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This article was downloaded by: [University of Auckland Library]On: 17 December 2014, At: 16:50Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number:1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street,London W1T 3JH, UK
Language, Culture andCurriculumPublication details, including instructionsfor authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rlcc20
English and CantonesePhonology in Contrast:Explaining CantoneseESL Learners' EnglishPronunciation ProblemsAlice Y. W. Chan & David C. S. LiPublished online: 23 Apr 2010.
To cite this article: Alice Y. W. Chan & David C. S. Li (2000) English andCantonese Phonology in Contrast: Explaining Cantonese ESL Learners' EnglishPronunciation Problems, Language, Culture and Curriculum, 13:1, 67-85,DOI: 10.1080/07908310008666590
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908310008666590
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English and Cantonese Phonology in Contrast:Explaining Cantonese ESL Learners’ EnglishPronunciation Problems
Alice Y.W. Chan and David C.S. LiDepartment of English, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue,Kowloon, Hong Kong
It is argued that most if not all of the pronunciation problems encountered by Cantoneselearners of English may be adequately accounted for by the contrastive differencesdiscussed in this paper. The phonological differences between the two languages areexamined, ranging from their phoneme inventories, the characteristics of the phonemes,the distributions of the phonemes, syllable structure, to the function of tones and theirrespective rhythmic patterns. At the segmental level, substitution by a related sound inthe native language, deletion and epenthesis are by far the most common strategiesCantonese speakers employ when speaking or reading English. Pronunciation problemsare also found at the suprasegmental level, that is, in connected speech and rhythm,resulting in the impression of a somewhat unnatural, “flat and boring” foreigner accent.
The transfer of L1 phonological features in L2 pronunciation in the process oflearning a second language has long been attested (e.g. Lado, 1964). English andChinese are two typologically distant languages. Whereas English is a Germaniclanguage within the Indo-European language family which includes German,Danish, Swedish, etc. (Yule, 1985:168), Chinese, together with other languages likeTibetan and Lolo-Burmese, belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family (Li andThompson, 1981:2). There are seven major dialects in Chinese (Norman, 1988,Ramsey, 1987), of which Cantonese is widely spoken in Hong Kong and whichserves as the lingua franca among Hong Kong Chinese (Li, 1996, 2000; Luke &Richards, 1982). Partly due to the considerable typological distance betweenEnglish and Cantonese, Cantonese speakers tend to find it difficult to masterstandard English pronunciation. In this paper we will examine the differencesbetween the RP (Received Pronunciation) English and Cantonese phonologicalsystems1 as a prelude to a systematic account of problems and difficultiesencountered by Cantonese speakers in the process of learning Englishpronunciation.
ConsonantsConsonants can be classified according to manner of articulation, place of
articulation and the state of the glottis when the consonants are produced (Roach,1991). There are 24 consonants in English and 19 consonants in Cantonese.
0790-8318/00/01 0067-19 $10.00/0 © 2000 A.Y.W.Chan & D.C.S LiLANGUAGE, CULTURE AND CURRICULUM Vol. 13, No. 1, 2000
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Table 1 An overview of English and Cantonese consonants
Place of articulationMethod ofarticulation Bilabial Labio-
dental
Dental Alveolar Palatal-(post-)alveolar
Palatal Velar Labio-
velar
Glottal
E
Plosives/Stops
C
E
Fricatives
C
E
Affricates
C
E
Nasals
C
E
Lateral
C
E
Approxi-mants
C
Plosives/stopsIn both English and Cantonese, there are six plosive stops: bilabial plosives
/ /, alveolar plosives / /, and velar plosives / /. In English,/ / are voiceless whereas / / are voiced. In Cantonese,however, there are no voiced plosives; all plosives are voiceless. The feature thatdistinguishes between / / and / / is aspiration, that is,‘whether or not a burst of air is emitted immediately after oral release in theprocess of articulation’ (Matthews & Yip, 1994:13-14), where the former areaspirated and the latter are unaspirated.2 Table 2 contains some examples with thesix plosives in word-initial position.3
In terms of distribution, all the plosives in English may occur in initial or finalposition of a syllable. In contrast, only / / in Cantonese may occur insyllable-final position, as illustrated in Table 3. It should be noted that unlikeplosives in English, Cantonese plosives in word-final position are unreleased. Forexample, in the word (‘duck’, / /), the lips are closed in the formation of/ / but not opened again, so no air can be released; in the word (‘prosper’,/ /), the tongue tip touches the alveolar ridge in the formation of / / butclings to the alveolar ridge without air being released; and in the word (‘house’, / /) the back of the tongue touches the velum in the formation of / /
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English and Cantonese Phonology 69
but remains there without air being released. Such an articulation, in effect,neutralizes the contrast between aspirated and unaspirated plosives, sinceunreleased plosives will not be aspirated.4
Table 2 Examples with plosives in word-initial position
Plosives English Cantonese
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
pin / /
ten / /
cold / /
bin / /
den / /
gold / /
‘frightened’ / /
‘he’ / /
‘obstacle’ / /
‘father’ / /
‘hit’ / /
‘family’ / /
Table 3 Examples with plosives in word-final position
Plosives English Cantonese
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
rope / /
lit / /
back / /
robe / /
lid / /
bag / /
‘duck’ / /
‘prosper’ / /
‘house’ / /
—
—
—
Cantonese has two other stops which are non-existent in English, namely/ /. They are both voiceless labio-velar stops, with the former beingaspirated and the latter unaspirated. They are coarticulated consonants because thevelar sound / / or / / is articulated simultaneously with the bilabial / /, thatis, the back of the tongue is held against the velum for the production of / / or/ / and at the same time the lips are rounded for the production of / /.5 Table 4shows a minimal pair containing these two stops.
