Imitating Prince Charles

I, too, chose for my accent the most ridiculous British Crown Royal caricature I could muster. I always talk like this anyway when I feel like being socially awkward, so it was fun to actually do this for a class.

Here are my normal dulcet (?) New England tones:



And here's my Prince Charles:


The most obvious difference between the two is the length. The American sample is 1.64 seconds long and the British one 2.99 seconds - almost twice as long. About everything was elongated - vowel duration and consonant duration. In the British sample my consonants are exagguratedly crisp. For example, at the end of the phrase there's a block of sound which doesn't have a partner in the American sample: that's the /t/, but in my British accent the pause between them at one point is completely empty, while in the American accent there's always some sound. at the end of [k^hɔt]. In my regular voice it sounds more like [k^hɑʔ], which is a big difference. I also do the alveolar tap in the word butter in my own voice, whereas in British English I enunciate the /t/.

In a British accent my vowels are more rounded as well - the first vowel sound in butter is more of a /ɔ/ than a /ʌ/. My pitch is also a lot more varied and sing-songy. And in both I say "butters pilled" instead of "butter spilled", with a definite pause between the /s/ and the /p/. However, in my British voice, there is a moment of complete silence between the /s/ and /p/, whereas in my normal voice I'm always making some audible sound.

Gosh, Praat's fun!