Clarification about a Canadian accent

http://youtube.com/watch?v=DelqDqSmrAQ

I thought that the accent displayed in the video was typical of Canadians in general and not just used by women in Ottawa. Can someone clarify?

Actually, I'm Canadian but don't pronounce the words in the video like that. I was under the impression that that was because of the fact that I live relatively close to the US border (Calgary) and thought those in the northern parts of Canada would have those features in their speech.

Unfortunately I don't have the correct plugin to view the video. Could you describe how she pronounces the words?

well, she pronounces Ottawa, hospital, options with the [Q] (stressed vowel), instead of [A]. ([Q] is a shifted vowel, preferred by women in some parts of Canada, men seem to stick to the ''older'' pronunciation [A]).
Valley girls accent has this shift too (listen to the song ''Valley Girl'' in which ''Oh my God'' is pronounced with [Q] (stessed vowel in God) instead of more general [A]). So, I'd say (some) Canadian women sound more British while (most) Canadian men sound American. Most CBC female newscasters have both [Q]/[A] for their ''merged vowel'', most CBC male newscasters have [A] as their ''merged vowel''.

''http://youtube.com/watch?v=DelqDqSmrAQ

I thought that the accent displayed in the video was typical of Canadians in general and not just used by women in Ottawa. Can someone clarify?''


This is the typical (general) Canadian accent (the merged vowel is [A] rather than [Q]):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEFlCPgluiU

(the first guy (newscaster) has the General Canadian accent, the second guy (reporting from France) is from Manitoba, he has the strong shift [Q]: body [bQdi]), grandfather [Q]))

Okay, thanks Kess.

I'm curious as to why that in the video I posted the description claims that she has an Ottawa accent. You merely stated that her speech patterns are preferred by women in "some parts of Canada." Are there any parts of her accent which are Ottawa-specific? If not, where else in Canada can one typical find these?

>> Are there any parts of her accent which are Ottawa-specific? <<

Not at all. Her accent was simply demonstrating the cot-caught merger

>> Are there any parts of her accent which are Ottawa-specific? If not, where else in Canada can one typical find these?<<

All over Western and Central Canada.

>> Actually, I'm Canadian but don't pronounce the words in the video like that. I was under the impression that that was because of the fact that I live relatively close to the US border (Calgary) and thought those in the northern parts of Canada would have those features in their speech. <<

No, not really. It's just the cot-caught merger possibly paired with the depends mostly on age, mood of the speaker, level of formality, position of the word in the sentence, etc., and has nothing to do with region other than it is *not* found in regions other than Canada and the Western US.

Her accent was exactly like an american newscaster's accent !

>> Her accent was exactly like an american newscaster's accent !<<

American newscasters certainly don't all have the same accent. Many of the ones around here tend to have the local accent, with all its peculiarities, e.g. c-c merger, regional pronunciations, etc.

When a foreigner listens to a Canadian/Californian speaker s/he may get puzzled since there are two realizations (phones) [A] and [Q] of the same phoneme [A/Q]. Many Canadians/Californians seem to use [A] and [Q] interchangeably.

What accent is this? Canadian? Californian? Please help:
http://www.sounddogs.com/previews/31/mp3/272475_SOUNDDOGS_TE.mp3

>> When a foreigner listens to a Canadian/Californian speaker s/he may get puzzled since there are two realizations (phones) [A] and [Q] of the same phoneme [A/Q]. Many Canadians/Californians seem to use [A] and [Q] interchangeably.
<<

Well, I think that foreigners should be taught that if they are learning North American English, since this merger is practically universal throughout all the North American accents that are reasonably close to General American: all of Canada and the Western US. Other accents, even those such as Inland North or the Midlands accent contain quite a few features that are much further from General American than the accent in Canada and the Western US. However, I would say that it probably wouldn't be all the "puzzling" to hear a speaker with the merger, as there are very few words that could be confused when spoken in context.


>>
What accent is this? Canadian? Californian? Please help:
http://www.sounddogs.com/previews/31/mp3/272475_SOUNDDOGS_TE.mp3 <<

Insufficient data to analyze. She could be from Canada, or anywhere in the Western US, or even from cot-caught merged areas of the Northern US, or have an east coast accent which pronounces "not" like that. Or she could have a mixed accent.