Table 4 Examples with labio-velar stops
Labio-velar stops Cantonese
/ /
/ /
‘boast’ / /
‘melon’ / /
FricativesEnglish makes much more use of fricatives than Cantonese. There are nine
fricatives in English but only three in Cantonese. The English fricatives are:labio-dental / /, dental / /, alveolar / /, palato-alveolar orpost-alveolar / /, and glottal / /. Of these, / / arevoiceless whereas / / are voiced. The Cantonese fricatives are:labio-dental / /, alveolar / /, and glottal / /, respectively. Being allvoiceless, they are articulated in ways very similar to their Englishcounterparts. Since there are no voiced fricatives nor dental and palato-
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alveolar fricatives in Cantonese, the inventory of Cantonese fricatives is muchsmaller than that of English.
In terms of distribution, all English fricatives may appear in syllable-initialposition, though words which begin with / / tend to be lexical borrowingsfrom French (e.g. genre). In syllable-final position, all English fricatives except/ / can be found. By contrast, Cantonese fricatives may only occur insyllable-initial position. In other words, no Cantonese syllables end with africative. Table 5 shows some examples of fricatives in word-initial position.
Table 5 Examples with fricatives in word-initial position
Fricatives English Cantonese
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
fan / /
van / /
thin / /
this / /
sip / /
zip / /
ship / /
genre / /
hat / /
‘flower’ / /
—
—
—
‘sand’ / /
—
—
—
‘shrimp’ / /
AffricatesBoth English and Cantonese have a pair of affricates. The English affricates
/ / are palato-alveolar, with the former being voiceless and the latterbeing voiced. Their production is characterized by lip-rounding. TheCantonese affricates / /, in contrast, are alveolar and are characterizedby lip-spreading. Like plosives in Cantonese, both Cantonese affricates arevoiceless. The difference between the two is again one of aspiration, with theformer being aspirated and the latter being unaspirated.
In terms of distribution, both English affricates may appear in syllable-initial and syllable-final positions whereas the Cantonese affricates arerestricted to syllable-initial position. Table 6 shows some words in English andCantonese beginning with an affricate.
Table 6 Examples with affricates in word-initial position
Affricates English Cantonese
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
‘church’ / /
‘George’ / /
—
—
—
—
‘fork’ / /
‘residue’ / /
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Nasals and lateralBoth English and Cantonese have three nasal consonants: bilabial / /,
alveolar / /, and velar / /. The productions of the English nasals are verysimilar to those of the Cantonese nasals. All Cantonese nasals may appear inboth syllable-initial and syllable-final positions, whereas the English velarnasal / / cannot appear in syllable-initial position. Tables 7 and 8 containsome examples with nasals.
Table 7 Examples with nasals in word-initial position
Nasals English Cantonese
/ /
/ /
/ /
mouse / /
nurse / /
—
‘mother’ / /
‘take’ / /
‘I’ / /
Table 8 Examples with nasals in word-final position
Nasals English Cantonese
/ /
/ /
/ /
Some / /
Son / /
sing / /
‘heart’ / /
‘new’ / /
‘life’ / /
There is only one lateral in both the English and Cantonese phonologicalsystems, namely the voiced alveolar lateral / /. In English, / / has twoallophones in complementary distribution: the clear [ ] which occurs beforevowels (e.g. live / /) and the dark [ ] which occurs after vowels (e.g. ‘dull’/ /). Clear [ ] has a quality rather similar to that of an [ ] vowel with thefront of the tongue raised, while dark [ ] has a quality rather similar to that ofan [ ] vowel with the back of the tongue raised.6 In Cantonese, however, onlythe pre-vocalic clear [ ] exists; there is no dark [ ] as no laterals may occur inpost-vocalic or syllable-final position. Some examples showing the lateral inword-initial or word-final position are shown in Table 9.
