120134 AR Linguistics Course (interactive) 225 (2009W)

While it may be true that Americans say truck while Britons say lorry, if we want to tell where someone comes from, there is no point in waiting for a telltale vocabulary item like this to arise spontaneously (if it did, what would we expect from a New Zealander anyway?). Rather, we have to think about the information provided by pronunciation. We all know that Americans don't sound the same as Britons, that Australians and New Zealanders sound similar and that none of these varieties has a phonetic system derived from Scots. But can we tell what kind of English we are listening to? What clues should we listen for?
Given that the various kinds of English do sound different, why should that be? What did the input varieties sound like? And what can we learn about processes of phonetic and phonological change from the diversification of Englishes?