Charles University in Prague [624201]

Charles University in Prague
Faculty of Education
Department of English Language and Literature
B.A. THESIS
Canadian English
Author: Aneta Šubertová
Study subjects: English, Social studies
June, 2010 Supervisor: Mgr. Kristýna Poesová

Acknowledgements
This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance and constructive criticism of
my supervisor, Mgr. Kristýna Poesová. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to
Mgr. Poesová for her significant help.
I would also like to thank my respondents, who agreed to be recorded for my practical part.
I have no objections to the BA thesis being borrowed and used for study purposes.
Declaration
I hereby declare that the following BA thesis is my own work for which I used only the
sources and literature listed on the works cited page.
Prague, 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Signature

Abstract
The thesis aims at exploring the variety of English spoken in Canada with a special focus on
its pronunciation at the segmental level. In the theoretical part , the historic development of
Canadian English is briefly outlined and the essential features of Canadian pronunciation are
described.
In the practical the recordings of three native Canadian speakers are carefully analyzed and
compared with the main characteristics of the Canadian accent.

Key Words
Canadian English, Canadian pronunciation, British and American Accents
Anotace
Tato práce se zabývá kanadskou angličtinou a zejména odlišnostmi v oblasti kanadské
výslovnosti na segmentální úrovni. Teoretická část se skládá ze stručného nástinu historie a
hlavní části zabývající se kanadskou výslovností anglického jazyka.
V druhé části se nachází praktická ukázka kanadské výslovnosti na třech nahrávkách rodilých
Kanaďanů. Objevuje se zde také rozbor těchto nahrávek pro srovnání s hlavními
charakteristikami kanadského přízvuku.
Klíčová slova
kanadská angličtina, kanadská výslovnost, britský a americký přízvuk

Table of Contents
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5
Theoretical Part ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6
1. History of Canadian English ……………………………………………………………………………… 6
2. Influences of American and British English ………………………………………………………….. 8
3. Canadian Pronunciation of English …………………………………………………………………… 10
3.1. Systemic differences ………………………………………………………………………………… 12
3.2. Distributional differences …………………………………………………………………………… 13
3.3. Realizational differences …………………………………………………………………………… 14
3.4. Lexical Incidence …………………………………………………………………………………….. 16
3.5. Suprasegmental Aspect ……………………………………………………………………………. 17
4. Method ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 18
5. Results ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 20
5.1. Systemic differences ………………………………………………………………………………… 20
5.2. Distributional differences …………………………………………………………………………… 21
5.3. Realizational differences …………………………………………………………………………… 22
5.4. Lexical Incidence …………………………………………………………………………………….. 24
Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 27
4

Introduction
I have always been attracted to the phenomenon of the English language as the world’s major
language as well as by its dialects, accents and varieties. When I was planning my trip to
Vancouver in Canada, I became primarily interested in the Canadian accent of English.
Surprisingly, even though there was a lot of information about world dialects of English in the
Czech National Library, only a few sources were devoted to the Canadian accent. Therefore I
took advantage of my summer stay in Canada and joined the Vancouver Library, where I
found a sufficient number of resources related to the selected topic. I considered the
possibility of presenting this rather unknown topic to the Czech audience as very challenging.
Even though Canadian English originates from the British Isles, the pronunciation nowadays
is much closer to the Standard American English than to the British Received Pronunciation.
The chapters about the history of Canadian English and the influences of American and
British English clarify the position of Canadian English among the two English accents. The
theoretical part further outlines distinctive features of Canadian English that are
predominately shared either with Received Pronunciation or General American English.
Although the Canadian accent does not display as many distinguishing attributes as other
accents such as Australian or Black American English, its description is worth our attention.
Canada is in its everyday life influenced by the two strongest English accents as opposed to
Australian geographical isolation.
The practical part offers a comprehensive analysis of the data collected from three recordings
of native Canadians. Its aim is to detect to what extend the features of Canadian English,
systematically presented in the preceding part, occur in the speech of randomly chosen
speakers of the target accent.
5

Theoretical Part
1. History of Canadian English
English-speaking Canadians talk and write the way they do, not by accident, but because of
the influence of all the people who have used Canadian English over the years: the settlers
who came to Canada from Ireland, Scotland and England in the n ineteenth century, fur
traders, the pioneers of Upper Canada, the homesteaders of the West. The vocabulary, the
grammar and the pronunciation of a language are the products of history. Therefore the first
part provides the historical background to Canadian English.
Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, the history of Canadian English is similar as
that of English in the British Isles. Certainly there were English speakers in Canada before
that time, notably the United Empire Loyalists. When America's original Thirteen Colonies
went to war with Britain over objections to unpopular taxes, not everyone in the colonies
favored the move. Those who opposed the revolution were branded as traitors and became
known as Loyalists since they remained loyal to the British Crown. Loyalists were harassed,
denied the right to vote, sell land, sue debtors or to be lawyers, doctors or schoolmasters.
Approximately one- third of the estimated 250,000 colonists who had remained loyal to
Britain fled to other British Possessions. About 40,000 traveled north to what was then
British North America (Canada) with the majority settling initially in a region of Eastern
Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward
Island called the Maritimes. An estimated 7,000 Loyalists settled in Upper Canada
(Ontario). Their presence had a profound and permanent impact on the nation that would
become Canada. Their arrival marked the beginning of a predominantly English-speaking
population in the future Canada west and east of the Quebec border. About one fifth of the
population of Canada can trace their ancestral roots back to one or more of those early
Loyalist families. However, the great period of immigration from the British Isles which
lasted from 1825 to 1860 absorbed earlier English in Canada.
Between 1825 and 1846 half a million immigrants entered Canada from the British Isles. By
1871 there were more than two million people in Canada whose country of origin were the
6

