I'm going to be teaching English to French high school students for another year in September, and they all have a hard time with my variety of English (they're used to hearing British English). Specifically, they have trouble with my pronunciation of /t/, vowel sounds, and my merging of words when speaking at a normal pace. I want to be more aware of these phonetic 'phenomenon' so that I can explain them to the students to help them better understand me.
An example sentence that demonstrates all three phonetic issues:
Insert it into the computer.
The "standard" phonetic transcription for this sentence in American English is:
Insert it into the computer.
/ɪnˈsɜrt ɪt ˈɪntu ðə kəmˈpjutər/
I'm from Michigan, and we have a tendency to replace /t/ with /d/, schwa-ify a ton of vowels, and eliminate spacing between words. So I would pronounce the above as:
Insert it into the computer.
[ɪnˈsɜrdɪdɪndəðə kəmˈpjutər]
The first change is /t/ to /d/ - this I know is called flapping, specifically the flapped /t/. So I'm really just curious about the second two: replacing vowels with /ə/, and the elimination of spacing between words (liaison-ification of words?).
As far as my phonology education goes, /ə/ is the most common vowel sound in English, so it's not surprising that I tend to replace vowels with it. But I'm not sure if there is a proper phonologic term to describe that process. As for eliminating spacing/making liaisons between words, I have no idea what that would be called.
What are the names of the other two phonetic changes in the above sentence?
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