Speech Rhythm in Varieties of English: Evidence from Educated Indian English and British English

240 Pages·2016·3.737 MB·English

by  Robert Fuchs (auth.)

Prosody, Phonology and Phonetics
Robert Fuchs
Speech Rhythm
in Varieties of
English
Evidence from Educated Indian English
and British English
Prosody, Phonology and Phonetics
SeriesEditors
DanielJ.Hirst,CNRSLaboratoireParoleetLangage,Aix-en-Provence,France
QiuwuMa,SchoolofForeignLanguages,TongjiUniversity,Shanghai,China
HongweiDing,SchoolofForeignLanguages,TongjiUniversity,Shanghai,China
The series will publish studies in the general area of Speech Prosody with a
particular(butnon-exclusive)focusontheimportanceofphoneticsandphonology
inthisfield.Thetopicofspeechprosodyistodayafarlargerareaofresearchthan
isoftenrealised.Thenumberofpapersonthetopicpresentedatlargeinternational
conferencessuchasInterspeechandICPhSisconsiderableandregularlyincreasing.
Theproposedbookserieswouldbethe naturalplace topublishextendedversions
of papers presented at the Speech Prosody Conferences, in particular the papers
presentedinSpecialSessionsattheconference.Thiscouldpotentiallyinvolvethe
publicationof3or4volumeseverytwoyearsensuringastablefutureforthebook
series. If such publications are produced fairly rapidly, they will in turn provide
a strong incentive for the organisation of other special sessions at future Speech
Prosodyconferences.
Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttp://www.springer.com/series/11951
Robert Fuchs
Speech Rhythm in Varieties
of English
Evidence from Educated Indian English
and British English
123
RobertFuchs
UniversityofMünster
Münster,Nordrhein-Westfalen,Germany
ISSN2197-8700 ISSN2197-8719 (electronic)
Prosody,PhonologyandPhonetics
ISBN978-3-662-47817-2 ISBN978-3-662-47818-9 (eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-662-47818-9
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015949227
D6
SpringerSingaporeHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaSingapore2016
Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartof
thematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting,reuseofillustrations,recitation,
broadcasting,reproductiononmicrofilmsorinanyotherphysicalway,andtransmissionorinformation
storageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodology
nowknownorhereafterdeveloped.
Theuseofgeneraldescriptivenames,registerednames,trademarks,servicemarks,etc.inthispublication
doesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfromtherelevant
protectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse.
Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinformationinthisbook
arebelievedtobetrueandaccurateatthedateofpublication.Neitherthepublishernortheauthorsor
theeditorsgiveawarranty,expressorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinorforany
errorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade.
Printedonacid-freepaper
SpringerScience+BusinessMediaSingaporePteLtd.ispartofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia(www.
springer.com)
Preface
ThismonographisarevisedversionofmyPhDthesissubmittedtotheUniversityof
Münster, Germany (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster), in 2013. Before
moving to Münster, I spent the first year of my PhD studies at the University of
Augsburg, Germany. Many people have contributed to the successful completion
of the thesis and the processof turningit into a book.My supervisor,Ulrike Gut,
providedunwaveringsupporttotheprojectatalltimes.Shewasextremelygenerous
withhertime,providingpromptandvaluablefeedbackatallstages,butalsogiving
methetimeandspacetodevelopmyownideas.Icouldnothavewishedforabetter
supervisor. Volker Dellwo (University of Zurich) served as external examiner for
the thesisandprovidedextremelyvaluablefeedbackatvariousstages. Thanksare
alsoduetoDagmarDeuberandKlaus-MichaelKöpcke,whoservedasmemberand
chair,respectively,of the examinationcommittee.Claudia Langefirst broughtme
intocontactwiththestudyofWorldEnglishesandIndianEnglishinparticularand
pavedthewayforallmyfutureprojectsinthisarea.MadhumeetaSinhaandSatish
PoduvalwereextremelycordialandhelpfulwhenIfirstcametoHyderabadin2006
forasemesterabroadduringmyMAstudiesandduringallsubsequentvisits.
This project would not have been possible without the speakers who so gen-
erously allowed me to record them and those who subsequently participated in
the perception experiments. I would like to thank all those who gave their time
to support this research. Special thanks are due to Hemalatha Nagarajan and her
colleagues, who welcomed me at the English and Foreign Languages University
(EFLU, Hyderabad,India) in 2012 and 2013 for short research stays. The cordial
welcomeprovidedbystaffandstudentsatEFLUmademyfieldworknotonlymuch
easier than anticipated but also an extremely pleasant and fulfilling experience.
The second of these research stays was partially supported by Heinrich-Hertz-
Foundation, Germany, whose support is gratefully acknowledged. Madhumeeta
Sinha and Hemalatha Nagarajan allowed me to approach potential participants
in their classes. Tiasa Bal, Ganesh Sinisetty, Chandrasekar Kandharaja, Angana
Adhikari and Apala Das helped with recruiting participants and running the
perception tasks. Additionally, Marije van Hattum administered a perception task
v
vi Preface
tooneofherclassesattheUniversityofManchester.ElviraHadzicandEvaFischer
helpedwith checkingword alignmentin the transcriptionsof the productiondata.
TheBritish EnglishproductiondatacomesfromtheDyViSdatabase(Nolanetal.
2006),andIamgratefultoitscreatorsformakingtheirdatabasepubliclyavailable.
ThetextandinterviewtechniqueusedtogathertheIndianEnglishproductiondata
were also developedin the DyViS project. Thanks are also due to Volker Dellwo
forprovidingrecordingsofBritishEnglishspeakersthatwereusedinthe‘cocktail
partyeffect’experiments.Iwouldalsoliketothanktheserieseditorsandeditorial
staffatSpringerfortheirsupportduringallstagesofthepublicationprocess.
Parts of the results documented in this monograph were presented at various
stagesduringthePhDseminarsinEnglishLinguisticsattheUniversitiesofMünster
andAugsburg,thePhDseminarsoftheGraduateSchoolforEmpiricalandApplied
Linguistics at the University of Münster, the Workshop on ‘Norms and Standards
in Indian English and Other South Asian Englishes’ (2014) at the University of
Münster, at Speech Prosody 7 in Dublin in 2014, at the (Post-)Doctoral Spring
School of the International Society for the Linguistics of English in Freiburg in
2013, at invited talks at the Centre for English Language Studies of Hyderabad
Central University, India, and at the Phonetics Laboratory of the University of
Zurich,bothin 2013,atthe conferenceof the InternationalAssociation forWorld
Englishes(IAWE)inHongKongandGuangzhouin2012,atLaboratoryPhonology
13 in Stuttgart in 2012 and at the Summer School on Advanced Research in
PhoneticsorganisedbyAISV-StelarisinSanMarcodeCastellabate,Italy,in2011.
I would like to thank the audiences at these events for enlightening discussions
on the topics of the talks, particularly other graduate students at the University
of Münster within and withoutthe Graduate School. Small sections of the results
presentedherehavebeenpublishedpreviouslyinadifferentform.Thisconcernsa
partofSects.3.5.2and6.7,whichwerepublishedindifferentforminFuchs(2014a)
andthedatapresentedinSect.7.2.2,whichwasdiscussed,withadifferentfocus,in
Fuchs(2015d).
Romana Kopecˇková and Christina Dasenbrock read through the whole manu-
scriptandmademanyusefulsuggestions.Myheartfeltthanksalsogotomyparents
andtoChristinafortheirsupportandpatienceandforindulgingalltheeccentricities
that such a project can bring with it. It is impossible to name everyone who
contributed to the success of this project and I would like to extend my sincere
thankstoallthosewhodid.
Münster,Germany RobertFuchs
References
Fuchs,Robert.2014a.Integratingvariabilityinloudnessanddurationinamultidimensionalmodel
ofspeechrhythm:EvidencefromIndianEnglishandBritishEnglish.InProceedingsofspeech
prosody7,Dublin,ed.NickCampbell,DafyddGibbon,andDanielHirst,290–294.
Preface vii
Fuchs,Robert.2015d.You’renotfromaroundhere,areyou?–Adialectdiscriminationexperiment
with speakers of British and Indian English. In Prosody and language in contact: L2
acquisition,attritionandlanguagesinmultilingualsituations,ed.ElisabethDelais-Roussarie,
MathieuAvanzi,andSophieHerment,121–146.Berlin:Springer.

