Colloquial English Research Articles

English language preservice teachers’ attitudes towards Singlish and their beliefs about the utility of contrastive pedagogies in the language classroom

ABSTRACT Singlish, also known as Singapore Colloquial English, has been the focus of many studies, but its tenability as a tool in the classroom has received scant discussion. This study explores English language preservice teachers’ attitudes towards Singlish and their beliefs towards use of contrastive pedagogies in the English language classroom. Adopting a mixed-methods study involving quantitative and qualitative data, 40 preservice teachers majoring in English from the National Institute of Education were surveyed and interviews with eight participants subsequently conducted. The findings reveal that participants appraise Singlish positively for its affordances in fostering rapport and a healthy classroom culture. Despite concerns that language classrooms should only focus on quality input, Singlish is recognised for its ability to reduce students’ affective filter and increase their accessibility to standard English. Participants generally supported the inclusion of Singlish in the English language classroom, using contrastive pedagogies to promote students’ noticing of language features.

Living with 中式英语 Zhongshi Yingyu

I first heard of the term ‘Chinglish’ when I was at Baiduizi (白堆子) Beijing Foreign Languages School in the 1970s, through Janet Adams’ book, From Chinglish to English. The book contained 60 short dialogues in simple American English. It was meant to be teaching us colloquial English, compared to, I suppose, the textbook English written by Chinese teachers. I found the term Chinglish rather odd, and it was an odd thing for us pupils at that particular school to be made aware of, because the school was, quite literally, the only school in China at the time where foreigners were directly teaching Chinese children foreign languages and cultures. Few of these foreign teachers had formal teaching qualifications, and they were not using any textbooks written by Chinese teachers, but in their own ways using material the school compiled specially for the pupils. It was a form of audio-lingual and direct method. The language we were taught was pretty colloquial and we did not, as far as I could tell, speak Chinglish that the examples in Adams’ book illustrated.

ANALYSIS OF THE FOUR ACCOUNTS OF CONTENT CREATORS USING TIKTOK APPLICATION AS TEACHING ENGLISH MEDIA

TikTok is an application from China launched in 2016. There are a lot of content creators using TikTok as media to share teaching issues This study aimed at analyzing the presentation of English teaching of four TikTok accounts. This study used qualitative method in the object observation and combined data collection that emphasizes meaning in generalization. Results of this study showed that the four accounts namely Belajar Bahasa Inggris, Aaron’s English, Jago Bahasa, and Kampung Inggris had their own uniqueness in their teaching-English contents. Of 248 videos uploaded by Belajar Bahasa Inggris account, 50% are about word difference. Of 462 videos uploaded by Aaron’s English account, 33% are about word difference. Of 961 videos uploaded by Jago Bahasa account, 36% are discussion about colloquial English. Of 676 videos uploaded by Kampung Inggris account, 35% are discussions about jokes in English. There were similarities and differences in their topic selections such as pronunciation and word difference It was advisable that TikTok users who want to learn English should be able to accurately choose the topics suiting to their interests and needs.

Validation testing of a language translation device for suitability in assisting Australian radiation therapists to communicate with Mandarin-speaking patients

Clear, timely communication between practitioners and patients is key in ensuring equitable access to health services and optimal care. Australia's linguistically diverse population adds complexity to healthcare provision. This paper describes a validation study to assess clinical suitability of a language translation device, intended for use with Mandarin speaking patients undergoing radiotherapy (RT). After a comprehensive device selection process, common phrases used in RT practice were curated within one clinical center and translated by interpreters. Phrases were categorized by conversation type and readability (according to Flesch-Kincaid and FORCAST scores). Validation of device performance was undertaken by purposely selected radiation therapists (RTTs) who tested and evaluated the device using a survey with 5-point Likert scale responses. Statistical analysis was undertaken on Excel using Pearson's chi-square, z-test, interrater reliability/agreement and linear regression analyses. Six RTTs and two interpreters volunteered to participate in this study. 188 common phrases were spoken verbatim into the device and scored on a 5-point Likert scale, yielding an overall output accuracy of 66%. A z-test confirmed significance against prior comparative research and Linear regression analysis observed improved output between consecutive participants. 62.7% of interpreter scores were identical; a further 29.1% constituted a single point scoring variation. Poorer outcomes were observed with colloquial English and lower readability. This study found the device produced suitable translation accuracy and identified language styles that should be avoided with use. Further research could consider clinical application, expanded languages and/or health disciplines, and development of a national RTT phrase list.