British Isles, and of these the Irish were in the majority. As Buckley (18) states: "846 414 of
whom one hundred thousand had entered in the year 1846, the year of the Irish potato
famine."
As early as 1857, the Reverend A.C. Geikie, a Scottish-born Canadian, had used the term
Canadian English to describe the English of Ontario which he considered to be "a corrupt
dialect growing up amongst our population, and gradually finding access to our periodical
literature, until it threatens to produce a language as unlike our noble mother tongue as the
negro patua, or the Chinese pigeon English" (Scargill 11). The sources of the Canadian
English which Mr. Geikie found objectionable are the English of the late eighteen century in
England, Ireland and Scotland and words of American borrowings. The fact that Geikie was
trying to hold back the tide of “the corrupt dialect” – should not deny him the credit for having
discovered Canadian English. Not until 1889 was the cause taken up again by W.D. Lighthall
in a magazine article which for the first time spoke without preconception about the actual
state of Canadian English: "It would surprise the average British Canadian to hear it suggested
that the language of his people presents any very distinctive features, so widespread are
certain half-conscious notions that, excepting a few French, the language of the home born-
people of our country is some very British and very un-American and practically uniform
dialect, and that, although English, Scotch and Irish immigrants have individually imported
their several variations, these never long remain without melting into that uniform dialect. (…)
Neither do our home-born people speak a uniform dialect at all; nor is a very British dialect
general; nor is our speech even practically free from Americanisms; nor is the time near when
some, at least, of the variants will disappear. It can be shown that there is a possibility of the
English language itself withdrawing from more than half the area of the original Province;
that what remains will be long diversified by traces of dialectic division; and our daily speech
is far more like that current in the United States than we suspect” (Lighthall 581-583). And
during the most of its history, Canadian English continued to exhibit those characteristics
which Lighthall had perceived: growing resemblance to American speech (words e.g. down
town, pants, buggy, limbs, and location ) a lack of uniformity and, particularly in the written
language, a falling below “the standard of England’s great literature” (Geike 11).
When any language is taken from its home and introduced into a new country which is
completely different from anything that its speakers have previously known, than the
language must expand the vocabulary in order to cope with new conditions. This expansion is
made in predictable ways, and it includes the use of existing words with a new meaning, the
7

use of new words with a new meaning ( hurdy gurdy – a musical instrument that makes music
by rotation of a cylinder studded with pegs ), the deliberate creation of new words, the use of
the names of people of thing they invent ( Bombardier – a snow tractor, typically having
caterpillar tracks at the rear and skis at the front ) and the borrowings from people in the new
country who already have names for things which are new to the latest immigrants ( sockeye –
small salmon with red flesh ).
2. Influences of American and British English
Although Canadian English, as Dean pointed out, has been called "a blend of British and
American English" (15) one may presuppose that the English language spoken in Canada
exhibits enough differences in vocabulary, syntax and pronunciation to distinguish it from
both American and British English. It has much in common with both of these English
dialects, but it appears to be something more than a mixture of the two. Canadian English is
according to Avis "neither American, nor British, but a complex different in many respects
from both. A detailed survey of Canadian speech habits would probably reveal that a number
of isoglosses run parallel to the political boundary, too few, perhaps, to set Canada completely
apart from the northern variety of American (i.e., North American) English, but certainly
enough to establish a speech area in many ways different from the principal area. The sum of
isoglosses, representing lexical, phonological, grammatical, syntactical and semantic
differences would be equivalent to what is distinctly Canadian about the English language in
North America. Needless to say, many of these linguistic features would be shared with
English speakers elsewhere, for example in Great Britain and in non-northern speech areas of
the United States." (Avis 158)
On the one hand, close contacts between Canada and United States are of long standing, and
the border has never been a great barrier to the movement of populations. Today, the United
States influence dominates the mass media in Canada as well as much of its commercial life.
Yet membership of the Commonwealth, together with the continuing immigration from
Britain, has meant that Canada is and has been more perceptive to British ways, British habits
of speech, than those living further south.
8

That part of Canadian education, which concerns itself with syntax, grammar and spelling has
for a hundred years and more been almost exclusively based on British models. The "official"
orthography taught in Canadian schools is and always has been the British standard of
spelling, and the "official" dictionaries are British, the various Oxford and akin lexicons and
not Webster being in most cases the ranking authorities. Not until very recently has there been
any attempt to relate the Oxford dictionaries to current Canadian usage, a condition which
was partly remedied by the appearance in 1962 of The Canadian Dictionary .
9

