/ in some positions (city, bottle, but not twenty or party)
A semi-approximant variant of /l/ in bottle, milk, etc.
A distinction between [r\] when /r/ is followed by a vowel, and a semi-approximant (for which he has a new symbol) in the same positions as British zero realizations.

The full paper is at http://venus.unive.it/canipa/pdf/HPr_02_English.pdf (look for "international accent")

For someone like me, a non-native who learned RP and later moved to the US and doesn't really feel fully at home with either "standard" accent, this is an attractive idea. I wonder what others in the forum think of it and its characteristics. Also, Mr. Canepari claims that this accent is regularly used by CNN newsreaders. I'm yet to find a sample from CNN that matches this description.

Perhaps no one has answered because I failed to include a question in my post (or perhaps because the topic isn't really that interesting). I'm going to give it another try by asking more specifically:
Has anyone ever heard such an accent being used by CNN newspeakers? I would love to have audio samples.

I meant - CNN newsreaders (not *newspeakers)

I can't say I've really heard many newscasters using this "International" accent; most of the people on CNN seem to have run-of-the-mill American, English, or Australian accents.

The general idea of an International English accent is generally along the lines of a rhotic RP (something that I've heard Christopher Plummer use at times). One quibble I have with Canepari's International Accent is the fact that it lacks the "Mary-merry", "Serious-Sirius", and "hurry-furry" distinctions. Considering that these distinctions are made both by British speakers, and by many American speakers, I don't see how they would come to be merged in an international accent. The thought of someone preserving all three of the historical phonemes /A:/, /Q/, and /O:/, as in RP, yet at the same time pronouncing "hurry" as ["h3`i], strikes me as a distinctly odd and unlikely situation.

I think Canepari has conflated two quite different aims. On the one hand he says he's describing an accent commonly used by actors and newscasters (an assertion which I dispute anyway), yet on the other hand, he says that he's designing an accent that eliminates what he considers "unnecessary and unwanted distinctions", presumably in order to make it easier for foreign learners. In this respect I think he's designed his own "ideal" accent, which nobody really speaks.

(As I've said before, I agree with much of Canepari's work, but I disagree with much of it as well.)

Why don't you use IPA now that Windows Internet Explorer 7 can show it?

IE7 supports IPA, but I think the problem is that this forum doesn't support IPA. Let me check: ɑɒɔɜɝɞɠɳɵɫ

Wait, you're right! Hooray, I can finally use IPA here! ;-)

ˈweɪt jɚ ˈɹaɪt aɪ kn ˈfaɪnɫi ˌjʊuz ˌaɪ ˌpʰɪi ˈeɪ ˌhɪɚ

It seems, at least on my machine, as if it variably depicts small capital I as small dotless i, but what are a few serifs among friends?

'jeɛ its 'kʊ:l !
'dɔʊnt 'wɔɹi ə'baut 'ðæt !

Thanks for your feedback, Lazar. I realized that the set of features the Canipari puts forward is somewhat odd. But given that he claims a high degree of accuracy in his descriptions, the fact that he attributes this accent to CNN newscasters, actors and singers is certainly puzzling.
When attempting this accent, I have a hard time producing two actually different sounds for /r/, his ordinary [r\] and his semi-approximant type of sound. It's easier for me to have either a full [r\] or nothing at all.

So how does one go about entering IPA here? We all want to join in the fun.

Myself, I write it in Microsoft Word using one of my Unicode fonts (Arial Unicode, Lucida Sans Unicode, and Microsoft Sans Serif all came with the machine, plus there are some fonts like Charis, Doulos, and Everson Mono Unicode which you can download for free), and then I copy-paste it into my posts.

Lazar, why use the simple present when you hadn't tried it till last Friday ... just curious?

Anyhow, I'm afraid that all I see are boxes (the Latin letters (including eth & ash) excluded).

>>Thanks for your feedback, Lazar. I realized that the set of features the Canipari puts forward is somewhat odd. But given that he claims a high degree of accuracy in his descriptions, the fact that he attributes this accent to CNN newscasters, actors and singers is certainly puzzling.
When attempting this accent, I have a hard time producing two actually different sounds for /r/, his ordinary [r\] and his semi-approximant type of sound. It's easier for me to have either a full [r\] or nothing at all.<<

I tend to be somewhat skeptical about what Canipari says simply because it tries to be *too* specific in nature for North American English and English English rather than aiming at being crossdialectal not just between the two but also *within* the two as well. When reading what he has written I wonder "just who really speaks *just* like that?", as such is clearly not representing how NAE-speakers or English English-speakers in general speak, something that it does not seem like he actually delineates.

>>So how does one go about entering IPA here? We all want to join in the fun.<<

As I use Mac OS X to access the Internet normally, I just use the builtin capabilities of Mac OS X to type using things such as Unicode characters.

The proposed scheme is very similar to what was used in American movies in the old days (20s-40s?), especially by ladies, and to what is proposed as a standard theater English by Edith Skinner in her "Talk with distinction."

<<The proposed scheme is very similar to what was used in American movies in the old days (20s-40s?), especially by ladies, and to what is proposed as a standard theater English by Edith Skinner in her "Talk with distinction.">>

I don't agree it's similar to what Skinner describes. Canepari's international accent is rhotic and lacks the BATH-TRAP split.