Applications from Freeman & Freeman

5. Concerning common allophones in English versus other languages, I discovered when I was learning Korean that there are similarities between some Korean alphabet characters and their counterparts in our Roman alphabet. For example, some consonants in Korean are unaspirated (unaccompanied by a puff of air) and they have an aspirated version. For example the Korean character of ㄷsounds most closely to the letter D in English. The aspirated version ㅌ sounds most like the letter T. In this way I realized that in English the letter T is similar (but not exactly) to the letter D accompanied by the puff of air. This helped me when trying to figure out Korean pronunciation, as I would mentally translate the Korean character to the corresponding letter in English. This is the mental list of Korean/English equivalents that I carried in my mind when first learning to read and speak the Korean alphabet:

Korean ㄱ English G

Korean ㅋ English K

Korean ㅂ English B

Korean ㅍ English P

Korean ㅈ English J

Korean ㅊ English CH

Korean ㅇEnglish (silent consonant)

Korean ㅎ English H

Korean ㄷ English D

Korean ㅌ English T

The consonants that did not have aspirated versions include the nasals ㄴ/ N and ㅁ / M. This is something I discovered while learning Korean, but reading our text I see that there are many more allophones than that. In Freeman, p. 88, it states that the phoneme /t/ has six variations in English.

Based on our readings, I believe that the rules for allophones can be different across languages.

6. I have lived in west Texas and there is definitely a different dialect there than in Pennsylvania. Some differences in pronunciation I remember include the word help, as in “May I help you?” A person with the west Texas dialect pronounced it as hep with the /l/ left out. Other differences in pronunciation were words like time is pronounced like tahm. Often the final –g sound at the end of –ing words would be omitted. However, I think this is common in many dialects of the United States.

Some words used in that dialect that are different than northeast Pennsylvania include “y’all” as a contraction for “you all.” This is usually associated with the American South in general. I believe that there is a bias against certain accents, or perhaps stereotyping based on dialect. It is generally considered that people from the South are slower, polite, and more laid back. People with a New York City dialect may be stereotyped as rude, in a hurry, and aggressive.

I appreciate the different dialects and prefer that people use them in everyday speech as long as it does not interfere with their ability to communicate. However, in light of the biases against dialects I would understand if people in certain occupations or situations took classes in dialect reduction.