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Linguistics

Notes Z Z LOT
]+ Z THOUGHT
• u FOOT
u+ u GOOSE
Each of these three contrasting pairs of vowel phonemes in SSBE corresponds to a single phoneme in
SSE. While Sam-psalm, cot- caught, and pull — pool are minimal pairs in SSBE, establishing the
oppositions between /a/ and /Y+/, /Z/ and /]+/, and /• / and /u+/ respectively, for SSE speakers
the members of each pair will be homophonous. There is no vowel quality difference; and the Scottish
Vowel Length Rule, which makes vowel length predictable for SSE and Scots, means there is no
contrastive vowel quantity either. There is some variation in SSE in this respect: speakers who have
more contact with SSBE, or who identify in some way with English English, may have some or all of
these oppositions in their speech. If an SSE speaker has only one of these contrasts, it is highly likely
to be /a/ – /Y/; if /• / and /u/ are contrasted, we can predict that the /Z /–/]/ and /a/ – /Y/ pairs
also form part of the system.
Of course, such systemic differences are not restricted to the reference accents surveyed above. For
instance, within British English, many accents of the north of England and north Midlands fail to
contrast /• / and /• /, so that put and putt, or book and buck all have /• /. In some parts of the western
United States, speakers typically lack the /Y+/ – /]+/ opposition found in GA, and will therefore
have /Y+/ in both cot and caught. Other varieties of English have an even more extreme reduction of
the vowel system relative to SSBE. These are typically accents which began life as second language
varieties of English: that is, they were at least initially learned by native speakers of languages other
than English, although they may subsequently have become official language varieties in particular
territories, and be spoken natively by more recent generations. Inevitably, these varieties have been
influenced by the native languages of their speakers, showing that language contact can also be a
powerful motivating force in accent variation.
One case involves Singapore English. Singapore became a British colony in 1819, and English was
introduced to a population of native speakers of Chinese, Malay, Tamil and a number of other
languages. Increasingly today, children attend English-medium schools, and use English at home, so
that Singapore English is becoming established as a native variety. Its structure, however, shows
significant influence from other languages, notably Malay and Hokkien, the Chinese ‘dialect’ with
the largest number of speakers in Singapore. As with many accents, there is a continuum of variation
in Singapore English, so that non-native speakers are likely to have pronunciations more distant
from, say, SSBE: thus, while a native Singapore English speaker will say [mawl] ‘mile’, a second-
language speaker who is much more influenced by his native language may say [m••]. Increasingly,
younger speakers of Singapore English are also looking to American rather than British English as a
reference variety, so that further change in the system is likely. The system presented as Singapore
English (SgE) in (3) is characteristic of native or near-native speakers. Note that SgE has no contrastive
differences of vowel length, and that /‚/ is the IPA symbol for a high back unrounded vowel.
(3) SSBE SgE Set number Keyword
I i 1 KIT
e e 2 DRESS
a e 3 TRAP
Y ] 4 LOT
• • 5 STRUT
• u 6 FOOT
Y+ e 7 BATH
Z ] 8 CLOTH
f+ ‚ 9 NURSE
i+ i 10 FLEECE
eI e 11 FACE

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