An Analysis of Phonological Processes Involved in Spoken English of Hong Kong Primary Pre-service Teachers
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Volume two, Issue two
May 2012
An Analysis of Phonological Processes Involved in Spoken English of Hong Kong Primary Pre-service Teachers CYNTHIA B. LEUNG University of South Florida St. Petersburg ALEJANDRO E. BRICE University of South Florida St. Petersburg Bio Data: Dr. Cynthia B. Leung is an Associate Professor of Literacy Education at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Her areas of research are TESOL for Asian learners, early literacy, and vocabulary development and assessment. Dr. Alejandro E. Brice is an Associate Professor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. His research has focused on transference or interference between two languages in the areas of phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics. Abstract This study investigated the English phonological processes and speech articulation of adult Cantonese-English speakers residing in Hong Kong. The Phonology Test for Cantonese Speakers of English (PTCSE) was developed to assess English articulation and phonological processes of native speakers of Cantonese. Data from 37 adult participants, analyzed descriptively, yielded a total of 466 phonological process deviations. Two syllable words presented the most difficulty, followed by three and single syllable words. Results indicated this group of Cantonese-English speaking participants displayed a wide variety of articulatory patterns, some of which were not evidenced by the literature. Phonological processes noted in this study included: (a) stopping; (b) fronting; (c) deaffrication; (d) gliding; (e) devoicing; (f) lip rounding; (g) backing; (h) affrication; (i) voicing; (j) pre-vocalic singleton omission; (k) post-vocalic singleton omission; (l) consonant sequence reduction; (m) vowel deviations; and, (n) vowel additions. Five suggested instructional strategies focusing on speech production are provided. Keywords: Language Testing, Phonological Processes, English in Hong Kong, Oral Language, Articulation, Phonology, Cantonese Language Interference 42 | P a g e
Language Testing in Asia
Volume two, Issue two
May 2012
Introduction This paper focuses on the articulation and phonological processes that occur in the English spoken by Cantonese L1 speakers and reports on the development of a phonology test to identify English phonological processes of Cantonese speakers. Specifically, we focus on the English spoken by primary pre-service teachers studying to be teachers of English in Hong Kong schools. Phonological processes are rules used to simplify pronunciation of words in a language. Use of phonological processes is typically discontinued by the time the child reaches a certain developmental age. The ages by which the child discontinues the use of phonological processes has been shown to vary by languages (So & Dodd, 1995). Adults, however, may not overcome this developmental progression and continue to exhibit phonological process deviations (Selinker &Lamendella, 1980; Wei 2008). These phonological process simplifications may include syllable structure processes, su
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