Voice onset time production in Singapore English

Abstract

This current study investigates the effects of linguistic accommodation through the production of voice onset time (VOT). Six Singaporeans were recorded in three separate conversations that differed by interlocutors: 1) another Singaporean, the researcher, and a non-Singaporean. The two Singapore English dialects, Standard Singapore English (SSE), and Singlish, are investigated. SSE is influenced by British English while Singlish draws from a myriad of languages, “mother tongues” that are spoken in Singapore: Mandarin Chinese, Hokkien, Tamil, and Malay. Thus, Singaporeans were expected to shift production of VOT as motivated by linguistic accommodation to their interlocutors. Previous research indicates that VOT is a valuable acoustic demarcation of phonetic and phonological boundaries. Thus, speakers were found to significantly shift their production of VOT for /p t k/ towards phonetic categories of British English or Malay and Tamil dependent on their audience. (Though the trends for /b d g/ were not significant, the numerical data also shift in the same direction.) Lastly, the paper discusses the implications of these results, that although SSE and Singlish are not entirely discrete and both exist as heavily used dialects of English in Singapore, speakers manipulate VOT in order to accommodate their listeners.