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Phonological Features of Hong Kong English : Patterns of Variation and Effects on Local Acceptability Lingnan University Digital Commons @ Lingnan University Theses & Dissertations Department of English 2010 Phonological features of Hong Kong English : patterns of variation and effects on local acceptability Andrew John SEWELL Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.ln.edu.hk/eng_etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Sewell, A. J. (2010). Phonological features of Hong Kong English: Patterns of variation and effects on local acceptability (Doctor's thesis, Lingnan University, Hong Kong). Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/ 10.14793/eng_etd.1 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at Digital Commons @ Lingnan University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Lingnan University. Terms of Use The copyright of this thesis is owned by its author. Any reproduction, adaptation, distribution or dissemination of this thesis without express authorization is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved. PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES OF HONG KONG ENGLISH: PATTERNS OF VARIATION AND EFFECTS ON LOCAL ACCEPTABILITY ANDREW JOHN SEWELL PhD LINGNAN UNIVERSITY 2010 PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES OF HONG KONG ENGLISH: PATTERNS OF VARIATION AND EFFECTS ON LOCAL ACCEPTABILITY by SEWELL, Andrew John A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Lingnan University 2010 ABSTRACT Phonological Features of Hong Kong English: Patterns of Variation and Effects on Local Acceptability by SEWELL, Andrew John Doctor of Philosophy The changing dynamics of international communication in English have led to a intense questioning of the relevance of native-speaker pronunciation models in language teaching and testing. In addition, the World Englishes approach to local varieties has increased their level of recognition. Both of these developments suggest that English pronunciation models need to be reviewed, and Hong Kong represents an interesting case study. Although it has been claimed that Hong Kong English is at the ‘nativization’ stage, the existence of exonormative attitudes towards English is also well known. Two important questions arise from this inherent tension, neither of which has been intensively addressed in previous studies. Firstly, although many of the features of Hong Kong English pronunciation have been described, patterns of inter-speaker variation have not been investigated in detail. Secondly, the attitudes of Hong Kong English users towards the phonological features of their own variety have not been studied in ways that take account of such variation. This dissertation addresses both of these questions by being features-based in approach and using local listeners to evaluate accent samples. After an initial review of the features of Hong Kong English pronunciation, a preliminary study surveys the occurrence of consonantal phonological features within a mini-corpus of speech samples taken from local television programmes. Its findings are presented in the form of an implicational scale, which not only shows the relative frequencies with which different features occurred, but also indicates the existence of implicational patterns of co-occurrence. In the main study, twelve authentic accent samples (eleven Hong Kong speakers and one British speaker) were presented to 52 first-year undergraduate students for evaluation as to their acceptability, defined here as acceptability for pedagogical purposes. Multivariate statistical analysis discovered firstly that phonological ‘errors’, as marked by the student listeners, were the most important measured factor in determining the acceptability scores, and secondly that only certain types of ‘error’ or ‘feature’ had significant effects. These features were either related to L1 transfer or involved other salient phenomena such as idiosyncratic alterations to syllable structure. The explanatory part of the study includes acceptability as one of the factors determining feature persistence, in an ‘ecological’ or ‘evolutionary’ model of L2 phonology acquisition and development that combines the findings of the preliminary and main studies. Among the other factors that determine feature persistence or disappearance, salience, intelligibility and markedness are invoked as important influences. The acceptability data also has pedagogical implications, in that local listeners did not give the British accent the highest acceptability rating. This contrasts with the findings of previous studies regarding the pedagogical acceptability of the Hong Kong English accent. However, the features-based approach indicates that only certain types of local accent were acceptable to these listeners, and that these