3. Canadian Pronunciation of English
While it is recognized as “a variety of General American English” (Algeo 422), Canadian
English has throughout its history faced something of a dilemma in its search for an identity
separate from that of its powerful neighbor to the south. For obvious political reasons,
Canadian English has retained a closer link with southern British standard than has the
English of the United States. “Indeed, a separate "Canadian" linguistic identity seems to be
largely grounded in greater use of British features on the part of Canadian speakers, by
comparison to their American counterparts. By virtue of its closer links with British English,
Canadians appear to feel that the variety of English which they speak is not only different
from, but also superior to, the English spoken in the United States” (Pringle 183). In spite of
this there is a “clear present-day trend towards greater Americanization of Canadian English
and American English appears increasingly to serve as a prestige model, particularly among
younger and more upwardly mobile segments of the population” (Clarke 80).
Thanks to the work of the Canadian Linguistic Association in focusing attention upon how
Canadian English is spoken; it is becoming possible to define at least the dominant tendencies
of Canadian pronunciation in relation to the recognized standards of British and American
English.
It is usually recognized that Canada does not posses anything like a standard pronunciation,
standard (or general) Canadian English was called by Bailey a “scholarly fiction” (152).
Nevertheless, the standard Canadian English has traditionally been defined as a class dialect,
namely, the variety spoken by educated middle-class urban Canadians from eastern border of
Ontario to Vancouver Island. On the one hand, there is a remarkable homogeneity in speech
over this vast area, on the other hand the limited samplings which have been made reveal that
considerable variation exists not merely from speaker to speaker, but often in the same
speaker. This divided usage is probably typical of Canada as a whole; it is certainly prevalent
in Ontario, a province which some observers consider representative of English-speaking
Canada. A survey conducted by Walter S. Avis in 1993 revealed considerable diversity
among Ontario speakers in their pronunciation of many everyday words.
10

Canada is an officially bilingual country, though the balance is heavily tipped toward English:
in 1996, of a population of slightly more than 28 million, 84 percent claimed a knowledge of
English, while only 14 percent were exclusively French speakers (97 percent of whom live in
Quebec), and fewer than 2 percent knew neither official language. The influence of French
does not seem to be significant in Canadian English pronunciation.
The differences that mark the major dialects- the English of the Maritimes (Nova Scotia, new
Brunswick, and prince Edward Island), of Quebec (Montreal and the Eastern Township), and
of the Ottawa Valley- from minor variants found in West (British Columbia), the Prairies
(Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Arctic North) are quite insignificant. Even the more
distinctive variety of English spoken in Newfoundland is moving towards “standard Canadian
English” (Kirwin 433).
This chapter attempts to illustrate the most common features of standard Canadian English
and a set of characteristic pronunciation features which create the uniqueness of Canadian
accent. Further differences of Prairies and New Brunswick English are not included in the
survey.
As a guideline the author used Cruttenden’s criteria for comparing different systems of
pronunciation (84). Cruttenden names four kinds of pronunciation differences: systemic
differences; distributional differences; realizational and lexical differences. Both British and
American accents serve as points of reference in the following descriptions.
The subsequent detailed list was put together from following sources: Wells’ Accents of
English: Beyond the British Isles; A Synchronic Study of English Spoken in Ottawa by
Howard B. Woods; The Cambridge History of the English Language: English in North
America by Richard M. Hogg, Norman Francis Blake, and John Algeo; Speaking Canadian
English by Mark M. Orkin.
As Samuel Johnson (18) pointed out "no dictionary of a living tongue can ever be perfect" as
well the story of the living language is never complete. The pronunciation of Canadian
English is in a state of change at the present time, and it will continue to change in the future.
The most exciting thing about the study of Canadian English as well as other accents is that
one can observe changes in pronunciation taking place now as A Synchronic Study of English
Spoken in Ottawa proves. This study reveals newer tendencies in Canadian pronunciation and
suitably supplements the above-mentioned works.
11

3.1. Systemic differences
Systemic differences, i.e. differences in phoneme inventory, are differences between two
accents of a language in which one accent possesses one or more phonemes absent from the
other. Meanwhile realizational differences between accents is how speakers of given accents
actually pronounce the phonemes of those accents.
3.1.1. Merger of /ɑ:/ and /ɔ:/; The low-back merger
Examples: Don/dawn, cot/caught, Otto/auto, tot/taught, hock/hawk…
A merger refers to a loss of distinctiveness of two sounds. The low back merger blends / ɔ:/ as
in caught, small, talk and / ɑ:/ as in cat, hat in favor of the latter. The merger of / ɑ:/ and /ɔ:/ has
resulted for most speakers of Canadian English (up to 85 percent) in homophonous pairs such
as those above. This merger is evident in Canadian English as early as the mid nineteenth
century (Chambers 11). Although these vowels are distinguished in certain dialects of
American English, the merger is spreading in the United States as well. One respect in which
Canadian English differs from American English is in the preservation of / ɔ:/ before /r/ more
consistently, as in sorry, tomorrow, orange, porridge, and Dorothy.
3.1.2. /hw/: the presence or absence of voiceless /h/ before /w/.
Examples: where, why, whether, whipped, …
This variable is represented by the presence or absence of /h/ before /w/ in words spelled with
˂wh˃. Canadian English shares a general North American shift from /hw/ to /w/.
Avis (1956:53) investigated the /hw/ variable in Ontario among the upper middle class. Of
159 informants, 68 claimed to pronounce /hw/, 41 acknowledged inconsistent usage, and 50
claimed just /w/.
A Synchronic Study of English Spoken in Ottawa indicates that /hw/ is not often a goal even
in the linguistically more self-conscious styles.
Richard Bailey notes that /hw/ is rare for Canadian speakers even in citation form, and Léon
and Martin discovered that it has almost disappeared in Toronto. However, Woods (139)
12

