Representation of English front vowels by Malay-English bilinguals

This paper presents the results of a study conducted to investigate the representation of English vowels among Malay-English bilingual speakers. The study focused on five front vowels of English. There is a tense-lax contrast in high- and mid-vowels in English (Davenport and Hannahs, 2005; Fromkin,...

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Main Authors: Yap, Ngee Thai, Wong, Bee Eng, Abdul Aziz, Adi Yasran
Format: Article
Language:English
English
Published: Universiti Putra Malaysia Press 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/16521/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/16521/1/73.Representation%20of%20English%20Front%20Vowels%20by%20Malay-English%20Bilinguals.pdf
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author Yap, Ngee Thai
Wong, Bee Eng
Abdul Aziz, Adi Yasran
author_facet Yap, Ngee Thai
Wong, Bee Eng
Abdul Aziz, Adi Yasran
author_sort Yap, Ngee Thai
building UPM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper presents the results of a study conducted to investigate the representation of English vowels among Malay-English bilingual speakers. The study focused on five front vowels of English. There is a tense-lax contrast in high- and mid-vowels in English (Davenport and Hannahs, 2005; Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams, 2003), but this contrast does not exist anywhere in Malay (Nik Safiah et al., 2008). Thus, a forced choice identification task is constructed with PRAAT (Boersma and Weenick, 2009). Stimuli for the experiment were synthesized using the AT&T text-to-speech demo programme available from AT&T Labs. The values of the first and second formants of the vowels were checked to make sure that they were within the range given in the literature. Fifty-two Malay-English bilingual undergraduates participated in this study. The results showed that Malay-English bilinguals have only three categories of contrast for the front vowels. These results show that the vowel representation of the second language in Malay-English bilinguals is similar to the representation of vowels in the first language.
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spelling upm-165212015-10-21T02:56:55Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/16521/ Representation of English front vowels by Malay-English bilinguals Yap, Ngee Thai Wong, Bee Eng Abdul Aziz, Adi Yasran This paper presents the results of a study conducted to investigate the representation of English vowels among Malay-English bilingual speakers. The study focused on five front vowels of English. There is a tense-lax contrast in high- and mid-vowels in English (Davenport and Hannahs, 2005; Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams, 2003), but this contrast does not exist anywhere in Malay (Nik Safiah et al., 2008). Thus, a forced choice identification task is constructed with PRAAT (Boersma and Weenick, 2009). Stimuli for the experiment were synthesized using the AT&T text-to-speech demo programme available from AT&T Labs. The values of the first and second formants of the vowels were checked to make sure that they were within the range given in the literature. Fifty-two Malay-English bilingual undergraduates participated in this study. The results showed that Malay-English bilinguals have only three categories of contrast for the front vowels. These results show that the vowel representation of the second language in Malay-English bilinguals is similar to the representation of vowels in the first language. Universiti Putra Malaysia Press 2010 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/16521/1/73.Representation%20of%20English%20Front%20Vowels%20by%20Malay-English%20Bilinguals.pdf Yap, Ngee Thai and Wong, Bee Eng and Abdul Aziz, Adi Yasran (2010) Representation of English front vowels by Malay-English bilinguals. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 18 (2). pp. 379-389. ISSN 0128-7702; ESSN: 2231-8534 http://www.pertanika.upm.edu.my/Pertanika%20PAPERS/JSSH%20Vol.%2018%20(2)%20Sep.%202010/19%20Pg%20379-389.pdf English language - Vowels. English language - Vowels - Study and teaching. English
spellingShingle English language - Vowels.
English language - Vowels - Study and teaching.
Yap, Ngee Thai
Wong, Bee Eng
Abdul Aziz, Adi Yasran
Representation of English front vowels by Malay-English bilinguals
title Representation of English front vowels by Malay-English bilinguals
title_full Representation of English front vowels by Malay-English bilinguals
title_fullStr Representation of English front vowels by Malay-English bilinguals
title_full_unstemmed Representation of English front vowels by Malay-English bilinguals
title_short Representation of English front vowels by Malay-English bilinguals
title_sort representation of english front vowels by malay-english bilinguals
topic English language - Vowels.
English language - Vowels - Study and teaching.
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/16521/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/16521/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/16521/1/73.Representation%20of%20English%20Front%20Vowels%20by%20Malay-English%20Bilinguals.pdf