Table 9 Examples with laterals in word-initial or word-final position
Lateral English Cantonese
/ / live / /
dull / /
‘come’ / /
—
There is a tendency for Cantonese speakers, especially younger ones, tosubstitute the clear [ ] for an initial / / in a Cantonese word, therebyneutralizing their opposition. Thus, for example, the initial / / of (‘take’,/ /) is often pronounced as [ ], making [ ] and [ ] free variants ofthis lexical item. Such variations, however, rarely give rise to communicationproblems, for the intended meaning may usually be disambiguated by thecontext.
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ApproximantsThere are three approximants in English: / /. The post-alveolar
approximant / / is formed by having the tongue approaching the alveolararea but not making contact with any part of the roof of the mouth. The palatalapproximant / / and the bilabial approximant / / are also commonlyknown as semi-vowels because the articulations of / / and / / arepractically the same as those of the close front vowel / / and the close backvowel / /, respectively, except that the approximants are very short. InCantonese, / / is non-existent, whereas / / and / / are articulated in muchthe same way as their English counterparts. A few words containing anapproximant are shown in Table 10.
Table 10 Examples with approximants in word-initial position
Approximants English Cantonese
/ /
/ /
/ /
run / /
yes / /
warm / /
—
‘also’ / /
‘cloud’ / /
As can be seen from the above contrastive description, English andCantonese consonants differ not only in their inventories, but also in terms oftheir articulatory features and distribution within a syllable. In particular,English consonants are subject to relatively fewer distributional restrictions,whereas in Cantonese, only the nasals / / and the plosives/ / may occur in syllable-final position.
VowelsThe foregoing section gives a brief overview of the differences between the
English and Cantonese consonant systems. In this section, we will explore thedifferences between the English and Cantonese vowel systems.
Pure vowelsVowels can be classified according to tongue height (i.e. whether the body
of the tongue is high or low), frontness or backness of the vowel (i.e. whetherthe front or the back of the tongue is raised) and the shape of the mouth (i.e.whether the lips are rounded or spread) (Roach, 1991:14). There are twelveand eight pure vowels in English and Cantonese, respectively, including bothshort and long ones. The twelve English vowels comprise seven short vowels/ / and five long vowels / /.Of these twelve vowels, the schwa / / is by far the most frequent. The eightCantonese vowels include / /, of which only/ / is long in contrast to / /. Figures 1 and 2 give an overview of Englishand Cantonese vowels.
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English and Cantonese Phonology 73
Front Back
Close
Open
Figure 1 Overview of English vowels
Front Back
Close
Open
Figure 2 Overview of Cantonese vowels
English has two close front vowels, the long / / and the short / /; twoclose back vowels, the long / / and the short / /; and two open backvowels, the long / / and the short / /. In contrast, Cantonese has only oneclose front vowel, / /, one close back vowel, / /, and one open back vowel,/ /, which lie somewhere between the respective long and shortcorresponding vowel pairs in English.7
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The English / / and / / are rather similar in articulation, except that theformer is less open than the latter. In Cantonese, however, there is only the/ / which is similar to the English / /, with the mouth not widely open. TheEnglish central vowel / /, which is articulated with neutral lip position, hasa similar counterpart in Cantonese, / /, which is articulated with lip-rounding. The English vowels / / and / / are similar in articulation to theCantonese / / and / /, respectively, in that the English / / and theCantonese / / are both centralized vowels, while the English / / and theCantonese / / are both back vowels.
It should be noted that although there are only eight vowel phonemes inCantonese, there are altogether thirteen vowel allophones.8 The vowels / /,/ /, / /, / /, and / / all have long and short allophones depending on thecontexts in which they appear. For example, the two allophones of / / are[ ] and [ ], respectively. The former occurs before labials and alveolars suchas / /, / /, / /, or / /, while the latter occurs before velars such as / / or/ /. The two allophones of / /, [ ] and [ ], occur before alveolars such as/ / or / /, and velars such as / / or / /, respectively. Tables 11 and 12show some examples with different vowels.
Table 11 Examples with different English vowels
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
sit
/ /
bed
/ /
bad
/ /
foot
/ /
cot
/ /
cup
/ /
about
/ /
seat
/ /
food
/ /
caught
/ /
car
/ /
bird
/ /
Table 12 Examples with different Cantonese vowels
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
‘silk’
/ /
‘pretty’
/ /
‘book’
/ /
‘husband’
/ /
‘descend’
/ /
‘sing’
/ /
‘new’
/ /
‘hill’
/ /
DiphthongsDiphthongs are “sounds which consist of a movement or glide from one
vowel to another” (Roach, 1991:20). There are eight diphthongs in English:/ /, and ten diphthongs in Cantonese:/ /. In both English andCantonese the second element of a diphthong denotes the direction towardswhich the tongue moves, but the tongue seldom reaches the position specifiedby the second element.