states that /hw/ “is still held as a goal in Ottawa”, though he finds that it is used less
frequently by young female speakers – a sign that the pronunciation may be on the way out.
3.2. Distributional differences
3.2.1. Palatal glide after /t/, /d/, or /n/ before /u/.
Examples: tune, new, duke, mature…
This variable involves the presence (as in British English) or absence (as in American
English) of the palatal glide /j/ after /t/, /d/, or /n/ and before /u/. Avis (1956:48) observed that
in Ontario, the palatal glide enjoyed prestige, but there was a remarkable degree of variation
for individual words. This systemic feature, which Canadian English (CE) shares with
GenAm in contrast with BE, is the deletion of the semivowel /j/ between the alveolars /t/,
/d/, /n/ and the vowel /u:/. In BE so called “yod” is always retained, except in certain types of
regional dialect speech which is, of course, stigmatized. In the US the "yod-less"
pronunciation is clearly that of the majority, as American dictionaries give this pronunciation
alone, or list it as the preferred form. For CE, on the contrary, forms with yod are preferred,
thus: duke /dju:k/, new /nju:/, tune /tju:n/.
Interestingly enough, A Synchronic Study of English Spoken in Ottawa stated that the palatal
glide is decreasing in usage. (Woods 159)
3.2.2. Rhoticity
Examples: barber
As for the consonants, in contrast with British English- Received Pronunciation (BE), the
most important distributional difference is that Canadian English is rhotic while BE is non-
rhotic, i.e. CE maintains /r/ before consonants and in word-final position, e.g. barber /
ˈbα:rbәr/, as opposed to BE in which /r/ is realized only prevocalically, thus in BE /ˈbα:bә/.
This feature in Canada is shared with most of their American neighbors.
13

3.3. Realizational differences
3.3.1. Canadian raising
Undoubtedly, Canadian raising is the most distinctive phonetic feature of Canadian English.
In Canadian English the “price” and “mouth” vowel phonemes, /aɪ/ and /aʊ/, have special
allophones employed in the environment of a preceding voiceless (fortis) consonant namely
/p/, /t/, /k/, /f/ and /s/. These allophones are diphthongs with a mid starting-point (half-open or
somewhat closer): [әi] and [ʌʊ] respectively. As mentioned, Canadian raising occurs in these
two cases:
a)the diphthong /a ɪ/ before voiceless final consonants is typically realized in Canada
as raised /әi/
Examples: kite, tonight, invite, write…
The allophone of /aɪ/ is a major pronunciation feature which differentiates Canadian English
from General and Northern American counterpart. This diphthong is pronounced relatively
close to /әi/ before voiceless final consonants and it, too, is a high and fast diphthong.
Because of Canadian raising many speakers are able to distinguish between words such as
writer and rider.
b)the diphthong /aʊ/ before voiceless final consonants is typically realized in Canada
as a raised [ʌu]
Examples: house, mouth, without, about, trout, out, ….
The /ʌʊ/ allophone is sometimes perceived by Americans as a variety of /u/, which leads to
popular claims that Canadians say ‘oot and aboot’ for out and ab out” (Wells 494).
This variable, spelled ˂ou˃, is the major pronunciation feature, which differentiates Canadian
English from General American English. This diphthong is pronounced relatively close,
realized as [ʌu] before voiceless consonants in syllable-final position.
14

Although this Canadian diphthong is widely known as one of the characteristic markers of
Canadian English, it is mainly only a higher and faster segment of the continuum, transcribed
in A Synchronic Study of English Spoken in Ottawa as [ʌu], which is singled out by
foreigners and imitated as /u/. Thus foreigners say they hear /әˈbu:t/ for ‘about’. A Synchronic
Study of English Spoken in Ottawa’s informal studies indicated that linguistically naive
Northern American speakers perceive (and are jolted by) this /ʌu/ sound in approximately
20% of Canadian speech while they hear no difference from the 50-60% of Canadians who
use /ʌu/ which is lower and slower than / ʌʊ/.
The very high initial vowel onset [ʌu] occurred in the study predominately among male and
female informants over 40 years of age and younger males. This very high initial vowel was
rare among the younger informants, i.e. those younger than 25 year s of age.
In conclusion we note that the Ottawa synchronic data demonstrate that this characteristically
Canadian diphthong has been present for several generations and that it is markedly stronger
in older generations. The study predicts that this Canadian diphthong will slowly lose its
distinctiveness and slowly merge with Northern American variant / au/.
3.3.2. The pronunciation of ˂ing˃
Examples: doing, fishing, morning, building,…
˂ing˃ is the grammatical suffix which marks the progressive aspect and the gerund and it also
serves as nominalizing suffix. The three variants of pronunciation are /in/, /iŋ/ and /әn/, the
first of which is Canadianism in the sense that it is more prevalent in Canada than in U.S.
“Concerning the three variants, the /әn/ pronunciation, so frequently used in the United
States, was very infrequently used in Ottawa” (Compared the Ottawa data in A Synchronic
Study of English Spoken in Ottawa, p. 157 figure 2a, with Labov’s (1966:398) New York city
data, figure 2b). “The /ɪŋ/ variant is the most frequent variant for all socio-economic and sex-
age groupings in the minimal pairs and word lists, while /in/ is the most frequent in the more
casual styles: pictures, reading and free speech.”(Woods 157)
15

