Subtle Variation in Articulation

Sometimes it's about figuring out the big sound changes for accents, but some speech variations can be tiny! Here, Jim gets into the minuscule variations of where the K sound happens, depending on the vowel that follows.

You can find a variety of accent materials for actors on Accent Help - including the materials for learning about varieties of General or Standard American accents, including - what I call - Relaxed Generican, Elevated Generican, and Mid- or Trans-Atlantic accents.

Here's a transcript of the video:

I want to talk about how you can have really, really subtle shifts in consonants, probably in your own speaking. So I want to use the K as an example.

The K sound, which is sometimes going to be written in different ways, like the C is commonly a way to represent it in addition to the K.

If you say the word KEEP. So notice where your tongue is when you make this K in preparation for the E vowel: KEEP. Now stop on that K. Go K... and notice where your tongue is.

Now we're going to try the same thing with COP. And most Americans will tend to say it as an AH sort of sound. Say COP, and hold onto that K. Go C... Now go back to the K of KEEP for a moment, but don't say it hold that K... And now without shift-- without giving up that K, shift to the vowel for the AH so say KEEP, shifting to AH-- Notice how your tongue may have shifted in getting ready for a different vowel. The same thing can happen if you shift to another vowel COOP... then think towards COP, KEEP.

You may notice some shifts in exactly where that K is happening in your mouth. Very, very tiny shifts. And it's being affected by the vowel that follows.

So KEEP, for example, is this highest front vowel.

So this is the vowel quadrilateral: the front of the mouth, the back of the mouth, the top of the mouth, the bottom of the mouth.

So the EE as in KEEP is in a very different place from the AH of most Americans' pronunciation of COP. So the mouth is preparing for where it's going to go. The tongue is preparing. The openness of the jaw may shift a little bit as well.

And then when you get to COOP, this high back vowel, your tongue is preparing to stay pretty close to where the K is happening, as opposed to... probably the K is happening a little further forward in the mouth to prepare for this one than it is for this one, for example.

So you can have really, really subtle shifts in the ways that sounds happen depending on the sounds that are around them.

That's just one example of how that can happen.

It's maybe a little bit more narrow than most people need to think, but on occasion there are really subtle changes like this, that can be strange, that you do need to think down into the details to really nail that accent.

For more info on accents overall, check out AccentHelp.com.