This study identifies the specific features of pronunciation that exert a strong influence on the written communication of students in a tertiary institution in Singapore. These features include conflation of certain vowels and consonants, non-distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants, different placement of stress on syllables of words, use of glottal stops and the deletion of consonants, particularly those in final position of consonant clusters. Some pedagogical implications are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abbot, E.1976. Spelling errors in Ugandan English: their patterns, possible causes and suggested implications for teaching. M.Ed. thesis, University of Manchester.
2.
Abbot, G.W.1979. 'Intelligibility and acceptability in spoken and written communication' English Language Teaching Journal33/3: 168-175.
3.
Bickerton, D.1971. 'Cross-Level Interference: The Influence of L1 Syllable Structure on L2 Morphological Error', in Perren and Trim (eds.) 1971:133-40.
4.
Brown, A.1988. 'A Singaporean Corpus of Misspellings: Analysis and implications ' Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society3: 4-10.
5.
Brown, A.1989. 'Giving your students /1/'. ELT Journal43/4: 294 - 301.
6.
Brown, A.1991. Pronunciation Models. Singapore: Singapore University Press.
7.
Chew, P.1992. Power and Interaction in Interview Discourse. Ph.D. thesis . Macquarie University.
8.
Ho M.L.1986. The Verb Phrase in Singapore English. Ph.D. thesis. Monash University, Melbourne.
9.
Ho M.L. and Platt J.T.1993. Dynamics of a Contact Continuum. Oxford : Clarendon Press.
10.
Ibrahim, M.H.1977.'Pattems in spelling errors' English Language Teaching Journal32: 207-212.
11.
Lugg, P.1995. 'The Boy Who Cried, "OOF!" ' TELL11/1: 29-31.
12.
Morley, J. (ed.) 1994. Pronunciation, Pedagogy and Theory. Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL).
13.
Perren, G. E. and Trim, J. L. M. (eds.) 1971. Applications of Linguistics . Cambridge: CUP.
14.
Platt, J.T. and Weber, H.1980. English in Singapore and Malaysia - Status: Features: Functions. Kuala Lumpur: OUP.
15.
Platt, J.T., Weber, H. and Ho M.L.1984. The New Englishes. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
16.
Siew, S.Y.1984. An investigation of the clues given by misspellings for the phonetic system of the Singaporean pronunciation of English. Unpublished Honours dissertation. Department of English Language and Literature. National University of Singapore.
17.
Tannen D. and Alatis J. E. (eds.) 1986. GURT'85 Languages and Linguistics: The Interdependence of Theory, Data, and Application. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
18.
Tay, M.W.J.1982. 'The Phonology of Educated Singapore English'. English World-Wide3/2: 135-145.
19.
Tay, M.W.J.1988. 'Teaching Spoken English in the Non-Native Context: Considerations for the Materials Writer'. RELC Regional Seminar on Materials for Language Learning and Teaching: New Trends and Developments . 11-15 April 1988.
20.
Tesdell, L.S.1987. 'Patterns in the spelling errors of non-native speakers of English' Guidelines9/1: 80-84.
21.
Thuraisingam, P.C.1996. 'Brushing up on vowel pronunciation' TELL12/2: 2-3.
22.
Wong R.1986. 'Does pronunciation teaching have a place in the communicative classroom' in Tannen D. and Alatis J. E. (eds.) 1986: 226-236.
