Article published In:
English World-WideVol. 37:2 (2016) ► pp.138–167
Sociolinguistic variation in Asian Englishes
The case of coronal stop deletion
This paper examines coronal stop deletion (CSD), the deletion of word-final /-t, -d/ in consonant clusters, in three new varieties of Asian English: China English, Hong Kong English, and Viet Nam English. The study seeks to determine to which extent the linguistic and extralinguistic constraints found to govern CSD in other varieties of English also impact CSD in emerging Englishes such as those examined in the current study. A total of 60 tertiary students, 20 from each variety of English, participated in the study. Results indicate that, while new Englishes such as China English, Hong Kong English, and Viet Nam English are affected by constraints such as linguistic environment and morphological conditioning, the proficiency level of speakers impacts CSD rates and the effects of the various constraints.
References
Ao, Ran, and Ee Ling Low
2012 “Exploring Pronunciation Features of Yunnan English”. English Today 281: 27–33. 
Bayley, Robert
1994 “Consonant Cluster Reduction in Tejano English”. Language Variation and Change 61: 303–326.
1996 “Competing Constraints on Variation in the Speech of Adult Chinese Learners of English”. In Robert Bayley, and Dennis R. Preston, eds. Second Language Acquisition and Linguistic Variation. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 97–120.
Bolton, Kingsley
2002 “Chinese Englishes: From Canton Jargon to Global English”. World Englishes 211: 181–199.
Bolton, Kingsley, and David Graddol
2012 “English in China Today”. English Today 281: 3–9.
Brown, Adam, David Deterding, and Ee Ling Low
2005 English in Singapore: Phonetic Research on a Corpus. Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education.
Bybee, Joan
2002 “Word Frequency and Context of Use in the Lexical Diffusion of Phonetically Conditioned Sound Change”. Language Variation and Change 141: 261–290.
Chen, Meilin, and Xiaoqiong Hu
2006 “Towards the Acceptability of China English at Home and Abroad”. English Today 221: 44–52.
Cui, Xiaoxia
2006 “An Understanding of ‘China English’ and the Learning and Use of the English Language in China”. English Today 221: 40–43.
Deterding, David
2006b “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.
Deterding, David, Jennie Wong, and Andy Kirkpatrick
Emerich, Giang Huong
2012 The Vietnamese Vowel System. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
Fasold, Ralph
1990 Sociolinguistics of Language. Oxford: Blackwell.
Gregory, Michelle L., William D. Raymond, Alan Bell, Eric Fosler-Lussier, and Daniel Jurafsky
1999 “The Effects of Collocational Strength and Contextual Predictability in Lexical Production”. CLS 35: The Panels, 151–166.
Gut, Ulrike
2007 “First Language Influence and Final Consonant Clusters in the New Englishes of Singapore and Nigeria”. World Englishes 261: 346–359.
Guy, Gregory R
1980 “Variation in the Group and the Individual: The Case of Final Stop Deletion”. In William Labov, ed. Locating Language in Time and Space. New York: Academic Press, 1–36.
1991a “Explanation in Variable Phonology: An Exponential Model of Morphological Constraints”. Language Variation and Change 31: 1–22.
1991b “Contextual Conditioning in Variable Lexical Phonology”. Language Variation and Change 31: 223–239.
Guy, Gregory R, and Charles Boberg
1997 “Inherent Variability and the Obligatory Contour Principle”. Language Variation and Change 91: 149–164.
Guy, Gregory R, Jennifer Hay, and Abby Walker
2008 “Phonological, Lexical, and Frequency Factors in Coronal Stop Deletion in Early New Zealand English”. Laboratory Phonology 111: 53–54.
Hang, Phan Thi Trang
2009 “Impacts of Vietnam’s Social Context on Learners’ Attitudes towards Foreign Languages and English Language Learning: Implications for Teaching and Learning”. The Asian EFL Journal 111: 169–188.
Hansen Edwards, Jette G
2011 “–t,d Deletion and the Acquisition of Linguistic Variation by Second Language Learners of English”. Language Learning 611: 1256–1301.
2015 “Hong Kong English: Attitudes, Identity, and Use”. Asian Englishes 171: 184–208.
2016a. “The Politics of Language and Identity: Attitudes towards Hong Kong English Pre- and Post- the Umbrella Movement.” Asian Englishes. In press.
2016b. “Postcolonial Englishes and Lexical Diffusion: /t,d/ Deletion in Hong Kong English”. World Englishes 35: 60–77.
Hazen, Kirk
2011 “Flying High above the Social Radar: Coronal Stop Deletion in Modern Appalachia”. Language Variation and Change 231: 105–135.
He, Deyuan, and Qunying Zhang
2010 “Native Speaker Norms and China English: From the Perspective of Learners and Teachers in China”. TESOL Quarterly 441: 769–789.
