Cover not available
Article published In:
English World-Wide
Vol. 40:1 (2019) ► pp.82–112

“But you don’t sound Malay!”

Language dominance and variation in the accents of English-Malay bilinguals in Singapore

| University of Cambridge
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.
Keywords: Singapore English, accent variation, language dominance, English-Malay bilinguals, ethnic identification
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?
  • References
Published online: 1 February 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.00023.sim
References (88)
References
Abercrombie, David. 1965. Studies in Phonetics and Linguistics. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bao, Zhiming. 2001. “Two Issues in the Study of Singapore English Phonology”. In Vincent B. Y. Ooi, ed. Evolving Identities: The English Language in Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore: Times Media Private Limited, 69–78.Google Scholar
Birdsong, David. 2006. “Dominance, Proficiency, and Second Language Grammatical Processing”. Applied Psycholinguistics 271: 46–49.Google Scholar
. 2014. “Dominance and Age in Bilingualism”. Applied Linguistics 351: 374–392. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Birdsong, David, Libby Gertken, and Mark Amengual, eds. 2012. Bilingual Language Profile: An Easy-to-Use Instrument to Assess Bilingualism. COERLL: University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Bloom, David. 1986. “The English Language and Singapore: A Critical Survey”. In Basant K. Kapur, ed. Singapore Studies. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 337–458.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul, and David Weenink. 2018. “Praat: Doing Phonetics by Computer [Computer Program] (Version 6.0.39)”. <[URL]> (accessed April 1, 2018).
Bokhorst-Heng, Wendy. 1999. “Singapore’s Speak Mandarin Campaign: Language Ideological Debates and the Imagining of the Nation”. In Jan Blommaert, ed. Language Ideological Debates. Berlin: De Gruyter, 235–265. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Adam, and David Deterding. 2005. “A Checklist of Singapore English Pronunciation Features”. In David Deterding, Adam Brown, and Low Ee Ling, eds. English in Singapore: Phonetic Research on a Corpus. Singapore: McGraw-Hill, 7–13.Google Scholar
Byrd, Dani. 1993. “54,000 American Stops”. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 831: 97–116.Google Scholar
Caffarra, Sendy, Svetlana Zimnukhova, and Simona Mancini. 2016. “What Usage Can Do: The Effect of Language Dominance on Simultaneous Bilinguals’ Morphosyntactic Processing”. Linguistics Vanguard 21: 43–53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cavallaro, Francesco, and Stefan Karl Serwe. 2010. “Language Use and Language Shift among the Malays in Singapore”. Applied Linguistics Review 11: 129–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cho, Taehong, and Peter Ladefoged. 1999. “Variation and Universals in VOT: Evidence from 18 Languages”. Journal of Phonetics 271: 207–229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chong, Euvin Loong, and Mark Seilhamer. 2014. “Young People, Malay and English in Multilingual Singapore”. World Englishes 331: 363–377. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clynes, Adrian, and David Deterding. 2011. “Standard Malay (Brunei)”. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 411: 259–268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Darcy, Isabelle, and Franziska Krüger. 2012. “Vowel Perception and Production in Turkish Children Acquiring L2 German”. Journal of Phonetics 401: 568–581. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deterding, David. 1994. “The Characteristics of Singapore English Pronunciation”. Review of Educational Research and Advances for Classroom Teachers 11.Google Scholar
. 2001. “The Measurement of Rhythm: A Comparison of Singapore and British English”. Journal of Phonetics 291: 217–230. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2005. “Emergent Patterns in the Vowels of Singapore English”. English World-Wide 261: 179–197. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2006. “The North Wind versus a Wolf: Short Texts for the Description and Measurement of English Pronunciation”. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 361: 187–196. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2011. “Measurements of the Rhythm of Malay”. In Wai Sum Lee, and Eric Zee, eds. Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong, 576–579.Google Scholar
Deterding, David, and Andy Kirkpatrick. 2006. “Emerging South-East Asian Englishes and Intelligibility”. World Englishes 251: 391–409. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deterding, David, and Gloria Poedjosoedarmo. 1998. The Sounds of English: Phonetics and Phonology for English Teachers in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