There are three possible final elements for diphthongs in both languages. InEnglish, the three elements are / /. Since / / is a central vowel and/ / are close vowels, diphthongs gliding towards / / are termed‘centring diphthongs’ while those gliding towards / / or / / are termed‘closing diphthongs’. For Cantonese diphthongs, the three possible finalelements are / /.9 Tables 13 and 14 illustrate some words containingthe diphthongs under discussion.
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Table 13 Examples with different English diphthongs
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
peer
/ /
pear
/ /
poor
/ /
bay
/ /
buy
/ /
boy
/ /
cow
/ /
go
/ /
Table 14 Examples with different Cantonese diphthongs
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
‘four’
/ /
‘west’
/ /
‘well-behaved’
/ /
‘vege-table’
/ /
‘cup’
/ /
‘enough’
/ /
‘teach’
/ /
‘jump’
/ /
‘good’
/ /
‘water’
/ /
Another significant difference between English and Cantonese is thatCantonese diphthongs are not followed by any of the final consonants/ /, whereas English diphthongs can be followed bymany different final consonants.
Other Differences
Syllable structureEnglish has a relatively complex syllable structure. There can be a
maximum of three consonants before a vowel and a maximum of fourconsonants after a vowel (Abercrombie, 1967: 75), viz.:
(C) (C) (C) V (C) (C) (C) (C)
One such example is ‘strengths’ / /.10 The syllable structure ofCantonese, in contrast, is rather simple; the possible combinations of sounds areseverely restricted (Bauer, 1995). Unlike English, there are no consonant clusters inCantonese. The maximal syllable structure is as follows:
(C) V (C)
Thus, in terms of possible configurations of V and C, English clearly outnumbersCantonese, the latter being limited to V, CV, VC, and CVC as exemplified in Table15.
Table 15 Examples showing all possible configurations of C and V in Cantonese
Syllable structure Examples
V
CV
VC
CVC
/ / ‘exclamation showing surprise’
/ / ‘husband’
/ / ‘late’
/ / ‘prosper’
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ToneChinese is a tone language. This means that “every morpheme-word unit in
its citation form has a lexical tonal pattern” (Fok, 1974:1). In addition, tones aredistinctive: a change in tone will result in a change in lexical meaning. TheCantonese dialect is well-known for being relatively rich in tones. Accordingto the traditional Chinese classification system, there are a total of nine basictones in Cantonese. The first six tones (tones 1-6) capture words ending withno consonants or with any of the three nasal consonants / /, whereasthe last three tones (tones 7-9, also known as ‘entering tones’) capture wordsending with the unreleased plosives / /.
More recent works on Cantonese phonology, however, regard tones 7, 8and 9 as carrying the same tone (or distinctive pitch level) as those of the threelevel tones 1, 3 and 6, respectively. Seen from this perspective, Cantonese isanalyzed as having six instead of nine tones (e.g. Matthews & Yip, 1994;Zhang & Zhang, 1987). Table 16 shows some examples of words with differenttone levels and their tone contours.
Table 16 Examples of Cantonese words with different tone levels
ToneLevel
ToneContour
Example ToneLevel
ToneContour
Example
1 high-level / 1/ ‘silk’
2 high-rising / 2/ ‘history’
7 high-level / 1/ (/ 7/)
‘colour’
3 mid-level / 3/ ‘try’
4 low-falling / 4/ ‘time’
8 mid-level / 3/ (/ 8/)
‘kiss’
5 low-rising / 5/ ‘market’
6 low-level / 6/ ‘thing’
9 low-level / 6/ (/ 9/)
‘eat’
Unlike Cantonese, English is an intonation language. This means that achange in tone will not result in a change of lexical meaning (Roach, 1991:144),but may show a difference in attitude. For example, saying the word “yes”with a fall-rise tone may show limited agreement or response withreservations, while a rise-fall tone may signal rather strong feelings ofapproval, whereas a level tone tends to indicate a feeling of boredom.
Since every syllable in a Chinese sentence carries a tone, a sentence withfive syllables such as / / (‘He is aboy.’) has five independent tones; each word is regarded as an independentlyvariable item (Roach, 1991:144). In English, on the other hand, tones can onlybe identified on one prominent syllable in a tone group, which can be as shortas a monosyllabic word, but can be as long as a phrase or even a wholesentence. The whole tone group has only one tone, or more precisely, oneintonation pattern. For example, in the sentence ‘He is a diligent student’,there is only one tone group — the whole sentence itself — so there can onlybe one syllable which carries the tone, and the tone will probably fall on theword diligent or student, depending on the speaker’s intended meaning.
