This is a class on accent distinctions, but it also serves as an introduction to articulatory phonetics, so no prior linguistics knowledge is required. We will spend one session focusing on vowel parameters: jaw height, tongue root position, lip rounding, and tense/lax distinctions. The second session will focus on consonant parameters: place of articulation, manner of articulation, and voicing. Throughout the class sessions, we will refer to the Speech Accent Archive online to listen to various speakers, and we will analyze how they articulate various speech sounds, making reference to the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet. This is a hands-on course, so students should expect to go to the same websites as the instructor to explore accents, consult the IPA chart, and produce IPA symbols from an online keyboard. I will ask questions to check understanding, so students should be able to concentrate and use the microphone to dialogue with the instructor and other students. We will paste IPA symbols into the chat on Zoom, and students should be ready to toggle between two websites, play audio for the vowel and consonant sounds on the websites, copy and paste text, and mute and unmute the microphone.

Day 1: Vowels (55 minutes)
We begin in Australia, listening to Speaker "English152" from Adelaide, and focusing on how he pronounces words such as <please>, <ask>, <spoons>, and <plastic>. We will learn the symbols of the vowels under study in the International Phonetic Alphabet, as well as how to type them digitally using an online IPA keyboard. We will compare this speaker's vowels to Speaker "English6" from Brooklyn New York and to Speaker "English38" from Littlehampton, UK. By the time we finish, we will have an understanding of how to read the IPA vowel chart, what the symbols are for the vowels in question, how to type the symbols using an online IPA keyboard, and how a person articulates the jaw, tongue root, and lip rounding in order to produce them.

Day 2: Consonants (55 minutes)
For our consonant study, we will look at accents from English speakers that claim a non-English language as their native language. We begin in India with a native speaker of Kannada who also known Hindi and Urdu in addition to English. Speaker "Kannada1" uses many plosives and taps, and we will learn the place of articulation of each plosive and tap and their corresponding IPA symbols. We move on to Taipei, Taiwan to study the nasals and their place of articulation with Speaker "Taiwanese2" and to Iceland and France for the trills with Speakers "Icelandic1" and "Yiddish1". Speaker "Belarusan2" will help us understand the fricatives and affricates, and Speaker "Japanese5" will help us understand the approximants.