The Ottawa Study reveals that the younger age group consistently has a higher frequency of
/in/ than the older group; this tends to suggest that the /in/ variant will most probably increase
in Ottawa while the use of /әn/ will decline. In conclusion, the synchronic data suggest that
this Canadianism is gaining in use.
3.3.3. Medial intervocalic ˂t˃ realized as an alveolar flap; t – voicing
Examples: Ottawa, little, butter, out of …
The stronger stress on initial syllables of words such as city, butter, little, better , etc. naturally
favors the voiced /t̬/ in nearly all varieties of North American English. Medial intervocalic ˂t˃
is reduced to a “flap” – a sound alike /d/, but the tongue only briefly touches the alveolar
ridge. In the United States, Webster’s Third International Dictionary transcribes words with
post-tonic medial ˂t˃ as / t̬/ as first choice, recognizing that the change has already taken place
(e.g. it gives for the butter the pronunciation /ˈbʌ t̬әr/ before /ˈbʌtәr/ ). In England a
medial /-t̬-/ would be dialectical (e.g., south-west) and would be stigmatized. Many
speakers in Canada (e.g. as in the Survey of Vancouver English informants) retrieve the
underlying /t/ when they are speaking in a formal style.
The attempt on the part of Canadian schools, the CBC television, etc. to force /VtV/ has been
artificial and unnatural.
The Ottawa Study suggests that in the past, the older informants had a goal of /VtV/ related to
British usage in formal usage. However in less guarded speech /V t̬V/ was unconsciously used.
This dual standard reinforces the thesis that Canadian English has been influenced
significantly but superficially by BE while fundamentally remaining a variety of North
American English. The sources point to a higher frequency of /V t̬V/ in the future.
3.4. Lexical Incidence
Some lexical items have distinctive pronunciations in Canadian English, pronunciations that
are found in neither British nor American English. These include khaki /kɑrki/, offense /әʊ
ˈfens/, and longitude /lɒŋgɪˌt(j)u:d/. Studies show, however, that the Canadian pronunciation
of khaki is being replaced by American /kæk
i/. Other pronunciations are shared with
16

American English, though they are of limited distribution in the latter, being either socially
marked or old-fashioned: asphalt /æʃˈfɒlt/, progress /prәʊ
gres/ (also process, sometimes
product), vase /veɪz/, bilingual /baɪˈlɪŋgjuәl/, drama /ˈdræm
ә/, and tomato /tәˈmætәʊ/.
It is in the pronunciation of individual lexical items that Canadian English shows the
influence of a British prestige. In contrast to American pronunciation, Canadians normally
pronounce the suffix –ine as /aɪn/ rather than /ɪn/; the suffix –ile as /aɪl/ rather than /әl/, and
prefixes such as anti- and semi- with the final vowel / ɪ/ rather than /ai/. Oddly, / ain/ for –ine
was though vulgar in nineteen-century Canada. Canadians side with the British on the
pronunciation of lieutenant /lefˈtenәnt/, shone /ʃɒn/, lever /ˈli:vә/, and several other words; the
word been is pronounced by many speakers as /bin/ rather than /b ɪn/; as in Southern England,
either and neither are more commonly /ˈa ɪðәr/ and /ˈnaɪðәr/, respectively.
The Survey of Canadian English (Wells 49 7) revealed an east- west difference in the word
apricot, which is pronounced with initial /e ɪ/ in British Columbia, but /æ/ elsewhere. This
survey also showed a general trend for association between American variants and a lower
level of education, and between British variants and a higher educational level. For example,
77 percent of those with only a high school education reported /sk/ in schedule, while the
smaller figure of 68 percent of those with college or university did so. For leisure with /i:/ as
against /e/ the corresponding 71 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively.
3.5. Suprasegmental Aspect
As far as the suprasegmental aspect of CE is concerned, there is no special difference there.
The most important features are the primary and secondary stress. One stress pattern CE
shares with GenAm is the existence of a special group of words that preserve a secondary
stress which has been lost elsewhere. These are word like secretary /ˈsekrә,terɪ/, stationery /
ˈsteɪʃә,nerɪ/, territory /ˈterә,tɔ:rɪ/, etc. In BE and elsewhere, apart from North America, these
words have no secondary stress, and lose a syllable because they elide the vowel of the
syllable in question: /ˈsekrәtr ɪ/, /ˈsteɪʃәnrɪ/, /ˈterәtrɪ/.
17