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RhythmEnglish has stress-timed rhythm. This implies that stressed syllables will
tend to occur at relatively regular intervals whether they are separated byunstressed syllables or not. All the unstressed syllables that come betweenstressed ones have to be squeezed into the allotted time (Forbes, 1993:21).Cantonese, in contrast, has syllable-timed rhythm. This means that all syllables,whether stressed or unstressed, tend to occur at regular intervals, and the timebetween stressed syllables will vary in proportion to the number of unstressedsyllables (Roach, 1991:121). Thus, in English, unstressed syllables will bespoken much faster and shorter when compared with stressed syllables,whereas in Cantonese, there is practically no reduction in terms of vowellength during the pronunciation of each syllable. For example, in the Englishword international, only the first and third syllables (the underlined ones) arestressed, while the unstressed syllables are weaker and spoken faster. Incontrast, in the corresponding Cantonese expression / /, thetwo syllables are spoken with more or less equal duration.
Strong and weak formsMany English words have both a strong and a weak form. These words are
called function words — words that do not have a dictionary meaning in theway that we normally expect nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs to have.These function words are auxiliary verbs (e.g. ‘have’, ‘is’), prepositions (e.g.‘of’, ‘from’), conjunctions (e.g. ‘and’, ‘but’), etc. Table 17 contains some Englishfunction words which exhibit strong and weak forms.
Table 17 Common English Function Words and their Strong and Weak Forms
Function Words The A, An And But
Strong forms / / / / and / /, respectively / / / /
Weak forms / / beforeconsonants
/ / beforevowels
/ / before consonants,
/ / before vowels
/ / / /
When spoken in isolation, function words such as the above are normallypronounced in their strong forms. In connected speech, these words tend to be spokenin their weak forms. This phenomenon of reducing the pronunciations of functionwords to their weak forms in connected speech has no parallel in Cantonese.
LinkageIn English connected speech, words are sometimes linked together. This
often happens when two vowels occur next to each other across wordboundaries. A ‘linking r’ is often introduced for this purpose. For example, thewords ‘four’ and ‘far’ do not have an / / sound when they are spoken inisolation,11 but when they occur before another word which begins with avowel, an [ ] is introduced to link the two words together, for example, ‘foureggs’ [ ] and ‘far away’ [ ].
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In English, if two words are in the same tone group and the first ends witha consonant while the second begins with a vowel, the consonant is simplycarried forward to the next syllable. Thus the preferred pronunciation patternof the phrase ‘pick it up’ should be [ ]. In contrast, neither of theselinking phenomena is found in Cantonese.
Learner DifficultiesThe foregoing sections examine the major differences between the English
and Cantonese phonological sub-systems. We have shown that English andCantonese differ not only in their phoneme inventories, but also in thecharacteristics of the sounds, the distributions of phonemes, and thepermissible syllable structures and rhythm. In this section we will explorecommon pronunciation problems and difficulties encountered by Cantonesespeakers when learning English.12 In accordance with established researchfindings that the learner’s prior linguistic experience has an influence on his orher learning of other languages (e.g. Corder, 1983; Hung, 1993), most of theEnglish pronunciation problems encountered by native speakers of Cantonesemay be attributed to systematic phonological differences between the twolanguages. The problems outlined below are essentially based on the authors’actual observations teaching Cantonese-speaking learners of English in HongKong — observations which are largely corroborated by a substantial body ofempirical findings in earlier studies (e.g. Anderson, 1983; Avery et al., 1987;Bolton & Kwok, 1990; Brown, 1989; Chen, 1976; Forbes, 1993; Han & Koh,1976; Jones, 1980; Kenworthy, 1986; Lee, 1976; Tay, 1973). Below, we willbriefly outline pronunciation problems and difficulties by taking each of thefollowing in turn: consonants, vowels, diphthongs and rhythm.
PlosivesSince there are no voiced syllable-final plosives in Cantonese, learners of
English from a Cantonese-speaking background tend to substitute/ / for / / when pronouncing words such as ‘robe’(/ /) and ‘maid’ (/ /). What is more, they tend to transfer thearticulatory habits of not releasing final plosives to English, giving thereby theimpression that the final plosives are "swallowed", that is, for / / the lipsremain closed, for / / the tongue tip clings to the alveolar ridge, and for / /the back of the tongue clings to the velum (Kenworthy, 1986:128). Forexample, the word ‘step’ is pronounced as [ ] and ‘not’ is pronounced as[ ]. Consequently, minimal pairs such as ‘rope’ and ‘robe’, ‘maid’ and‘mate’, etc. are practically indistinguishable.13 For these learners, therefore, oneindication of sub-standard pronunciation is their inability to actualize thesystematic contrast between voiced and voiceless final plosives.
Cantonese learners of English also have problems with English voicedplosives in the syllable-initial position. Thus, / / in words such as‘because’ / /, ‘divide’ / / and ‘goal’ / / are often devoiced.
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FricativesThe gap between the inventories of English and Cantonese fricatives creates
much difficulty for Cantonese learners of English. Substitution by a near sound inthe native language seems to be the most common strategy used, especially whenthey come across a difficult or unfamiliar sound.