Voice banking to support individuals who use speech-generating devices: development and evaluation of Singaporean-accented English synthetic voices and a Singapore Colloquial English recording inventory

Voice banking involves recording an inventory of sentences produced via natural speech. The recordings are used to create a synthetic text-to-speech voice that can be installed on speech-generating devices. This study highlights a minimally researched, clinically relevant issue surrounding the development and evaluation of Singaporean-accented English synthetic voices that were created using readily available voice banking software and hardware. Processes used to create seven unique synthetic voices that produce Singaporean-accented English, and the development of a custom Singaporean Colloquial English (SCE) recording inventory, are reviewed. The perspectives of adults who spoke SCE and banked their voices for this project are summarized and were generally positive. Finally, 100 adults familiar with SCE participated in an experiment that evaluated the intelligibility and naturalness of the Singaporean-accented synthetic voices, as well as the effect of the SCE custom inventory on listener preferences. The addition of the custom SCE inventory did not affect intelligibility or naturalness of the synthetic speech, and listeners tended to prefer the voice created with the SCE inventory when the stimulus was an SCE passage. The procedures used in this project may be helpful for interventionists who wish to create synthetic voices with accents that are not commercially available.

Particle stacking in Singlish – New data from the National Speech Corpus

Particle stacking, a phenomenon that sees more than one sentence-final particle used to mark an utterance, occurs in various languages, including Singlish, also commonly known as Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) or Singapore Colloquial English (SCE). In this paper, we provide novel empirical data on particle stacking in Singlish using the National Speech Corpus (NSC). A frequency analysis of particle stacks containing the Singlish particles hor, lah and meh in the NSC shows that most of the particle stacks are declarative-interrogative pairs where the first particle is used in assertions while the second particle has a backchannelling function, which is consistent with particles stacks observed in other languages. We also identify two particle stacks in Singlish – lah dey and lah sia – where the second particle does not overtly solicit the addressee’s response. We propose that dey and sia, together with the backchannelling particles, form a larger class of addressee-oriented particles based on their shared function of targeting the addressee’s attention.

Possessor Extraction in English and Danish

Both English and Danish are Germanic languages which are said to require pied-piping of possessive phrases when they are moved, for example in questions like Whose computer do you think this is? If pied-piping is not required in such movements, an alternative way of asking the same question could be Who do you think’s computer this is? (or perhaps, for Danish readers, Hvem er dets computer? [Who is it’s computer?] might be acceptable), where the possessor who/hvem has been extracted from the possessive phrase whose computer/hvis computer, leaving the rest of the possessive DP material -’s/-s computer behind. This type of movement is called possessor extraction (PE), and Davis (2021) provides evidence for the possibility of it in colloquial English for some speakers. This article is a pilot study of Danish PE, suggesting initial generalizations and comparing these to Davis’s (2021) generalizations about English PE.

Accuracy in Patient Understanding of Common Medical Phrases

Despite acknowledging that medical jargon should be avoided, health care practitioners frequently use it when communicating with patients. To characterize the understanding of common medical jargon terms by surveying a cross section of the general public and studying phrases that have established meanings in regular usage but different meanings in a medical context (eg, negative and positive test results). In this cross-sectional study, participants indicated their understanding of phrases that may have different meanings in medicine than in colloquial English via a mix of short answer and multiple choice questions. Several questions included paired phrases to assess for differences in understanding with or without jargon. Volunteers were recruited at the 2021 Minnesota State Fair near St Paul, Minnesota. An electronic survey was given to a volunteer sample of 215 adults (>18 years) who did not work or train to work in the medical field and spoke and read English. Completing a written or verbal survey. The main outcome was an accurate understanding of the medical terminology. Free-text responses were coded by 2 researchers for comprehension. Secondary outcomes looked for associations between volunteer demographics and understanding. The 215 respondents (135 [63%] female; mean [SD] age, 42 [17] years) demonstrated a varied ability to interpret medical jargon phrases. For example, most participants (207 [96%]) knew that negative cancer screening results meant they did not have cancer, but fewer participants (143 [79%]) knew that the phrase "your tumor is progressing" was bad news, or that positive lymph nodes meant the cancer had spread (170 [67%]). While most (171 [80%]) recognized that an unremarkable chest radiography was good news, only 44 participants (21%) correctly understood that a clinician saying their radiography was impressive was generally bad news. In each of the paired phrases comparing jargon vs nonjargon approaches, the nonjargon phrase was understood significantly better (P < .001). These findings suggest that several common phrases are misunderstood when used in a medical setting, with the interpreted meaning frequently the exact opposite of what is intended.