Hoffman, Michol F., and James A. Walker
2010 “Ethnolects and the City: Ethnic Orientation and Linguistic Variation in Toronto English”. Language Variation and Change 221: 37–67.
Holmes, Janet, and Alan Bell
1994 “Consonant Cluster Reduction in New Zealand English”. Wellington Working Papers in Linguistics 61: 56–82.
Hung, Tony T.N
2000 “Towards a Phonology of Hong Kong English”. World Englishes 191: 337–356.
Joseph, John E
2004 Language and Identity: National, Ethnic, Religious. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kachru, Braj B
1985 “Standards, Codification, and Sociolinguistic Realism: The English Language in the Outer Circle”. In Randolph Quirk, and Henry Widdowson, eds. English in the World: Teaching and Learning the Language and the Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 11–30.
Khan, Farhat
1991 “Final Consonant Cluster Simplification in a Variety of Indian English”. In Jenny Cheshire, ed. English around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 288–298.
Kirkpatrick, Andy
2007 World Englishes: Implications for International Communication and English Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Labov, William
1972 Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
1989 “The Child as Linguistic Historian”. Language Variation and Change 11: 85–97.
1997 “Resyllabification”. In Frans Hinskens, Roeland Van Hout, and W. Leo Wetzels, eds. Variation, Change, and Phonological Theory. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 145–179.
Leimgruber, Jakob
2013 Singapore English: Structure, Variation, and Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lim, Laureen T., and Gregory R. Guy
2005 “The Limits of Linguistic Community: Speech Styles and Variable Constraint Effects”. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 10.2, Papers from NWAVE 321: 157–170.
Luke, Kang Kwong, and Jack Richards
Neu, Helen
1980 “Ranking of Constraints on /t,d/ Deletion in American English: A Statistical Analysis”. In William Labov, ed. Locating Language in Time and Space. New York: Academic Press, 37–54.
Patrick, Peter L
1991 “Creoles at the Intersection of Variable Processes: -t,d Deletion and Past-Marking in the Jamaican Mesolect”. Language Variation and Change 31: 171–189.
Roberts, Julie
1997 “Acquisition of Variable Rules: A Study of (-t, d) Deletion in Preschool Children”. Journal of Child Language 241: 351–372.
Sankoff, David, Sali A. Tagliamonte, and Eric Smith
2012 Goldvarb Lion: A Multivariate Analysis Application for Macintosh. [URL] (accessed January 12, 2014).
Santa Ana, Otto
1996 “Sonority and Syllable Structure in Chicano English”. Language Variation and Change 81: 63–90.
Schneider, Edgar W
2007 Postcolonial English: Varieties around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2014 “New Reflections on the Evolutionary Dynamics of World Englishes”. World Englishes 331: 9–32.
Schreier, Daniel
2005 Consonant Change in English Worldwide: Synchrony Meets Diachrony. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Smith, Jennifer, Mercedes Durham, and Liane Fortune
2009 “Universal and Dialect-Specific Pathways of Acquisition: Caregivers, Children, and t/d Deletion”. Language Variation and Change 211: 69–95.
Tagliamonte, Sali A., and Rosalind Temple
2005 “New Perspectives on an ol’ Variable: (t,d) in British English”. Language Variation and Change 171: 281–302.
Walker, James A
2012 “Form, Function, and Frequency in Phonological Variation”. Language Variation and Change 241: 397–415.
Wen, Qiufang, and Wenzhong Hu
2007 “History and Policy of English Education in Mainland China”. In Yeon Hee Choi, and Bernard Spolsky, eds. English Education in Asia: History and Policies. Seoul: Asia TEFL, 1–32.
Wolfram, Walt, Donna Christian, and Deborah Hatfield
1986 “The English of Adolescent and Young Adult Vietnamese Refugees in the United States”. World Englishes 51: 47–60.
Wolfram, Walt, and Natalie Schilling-Estes
2006 American English: Dialects and Variation (2nd ed.). Malden/Oxford: Blackwell.
Cited by
Cited by 4 other publications
Chan, Ka Long Roy & Nok Chin Lydia Chan
2021. Segmental Features of Hong Kong English: A Contrastive Approach Study. Journal of Universal Language 22:2 ► pp. 1 ff. 
Gonzales, Wilkinson Daniel Wong
2024. Sociolinguistic Analysis with Missing Metadata? Leveraging Linguistic and Semiotic Resources Through Deep Learning to Investigate English Variation and Change on Twitter. Applied Linguistics
Purse, Ruaridh, Josef Fruehwald & Meredith Tamminga
2022. Frequency and morphological complexity in variation. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 7:1
Tamminga, Meredith
2018. Modulation of the following segment effect on English coronal stop deletion by syntactic boundaries. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3:1
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 march 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.