Under the Surface: Rhoticity and Relevance in the Song “Surface Pressure” From Disney's Encanto

Abstract

Purpose: The song “Surface Pressure” from the Disney film Encanto is believed to have a relatively high number of opportunities for production practice of rhotic speech sounds in comparison to conversational tasks. Given the effectiveness of meaningful activities in speech-language intervention, incorporation of this song into treatment has the potential to benefit speech-disordered children. Method: Transcription of “Surface Pressure” using the International Phonetic Alphabet was completed by two independent transcribers, and a consensus was reached on all discrepancies (94.8% consistency). Frequency of occurrence for different rhotic speech sounds was calculated. Results: The song “Surface Pressure” contains a proportionally high number of the uncommon American English stressed and unstressed schwars at 5.32% of the total phonemes in the entirety of the song, compared to 2.21% in conversational American English. Over 9% of the total phonemes are characterized by some degree of rhoticity, compared to 6.08% in conversation. Conclusions: The construction of “Surface Pressure” creates an accessible and authentic opportunity for targeting errored productions of rhotic speech sounds in a potentially culturally and socially relevant way. Similar analyses could justify the use of other distinctive children's movie songs in place of more traditional methods of elicitation for various speech disorder assessment and intervention needs, all with the objective of offering meaningful, authentic, and relevant opportunities for desired productions.