Resource Guide for Accent Acquisitionfinal

DIALECT RESOURCE GUIDE
Developed by Mary McDonald-Lewis
mary@marymac.com • www.marymac.com
BOOKS RECOMMENDED BY LEADING DIALECT COACHES
Speaking With Skill - Dudley Knight and Phil Thompson
Accents of English Vols 1, 2 and 3 - John Wells
Accents and Dialects for Stage and Screen (Book and CD) - Paul Meier http://www.paulmeier.com
Accent Help (Books, CDs, coaching) - Kate Devore, Jim Johnson, Michelle Lopez-Rios http://www.AccentHelp.com
Classically Speaking (Book and CD) - Patricia Fletcher http://www.patriciafletcher.com/classically_speaking.php
Compendium of the World’s Languages - George Campbell
The Dialect Handbook - Ginny Kopf http://www.voiceandspeechtraining.com
English Accents and Dialects: An Introduction to Social and Regional Varieties of English in the British Isles - Hughes,
Trudgill & Watt
Handbook of the IPA - International Phonetic Association
How To Do Accents - J. Haydn Rowles and E. Sharpe
The Joy of Accents and Phonetics - Colaianni
Speak with Distinction: The Classic Skinner Method to Speech on the Stage - Edith Skinner
Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles - Docherty & Foulkes
DIALECT TRAINING COURSES
Knight Thompson Speechwork http://www.ktspeechwork.com/
Knight Thompson Speechwork is a highly effective, skills-based approach to speech and accent training for actors
that places emphasis on developing the speaker's detailed awareness of and engagement with the skills that make up
language. By combining a rigorous investigation of those skills with playful, experiential exercises, this work moves
quickly and effectively past the usual interference that can make speechwork difficult for many students.
For more about KTS, please refer to the book Speaking With Skill, by Dudley Knight, published by Methuen drama,
or the KTS website, http://www.ktspeechwork.com. There is also a blog about some of the finer points of speech,
accents, and phonetics; it can be found at http://www.ktspeechblog.blogspot.com.
For some thorough (and entertaining) articles about the history of speech-training in this country and the origins of
Knight-Thompson Speechwork, please refer to the articles section of the KTS
website: http://www.ktspeechwork.com/articles.html
To watch KT Speechwork in action: http://www.howcast.com/videos/500454-About-the-Expert-Andrea-Caban
& Howcast.com Andrea Caban breaks down 36 accents in a series of short videos using the three pillars of accent
acquisition: oral posture, sound changes and musicality.
DIALECT BLOGS
J.C. Wells’ Blog
David Crystal’s Blog
Ben Trawick-Smith’s Blog
(language and phonetics)
(dialect & linguistics)
(custom materials & coaching too)
http://www.phoneticblog.blogspot.com/
http://david-crystal.blogspot.com/
http://dialectblog.com/
CDS
Instructional materials from Gillian Lane-Plescia
http://www.dialectresource.com
DIALECT WEBSITES
http://dialectcoaches.com/
Think of DialectCoaches.com as an "industry matchmaker." The site takes requests from talent and production,
scours their database of the best dialect coaches in the world, and finds the right match for your unique
needs. They’re smart. They're fast. They're highly personalized. And they're free.
http://www.dialectsarchive.com/
The International Dialects of English Archive was created in 1997 as the first online archive of primary-source
recordings of English dialects and accents as heard around the world.
http://www.accenthelp.com/pages/accenthelp-coaches
Accent Help
Downloadable instruction materials for accents, dialects, and accent reduction by Kate DeVore and Jim Johnson.
http://www.dialectresource.com
Dialect Accent Specialists, Inc.
Audio instruction materials for accents and dialects by Gillian Lane-Plescia, along with custom materials and
research assistance.
http://www.paulmeier.com
Paul Meier Dialect Services - Audio instruction materials for accents, dialects, and accent reduction by Paul Meier.
Also custom materials and instruction services.
http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk
Vocal Process was established by Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher as a training resource for vocal practitioners.
Books, CDs, and downloadable videos.
http://www.voiceandspeechtraining.com/
Print and audio instruction materials for accents, accent reduction, and S drills by Ginny Kopf.
AUDIO SOURCES FOUND ON THE INTERNET
The below material is taken from:
http://www.vasta.org/resources/internet_resources.html - dialects.
Rather then reprint all of the information here, below find a sampling of what can be found on the website to
encourage you to visit!
Dialect and accent home pages and links pages are especially susceptible to rapid expiration, so there are no
guarantees about these links being live when you visit them, so visit the site often for updated information.
AUE Audio ArchiveSound samples from English
speakers from around the world.
http://www.alt-usage-english.org/audio_archive.shtml
American Dialect Society
BBC Radio 4: Routes of English Access to sound files
from the radio series on English language history.
Survey of English Dialects (Formerly Collect Britain)
Access to more than 650 regional speech samples
from the British Library’s collection.
Dictionary of the Scots Language
English Around the World
Harvard Survey of North American Dialects
Hiberno-English Archive
History Channel: Great Speeches "Hear the Words
that Changed the World."
International Dialects of English Archive Unique
collection of primary source recordings for actors and
others, in English, of native speakers in both Englishlanguage dialects and accents of other languages.
New Zealand English
Organization of Dialect Diversity in North America
Pittsburgh Speech & Society
Russian Alphabet
Scots Online Resource Centre
Speech Accent Archive
Speech Internet Dictionary
Story Corps One of the largest oral history projects of
its kind, creating a growing portrait of the American
people.
Tejano Voices Mexican-American oral history project
at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Voice of America - New American Voices Audio files
showcasing American diversity; immigrants tell VOA
their stories.