Phonological Difficulties for Cantonese ESL Learners [Please see footnote 1]
Bowen Hui (bohui@unixg.ubc.ca)
University of British Columbia

Abstract

There has been previous research on Chinese ESL learners that examines the differences in morphology and syntax between Chinese (mostly Mandarin) and English. In this paper, I conducted two experiments with seven native Cantonese speakers to study the interaction of the phonological inventories of Cantonese and English at the segmental level. The results are written in terms of rules that show feature differences and prosodic conditions. The dialects investigated are the dialect of Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong and Western Canadian English. Some of the questions I try to answer are:

• (1) Given the English environment of a word, how does a Cantonese speaker pronounce it if:
  • a. the word contains certain sounds that are not present in the Cantonese inventory? For example: v,"esh"
  • b. the word has a syllable structure that violates the coda conditions in Cantonese?
  • c. the word has phonotactic sequences that do not exist in Cantonese?
  • d. the word has a consonant cluster?

• (2) For the same set of cases in (1), how do the results compare if the speaker's language experience has increased over a given time period?

What I will show for (1a) is that speakers either delete the segment (if it is in the coda) or substitute it with a "phonologically similar" [Please see footnote 2] sound. For (1b), I will show that Cantonese coda constraints are systematically obeyed in early stages of English acquisition. For (1c), I will show that non-occurring Cantonese phonotactic sequences systematically do occur in English production. For (1d), the speaker's treatment of consonantal clusters depends on whether a given cluster belongs to one of three groups: (i) CGV clusters, (ii) CLV clusters, and (iii) coda clusters. Finally for (2), I found that different processes used to answer the questions raised in (1) are not particular to an individual speaker but particular to the amount of English experience that the speaker has.

To supplement the observations found in answering (2), the notion of stages was introduced. A speaker in an early stage is someone who is beginning to learn English. Those with more background are in the later stage. The intermediate (inter) stage is one in which speakers demonstrate phonological processes from both the early stage and the later stage. Those who have acquired most properties of English are in the advanced stage. Stages are defined such that they are independent of the ability of the speaker but dependent on the natural class of sounds. Moreover, speakers at the early stage of natural class A can be at the later stage for natural class B. The categorization of my speakers mainly depends on one speaker whose progress throughout the period of these experiments helped me to define the processes in the different stages. From there, data from other speakers were slotted accordingly with consideration given to their English background and their regular exposure to English.

Footnotes

1. Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Dr. Patricia A. Shaw for giving me invaluable guidance and comments on this paper, Timothy Chu for helping me conduct the experiment, and Winnie Lam for insight into Chinese. I also thank Bill Turkel and Brett Allen for reviewing this paper.

2. The definition of phonologically similar depends on the speaker and his/her knowledge of English.