“It’s just a whole pot of English”: Sociophonetic variation in Singapore English vowels among Singaporeans born 1988 - 2004

Abstract

Emerging from British colonisation and language contact with languages such as Malay and Hokkien, Singapore English (SgE) is often viewed as comprising a formal subvariety, Singapore Standard English (SSE), and an informal subvariety, Singlish. This thesis examines acoustic properties of SgE, SSE and Singlish vowels and attitudes towards these three varieties among 24 Singaporeans born 1988-2004. Early studies—mainly impressionistic accounts—described SgE as lacking phonemic distinctions between several vowel pairs. Empirical research, relying primarily on static measures and female speech, has since reported conflicting findings, suggesting that the degree of vowel variation and overlap i..