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Article published In:
Journal of Second Language Pronunciation
Vol. 5:2 (2019) ► pp.247–268

Intelligibility of an L2 variety in ELF interactions

Brunei English and vowel pronunciation

ORCID logo | Universiti Brunei Darussalam

This paper investigates the occurrence of misunderstandings in ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) interactions caused by vowel pronunciation in Brunei English. The study is based on ten audio recordings, each consisting of conversations between two participants: a Bruneian (L2 speaker) and a non-Bruneian speaker. Out of a total of 152 tokens (occurrences) of misunderstandings identified, 36 of them (23.7%) are found to involve vowel pronunciation. Data analysis includes examining vowel length, the vowels of face, goat, price, mouth, monosyllabic triphthongs, trap, vowel reduction, spelling pronunciation and American pronunciation in causing misunderstandings. The findings indicate that misunderstandings may be caused by a change in vowel length and quality in 28 tokens. The study concludes that vowel pronunciation in Brunei English conversational speech, particularly in the lack of vowel length distinction and absence of diphthongs in closed syllables may occasionally lead to a loss of intelligibility in ELF settings.

Keywords: intelligibility, L2 pronunciation, Brunei English, vowel pronunciation, phonetics, misunderstandings, English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Brunei English
  • 3.Intelligibility and misunderstanding
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Data analysis
    • 5.1Vowel length
    • 5.2The face vowel
    • 5.3The goat vowel
    • 5.4The price vowel
    • 5.5The mouth vowel
    • 5.6Monosyllabic triphthong
    • 5.7The trap vowel
    • 5.8Vowel reduction
    • 5.9Spelling pronunciation
    • 5.10American pronunciation
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 17 September 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jslp.17049.gar
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