Markedness and fossilization in the interlanguage phonology of Brunei English

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the interlanguage (IL) phonology of Malay‐speaking Bruneian students attending Universiti Brunei Darussalam. A complete year group of 55 students with different proficiency levels was recorded interacting communicatively and the data analyzed in order to explore the extent to which markedness relationships in phonology can be used to predict learning difficulties and to investigate the extent to which this particular IL phonology has stabilized. The focus of the study was on consonant clusters, both final and initial, and the voicing contrast. The analysis of the data suggests that markedness can explain why some features of the (target language) TL phonology are more easily acquired than others. However, there was no significant difference between the IL phonology of the less proficient and more proficient students when lexical roots were examined. This suggests that the IL phonology in question has stabilized. Finally, this paper relates the findings to research into new varieties of English and suggests reasons for phonological stabilization.