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The Effects of the Variation of Phonological and Stylistic Contexts in the English Interlanguage of Cantonese Speakers



Author(s)

Cecilia Yuet Hung Chan

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DOI:10.17265/1539-8080/2011.12.003

City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

This study investigated the phonological variation of initial /n-/ in the English interlanguage of Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong. It closely examined the variations of phonological environment and stylistic context which lead to interlanguage variations. This study included elementary, intermediate, and post-intermediate English learners. Six oral tasks of different contextual styles were designed for collecting data, and different phonological environments of /n-/ were included in the tasks. Results indicate that, regardless of English proficiency, the effect of stylistic variation is much stronger than that of phonological environment on the phonological variation of /n-/ in the English interlanguage of Cantonese speakers. Style-shifting is more suitable than the variation of linguistic context in accounting for the interlanguage variation in focus. The findings of this study shed light on the pedagogy of L2 (second language) learning.

phonological variation, stylistic variation, L1 (first language) phonological transfer, interlanguage phonology