"chewing gum" effect

What qualities about General American pronunciation would make its speakers sound as if they were chewing gum? It's always baffled me. I just don't understand.

A German told me once that it sounded as if Americans were swallowing half of the word when they spoke. How could that make sense?

I've heard references to a perception that Americans "swallow their words", but like you, I'm really not sure what they mean.

Does it have something to do with diphthongizing everything?

I don't know. Many dialects, like mine, have diphthongal realizations of /e:/, /i:/, /o:/, /u:/, but many North Americans use monophthongs for those. Is it because there's a lot of back or near-back vowels, like [ɑ:], [ɒ:], [ɤʊ], [u:], [ʌ], [ʊ] in my dialect? But some dialects have more fronted realizations for those phonemes. Is it because of the laxness of checked vowels? Is it because of the aspiration of voiceless plosives? Is it because of the prevalence of [ɹ], which often has some velarization? Is it because /l/ often has a velarized or velar articulation, like [ɫ] or [ʟ]? Probably a combination of these things.

Oh, and another thing may be the prevalence of reduced vowels, realized as [ə] or [ɪ]. This may contribute to a perception of lazy or swallowed speech.

<<Does it have something to do with diphthongizing everything?>>

You betcha, Skippy; Travis and I just had this exact same discussion on another thread.

GA speakers dipthongize certain vowels, adding a "y" or "e" sound" that other dialects don't.

"By-ack" for "back", "ee-and" for "and" , and, from a Southerner's point of view, "ah-ee" for the sound in "bike". All these "eee"s repeated endlessly give the dialect a chewing-gum effect.

Moreover, the words are spoken with a more-closed mouth, which accentuates the effect. If you go far enough North, the mouths are so closed that a nasal effect creeps in.

It's a question of who's doing the perceiving.

<<"By-ack" for "back"...>>

What are you talking about? General American speakers (or rather, everyone except NCVS speakers and some Southerners) would use a pure monophthong in "back". There are a lot of diphthongized vowels in a GA-influenced dialect like mine, but /{/ is not among them. I'm quite sure that Skippy was talking about the diphthongization of the historical high free vowel phonemes: /e:/, /i:/, /o:/, /u:/.

<<Moreover, the words are spoken with a more-closed mouth, which accentuates the effect. If you go far enough North, the mouths are so closed that a nasal effect creeps in.>>

That sounds like a nonsensical generalization to me.

I speak a dialect that is quite similar to GA (with some differences) and I do not diphthongize the word "back"; to me, that sounds rather Southern. A person up north would say something like "by-ack" or "baa-yeck" when trying to imitate a Southern person.

I think that the way the I in BIKE is pronounced in the South is one of its most noticeable features to Northerners. The way it has become a monophthong makes it sound sort of like "bahk" or "baaak" to us. That and the way that the vowel in "talk" is a diphthong (taw-ook) is what makes the accent sound like a twangy drawl. Everything sounds drawn out to us.

>>I speak a dialect that is quite similar to GA (with some differences) and I do not diphthongize the word "back"; to me, that sounds rather Southern. A person up north would say something like "by-ack" or "baa-yeck" when trying to imitate a Southern person.<<

Actually, "by-ack" sounds more like an imitation of the NCVS, not of a Southern dialect to me.

>><<"By-ack" for "back"...>>

What are you talking about? General American speakers (or rather, everyone except NCVS speakers and some Southerners) would use a pure monophthong in "back". There are a lot of diphthongized vowels in a GA-influenced dialect like mine, but /{/ is not among them. I'm quite sure that Skippy was talking about the diphthongization of the historical high free vowel phonemes: /e:/, /i:/, /o:/, /u:/.<<

I think the NCVS is what is being referred to here with "by-ack". The matter is that the NCVS *is* used throughout a good section of the North of the eastern half the US (north of the Midland dialect area) today...

That doesn't really sound very much like NCVS to me. NCVS uses a sound that to me sounds something like "bee-ek" or "byek".

When he wrote "by-ack" with a hyphen, I pronounced the first part like the words buy/by/bi, which may explain a possible misunderstanding.

doesn't the chewing gum effect have to do with the fact that many American accents sound very nasal?

>>When he wrote "by-ack" with a hyphen, I pronounced the first part like the words buy/by/bi, which may explain a possible misunderstanding.<<

Yeah, if such did indicate a triphthong like [ˈajə̯], such would seem definitely Southern, not Northern, to me.

Travis, Southerners NEVER pronounce "back" that way, even though they do dipthongize other vowels, such as long-As, heard in the word "hate".

I live in Reno, Nv, and I've heard "byack" many times; in that unofficial field work I was doing, it cropped up several times in Western speakers. It's possible that it's wider spread in the West than in the North!!

Travis: about the more-closed mouth effect...

I'll quote actress Kate Winslet. She noted,"Learning the dialect in the Titanic was difficult; Americans close their soft palates more, and it was difficult to learn to do this without sounding nasal."

Does this illustrate it better than I did?

(If you think of the way an Englishman speaks, you will realize they open their mouths a lot wider to articulate than we do.)