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(Un)intelligibility: A phonetic question or is it a matter of attitude?| old_uid | 10917 |
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| title | (Un)intelligibility: A phonetic question or is it a matter of attitude? |
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| start_date | 2012/02/22 |
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| schedule | 11h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | A |
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| summary | In this seminar, I present the results of a recent study conducted to
elicit international responses to Singapore English (SgE), in terms
of both intelligibility and attitudes toward the speaker, as compared
to American English. One of the biggest concerns of educationists and
language policy makers in Singapore is that SgE is not an
“internationally acceptable English” (Singapore Ministry of
Education, 2001), and is thus not intelligible to the other English
speakers. The question however is: is SgE really unintelligible
outside of Singapore? If SgE is to be viewed negatively, is it due to
unintelligibility or could it be attitudes and perceptions toward
this variety of English? There is, at present, very little research
to show how well SgE is understood in international contexts, and
even less investigating international attitudes towards the variety.
It is therefore the aim of this paper to address the following
questions, based on the responses of over 200 respondents from over
20 countries as they listen to a set of 15 sound recordings,
including read SgE, spontaneous SgE, and read American English:
1) How intelligible is SgE internationally and how does SgE compare
to AmE in terms of intelligibility?
2) What is the attitude toward SgE internationally and how does SgE
compare to AmE in terms of attitudes toward these two varieties?
Using these results of this study, I hope to take the research
forward in the future by looking at some possible phonetic features
that may contribute to unintelligibility. |
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| responsibles | Bel, Welby |
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