Contents
1 Introduction: Why a Study on the Speech Rhythm
ofIndianEnglishandBritishEnglishIsNecessary...................... 1
References..................................................................... 6
2 TheHistoricalandSocialContextofIndianEnglish .................... 9
2.1 UseofEnglishinIndia................................................ 9
2.1.1 DevelopmentandClassificationofIndianEnglish .......... 9
2.1.2 TheLinguisticLandscapeofIndia ........................... 12
2.1.3 Number of Speakers and Sociolinguistic
VarietiesofIndianEnglish.................................... 14
2.2 ThePhoneticsandPhonologyofIndianEnglish..................... 20
2.2.1 SegmentalCharacteristics..................................... 21
2.2.2 SuprasegmentalCharacteristics............................... 26
References..................................................................... 29
3 TheConceptandMeasurementofSpeechRhythm...................... 35
3.1 ApproachestoSpeechRhythm ....................................... 36
3.2 SpeechRhythmMetricsBasedonDuration.......................... 39
3.3 RobustnessandNormalisation:WhichMetricIsMoreReliable? .. 52
3.4 RemainingTheoreticalandEmpiricalProblems..................... 57
3.4.1 AnEmpiricalProblem ........................................ 57
3.4.2 LackofTheoreticalGroundingandTestingofHypotheses. 63
3.4.3 PerceptualGrounding......................................... 64
3.4.4 OtherCriticisms............................................... 69
3.5 RhythmMetricsBasedonAcousticCorrelatesOther
thanDuration .......................................................... 69
3.5.1 Intensity........................................................ 71
3.5.2 Loudness....................................................... 72
3.5.3 FundamentalFrequency(f0).................................. 76
3.5.4 Sonority........................................................ 77
3.5.5 Summary....................................................... 78
ix