. 2000. “To what Extent Can the Ethnic Group of Young Singaporeans Be Identified from their Speech?” In Adam Brown, David Deterding, and Low Ee Ling, eds. The English Language in Singapore: Research on Pronunciation. Singapore: Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics, 1–9.Google Scholar
Dunn, Alexandra, and Jean E. Fox Tree. 2009. “A Quick, Gradient Bilingual Dominance Scale”. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 121: 273–289. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Flege, James E. 1995. “Second-Language Speech Learning: Theory, Findings, and Problems”. In Winifred Strange, ed. Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience. Timonium: York Press, 233–277.Google Scholar
Flege, James E., Elaina Frieda, and Takeshi Nozawa. 1997. “Amount of Native-Language (L1) Use Affects the Pronunciation of an L2”. Journal of Phonetics 251: 169–186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Flege, James E., Ian MacKay, and Thorsten Piske. 2002. “Assessing Bilingual Dominance”. Applied Psycholinguistics 231: 567–598. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Flege, James E., Grace Yeni-Komshian, and Serena Liu. 1999. “Age Constraints on Second Language Learning”. Journal of Memory and Language 411: 78–104. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foley, James E. 1998. “The New Englishes: Language in the Home”. In Joseph Foley, Thiru Kandiah, Bao Zhiming, Anthea Fraser Gupta, Lubna Alsagoff, Ho Chee Lick, Lionel Wee, Ismail Talib, and Wendy Bokhorst-Heng, eds. English in New Cultural Contexts: Reflections from Singapore. Singapore: Prentice Hall, 218–243.Google Scholar
Gathercole, Virginia C. Mueller, and Thomas Enlli Môn. 2009. “Bilingual First-Language Development: Dominant Language Takeover, Threatened Minority Language Take-Up”. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 121: 213–237. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gertken, Libby, Mark Amengual, and David Birdsong. 2014. “Assessing Language Dominance with the Bilingual Language Profile”. In Pascale Leclercq, Amanda Edmonds, and Heather Hilton, eds. Measuring L2 Proficiency: Perspectives from SLA. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 208–225. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goral, Mira, Luca Campanelli, and Avron Spiro. 2015. “Language Dominance and Inhibition Abilities in Bilingual Older Adults”. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 181: 79–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grabe, Esther. 2005. “Esther Grabe: Personal Website”. <[URL]> (accessed April 15, 2018).
Grabe, Esther, and Low Ee Ling. 2002. “Durational Variability in Speech and the Rhythm Class Hypothesis”. In Carlos Gussenhoven, and Natasha Warner, eds. Laboratory Phonology VII. Berlin: De Gruyter, 515–546. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gramley, Stephan, and Kurt-Michael Pätzold. 2004. A Survey of Modern English (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grosjean, François. 2008. Studying Bilinguals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
. 2010. Bilingual. Life and Reality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guion, Susan, James E. Flege, and Jonathan D. Loftin. 2000. “The Effect of L1 Use on Pronunciation in Quichua-Spanish Bilinguals”. Journal of Phonetics 281: 27–42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gupta, Anthea Fraser. 1994. The Step-Tongue: Children’s English in Singapore. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Hakuta, Kenji, and Daniel D’Andrea. 1992. “Some Properties of Bilingual Maintenance and Loss in Mexican Background High-School Students”. Applied Linguistics 131: 72–99. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hamzah, Diyana, and James S. German. 2014. “Intonational Phonology and Prosodic Hierarchy in Malay”. In H. Li, and P. Ching, eds. Proceedings of Interspeech 2014. International Speech Communication Association, 106–110. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harris, Catherine L., Jean Berko Gleason, and Ayse Aycicegi. 2006. “When Is a First Language More Emotional? Psycho Physiological Evidence from Bilingual Speakers”. In Aneta Pavlenko, ed. Bilingual Minds: Emotional Experience, Expression, and Representation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 257–283. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hernàndez-Chávez, Eduardo, Marina K. Burt, and Heidi C. Dulay. 2013. “Language Dominance and Proficiency Testing: Some General Considerations”. NABE Journal 31: 41–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hulstijn, Jan H. 2010. “Measuring Second Language Proficiency”. In Elma Blom, and Sharon Unsworth, eds. Experimental Methods in Language Acquisition Research. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 185–200. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kachru, Braj B., ed. 1983. The Other Tongue: English across Cultures. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1972. “On the Mechanism of Language Change”. In John J. Gumperz, and Dell Hymes, eds. Directions in Sociolinguistics. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 312–338.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter. 2003. Phonetic Data Analysis. An Introduction to Fieldwork and Instrumental Techniques. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