>>Well, I think that foreigners should be taught that if they are learning North American English, since this merger is practically universal throughout all the North American accents that are reasonably close to General American: all of Canada and the Western US. Other accents, even those such as Inland North or the Midlands accent contain quite a few features that are much further from General American than the accent in Canada and the Western US. However, I would say that it probably wouldn't be all the "puzzling" to hear a speaker with the merger, as there are very few words that could be confused when spoken in context. <<

The matter, though, is should non-native speakers be *taught* English with said merger. Remember that it is easy to go from the unmerged forms to the merged forms, but it is nigh impossible outside of relying on orthography to distinguish the unmerged forms if one only knows the merged forms. Consequently, wouldn't it be counterproductive to only teach non-native speakers the merged forms, even though many merged dialects may happen to be more "standard" than many unmerged ones? And remember that General American proper *is* unmerged, even though many dialects close to it are not.

''And remember that General American proper *is* unmerged, even though many dialects close to it are not.''


Well, Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary and Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary* use CCmerged General American (of WestCoast type) in their IPA transcription. (*this dictionary is available online)

The same is true of any Peter Ladefoged's work (he uses Californian [non shifted] General American in all his books, like: Elements of Acoustic Phonetics, A Course in Phonetics...).

General American chapter in ''Handbook of the International Phonetic Association : A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet'', written by himself uses LA English for ''GA''.

Most English actresses/actors use CC merged GA (of Californian type) when they speak American English because it's easier for them... We can live with the W/WH merger because it's easier. We can live with the Dawn/Don-Cot/Caught/-Stalker/Stocker/ merger, because it's easier...

It's easier to learn the CC merged accents because they are more uniform...Most unmerged accents have shifts: the same word can be pronounced as (dog) /dAg/, /dQg/, /dowg/, /Dawg/... (doll) /dQl/, /doul/, /dAl/, /dal/, /dael/...

Well, many people seem to hate the low back merger.
This is what linguists say:


''Forms such as the merger of [Q] and [A], on the other hand, are markers of urbanization and sophistication, and so they spread outward from cities into rural areas''

source: American English: Dialects and Variation (Language in Society)
authors: Walt Wolfram, Natalie Schilling Estes
Blackwell Publishers, 1998

>>''And remember that General American proper *is* unmerged, even though many dialects close to it are not.''


Well, Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary and Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary* use CCmerged General American (of WestCoast type) in their IPA transcription. (*this dictionary is available online)<<

This is one thing that really annoys me about that dictionary, I have to say. The thing about cot-caught-mergedness versus cot-caught-unmergedness is that (excepting cases of dialects lacking the father-bother merger) one can derive the former from the latter but not the latter from the former. Considering that a majority of Americans are cot-caught-unmerged, and about half of English-speaking North Americans are cot-caught-unmerged, it would not make sense to favor cot-caught-mergedness in a dictionary for the aforementioned reason.

>>The same is true of any Peter Ladefoged's work (he uses Californian [non shifted] General American in all his books, like: Elements of Acoustic Phonetics, A Course in Phonetics...).

General American chapter in ''Handbook of the International Phonetic Association : A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet'', written by himself uses LA English for ''GA''.<<

I would strongly dispute the identification of California English with General American. General American really has nothing to do with California English aside from the fact that the Midwesterners who migrated to California after WW2 spoke dialects which, on average, were not all too far from it at the time. Rather, it is effectively a highly idealized version of the speech of the southwestern part of the Midwest around the end of WW2. (Note that it does *not* correspond to the speech of the northern Midwest, then or now.) Of course, dialects in the eastern US have moved on since then, often making them significantly more distant from such today than they were then (thanks the things like the Northern Cities Vowel Shift). On the other hand, many dialects in the western US have more largely stayed put aside from being cot-caught-merged.

>>Most English actresses/actors use CC merged GA (of Californian type) when they speak American English because it's easier for them... We can live with the W/WH merger because it's easier. We can live with the Dawn/Don-Cot/Caught/-Stalker/Stocker/ merger, because it's easier...<<

Maybe that's just what they're often taught, especially considering that much of the movie business in the US is located in a cot-caught-merged area. I really would not see why they would have problems with the phonologies of most cot-caught-unmerged NAE dialects, considering that they already would natively distinguish [A:], [Q], and [O:] to begin with, and in even most cot-caught-unmerged NAE dialects, save ones with the NCVS, they would only have to distinguish [A] and either [Q] or [O].

>>It's easier to learn the CC merged accents because they are more uniform...Most unmerged accents have shifts: the same word can be pronounced as (dog) /dAg/, /dQg/, /dowg/, /Dawg/... (doll) /dQl/, /doul/, /dAl/, /dal/, /dael/...<<

That is assuming someone is actually really learning a specific dialect; if someone is a non-native learner of English, they are probably *not* learning a specific dialect. English is not French or German, where the standard variety can be readily identified with the speech in a particular location in Real Life, such a Paris or Hannover. There is no particular extant dialect today which corresponds to General American, so the fact that most GA-like dialects today are cot-caught-merged should not stop one from teaching a cot-caught-unmerged GA.