emerging south east asian englishes and intelligibility
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TRANSCRIPT
ByDAVID DETERDING and ANDY KIRKPATRICK
PRESENTED BYMISS KANOKWHAN SAMPHAN
British/
America
Brunei
Malay
Philippines
Singapore
Cambodia
Indonesia
Laos
Myanmar
Thailand
Vietnam
Smith and Nelson (1985)
Three Basic Levels
1)Word recognition
2)Utterance comprehension
3)Understanding the meaning behind the utterance
It was shown that in syllable-initial position, many ASEAN speakers use
[t] in place of /ϴ/
Ex. FSing: and I think [tiŋk] er anyway you all may er join in the … celebration.
FViet: I don’t have to teach theories [tiriz]
-This feature is found in Sing/Laos/Viet/Phil/Malay/Myan/Indo/Thai
[s] in place of /ϴ/
Ex. Fcambo: we went to the market and tried to explore something [sΛmsIŋ] already and erm we think [sIŋ] that maybe on the last day.
*the same as Thai pronunciation*Words with /ϴ/ or /ð/ /s/ or /z/
The result = does not cause much of a problem
[f] in place of an initial /ϴ/
MISUNDERSTANDING !!!
• Singapore
• Estuary English
Ex. three [fri:] nights free nights, free life*Using of [t] in place of /ϴ/ causes problem for China and Japan*
Ex. take (bus number) three three is heard as “dig tree tree” !!!
“English spoken by Singaporeans is easy
to understand”
/t/ can sometimes sound like [d]
an influence from Malaysia
Ex. Fphil: this is my second time [daIm] Fsing: so grammar is taught [dƆ:t] in a
more structured way
occurred in Phil, Viet, Sing, and Malay
Minimal aspiration
Initial /p/ sounds like [b]
Ex. FMyan: pardon? [ba:dƏn] MCamb: I find most car in Singapore
pretty
[brItI] new.
occurred in Myan, Camb, and Sing
The result = does not appear to disrupt communication
The Romanization of Thai language influences the pronunciation of English. Thai students read all /ph/ into /p/,/kh/ into /k/, /p/ into /b/, /t/ into /d/, /k/ into /g/. This kind of articulation definitely has a strong influence on the students who have no chance to study English Phonetics.
Ex. One of my friend asked “Can I have some baber?”. In fact, she would like to say paper, but due to her mistake of pronunciation of /b/ instead of /p/. This sound can cause the misunderstanding of the listener and I could not respond her immediately.
/eI / and /ƏƱ/ are often pronounced as long monophthongs in Singapore
Thus /eI / and /ƏƱ/ [e:] and [o:]
occurred in Malaysian Eng, Vietnamese Eng, Thai Eng, and Philippine English
Ex. FPhil: you learn the language in a natural way [we:]
** Lee and Lim (2000) report that Singapore listeners did not want to sound like a speaker who had a diphthogal articulation for /eI / and /ƏƱ/, as they judged him to be pretentious and insincere.
In Thailand the vowel of /ei/ is pronounced as /e/ Ex. “I will beat your TAIL if you TELL
another TALE”.
The result was most of the students in class pronounced “tail” [teil] as [tel] which is the same sound as “tell”.
For British English - /aIƏ/ and /aƱƏ/ are usually presented
as the loss of the middle element. - homophonesEx. shire and shower the vowel is
represented as [aƏ]
For ASEAN like Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei, and Indonesia pronounce /aƱƏ/ as two distinct syllables.
Ex. FIndo: an hour [aƱWƏ] in the airport. (adding of [W])
Full vowel > a schwa (in the first unstressed syllable of a word)
Ex. FMyan: from [frɒm] there we can [kæn] continue [kɒntInju:]
occurred in Sing, Indo, Bru, Phil, and MyanIn ThailandEx. the word “can’t” is pronounced as [kænt]
with full vowel instead of [kƏnt].
“staccato” or “jerky”
Ex. FSing: the communicative [kɒmju:nIkeItiv] approach
The result = clear enunciation
British English baby-talk, TV commercial slogans,
showing irritation or sarcasm, rap chanting
Ex. MThailand: when I have to speak. FIndo: OK, I just er waited for HIM an hour in
the airport. The result = does not cause any
problems for communication
In Thailand Thai language = a tonal language stress becomes the biggest problems of Thais. put the stress on the last syllable eg. computer,
technology, tomorrow, and September. Don't desert me here in the desert!
problem
In Singapore >> the stressed pron. occurs at the end of the utterance
Ex. FBru: So I had so m-, I grew up with a lot of languages around ME.
affects words that are repeated
Ex. MCamb: erm English is very new and very few people speak ENGLISH.
≠ inner circle (America English) gives new info. characteristic of differences between inner and outer-circle Englishes
Summary of instances of idiosyncratic pronunciation
Nationality of speaker
Feature Example
Myanmar [ɑ:] in place of / :/ᴈ Pearl [bɑ:l] beads
Laos Loss of /r/ in initial cluster
Three [ti:] teacher
Laos [n] in place of final /l/
Big holes [hoƱnz]
Vietnam [ʃ] in place of /s/ Some sauce [ʃƆ:s]
Myanmar Insertion of [t] More English than us[Λts]
Nothing in the pronunciation cause problemEx. Fbrun: do you find the course so far? Mthai: mmm? Fbrun: How did you find this course that
we did so far? Lexical problem as using an unusual word Ex. Mindo: So how long long do they have to
sit in the s- er junior high school and senior high school?
** sit stayThe Result = listening skills of the
addressee, words usage
One evidences showed that the pronunciation can cause a problem.
In Myanmar English- the vowel of [ɑ:] in place of [ᴈ:]- /p/ has no aspiration, so it sounds
like [b]
Ex. FMyan: by the way er have you seen any er pearl [bɑ:l]beads at the shopping centre.
FIndo: Bal bead what’s that?
**Not normally found in ASEAN**
- Other aspects of individual information (unfamiliar)
Ex. FSing: She wanted to get the erm Chinese drums for her son.
- PronunciationEx. The use of [n] in place of a final /l/ as the final
consonant in school [sku;n]. (Laos)
The use of [w] instead of /l/ in only [onwi]. (Laos)
The use of [ti:] for three and the use of [ts] instead of /tʃ/ in teacher
The loss of the /r/ in three may cause some problem.
The occurrence of a [t] like “us” [Λts] “arts”
- Problem of pronounce /ϴ/ eg. [ti:] for three
- Thais substitute /W/ for /R/ eg. rabbit to wabbit
- Thai has an L sounds like R called “Gliding of Liquids”
Ex. “rain” can be pronounced as “lain” “crap” can be pronounced as “clap”
-Thais usually drop r Ex. “crap” can be misunderstood as “cap”
Collocation can be one of aspect of intelligibility. For example:
My hair is busy (instead of My hair is messy.)I play computer (instead of I work on the computer.)I closed (opened) the radio (instead of I turned off (on) the radio.)
Consonants
In ASEAN English, they do not produce word final consonant clusters.
Ex. mon (months), produc (product), and draf (draft)
Lexis -The difference of words used
Ex. cars/automobiles and lorries/trucks in British and American English respectively an “innocent’
-the need to adopt words from local languages to describe indigenous phenomena, as no “English” word for such things exist.
Ex. Malaysia English word “satay” “atap” (a palm thatch used for huts)
The word with one meaning in one variety takes on a different meaning in another.
Ex. In Singapore English, there is the use of word “Christians” which refers only to Protestants.
Coin new words/Adopt words from other languages
Ex. The word “Alphabet” in Singapore English
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz = 26 alphabet