Practical Part
4. Method
The purpose of the practic al part is to find out which features of Canadian English explored in
the theoretical part occur in the speech of three randomly chosen native Canadian speakers.
The aim of the section is also to demonstrate several differences at the segmental level of
Canadian English in comparison to General American and RP pronunciation by analyzing
recordings of three Canadians. Consequently, tables showing General American
pronunciation of words, RP pronunciation with the actual pronunciation of the three speakers
are produced and commented. The pronunciation of the target words was transcribed using
the modified subset of symbols for the English language stemming from the International
Phonetic Alphabet. Wells’ Pronunciation Dictionary served as a source for correctness of
subscribed words.
The text used for the practical part was created by the author out of words mentioned
especially in Wells’ Accents of English in the chapter about Canadian pronunciation.
The following text is the exact wording that contains the discussed expressions ( underlined).
It was quite difficult to compose a meaningful text out of the words with different
pronunciation. Therefore a fictional news story was created. The author preferred to create a
fictional story rather than to use separated sentences to make the practical part more attractive
to the reader.
On tonight’s news: psycho salmon have been caught in the Hudson River.
The newest hypothesis suggests that this strange behaviour is caused either by a certain type
of apricot or the colour khaki which is known to be disposed of on a regular basis by a local
food company. What is known for sure is that salmon in this area go deaf, then their condition
progresses into a state of complete hostility and they begin to shoot themselves like missiles at
unsuspecting fishermen. The situation became so critical that it caught the attention of the
Canadian military, which sent Lieutenant John Cyclops to investigate the matter more
closely. Lieutenant Cyclops rode to the location all the way from Ottawa on his bicycle and
18

quickly solved the matter by killing all the salmon with a big lever he brought with him. For
this heroic act he was awarded a Star of Courage and even the Duke of York postponed his
leisure activities such as swimming with whales and writing his memoirs and came to
congratulate him for his deeds. Now all is back to normal and the local food company
scheduled the next apricot disposal on Tuesday afternoon without any fear of psycho salmon.
The table below shows age, sex, place of origin and occupation of all three speakers.
SpeakerAgeSex Place of origin Occupation
126female Uxbridge, Ontario student
229male Vancouver, British Columbia waiter
323male Victoria, British Columbia photographer
Table 1: Description of Basic Information about the Participants
The instructions given to respondents were very brief. Only the topic of my bachelor’s thesis,
the text for the recording and how to record the text was given.
The first speaker is a woman currently on working holiday in the Czech Republic, Prague. We
met at her apartment and for recording the voice we used the mobile phone Nokia 6600 Slider
and its voice recording device. She was very enthusiastic about the project and when the
recording was done, we were talking about the topic of my thesis and she was very well
informed about Canadian pronunciation.
On the contrary, the remaining two recordings were taken in Canada and sent over the
internet. The text was dictated directly to speakers’ own computers via Express Dictate, a
computer – based Dictaphone.
After having received all the recordings, the author listened through BS player to each of
them twice a day every second day for a week in order to secure the reliability of the results.
The quality of all three recordings was sufficient.
19

5. Results
It is obvious from the following summary sheets that these three records did not always show
the Canadian pronunciation features mentioned in the sources and in the theoretical part.
From the recordings it is visible that the American influence in a regular speech of Canadians
is strong.
The results represented in this section follow the structure of chapter 3 from the theoretical
part. Each sub-chapter contains a table consulting of a word or words with the examined
phenomenon and the British and American pronunciations. In the fourth column the preferred
Canadian pronunciation is given followed by the respondents’ pronunciations of the target
words.
5.1. Systemic differences
5.1.1. Merger of /ɑ:/ and /ɔ:/; The low-back merger
WordRP
pronunciationGenAm
pronunciationCanadian
pronunciatio
nRecord 1Record 2Record 3
caught/kɔ:t//kɑ:t //kɑ:t//kɔ:t//kɑ:t//kɑ:t/
The merger of /ɑ:/ and /ɔ:/ is audible in two out of three readings of the word caught and
therefore it supports the hypothesis. For most Canadians the merger is complete and words
caught – cot are homophones.

20

5.1.2. /hw/: the presence or absence of voiceless /h/ before /w/.
WordRP pronunciation GenAm
pronunciationCanadian
pronunciationRecord 1Record 2Record 3
which/hwɪtʃ/ or /wɪtʃ//hwɪtʃ/ or /wɪtʃ// wɪtʃ// wɪtʃ// wɪtʃ//wɪtʃ/
whales/hweɪәlz/ or /weɪәlz//hweɪәlz/ or /weɪәlz//weɪәlz//weɪәlz//weɪәlz//hweɪәlz/
The theory suggested /hw/ as rather rare for Canadian speakers. In the word which, none of
the records showed /hw/, however in the 3rd recording the word whale was pronounced
with /h/ before /w/.
5.2. Distributional differences
5.2.1. Palatal glide after /t/, /d/, or /n/ before /u/.
WordRP
pronunciationGenAm
pronunciatio
nCanadian
pronunciatio
nRecord 1Record 2Record 3
news/njuːz//nuːz//njuːz//njuːz//nuːz/nuːz/
duke/dju:k//du:k//dju:k//du:k//du:k//du:k/
In observed words news and duke the palatal glide /j/ was absent in all six cases. This trend
confirms the theory found in all the sources. The palatal glide is decreasing in use among
native Canadians and the pronunciation of such words is now in most cases the same as that
of American pronunciation.
21

