Exposure to accents and pronunciation modelling: A case study of a secondary school in Hong Kong

Abstract

This study seeks to explore the controversial issue of pronunciation modelling in the secondary classroom in association with the medium-of-instruction (MOI) policy in Hong Kong. The investigation centres on two dimensions: (1) students' exposure to English accents throughout their weekly school timetable by means of a data log sheet and (2) the phonological differences between the speech of local subject and English language teachers. The findings suggest that students' main source of English exposure at school is the English pronunciation of both English language and content-area teachers in English-medium lessons, who shared numerous Hong Kong English (HKE) features although in differing proportions. The paper concludes by prioritising the educated HKE vowel and consonant features and promoting an internationally intelligible endonormative model in the globalised world. 本研究旨在探討具爭議的英語發音模式，與香港中學教學語言政策的關係。調查主要涉及兩範疇：（1）從學生填寫的數據記錄表推算他們在每周課堂接觸的英語口音；（2）比較本地學科教師與英語教師在英語語音上的差異。結果顯示，學生在以英語授課的課堂上，接觸的主要是本地英語教師及學科教師的英語發音，當中帶有相同但數量不一的香港英語特點。最後，本研究按優次具列各組受教育的香港英語元音及輔音，從而提倡一種國際互通的本土語言規範模式。