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Consonant clusters in Hong Kong English
Author(s) -
SETTER JANE
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-971x.2008.00581.x
Subject(s) - phonotactics , syllable , linguistics , consonant cluster , consonant , british english , history , psychology , phonology , vowel , philosophy
This study investigates consonant clusters and phonotactics in the English spoken by Hong Kong Cantonese speakers. A computer dataset of Hong Kong English speech data amounting to 4,404 syllables was used. Syllables were categorised according to structure, and then compared to 1,847 syllables from an existing corpus of British English speakers. It was found that Hong Kong English speakers produced fewer syllable types than speakers in the British English data, and fewer consonant clusters overall. Consonant clusters in syllable‐initial and syllable‐final position were attested, but they were less complex than those found in the British English data. Further analysis of the content of Hong Kong English two‐consonant syllable onsets and codas revealed that there were differences from Cantonese, which is the speakers' L1. Patterns observed could be seen as a subset of what is possible in British English, or alternatively as evidence of endonormative development in the variety.