Everyone who speaks a language, speaks it with an accent. A particular accent essentially reflects a person's linguistic background. When people listen to someone speak with a different accent from their own, they notice the difference, and they may even make certain biased social judgments about the speaker.
The speech accent archive is established to uniformly exhibit a large set of speech accents from a variety of language backgrounds. Native and non-native speakers of English all read the same English paragraph and are carefully recorded.1 The archive is constructed as a teaching tool and as a research tool. It is meant to be used by linguists as well as other people who simply wish to listen to and compare the accents of different english speakers.
This website allows users to compare the demographic and linguistic backgrounds of the speakers in order to determine which variables are key predictors of each accent. The speech accent archive demonstrates that accents are systematic rather than merely mistaken speech.
All of the linguistic analyses of the accents are available for public scrutiny. We welcome comments on the accuracy of our transcriptions and analyses.
Who uses the archive?
*ESL teachers who instruct non-native speakers of English
*Actors who need to learn an accent
*Engineers who train speech recognition machines
*Linguists who do research on foreign accent
*Phoneticians who teach phonetic transcription
*Speech pathologists
*Anyone who finds foreign accent to be interesting
Credits
Steven Weinberger, the principal investigator and administrator of the speech accent archive thanks the following groups and individuals:
George Mason University
College of Arts and Sciences, Technology Across the Curriculum
University Computing and Information Services
Department of English
Program in Linguistics
Center for History & New Media
My Fall 1998 Ling 523 class:
Mai Al-Faiz, John Alphin, Marietta Bradinova, Nikoleta Dineen, Barbara Fusciello, Anita Hassan, Lary MacDonald, Daiva Miller, John Muehlbauer, Tran Nguyen, Mary Perez, Terry Rhyne, Sarah Simcox, Christina Villafana
My Fall 1999 Ling 523 class:
Yazminh Adyanna, Ingrid Bowers, Ellen Desoto, Dana Donehue, Kristin Johanson, Kathleen Killelea, Kyung-Hea Kim, Pat Marks, Mary Jo Olsavsky, Cynthia Owens, Hyosook Pak, Kai Pappas, Kristina Womack, Caroline Saxon, Keiko Takai, Marla VanHoose
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My Fall 2000 Ling 523 class:
Colleen Burnett, Scottie Dobson, Sarah Fuller, Danielle Giangola, Catherine Gilbride, Richard Haynes, Walid Jabr, Aliza Klokus, Soomin Ko, Lisa Melone, Lynn Miller, Erin O'Neill, Ann Phillips, Pat Rentz, Pat Scarlett, Christopher Townsend, Cathy Vivona, Ruth Williams
My Summer 2001 Ling 523 class:
Roberta Abel, Abrar Al-Muhanna, Jae-Hee Chang, Nasim Khawaja, Adrianna Marks, Szilvia Oszko, Masayo Sakamaki, Stephanie Sareeram
My Fall 2001 Ling 523 class:
James Arritt, Connie Barrrett, Abby Brown, Wendy Cast, Buket Ertur,
Pauly Herpy, Natalia Jacobsen, Ji Young Lee, Jamie Moussa, Marci Strock, Angela Zaev
My Fall 2002 Ling 523 class:
Jolie Beck, Lee Beddow, Virginia Chan, Marisa Cleveland-Dimitrov, Young Hee Hong, Anthony Hsu, Carrie Johnson, Megan Kelly, Sarah Lim, Alison O'Neill, Lisa Pierce, Nicole Servais, Connie Thibeault, Danielle Wright, Miracle Wynn, Xu Qin, Jennings Yowell
My Summer 2003 Ling 523 class:
Cheri Brumwell, Laura Close, Karen Dunlap, Angela Francis, Sarah Gainer, Megan Gelston, Barbara Haggard, Eiman Hajabbasi, Jacob Lawrence, Stefan Lewis, Tara Lyons, Felisa Macaspac, Peter Michael, Christina Schoux, John Shaw, Ryan Thomas, Tamara Wehmeir
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My Fall 2004 Ling 523 class:
Ava Blair, Paul Buschman, Rexita Chamer, Phuoc Dang, Ruth Hansen, Lita Howard-Gois, Minkyung Kim, Peter LaTerra, Giuseppe Mastrobuono, Erin McCabe, Alan More, Michelle Nadeau, Francisco Rodriguez, Jessica Scott, Nancy Shalloway, Weatherley Betty, Terry Woodside
Special thanks to my students in Ling 507:
Fieldwork in Applied Linguistics Spring 1999:
Daiva Miller & Nikoleta Dineen
Fieldwork in Applied Linguistics Spring 2000:
Mary Jo Olsavsky, Cynthia Owens, & Marla VanHoose
Fieldwork in Applied Linguistics Fall 2000:
Sally Morrison
My Graduate Research Assistant for 2000-2001: Sally Morrison
My Graduate Research Assistant for 2001-2002: Adrianna Marks
My Graduate Research Assistant for 2002-2003: Natalia Jacobsen
My Graduate Research Assistants for 2003-2004: Ryan Thomas & Lisa Pierce
Undergraduate Intern 2002: Jeff C. Stanley
