ABSTRACT
The sociolinguistic situation in the United States (US) and Canada, as far as pronunciation is concerned, is rather different from that of the rest of the English-speaking world. This chapter begins by giving an outline of one US English accent–an accent employed by some educated white middle-class speakers from the Central East Coast region. It describes differences between this accent and RP. The chapter discusses regional differences within North American English pronunciation, concentrating on varieties of educated speech and omitting mention of most lower-prestige accents. The linguistic history of the three Canadian Maritime provinces is very different from that of rest of Canada. The island of Newfoundland has been part of Canada only since 1949. The history of the settlement of Newfoundland goes a long way to explaining the linguistic situation there. Many of the differences between ‘American’ and ‘English’ varieties of English involve the pronunciation of individual or small groups of words.
