Reduced Vowels American English Pronunciation

I want to share with you an email that I

recently received hi Rachel I’d really

like to see a video about reduced vowel

sounds in American English I mean the

sound Americans produce in words like

roses wanted profit plastic before

because and so on in unstressed

syllables are they all choise please I’d

love a lesson on these sounds because

I’m really confused about this Thanks

thank you for this question this is an

excellent question and I want to start

by saying that not all unstressed

syllables in American English have a

reduced vowel for example profit and

plastic both of these are examples when

they retain that it as in sit sound it

is unaccented and so that means the

duration of the vowel is not as long and

because the vowel doesn’t have quite as

long it often doesn’t quite solidify

into that very clear it sound but it is

still considered and written in IPA as

the is sound retaining its vowel profit

plastic and I will do another blog later

on other vowels that do retain

themselves within an unstressed syllable

now for vowel reduction the schwa is the

most common reduced vowel sound it’s

also the most common vowel sound period

in American English so you’re probably

familiar with it some examples sofa

about I believe in the how-to video I

described it as the position as if you

were going to not say anything about

sofa everything is very neutral central

relaxed now there is a second reduced

vowel sound and I want to say at the

beginning that I don’t believe it is a

part of the general American English

international phonetic alphabet meaning

I have not ever seen it for example on

dictionary.com or the Cambridge

dictionary when I look up the

transcription of a word I have how

I’ve seen it in some scholarly journals

and it denotes a sound that I think is

worth talking about this second sound is

called the Bard I a phrase that shows

the difference between the two sounds is

roses roses Rosa

being a name ending in a schwa sound now

when we add the apostrophe s to show

possession roses the schwa is in tact

roses being the plural of rose has the

second bard I sound roses roses it’s a

subtle difference what is the difference

as I said it’s a little higher in the

mouth because the tongue comes up just a

little bit on Rosa the schwa my tongue

is laying on the bottom of my mouth Rosa

when I say Rosa’s the tongue moves up

just a little bit it doesn’t come up as

much as for the e as in sit but it does

come up a little bit to raise that sound

roses roses another very subtle

difference in the mouth position for

this is as I said the tongue comes up a

bit but also the corners of the mouth

come out ever so slightly roses roses

it’s just a real slight pull there on

both sides here is a photo illustration

the very slight difference in the corner

of the mouth on the left is the schwa

and on the right is the bard eye you can

see here in the corners of the mouth for

the bard eye that they come slightly up

and back also the teeth are slightly

further apart in the bard I found this

is to accommodate the slight rising of

the tongue I’m going to read a set of

paired words that comes from a scholarly

paper that I did come across on the

internet and I will have it for download

on my web page the first set of words or

the first word in each pair rather is a

noun showing possession and that noun

ends in the schwa sound the schwa sound

remains intact when you add the s for

possession the second

word in each of these word pairs is a

plural noun and it’s the same as in

roses roses the schwa is in the first

word and this bard I is in the second

word roses roses leases leases rushes

Russians asia’s ages ninjas hinges did

you notice how in the second of each of

those word pairs the second sound was

closer to the ear as in sit than the

schwa which was the first sound you may

be wondering when to use which of these

two vowel sounds as I said if a word

ends in a schwa and you add a suffix for

example an S to make a noun plural then

the schwa remains like sofas if it’s a

noun that ends in an e that is not a

schwa and you add an S to make it plural

like roses then that would be a case

where it would be the bard I sound if

you’re feeling confused or are having

problems identifying the difference in

these two sounds please don’t worry

it’s rather subtle and as I said I have

not ever seen this bard

I sound in IPA outside of these

technical papers I want to take a minute

to go back to the original email roses

as discussed the bard I sound prophet

plastic also as discussed these two do

have unaccented syllables but the vowel

is not reduced

they both retain the e as in sit vowel

sound wanted before and because these

three words to my ears work with either

of the reduced vowel sounds the bard

I or the schwa I will read them first

using a schwa wanted because before and

now with the bard I wanted because

before to me they work either way the

difference between these two reduced

vowels is the