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Remote-submission Researchers:
Cynthia Cramsie, Missouri, USA; Anat Treister-Goren, Israel; Yumi Park, South Korea; Marji Soave, Pennsylvania, USA; Franklin Taniredjo, Canada; James M. Scobbie, United Kingdom; Johan Winge, Sweden; Li Zhenhai, China; Jim Henry, Rehoboth, Delaware,USA; Jennifer Gensinger, Long Island, New York, USA; Chung Yiu Hang, Hong Kong, China; Jon Lafontaine, Quebec, Canada; Dominic Olliver, United Kingdom; Cagri Akyurt, Turkey; Mortitz Reichelt, Germany; Afshin Sepehri, Maryland, USA; Sharon Rottman, Bet Shemesh, Israel; Franz Tragseil, Vienna, Austria; Luis Gonzalez, Santiago, Chile; David A. Lewis, Vancouver, Canada; Assaf Ben-David, Jerusalem, Israel; Neal Bedard, Castro Valley, California, USA; Marcel Veldhuijzen, Nijmegen, Netherlands; Jannel Brueggeman, Baltic, South Dakota, USA; Shogo Yamaguchi, f*ckuoka, Japan; William Giovan, Detroit, Michigan, USA; Amir Aharoni, Haifa, Israel; Shannon Foley, Indiana, USA; Valentin Malinov, California, USA; Tarciso de Morais, Sao Paulo, Bazil; Lo Frayer, Haifa, Israel; Hugo de Klerk, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Vera Chazen, St. Louis, MIsouri, USA; Jeff Green, Londonderry, Northern Ireland; Mark Dallas, Birmingham, England; Ricard Axelsson, Stockholm, Sweden
Daphne Haller, Haifa, Israel; Pablo Demierre, Santiago, Chile; William J. Giovan, Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan; William Spiropoulos, Columbus, Ohio, USA; Steven Saunders, Chesapeake, Virginia, USA; Joseph Garcia, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Kenneth Pettit, West Jordan, Utah, USA; Anand Sitaram, Lewisville, Texas, USA; Ben Mattes, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; David Lauder, Lewistown, Pennsylvania, USA; Wesley Weber, Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Matt X. Hunter, Princeton, Indiana, USA; Steve Glines, New York, New York, USA; Alex Marchuk, Adelaide, Australia; Zak Killian, Beaumont, Texas, USA; David Reitter, Kilkenny, Ireland; Dan Crone, Darwin, Australia; James Nichols, Wichita, Kansas; Wade Hone, Idaho Falls, Idaho; Kyle Sulli, West Covina, California, USA; Amanda Wright, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Petter Ulfberg, Luleaå, Sweden; Verner Fortelius, Helsinki, Sweden; Fernando Gonzalez del Cueto, Mexico City, Mexico; Sung J. Woo, Seoul, Korea; Silvio Bichisecchi, Florence, Italy; Lucia Marazzi, Cremona, Italy; Richard Cavell, Melbourne, Australia; Stewart C. Russell, Glasgow, Scotland; Steven W Arrowood, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA; Ruth Gaa, Chicago, Illinois, USA; Suzanne McCartney, Winnfield, Louisiana, USA; Kurt Geyer, Sydney, Australia; Yuen Yun Lam, Hong Kong, China; Geraldo Bello, Vitória, Brazil; Rafael Marinho, Fortaleza, Brazil; Liam Kearney, Strabane, Ireland; David Smith, Charleston, South Carolina, USA; Bahram Rad, Tehran, Iran; Rea Einskidottir, Tamworth, Australia; Andrew Prusinowski, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA; Steve Kelly, Kingston, Massachusetts, USA; Christopher Gordon, Kingston, Jamaica; Rob Miller, Volda, Norway; Kelly Hagedorn, Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin; Carlos M. Monnney, San Jose, Costa Rica; Trey Pentecost, Louisiana, USA; Preston Brewton, Pensacola, Florida, USA; Diah Schur, Jakarta, Indonesia; Dustin Bell, Mishawaka, Indiana, USA; Umit Aktas, Izmir, Turkey; Brian Kohnlein, Point Pleasant, New Jersey, USA; Joan Lluch, Tarragona, Spain; Gregory D. Drew, Wilmington, North Carolina, USA; Lawrence Chiu, Berkeley, California, USA; Fernan Gonzalez, Burgos, Spain; Duman Nursilinov, Semey, Kazakhstan; Nikola Sekuloski, Ohrid, Macedonia; China; Peera Hemarajata, Bangkok, Thailand; Ernesto Silva, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Nick Mathews, Spokane, Washington, USA; Vladimir Assmann, Novo Hamburgo, Brazil; Jessica Chong, Toronto, Ontaria, Canada; Josh Smith, Torrington, Connecticut, USA; Ryan Stoeppel, Staten Island, New York, USA; Janine Radu, Youngstown, Ohio, USA; Dado Dragulj, Maribor, Slovenia; Eyal Yablonka, Netanya, Israel
....and of course to all of the subjects who lent us their accents.
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1The elicitation paragraph is as follows: Please call Stella. Ask her to bringthese things with her from the store: Sixspoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snackfor her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog forthe kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meether Wednesday at the train station.