. 2012. Vowels and Consonants (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Lau, Wen Li. 2002. “Distinguishing a Malay Speaker of Singapore English: A Phonetic Study”. B.A. Honours Dissertation, National University of Singapore.Google Scholar
Laver, John. 1994. Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lim, Lisa. 1996. “Prosodic Patterns Characterising Chinese, Indian, and Malay Singapore English”. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Reading.Google Scholar
. 2000. “Ethnic Group Differences Aligned? Intonation Patterns of Chinese, Indian and Malay Singaporean English”. In Adam Brown, David Deterding, and Low Ee Ling, eds. The English Language in Singapore: Research on Pronunciation. Singapore: Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics, 10–21.Google Scholar
Lim, Valerie, Susan J. Rickard Liow, Michelle Lincoln, Chan Yiong Huak, and Mark Onslow. 2008. “Determining Language Dominance in English-Mandarin Bilinguals: Development of a Self-Report Classification Tool for Clinical Use”. Applied Psycholinguistics 291: 389–412. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Low, Ee Ling, Esther Grabe, and Francis Nolan. 2000. “Quantitative Characterizations of Speech Rhythm: Syllable-Timing in Singapore English”. Language and Speech 431: 377–401. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marian, Viorica, and Margarita Kaushanskaya. 2004. “Self-Construal and Emotion in Bicultural Bilinguals”. Journal of Memory and Language 511: 190–201. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marian, Viorica, Henrike K. Blumenfeld, and Margarita Kaushanskaya. 2007. “The Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q): Assessing Language Profiles in Bilinguals and Multilinguals”. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 501: 940–967. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, Kathleen M., Merle Mahon, Stuart Rosen, and Bronwen G. Evans. 2014. “Speech Perception and Production by Sequential Bilingual Children: A Longitudinal Study of Voice Onset Time Acquisition”. Child Development 851: 1965–1980.Google Scholar
Miller, Lauren. 2017. “The Relationship between Language Proficiency and Language Attitudes”. Spanish in Context 141: 99–123. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ng, Patrick. 2011. “Language Planning in Action: Singapore’s Multilingual and Bilingual Policy”. Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific Journal 301: 1–12.Google Scholar
. 2014. “Mother Tongue Education in Singapore: Concerns, Issues and Controversies”. Current Issues in Language Planning 151: 361–375. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ong, Peter, David Deterding, and Low Ee Ling. 2005. “Rhythm in Singapore English: A Comparison of Indexes”. In David Deterding, Adam Brown, and Low Ee Ling, eds. English in Singapore: Phonetic Research on a Corpus. Singapore: McGraw-Hill, 74–85.Google Scholar
Othman, Zaharah, and Sutanto Atmosumarto. 1995. Colloquial Malay. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pakir, Anne. 1994. “Education and Invisible Language Planning: The Case of English in Singapore”. In T. Kandiah, and J. Kwan-Terry, eds. English and Language Planning: A South-East Asian Contribution. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 158–181.Google Scholar
Pallier, Christophe, Angels Colomé, and Núria Sebastián-Gallés. 2001. “The Influence of Native-Language Phonology on Lexical Access: Exemplar-Based versus Abstract Lexical Entries”. Psychological Science 121: 445–449. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pendley, Charles. 1983. “Language Policy and Social Transformation in Contemporary Singapore”. Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 111: 46–58. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Piske, Thorsten, and Ian R. A. MacKay. 1999. “Age and L1 Use Effects on Degree of Foreign Accent in English”. In John H. Ohala, ed. Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. San Francisco: University of California, 1433–1436.Google Scholar
Platt, John, and Heidi Weber. 1980. English in Singapore and Malaysia: Status, Features and Functions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pytlyk, Carolyn. 2008. “Interlanguage Prosody: Native English Speakers’ Production of Mandarin Yes-No Questions”. In Susie Jones, ed. Proceedings of the 2008 Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association.Google Scholar