5.2.2. Rhoticity
WordRP
pronunciationGenAm
pronunciatio
nCanadian
pronunciatio
nRecord 1Record 2Record 3
matter/mætә//mæt̬әr//mæt̬ әr//mæt̬әr//mæt̬әr//mæt̬әr/
either/aɪðә/-
southern
England/i:ðәr//ˈaɪðәr//ˈaɪðәr//i:ðәr//i:ðәr/
lever/li:vә//levәr //li:vәr//li:vәr//li:vәr//li:vәr/
Canadian as well as General American English is rhotic and keeps the /r/ sound in word final
position and before consonants. Rhoticity was found in all three recordings of words matter,
either and lever.
5.3. Realizational differences
5.3.1. Canadian raising
Canadian raising might be observed within these words from the text: hypothesis and without.
However the author as not a native English speaker found it very difficult to hear this very
specific yet hardly distinguishable feature of Canadian English. Unfortunately, this feature
was not analyzed in the practical part.
22

5.3.2. The pronunciation of ˂ing˃
WordRP
pronunciatio
nGenAm
pronunciationCanadian
pronunciationRecord 1Record 2Record 3
unsuspecting/ˌʌnsәˈspektɪŋ//ˌʌnsәˈspektәn//ˌʌnsәˈspektɪn//ˌʌnsәˈspektɪŋ//ˌʌnsәˈspektɪŋ//ˌʌnsәˈspektɪŋ/
The pronunciation of ˂ing˃ in all recordings was the same as in J.C.Wells’ dictionary /ˌʌnsә
ˈspektɪŋ/, the RP pronunciation.
5.3.3. Medial intervocalic ˂t˃ realized as an alveolar flap; t – voicing
WordRP
pronunciationGenAm
pronunciatio
nCanadian
pronunciatio
nRecord 1Record 2Record 3
matter/mætә//mæt̬әr//mæt̬ әr//mæt̬әr//mæt̬әr//mæt̬әr/
In both Canadian and American English, it can only occur if the /t/ is between two vowels,
and as long as the second vowel is not stressed, such as in the word matter. The word was
pronounced with an alveolar flap: / t̬/ sound. This feature might make the pair matter – madder
homophonous.
23

5.4. Lexical Incidence
a) Distinctive pronunciation
WordRP
pronunciationGenAm
pronunciatio
nCanadian
pronunciatio
nRecord 1Record 2Record 3
salmon/sæmәn//sæmәn//samәn//sæmәn//sæmәn//sæmәn/
apricot/eɪp
rɪkɒt//æp
rɪkɒt//eɪ/- British
Columbia
/æ/-
elsewhere/eɪprɪkɒt//æprɪkɒt//æprɪkɒt/
khaki/kɑ:kɪ//kæki//kɑrki//kɑ:kɪ//kæki//kæki/
leisure/leʒә//liːʒәr//e/-higher
education
/i:/ – lower
education/liːʒәr//liːʒәr//liːʒәr/
scheduled/ʃedjuːld//skedʒ uːld//ʃ/- higher
education
/sk/- lower
education/skedʒuːld//skedʒuːld//skedʒ uːld/
In spite of the fact that distinctive pronunciation was expected in the word khaki /kɑrki/, the
pronunciation was as that of American English in 2nd and 3rd record, in the first one the
pronunciation was British. It has already been mentioned that the pronunciation has been
replaced by the American version.
The oddity in the word salmon, in Canada often pronounced /samәn/, in comparison to RP-
GenAm /ˈsæmәn/ was unfortunately not approved by any of the recordings.
In the recording of the word apricot, the theory proved the opposite in practice. Similarly, all
three speakers were highly educated, thus the pronunciations /ˈleʒә/ and /ˈʃedjuːl / of words
leisure and schedule were expected. Nevertheless, they all pronounced the words in an
American way (/ˈliːʒәr/ and /ˈskedʒʊәl/), as common in speech of less educated Canadians.
24

c)British Pronunciation
WordRP
pronunciationGenAm
pronunciatio
nCanadian
pronunciatio
nRecord 1Record 2Record 3
missiles/mɪsaɪlz//mɪsәlz//mɪsaɪlz//mɪsәlz//mɪsәlz//mɪsәlz/
lieutenant /lefˈtenәnt/
/lәfˈtenәnt//lu:ˈtenәnt//lefˈtenәnt//lefˈtenәnt//lu:ˈtenәnt//lu:ˈtenәnt/
either/aɪðә/-
southern
England/i:ðәr//ˈaɪðәr//ˈaɪðәr//i:ðәr//i:ðәr/
lever/li:vә//levәr //li:vәr//li:vәr//li:vәr//li:vәr/
It was said that the word missile and something here are usually pronounced as /ˈmɪsaɪl/ in
Canadian English as well as in RP. Conversely, all three speakers chose to pronounce the
word as in GenAm /ˈmɪsәl/.
Furthermore, pronunciation of lieutenant /lefˈtenәnt/ is said to be common in Canadian
pronunciation. This proved in record one by the girl from Ontario, meanwhile records two and
three showed the standard American pronunciation /luˈ tenәnt/.
The theory proved itself while analyzing the word lever, the pronunciation was supposed to
be and was the same as RP pronunciation /ˈli:v ә/.
The word either was present to show the assumptive Canadian pronunciation parallel to that
of Southern England: /ˈaɪðә/. The hypothesis proved itself in recording one, and did not come
to light in the two remaining records.
25