Voiced labio-dental fricative / /At the end of a word, learners tend to substitute / / for / /, hence the word
‘live’ / / is indistinguishable from ‘life’ [ ].14 At the beginning of a word,learners tend to substitute / / for / /, and so ‘van’ / / is pronounced as[ ].
Voiced alveolar fricative / /Cantonese does not have / /. This helps explain why this phoneme tends to
be replaced by its voiceless counterpart / /. In effect, no contrast is madebetween minimal pairs such as ‘zip’ / / and ‘sip’ / /; ‘seal’ / / and‘zeal’ / /.
Dental fricatives / / and / /Cantonese does not have either of the “th” sounds. This may be the reason why
Cantonese learners of English tend to substitute either / / or / / for /…/ inwords like ‘thin’ / /, and either / / or / / for / / in words such as ‘they’/ / or ‘with’ / /.
Voiceless palato-alveolar fricative / /Cantonese learners of English commonly substitute / / for the sound / /, so
pairs of words like ‘save’ / / and ‘shave’ / /, ‘sip’ / / and ‘ship’/ / tend to present problems. Before the / / sound, which is produced withlip-rounding as in ‘moon’ / /, the situation is even more complicated aslearners tend to substitute / / for / /, that is, incorrectly rounding the mouth inthe production of the onset, so for example ‘soup’ / / will be pronounced as[ ].
Voiced palato-alveolar fricative / /Cantonese learners of English find it hard to master the English / / probably
because it does not exist in Cantonese. The learning difficulty is furthercompounded by the defective distribution of this sound: it rarely occurs in word-initial position, and is seldom found in word-final position. This phoneme occursmost often in word-medial position, such as ‘measure’ / / and ‘pleasure’/ /. Cantonese speakers tend to replace this sound by either / / or / /.
AffricatesCantonese speakers of English tend to have problems with the two English
affricates / / and / / as found in the words ‘cheap’ / / and ‘jump’/ /. As mentioned, they are different from the Chinese affricates / /and / / not only in terms of place of articulation, but also in the shape of themouth. This may help explain why Cantonese speakers tend to treat Englishaffricates as being the same as their Cantonese counterparts, that is, using/ / for / /, and / / for / /. For example, even advanced Cantonese
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learners of English may pronounce the affricate in the word ‘China’/ / with lip-spreading rather than lip-rounding.
Nasals, Laterals and / /Cantonese speakers of English often have problems distinguishing / /
from / / or / /. In words like ‘ride’ / / or ‘road’ / /, where the/ / is in word-initial position, they tend to substitute an / /-like sound forthe / /. Consequently, these two words will sound like ‘lied’ [ ] and‘load’ [ ], respectively. Other speakers may substitute / / for / /, saying‘wide’ [ ] for ‘ride’ / /.
In syllable-initial position / / and / / are often in variation. In words like‘nine’ / / and ‘knife’ / /, Cantonese speakers of English tend tosubstitute / / for / /, confusing thereby the target words with similarsounding words ‘line’ / / and ‘life’ / /. Alternatively, initial / / asin ‘love’ / / may sometimes be pronounced with some “ ” quality, givingthe impression of a nasalized / / sound, viz. [ ].
In final position, / / and / / also present problems. The / / in finalposition in words containing a diphthong, such as ‘mine’ / / and ‘line’/ /, is often deleted, while the dark [ ], being non-existent in Cantonese,is either dropped or replaced by a sound with an [ ] quality, probably becauseboth the dark [ ] and [ ] are produced with the back of the tongue raisedtowards the velum. Thus, words like ‘will’ / / or ‘fill’ / / tend to bepronounced as [ ] and [ ], respectively, with unnecessary lip-rounding.
Pure vowelsMany Cantonese learners of English are unaware of the major difference
between / / and / /, that is, the lips are more open for / / than for / /.They tend to substitute the latter for the former, thus mispronouncing ‘man’and ‘sat’ as [ ] and [ ], respectively. On the other hand, some Cantonesespeakers would overuse the open / /, thus mispronouncing words like ‘men’and ‘set’ as [ ] and [ ], respectively.
Many Cantonese speakers may pronounce the central vowel / / as in‘bird’ / / and ‘fur’ / / with lip-rounding, which may be accountedfor by the fact that Cantonese has a similar-sounding vowel / /, which isarticulated with lip-rounding.