Singlish particles and politeness work in face-threatening speech acts

ABSTRACT Having been thought to be ‘crass’, ‘uneducated’ and ‘unintelligent’, Singlish, also commonly known as Singapore Colloquial English, is perceived to be an impolite language. In particular, Singlish particles, which are purportedly Singlish’s most distinctive feature, have been said to exacerbate threats to addressees’ negative and positive face. However, existing literature has found that in informal speech settings, Singlish may actually be beneficial for politeness, mainly by virtue of its status as a language of solidarity. This article seeks to explore the relationship between Singlish particles and politeness, by investigating the use of particles within two types of inherently face-threatening speech acts – assertions and directives – and how these particles boost politeness by mitigating the face threats present in these speech acts. Our analysis of 72 hours of conversational data suggests that Singlish particles hold much potential to help speakers appeal to their addressees’ positive face needs in informal settings.

Particles Ah and Lah of Singapore Colloquial English in Mothership Videos: A Discourse Analysis

This research was carried out based upon the habitual speaking attitude of Singaporeans in Singapore Colloquial English by adding discourse particles ah and lah. Data were gathered from Mothership YouTube channel in Mothership Hits the Streets section from January to December 2020. There were two objectives; finding out the types and explaining the assigned functions of discourse particles ah and lah of SCE found in Mothership videos. It was conducted through applying qualitative approach which observation, document analysis, discourse analysis, and descriptive-interpretative method were employed. Theories applied to this research were discourse particles classification by Wong (2004), roles of discourse particles by Low &amp; Deterding (2003), and context of situation by Halliday &amp; Hasan (1985). The results showed that four types of ah and three types of lah were used by Singaporeans as seen in the videos; perlocutionary ah, vocative ah, emphatic ah, ah as question marker, impositional lah, propositional lah, and persuasive lah. Two functions were identified; utterance-final marker and audible comma particle. On the frequencies, 38 occurrences of particle ah and 62 occurrences of particle lah.

Postracial Policing, “Mother Tongue” Sourcing, and Images of Singlish Standard

After decades of denigration and targeting by the state, Singlish—or Singaporean Colloquial English—has come into its own as a “uniquely Singaporean” phenomenon (Wee 2018), both a source and site of projects of raciolinguistic value‐creation (Rosa and Flores 2017). Today, Singlish is often presented as emblematic of broader “racial harmony” among Singapore’s four official races, yet it has also become an arena for articulating and rejecting critiques of racialized Chinese‐Singaporean majoritarian privilege. This paper analyzes interviews with literary producers, public presentations by artists, and published mediatized texts in which Singlish comes into being as a site of ideological contestation. It describes two contrastive figures and the discourse registers through which they are materialized: first, postracial policing, voiced as an insistence that Singlish is sui generis, and second, “Mother Tongue” sourcing, voiced as an insistence on adherence, in spelling and pronunciation, to the racialized “Mother Tongue” varieties (and their racialized speakers) from which Singlish items are sourced. I argue that these two figures and enregistered positions co‐participate in the production of an image of standard: a felt sense of standard‐likeness that emerges as an effect of aesthetic textuality (Nakassis 2019), even in the absence of overt standardization projects.

That’s a Curious Copular Construction You Have There!

Sentences like That’s a beautiful dress you’re wearing are commonly heard in colloquial English. These sentences have a surface form that resembles identificational copular sentences with relative clause modifiers (e.g., This is the house I mentioned) and cleft sentences with demonstrative subjects (e.g., That was John that I saw). Ever since Higgins’s (1973) seminal work, English copular sentences have received much attention, but sentences like That’s a beautiful dress you’re wearing have not been part of that discussion. In this squib, I show how these sentences are both similar and dissimilar to identificationals and clefts, and suggest a formal analysis that captures their characteristic properties.

