To r or not to r: social correlates of /ɹ/ in Singapore English
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Ying-Ying Tan
Abstract
This paper seeks to determine the correlation between the occurrences of postvocalic-r, intrusive-r and linking-r in Singapore English (SgE) and the users’ education levels and socioeconomic status. This paper will also investigate the attitudes that SgE speakers hold toward the use of postvocalic-r and intrusive-r in the language. The results show that there is a direct correlation between the education level and socioeconomic status of the speaker and the production of postvocalic-r and intrusive-r in SgE. Speakers of higher education levels and socioeconomic status have a tendency to produce the postvocalic-r; speakers of low education levels and socioeconomic status have a tendency to produce the intrusive-r. The attitudes test also shows that users of postvocalic-r are viewed more positively as compared to users of intrusive-r. The results suggest that postvocalic-r and intrusive-r are not simply concrete, categorical phonological processes, but that their uses are motivated by social factors.
©[2012] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- To r or not to r: social correlates of /ɹ/ in Singapore English
- The definition of the standard language: a survey in seven countries
- The global regime of language recognition
- Flourishing functional multilingualism: evidence from language repertoires in the Vaal Triangle region
- Multilingualism in religious settings in Cameroon: the case of the UEBC-Espérance parish in Yaoundé
- A framework for language endangerment dynamics: the effects of contact and social change on language ecologies and language diversity
- The Hawaiian model of language revitalization: problems of extension to mainland native America
- Words, borders, herds: post-socialist English and nationalist language identities in Mongolia
- Book reviews
