Research Methods

For each accent sample in this collection, the following was obtained: consent and release to participate, demographic and biographical information, elicitation passages (“Arthur the Rat”, the “KIT list”, and “major players”), extemporaneous speech, and languages spoken in addition to English, if applicable. In the samples, an anonymized visual of the person speaking, focused on the mouth area, is included to aid in identifying the oral posture (articulatory setting), a key component of accent acquisition. This research was approved by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) for human subjects. Consent to participate in this research and release to use the recordings were collected.

Demographic Questions

Participants provided demographic and biographical information, with the option to skip any questions. Open-ended questions were used to elicit extemporaneous speech when necessary. Participants were also asked to speak any additional languages they knew.

Elicitation Passages

“Arthur the Rat” is a story designed to capture English phonemes, originally created by Gertrude Sellon with contributions from Sweet and Passy. For more on its authorship, see MacMahon (1991).

The KIT list sentences are inspired by John C. Wells' work in Accents of English (Wells 1982). Most sentences use words from Wells' lexical sets, including sub-groupings, as detailed in the user guide.

The “major players” sentences are based on Edda Sharpe and Jan Haydn Rowles' work in How to Do Accents (Sharpe and Haydn Rowles 2015). These sentences focus on consonants crucial for accent realization: R, L, H, TH, NG. Additional sentences for YOD, ING, W, and S were also collected.

The KIT list and major players elicitation passages can be found in the user guide.

Any errors are my own.

Labeling

Each sample is labeled by country and assigned a unique number based on the collection order. The label provides additional details such as gender, age, and city/state (if known). For example, USA 10 (F, 47, East Falmouth, Massachusetts) is a 47 year old female from East Falmouth, Massachusetts in the United States. ENGLAND 5 (F, 49, London, England) is a 49 year old female from London England. Additionally, we have provided timestamps for each of the elements collected, allowing users to easily navigate to specific sections. Go directly to YouTube if you’d like to use the timestamp feature to skip ahead.

References

MacMahon, Michael K.C. “The Woman behind ‘Arthur.’” Journal of the International Phonetic Association 21, no. 1 (1991): 29–31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44526092.

Sharpe, Edda, and Jan Haydn Rowles. 2015. How to Do Accents. Second edition (revised), 2009; Reprinted with corrections and Additional sample accent tracks in 2012, 2015. London: Oberon Books.

Wells, John C. 1982. Accents of English 1: An Introduction. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York: Cambridge University Press.