“Challenges of giving characters voice in localised, colloquial English”: An Interview with Lisa de Nikolits

This is a transcription of the interview Borka Richter conducted with award-winning novelist Lisa de Nikolits on 29 March, 2022 at the “Seizing the day”: Current Research in Global Englishes International Conference at Kodolányi János University.

Remarks on so-called Drama SO in colloquial English at a syntax-pragmatics Interface

The purpose of this research is to examine what has been called Drama ‘SO’. This novel usage of SO has been continuously on the increase since 1980’s among young speakers of the English language. Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 807) note this construction as a relatively new usage, mostly spoken by young people in an informal speech. As has been examined by scholars like Potts (2005), Zwicky (2006, 2010), Bylinina (2011), and more importantly Irwin (2014) in conjunction with Yale Grammatical Diversity Project group, YGDP, this occurrence of SO is rather unusual in that the item appears to modify NP/DPs as well as VPs, although the usual usage of so, either as an intensifier or a degree adverb, normally modifies gradable adjectives (AP) or adverbs (AdvP). This paper, focusing on the distributions and the functions of Drama SO, attempts to simplify the derivational process of the existing analyses. In particular, it is argued that the interpretation and the distribution of SO demand a pragmatic situation for it to be properly construed. Irwin’s analysis is to be reinterpreted under the present analysis with a pragmatic feature [+Ɛ], a semantic-pragmatic feature that intensifies the signature property of the host constituent for a desired semantics. An apparent advantage of this analysis follows without employing null copies of adverbs like TOTALLY and MUCH/MANY in the DegP, as Irwin and others have done.

Mini Texts: A Fusion of Grammar, Communication and Vocabulary Development in CLT (Communicative Language Teaching)

Rich and adequate input is the first and foremost condition for perfect language learning, other important things come later in order to achieve the goal of developing communicative competence in a language learning process in an EFL or ESL setting. In this context, Communicative Language Learning (CLT) is still the most prevalent approach of English language learning/teaching field both in ESL and EFL settings. In EFL settings CLT is adopted nowadays with some reservations. One solution to the drawbacks of CLT is "mini texts" in order to provide rich and adequate language input as they subsume grammar, communication, and most importantly, adequate vocabulary development. Objectives: The main objective is to critically assess the role of mini texts in order to provide rich and adequate language input for language learning. Method: Collaborative action research design was adopted to assess the outcome of teaching "mini texts" under improved communicative approach. Brief written and oral performance tests of class ten students were used as the tools of evaluation. Purposive sampling was used for the selection of thirty schools in three districts of the Kathmandu Valley whereas random sampling was used to select the respondent students of mixed ability for the written and oral performance test. The test items for the test were easy enough to be answered by average students of even lower classes. The test items were based on fixed criteria: different elements of grammatical competence to write and speak correctly, and also on some essential aspects of informal colloquial English used in fast spoken English. Pre-test and Post test were administered in order to compare the result of the traditional teaching with the outcome of the new method teaching with "mini texts" as the primary teaching material to provide optimal and quality language input to the students. Result: The over-all result of the test shows that the learning outcome, in general, is rather frustrating. Let alone government schools where most of the students belong to lower-class unprivileged families, even in private schools, or rather in so called A grade private schools, the condition of the English proficiency from the viewpoint of grammatical competence is rather frustrating. Surprisingly, not a single school could obtain even pass marks whereas same students secure good marks in their national level SEE exam.Conclusion: The current English teaching practice in Nepalese schools is deficient in (i) optimal quality language input, and (ii) suitable teaching methods to produce desirable outcome of English teaching for better learning outcome or better communicative proficiency. Mini texts have come out as an appropriate teaching material to be experimented on a large scale as they subsume essential, grammar points, essential vocabulary stock and also communication-oriented practice exercises.

Corpus-Based Research of Simple Non-Inverted Pronominal Interrogative Constructions in English

The research featured nuclear models of pronominal interrogative sentences with direct word order in the English language. The use of non-inverted interrogative structures depends on the analytical character of English. The partial subjectpredicate inversion is the main means of interrogativity. However, interrogative sentences with direct word order are quite common in colloquial English. The violation of the inverted word order reflects the phenomenon of language economy and can be explained by expressive and stylistic tasks. Although violation of word order in declarative sentences is a popular research topic, the subject-predicate inversions in interrogative sentences remain largely understudied in domestic and foreign linguistics. The research involved a modified corpus analysis. Based on the Corpus of Contemporary American English, the author established the frequency of pronominal interrogative structures with direct word order, analyzed their grammatical features, and defined the most popular genres, which appeared to be the discourse of television and cinema. The obtained results make it possible to develop a formal classification of non-inverted pronominal and non-pronominal constructions.

