“But you don’t sound Malay!”
Language dominance and variation in the accents of English-Malay bilinguals in Singapore
This study examined the English accents of English-Malay bilinguals in Singapore to ascertain whether language
dominance was a determinant of accent variation in Singapore English, with a hypothesis that a Malay-dominant bilingual would have
more ethnic-specific features than an English-dominant one. Ten English-Malay bilinguals – five English-dominant and five
Malay-dominant – who differed greatly in their language dominance took part in this study. In an ethnic discriminability task that
involved 60 naïve raters, Malay-dominant bilinguals were significantly more often correctly identified as ethnically Malay and
were rated as having a significantly more perceivable Malay-accented English accent, while those who were English-dominant had an
English accent that lacked ethnic-specific features so much so that naïve raters, including raters who were English-Malay
bilinguals, were less able to identify the speakers as ethnically Malay. The results of this study indicate that early sequential
bilinguals or simultaneous bilinguals of the same two languages need not have similar accents. The findings also suggest that
language dominance is a determinant of accent variation in Singapore English, at least for the English-Malay bilinguals.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Language situation in Singapore
- 1.2Studies on accents of Singapore English
- 1.3The Malay speech community in Singapore
- 1.4Current study
- 2.Methodology
- 2.1Assessing language dominance
- 2.2Participants
- 2.3Recording procedure
- 2.4Materials
- 2.5Rating task
- 2.6Analysis of accentual features
- 3.Findings
- 3.1Ethnic identification
- 3.2Degree of Malay-accentedness
- 3.3Analysis of accentual features
- 3.3.1Word-initial voiceless plosives
- 3.3.2Syllable-final /l/
- 3.3.3Rhythm
- 3.3.4Melody
- 3.3.5Peak alignment
- 4.Discussion
- 4.1A homogenising SgE accent?
-
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