d)American Pronunciation
WordRP
pronunciationGenAm
pronunciatio
nCanadian
pronunciationRecord 1Record 2Record 3
progresses/prәˈgɾesɪz//prәʊˈgɾesɪz//prәʊˈgɾesɪz//prәgˈɾesɪz//prәˈgɾesɪz//prәˈgɾesɪz/
The question of preferable American pronunciation / prәʊˈgɾesɪz/of the word progresses in
Canadian speech was not prove n, and all three speakers pronounced the word as in BrE: /prә
ˈgɾesɪz/.
26

Conclusion
The main goal of the thesis was to present the topic of the distinctive features of the Canadian
pronunciation of the English language. The theoretical part presents in a comprehensible way
both the history of the Canadian accent and the influences of American and British English to
see how the English language in this area developed over the years and what the prevalent
influences were. For systematic purposes, the Cruttenden’s criteria for comparing different
systems of pronunciation serve to introduce the Canadian pronunciation differences and
characteristic features to the reader.
What came through in the theoretical and practical part was that Canadian English is a
mixture of British English and General American English, slightly inclining towards
American English as analyses showed. Any of the three records can be used during lectures
upon Canadian English or word accents to show American and British English pronunciations
of underlined words and consequently reveal to students that this “blend of American and
British English pronunciations” is Canadian English, yet there are certain specificities such as
Canadian raising and merger of /ɑ:/ and /ɔ:/.
Sometimes the practical part confirmed the Canadian pronunciation features mentioned in the
sources and in the theoretical part, such as the merger of /ɑ:/ and /ɔ:/, sometimes it showed the
complete opposite – e.g. pronunciation of the word salmon. Yet all the Canadian features are
mainly tendencies in language, with many varieties from speaker to speaker and the sample of
three recordings can only illustrate the different accent in a larger context, not while
considering each isolated word. On all accounts, each recording is considerably different from
RP English or General American English pronunciation, so it might be used to present the
Canadian accent during lectures.
Writing this bachelor thesis helped me a lot in realizing how appealing the life of a living
language is. The life of the Canadian language can be compared in some way to our lives. We
are all in some respect trying to stand up for our traditions, but at the same time we are
strongly influenced by the more powerful ones. I am very interested in onward life of
Canadian English, whether it will nurse those small unique differences that make its existence
special or on the other hand whether it will gradually melt into the bigger ocean.
27

Works Cited
Armstrong, Eric; Meier, Paul. International Dialects of English Archive [online]. July 20, 2010. 1997
[cit. 2010-07-23]. WWW: <http://web.ku.edu/~idea/northamerica/canada/Lavrentyeva_map.pdf>.
Avis, W. “Speech differences along the Ontario -United States border .” Journal of the
Canadian Linguistic Association 2 . 1955:41-59.
Dean, Christopher, "Is There a Literary Canadian English?" JStor 16 August 2008. 1 June
2010 <http://www.jstor.org/pss/453226>.
Gregg, Robert J. The Survey of Vancouver English. A sociolinguistic study of urban Canadian
English. Kingston: Queen’s University, 1984.
Johnson, Samuel. Letters Ed. R. W. Chapman, London, 1952.
Kirwin, W.J. “The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. VI: English in North
America.” In The Canadian Journal of Linguistics . Ed. Algeo, J. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2003.
Lighthall, W.D. "Canadian English." The Week (Toronto). August 16, 1889: 581-583.
Orkin, M. M. Speaking Canadian English. London : Routledge, 1971.
28

Pringle, I. "Attitudes to Canadian English." In Sidney Greenbaum , Oxford: Pergamon Press,
1985.
Scargill, M. H. A short history of the Canadian English . Victoria, B.C: Sono Nis Press, 1977.
Scargill, M.H., "Canadian English and Canadian Culture in Alberta." Journal of the Canadian
Linguistic Association. March 1995: 26-29.
Urquhart, M.C. and Buckley, K.A.H. Historical Statistics of Canada. Toronto: MacMillan
Company, 1965.
Wells, J. C. Accents of English 3: Beyond the British Isles . Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1982.
Wells, J. C. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow: Longman, 1990.
Woods, H. “A Synchronic Study of English Spoken in Ottawa: Is Canadian English
Becoming More American?” In Focus on Canada , Ed. Sandra Clarke. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins Publishing Company, 1993.
29

Appendix
1.
Armstrong, Eric; Meier, Paul. International Dialects of English Archive [online]. July 20, 2010. 1997
[cit. 2010-07-23]. WWW: <http://web.ku.edu/~idea/northamerica/canada/Lavrentyeva_map.pdf>.
30