Long and short vowel pairsCantonese learners tend to underdifferentiate the distinction between the
long and short vowel pairs / / and / /, / / and / /, and / / and / /.Hence they tend to have difficulties distinguishing word pairs such as ‘cheap’/ / and ‘chip’ / /, ‘food’ / / and ‘foot’ / /, and ‘caught’/ / and ‘cot’ / /, where the former in each pair is pronounced with along vowel and the latter a short vowel. Although Cantonese / /, / / and/ / all have long and short allophones which are distinguished by vowellength, the length difference is not distinctive, and there are restrictionsgoverning which consonants can follow which allophones. This may helpexplain why Cantonese speakers tend to find it hard to distinguish the longand short vowel contrasts in English. Depending on individual learners, somemay use a short vowel for a long one, others a long vowel for a short one; still
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others may produce a vowel sound which is somewhere in between the longand short vowels when pronouncing either one.
Consonantal glide before / / and / /When / / or / / occurs in the word-initial position such as ‘easy’
/ / or ‘industry’ / /, Cantonese speakers tend to insert a shortconsonantal glide / / before the vowel, viz. [ ] and [ ]. Thus,the words ‘east’ / / and ‘yeast’ / / would sound very much thesame to native speakers of English. This feature may be analyzed as transferfrom Cantonese to the extent that the Cantonese vowel / / in the syllable-initial position is consistently preceded by the semi-vowel / / (e.g. / /,‘medical’).
DiphthongsCantonese speakers have problems in articulating certain diphthongs and
tend to replace them by a similar pure short vowel. For instance, the word‘point’ / / tends to be pronounced as [ ], with the short vowel / /substituting for the diphthong / /. Similarly, the word ‘pair’ / / is oftenpronounced as [ ] or [ ], with the short vowels / / or / / substituting forthe diphthong / /.
Another pronunciation problem is illustrated by words such as ‘main’/ /, ‘claim’ / / or ‘fail’ / /, which are often pronounced as[ ], [ ] and [ ], respectively, with the pure vowel / / substitutingfor the diphthong / /. This problem is most marked when the diphthong isfollowed by a nasal or a lateral as shown in these examples.
Still another problem is that some diphthongs in English are pronounced asa combination of two discrete vowels separated by a glottal stop. For example,the word ‘pair’ / / may be pronounced as [ ], ‘ear’ / / as [ ], and‘poor’ / / as [ ].
Consonant clustersUnlike English, Cantonese has no consonant clusters. In trying to cope with
consonant clusters, Cantonese learners will tend to use deletion or epenthesis.Deletion simplifies a consonant cluster by reducing the number of consonantswhich occur together, while epenthesis breaks up consonant clusters by theinsertion of a vowel, thus creating an extra syllable in which the onset containsonly one consonant (Hung, 1993:252). Deletion is commonly found in both word-initial and word-final positions, but epenthesis is more often found in initialposition or across word boundaries.15
Word-final consonant clustersCantonese learners of English tend to overcome word-final consonant clusters
by deleting one or more of the consonants. The consonants most often deleted arethe alveolar sounds / /. Thus the word ‘bold’ / / may bepronounced as [ ] or [ ], while ‘list’ / / is typically realized as [ ].It is probable that due to the avoidance of consonant clusters, Cantonese learnersof English tend to have problems pronouncing the past tense marker. A largenumber of students drop the / / or / / sound in words like ‘touched’ / /or ‘begged’ / /. As English verbs are obligatorily marked for tense, a
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sentence like ‘He touched it’, pronounced as [ ], would be perceivedas ungrammatical (in subject-verb agreement) by native speakers of English.Apart from deletion, epenthesis is also used to overcome word-final consonantclusters, though sparingly. For instance, the word ‘film’ / / may bepronounced as [ ].
Word-initial consonant clusters.Deletion and epenthesis are both commonly used to simplify word-initial
consonant clusters. / / is frequently deleted when it follows a plosive, so‘produce’ / / may sound like [ ] with / / deleted. (Since / /itself is also a problem for Cantonese learners, instead of deleting the consonant,some Cantonese learners may tend to replace / / by / /, producing somethinglike [ ].) On the other hand, words like ‘clutch’ / / would bepronounced as [ ], with an extra vowel added to produce an extra opensyllable, which is preferred in most languages including Cantonese.
Words in connected speechSince no Cantonese syllables are reduced to a weak form, Cantonese
speakers of English tend to pronounce English function words in their strongforms even in connected speech, giving an unnatural and foreign-soundingimpression. For example, while a native speaker of English will say[ ] for “I can make it”, a Cantonese speaker may be heardsaying [ ] whether or not the intended meaning is emphatic.
The phenomena of linkage are often ignored by Cantonese speakers.Cantonese students tend to separate words through the use of pauses insteadof linking the sounds together, giving a very staccato rhythm to their speech(Avery et al., 1987:100). The words in phrases such as ‘pick it up’ [ ]and ‘far away’ [ ] thus tend to be spoken with a pause at wordboundaries rather than being linked together.