Rasier, Laurent, and Philippe Hiligsmann. 2007. “Prosodic Transfer from L1 to L2. Theoretical and Methodological Issues”. Nouveaux cahiers de linguistique française 281: 41–66.Google Scholar
Ricento, Thomas. 2005. “Considerations of Identity in L2 Learning”. In Eli Hinkel, ed. Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum, 895–910.Google Scholar
Roach, Peter. 1991. English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical Course (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rubdy, Rani. 2001. “Creative Destruction: Singapore’s Speak Good English Movement”. World Englishes 201: 341–355. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schilling-Estes, Natalie. 2004. “Constructing Ethnicity in Interaction”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 81: 163–195. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sebastian-Gallés, Núria, Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells, Ruth de Diego-Balaguer, and Begoña Díaz. 2006. “First- and Second-Language Phonological Representations in the Mental Lexicon”. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 181: 1277–1291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Singapore Department of Statistics, ed. 2010. Census of Population 2010: Statistical Release 1: Demographic Characteristics, Education, Language and Religion. Singapore: Department of Statistics, Ministry of Trade and Industry.Google Scholar
Tan, Charlene. 2005. “English or Singlish? The Syntactic Influence of Chinese and Malay on the Learning of English in Singapore”. Journal of Language and Learning 31: 156–179.Google Scholar
Tan, Peter. 2012. “English in Singapore”. International Journal of Language, Translation and Intercultural Communication 11: 123–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tan, Rachel, and Low Ee Ling. 2014. “Rhythmic Patterning in Malaysian and Singapore English”. Language and Speech 571: 196–214. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tan, Ying Ying. 2010. “Singing the Same Tune? Prosodic Norming in Bilingual Singaporeans”. In Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, ed. Multilingual Norms. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 173–194.Google Scholar
. 2012. “Age as a Factor in Ethnic Accent Identification in Singapore”. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 331: 569–587. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2014. “English as a ‘Mother Tongue’ in Singapore”. World Englishes 331: 319–339. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thomas, Erik. 2011. Sociophonetics: An Introduction. UK: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wee, Lionel. 2004. “Singapore English: Phonology”. In Edgar W. Schneider, Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann, Rajend Mesthrie, and Clive Upton, eds. A Handbook of Varieties of English. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1017–1033.Google Scholar
Yaeger-Dror, Malcah, and Zsuzsanna Fagyal. 2011. “Analyzing Prosody”. In Marianna Di Paolo, and Malcah Yaeger-Dror, eds. Sociophonetics: A Student’s Guide. London: Routledge, 119–130.Google Scholar
Yavas, Mehmet. 2007. “Multilingual Speech Acquisition”. In Sharynne McLeod, ed. The International Guide to Speech Acquisition. Clifton Park: Thomson Delmar Learning, 96–100.Google Scholar
Yunus Maris. 1980. The Malay Sound System. Selangor: Penerbit Fajar Bakti.Google Scholar
Zilles, Ana M. S., and Kendall King. 2005. “Self-Presentation in Sociolinguistic Interviews: Identities and Language Variation in Panambi, Brazil”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 91: 74–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Sim, Jasper Hong & Brechtje Post
2024. Chapter 7. Early phonological acquisition in multi-accent contexts. In Multilingual Acquisition and Learning [Studies in Bilingualism, 67], ► pp. 194 ff. DOI logo
Lam, Bhan, Julia Chieng, Kenneth Ooi, Zhen-Ting Ong, Karn N. Watcharasupat, Joo Young Hong & Woon-Seng Gan
2023. Crossing the linguistic causeway: Ethnonational differences on soundscape attributes in Bahasa Melayu. Applied Acoustics 214 ► pp. 109675 ff. DOI logo
Li, Katrina Kechun, Li Nguyen, Christopher Bryant & Kayeon Yoo
2023. Lexical tonal effects in code-switching: A comparative study of Cantonese, Mandarin, and Vietnamese switching with English. International Journal of Bilingualism DOI logo
Sim, Jasper Hong
2023. Negotiating social meanings in a plural society: Social perceptions of variants of /l/ in Singapore English. Language in Society 52:4 ► pp. 617 ff. DOI logo
Wu, Yifan
2023. Stylizing Asian. Working papers in Applied Linguistics and Linguistics at York 3 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.