American-based pronunciation standards of English
General American (GA), also known as Standard American English (SAE), is a major accent of American English. The accent is not restricted to the United States. Within American English, General American and accents approximating it are contrasted with Southern American English, several Northeastern accents, and other distinct regional accents and social group accents like African American Vernacular English.
General American, like British Received Pronunciation (RP) and most standard language varieties of many other societies, has never been the accent of the entire nation. However, it has become widely spoken in many American films, TV series, national news, commercial ads, and American radio broadcasts.[citation needed]
The General American accent is most closely related to a generalized Midwestern accent and is spoken particularly by many newscasters. It is thought to have evolved from the English spoken by colonials in the Mid-Atlantic states, evolved and moved west. Walter Cronkite is a good example of a broadcaster using this accent. This has led the accent to sometimes be referred to as a "newscaster accent" or "television English". General American is sometimes promoted as preferable to other regional accents. In the United States, classes promising "accent reduction","accent modification" and "accent neutralization" generally attempt to teach speech patterns similar to this accent. The well-known television journalist Linda Ellerbee, who worked hard early in her career to eliminate a Texas accent, stated, "in television you are not supposed to sound like you're from anywhere"; political comedian Stephen Colbert worked hard as a child to reduce his South Carolina accent because of the common portrayal of Southerners as stupid on American television. General American is also the accent typically taught to people learning English as a second language in the United States, as well as outside the country to anyone who wishes to learn "American English". In much of Asia and some other places ESL teachers are strongly encouraged to teach American English no matter their own origins or accents.
General American is a typical accent spoken by many non-native speakers of the English language due to the heavy influence on these nations by American media such as television shows, music and movies.
Consonants
The phoneme /ʍ/ is present only in varieties that have not undergone the wine–whine merger. /ʍ/ is often analyzed as a consonant cluster of /hw/. Also, many Americans realize the phoneme /ɹ/ (often transcribed as /r/) as postalveolar, with some possible retroflexion.[8] /t/ undergoes t-glottalization to produce a glottal stop before a syllabic nasal or in absolute final position, in words like mutton and sit [ʔ]. Otherwise, intervocalic /t/ (and /d/) generally become [ɾ] through intervocalic alveolar flapping when between a stressed syllable and an unstressed one. Also, the distinction between "clear" [l] and "dark" [ɫ] is much less noticeable in General American than other English dialects, with even the "clear" variant pronounced in General American with some degree of velarization.
Vowels
General American has sixteen or seventeen vowel sounds that can be used in stressed syllables as well as two that can be used only in unstressed syllables. Most of the vowel sounds are monophthongs.
For most speakers, what are often transcribed as /e o/ are realized as [eɪ oʊ], especially in open syllables.
^** The vowel of strut may be more central (usually [ʌ̈]) than back, depending on the speaker. For example, speakers from Ohio realize this vowel as an open-mid central unrounded vowel ([ɜ]).[12] It however remains a back vowel before [ɫ], and often even merges with it so that /ʌl/ becomes [ɫ̩].
^*** For most speakers, what is transcribed as /æ/ is always raised and sometimes diphthongized when appearing before a nasal consonant (that is, before /m/, /n/ and, for some, /ŋ/). This may be narrowly transcribed as [æ̝ˑ], [æ̝ə] or, based on specific dialect, variously as [ɛə], [eə] or [ɪə] (see Æ-tensing in General American).
Depending on one's analysis, people who merge the vowels of cot and caught to /ɑ/ either have no phoneme /ɔ/ at all or have the [ɔ] only before /r/. Words like north and horse are usually transcribed /nɔɹθ/ and /hɔɹs/, but since all accents with cot and caught merged to /kɑt/ have also undergone the horse–hoarse merger, it may be preferable to transcribe north and horse /noɹθ/ and /hoɹs/.[13] Thus, in these cases, the [ɔ] before /ɹ/ can be analyzed as an allophone of /o/. [ɝ] and [ɚ] are often analyzed as sequences of /ʌr, ər/, respectively.[citation needed] /ə/ is an indeterminate vowel that occurs only in unstressed syllables.
Among speakers who distinguish between /ɑ/ and /ɔ/, the vowel of cot (usually transcribed /ɑ/), is sometimes more of a central vowel which may vary from [a̠] to [ɑ̟], while /ɔ/ is phonetically lower, closer to [ɒ].[14] Among cot-caught merged speakers, /ɑ/ usually remains a back vowel, [ɑ], sometimes showing lip rounding as [ɑʷ] or [ɒ], and, since these speakers do not distinguish between /ɑ/ and /ɔ/, their retracted allophones for /ɑ/ may be identical to the lowered allophones of /ɔ/ among speakers who preserve the contrast.