The effects of native language on Indian English sounds and timing patterns

Abstract

This study explored whether the sound structure of Indian English (IE) varies with the divergent native languages of its speakers or whether it is similar regardless of speakers' native languages. Native Hindi (Indo-Aryan) and Telugu (Dravidian) speakers produced comparable phrases in IE and in their native languages. Naïve and experienced IE listeners were then asked to judge whether different sentences had been spoken by speakers with the same or different native language backgrounds. The findings were an interaction between listener experience and speaker background such that only experienced listeners appropriately distinguished IE sentences produced by speakers with different native language backgrounds. Naïve listeners were nonetheless very good at distinguishing between Hindi and Telugu phrases. Acoustic measurements on monophthongal vowels, select obstruent consonants, and suprasegmental temporal patterns all differentiated between Hindi and Telugu, but only 3 of the measures distinguished between IE produced by speakers of the different native languages. The overall results are largely consistent with the idea that IE has a target phonology that is distinct from the phonology of native Indian languages. The subtle L1 effects on IE may reflect either the incomplete acquisition of the target phonology or, more plausibly, the influence of sociolinguistic factors on the use and evolution of IE.

Speech Rhythm in Varieties of English

“…Kalashnik and Fletcher (2007) and provided acoustic evidence suggesting that IndE speakers with L1 Hindi do not consistently use duration to mark the tense-lax contrast. While there might be stronger differences with respect to L1 between speakers of IndE who have attended so-called regionalmedium (or vernacular-medium) schools, Sirsa and Redford (2013) found very small differences between the IndE of graduates of English-medium schools with four different L1s. Together these results suggest that a considerable number of IndE speakers do not mark the tense-lax contrast consistently, particularly since no acoustic studies with speakers of IndE with L1 Bengali have been conducted.…”

“…There is conflicting evidence on whether most speakers of IndE maintain the distinction and if so what its phonetic correlates are. However, the sometimes conflicting findings of studies on the phonology of IndE might, as Sirsa and Redford (2013) argued, be due to varying education levels of the speakers. However, L1 Gujarati and Telugu speakers did make some length distinctions; the tense vowels belonging to the FLEECE and FACE sets were on average pronounced twice as long as their lax counterparts in the KIT and DRESS sets, but the difference between the durations of the GOOSE -FOOT and START -STRUT vowels was smaller.…”

“…The third study (Sirsa and Redford 2013), based on the reading of a story by seven speakers with L1 Hindi and seven speakers with L1 Telugu who had attended English-medium schools, reported a proportion of vocalic durations over a total utterance duration (%V) of 46.8 %. This is higher than the 41.1 % that reported for BrE and thus supports the description of IndE as more syllable-timed than BrE.…”

“…Furthermore, with the exception of Sirsa and Redford (2013), the empirical measures of speech rhythm employed in these studies have not been used by other authors in the rhythm literature or differ in other ways from accepted methods, which makes comparisons with other varieties (such as BrE) difficult. In order to achieve a more reliable description of the rhythm of IndE, a greater number of speakers, different L1 backgrounds and different speaking styles need to be taken into account.…”

Phonetic adaptation in non-native spoken dialogue: Effects of priming and audience design

“…Many second language learners produce L2 pronunciations that are notably unlike those of native speakers, often showing a heavy influence of L1 sound inventory and sound patterning (e.g., Best, McRoberts, & Goodell, 2001;Brannen, 2002;Clements, 2001;Eckman & Iverson, 2013;Flege & Eefting, 1987;Hancin-Bhatt, 1994;Sirsa & Redford, 2013;White & Mattys, 2007). Our experimental design took advantage of the fact that ambiguities arise when non-native speakers fail to make necessary contrasts in the target language.…”