Некоторые грамматические особенности игрового дискурса английского школьника

The paper aims to reveal grammatical peculiarities of the English schoolchild’s discourse of outdoor games which constitute his leading activity. Scientific originality of the research lies in the fact that the author for the first time analyses grammatical peculiarities of the English schoolchild’s gaming discourse, examines linguistic units representing its grammatical features. The conducted analysis allows identifying diverse grammatical features and a wide range of linguistic units-representatives typical of colloquial English, which is conditioned by spontaneous, situational and non-formal nature of the discourse under study.

Multiword Units and Synonymy: Interface between Collocations, Colligations, and Semantic Prosody

Appropriate use of near-synonyms in English often poses difficulty for learners. This study aims to compare and contrast the near-synonyms predict and foresee , focusing on genres, collocations, colligations, and semantic prosody which specifically characterize each synonymous verb. The study consulted the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), i.e. the largest corpus representing American English (Davies, 2020), for the distribution of the target synonyms across genres and the top-20 noun collocates the MI-score of which is 3 or above. The total frequency of predict in the corpus is far higher than that of foresee . Of all the eight genres of COCA, predict is the most common in academic texts, whereas the highest number of occurrences of foresee is found in webpages. Interestingly, both target synonyms are not characteristic of colloquial English as their frequencies in speaking, fiction, and TV and movie subtitles are relatively low. The data from COCA also reveal that both synonymous verbs are common in written English, with predict being far higher in frequency. Although sharing certain object noun collocates, it is indicated through semantic prosody, i.e. occurrences of adjacent collocates and surrounding lexical items, that foresee is associated with negative connotations, while predict does not primarily express adversity. As near-synonyms of each other, the target words share colligational patterns. However, two corpus-informed syntactic structures, i.e. foresee + somebody + V.ing and predict + somebody + to-infinitive , clearly distinguish between both verb synonyms. It is concluded from the corpus data that predict and foresee are near-synonyms rather than absolute synonyms since they clearly differ in connotations and collocational/colligational patterns.

Possessor Extraction in Colloquial English: Evidence for Successive Cyclicity and Cyclic Linearization

This article describes and analyzes possessor extraction (PE) in English, a restricted possibility in the colloquial language of some speakers. I argue that the complexities of this phenomenon reveal evidence for the Cyclic Linearization theory of Spell-Out (e.g., Fox and Pesetsky 2005), which constrains English PE by interacting with a (phase-level) requirement to keep the possessor and the possessive D adjacent at PF (e.g., Gavruseva and Thornton 2001). These factors prevent such PE from succeeding unless the possessum is stranded in a clause edge, among other restrictions. This analysis entails the nonphasehood of DP, clarifies the derivation of that’s-relatives, reveals some linearization constraints on stranding, and suggests that expletive there originates in vP.

On nonce echo constructions expressing disapproval and annoyance

Abstract The aim of this paper is to explore and contrast the morphosyntactic and semantic features of two equivalent nonce echo constructions (NECs) expressing disapproval and annoyance (i.e. don’t (you) X me and ni X ni Y) in colloquial English and Spanish. A NEC is defined as a reactive clause containing duplicated words of the initiative, showing the property of nonceness, and having a communicative goal. Two types of NECs are found in both languages: an attitudinal echo construction and a referential one, the former being more idiomatic than the latter. Based on the premise that texts are necessarily dialogic, two sets of examples are obtained from English corpora (The Movie Corpus, The TV Corpus, and the Corpus of American Soap Operas); and from two Spanish corpora and a dataset (CREA, CORPES XXI, and the Dataset of Spanish Dialogic Texts Online). Findings suggest that both languages show negative and restricted syntactic templates. Variables are coinages that originate from the processes of conversion in English (e.g. don’t you John me) and gender polarity in Spanish (e.g. ni luna ni *luno). Hence, although both types of variables are morphologically novel and contextually meaningful, Spanish variables are generally ungrammatical and unlikely to exist outside the discursive frame under study.