accents were more, rather than less, ‘native-like’. In various ways, the study contributes to an understanding of accent variation and acceptability within a new variety of English. DECLARATION I declare that this is an original work based primarily on my own research, and I warrant that all citations of previous research, published or unpublished, have been duly acknowledged. ______________________ (Andrew John Sewell) Date: CONTENTS List of Tables vi List of Figures viii Acknowledgements xi 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Topic and context 1 1.1.1 Justification and general research orientation 4 1.2 Aims and methods of the study 5 1.2.1 Aims 5 1.2.2 Methodological approach 6 1.2.3 Explanatory approach 7 1.3 Terms and concepts employed in the study 8 1.3.1 General 8 1.3.2 Notation, symbols and variables 13 1.4 Structure 14 2 Literature Review 16 2.1 Introduction 16 2.2 The current situation in pronunciation teaching 16 2.2.1 Native speaker models 16 2.2.2 Criticisms of NS models: RP 18 2.2.3 General criticisms of NS models 20 2.3 Possible solutions and alternatives 21 2.3.1 English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) 22 2.3.2 The Lingua Franca Core (LFC) 23 2.3.3 The LFC and its relationship with ELF and World Englishes 25 2.4 The evaluation framework 27 2.5 Quadrant 1: linguistic, user-internal factors 29 2.6 Quadrant 2: linguistic, user-external factors 32 2.6.1 Intelligibility 32 2.6.2 Sources of intelligibility problems 34 2.6.3 Features contributing to intelligibility 36 2.6.3.1 The avoidance of vowel reduction and word stress 36 2.6.3.2 The avoidance of vowel reduction in function words 39 2.6.3.4 The avoidance of vowel reduction and prosodic factors 40 i 2.6.4 Other studies of intelligibility 44 2.6.5 Other linguistic factors: functional load and frequency 47 2.6.6 Functional factors, synchronic variation and diachronic change 48 2.6.7 Summary: the predictability of intelligibility 50 2.7 Quadrant 3: non-linguistic, user-internal factors 54 2.8 Quadrant 4: non-linguistic, user-external factors 57 2.8.1 Stigmatisation 60 2.9 A features-based evaluation of the LFC proposals 62 2.9.1 The dental fricatives 63 2.9.2 L vocalisation 69 2.9.3 Consonant clusters 71 2.9.4 Other features: consonant substitutions 72 2.9.5 Other features: phonetic characteristics 73 2.9.6 Vowel quality 75 2.10 General pedagogical factors 77 2.10.1 Models and goals 77 2.11 Ideology and pedagogy 79 2.11.1 Contested terminology 81 2.11.2 Understanding the debate: ELF and globalization 82 2.12 Summary 83 3 The Hong Kong Background and the Preliminary Study 84 3.1 Introduction 84 3.2 Language in education 84 3.2.1 Other issues in language education: declining standards? 86 3.3 The role of pronunciation teaching in Hong Kong 86 3.3.1 Pronunciation models 87 3.4 Hong Kong English: status and attitudes 90 3.4.1 Assessing variety status 90 3.4.2 Attitudes and identity 92 3.4.3 HKE accent studies 94 3.5 The phonology of Hong Kong English 96 3.5.1 Two previous studies compared 96 3.5.2 The variation problem 101 3.6 The preliminary study 104 3.6.1 The HKE mini-corpus 105 3.6.2 Consonantal features of HKE 106 ii 3.6.3 Data analysis 110 3.6.4 Implicational scaling 113 3.6.5 Explaining the implicational patterns 117 3.7 The research space 120 3.7.1 Research questions 121 4 Methodology 122 4.1 Introduction 122 4.2 Previous studies 123 4.2.1 Standardised reading passages 123 4.2.2 The matched-guise technique 124 4.2.3 Authentic data 126 4.3 Sample selection 126 4.3.1 Advantages of broadcast material 127 4.3.2 Disadvantages of broadcast material 128 4.4 Selecting the survey samples 130 4.4.1 Linguistic preselection 135 4.5 Other speaker variables 137 4.5.1 Lexical and syntactic complexity 138 4.5.2 Fluency and speech rate 142 4.5.3 Prosodic factors: pitch span 144 4.6 The survey respondents 148 4.7 Survey design 149 4.7.1 The concept of acceptability revisited 149 4.7.2 Part 1 of the survey form 150 4.7.3 Part 2 of the survey form 152 4.8 Administering the survey 154 5 Data Analysis and Findings 155 5.1 Introduction 155 5.2 Part 1 data 155 5.2.1 Internal consistency 156 5.2.2 Inter-rater reliability 158 5.2.3 Inter-item correlations 156 5.2.4 The acceptability ratings 162 5.3 The effects of speaker variables 164 5.3.1 Phonological accuracy 165 5.3.2 Correlations between the variables 166 iii 5.3.3 Regression analysis 167 5.4 Student error codings 173 5.4.1 Error codings and categories 173 5.4.2 Error categories 177 5.4.2.1 Vowel-related errors: SYLL, VOWEL 180 5.4.2.2 Consonantal features: PHONSUB, OTHER C-SUB 184 5.4.2.3 Other consonantal features: TH-STOP, TH-FRONT, L-VOCAL 187 5.4.2.4 Consonant clusters: CCRF, CCM-I 190 5.4.2.5 Connected speech: CS-LINK 192 5.4.3 The effects of the features on the acceptability ratings 193 5.5 Student comments and individual
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