RhythmBecause native speakers of Cantonese are accustomed to pitch changes within
syllables only, whereas in English pitch changes are found over larger stretchessuch as phrases or clauses (Tay, 1973:7), Cantonese speakers have problems inlearning English rhythm. For example, in the noun phrase ‘internationalairport’ / /, and in the sentence ‘Johnhas learned French before’ / /, each ofthe syllables is given more or less the same amount of time. In contrast, theEnglish equivalents, international airport and John has learnt French before, areusually spoken only with the underlined syllables stressed. The syllables that arenot underlined are normally spoken with a much faster rhythm and a weakerintensity, resulting in a more or less equal interval between the stressed syllables.There is evidence that Cantonese learners of English often transfer the Cantoneserhythm into English. One symptom is that each of the syllables in the phrase‘international airport’ is given the same amount of stress (in-ter-na-tion-al air-port), that is, each syllable being treated as if it were a separate word (Forbes,1993). Similarly, the sentence ‘John has learnt French before’ would be spokenwith all the syllables having the same stress and occupying more or less the sameamount of time. No wonder native speakers of English, and even Cantonese
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speakers of English like the present authors, would sometimes perceive such anEnglish pronunciation pattern as “flat and boring”.
ConclusionBased on a detailed comparison and contrast of the major differences
between the English and Cantonese phonological sub-systems in this article,we have explored the main difficulties that Cantonese speakers may havewhen learning English pronunciation. It is argued that most of the CantoneseESL learners’ difficulties with English pronunciation may be accounted for byreference to fundamental differences between the phoneme inventories of thetwo languages, the characteristics and distribution of the phonemes, thepermissible syllable structures and the rhythmic patterns of the two languagesin question. This has clear implications for the teaching of Englishpronunciation to Cantonese speakers. A heightened awareness of thecontrastive differences between the two phonological systems will be helpfulat least to some extent in facilitating the overcoming of the pronunciationproblems. To help learners overcome such difficulties, ESL teachers should beinformed of the sources of the problems and design remedial teachingprogrammes accordingly. Teachers should also determine the relative gravityof various pronunciation errors and set up a system of teaching priorities. Webelieve that pronunciation errors which affect intelligibility or createcommunication problems should be given priority in remedial teaching.
CorrespondenceAny correspondence should be directed to Alice Y.W. Chan, Department of
English, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, HongKong ([email protected]).
Notes1. In the rest of the paper, the term “English” will refer to RP (Received
Pronunciation) English. Cantonese, which is commonly regarded as a Chinesedialect spoken in the province of Guangdong, parts of Guangxi, Hong Kong andMacau, is linguistically speaking a language (albeit non-standard) on a par withPutonghua (or Mandarin), the national language of the People’s Republic of China.The description of the Cantonese phonological system in this paper is essentiallybased on norms of pronunciation in Hong Kong.
2. Because no Cantonese plosives are distinctively voiced, some linguists prefer touse the symbols / / or / / to represent the aspiratedplosives / /, and preserve the symbols / / to represent theunaspirated plosives / / (e.g. Bauer and Benedict, 1997, Lee, 1976).
3. Since the cognitively salient phonetic unit in all Han-Chinese varieties is a syllable,which often but not always has morphemic status, this unit is variously referred toas ‘syllabo-morpheme’ or ‘morpho-syllable’. Put in another way, a Cantonesesyllable has more than chance probability of being a word, but it may also be sub-morphemic. For the sake of convenience, in this paper we will give illustrations ofCantonese syllables which have morphemic status wherever possible (cf.DeFrancis, 1984, 1989, Bauer, 1995).
4. English word final-plosives tend to be unreleased in many dialects, so thevoiced/voiceless distinction is not clear either.
5. There is some disagreement as to whether / / and / / should be analyzed asconsonant phonemes or consonant clusters. In this paper, they are treated asunitary consonants since they are coarticulated sounds with simultaneous
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articulation at both the velar and the labial regions. Furthermore, these two soundsare sometimes classified as semi-vowels instead of stops (e.g. Fok, 1974) becausethey consist of the semi-vowel / /.
6. [ ] and [ ] are primary cardinal vowels instead of vowels of a particular language.[ ] is defined as “the vowel which is as close and as front as it is possible to make avowel without obstructing the flow of air enough to produce friction noise”, while[ ] is “fully close and back” (Roach, 1991:13).
7. Strictly speaking, the English / / and the Cantonese / / are not open vowels, asthey lie between the half-open and half-close regions. In this paper they are treatedas open vowels to facilitate discussion.
8. The description of Cantonese vowels has received different treatments becausethere is more than one way of analyzing vowel contrasts. Alternative analysesreduce the number of vowel phonemes to seven (e.g. Benedict, 1942; Chao, 1947).Others argue that there should be 14 vowel allophones instead of 13 (e.g. Zee,1993).
9. The description of Cantonese diphthongs has also received different treatments.Some linguists (e.g. Bauer & Benedict, 1997) argue that they comprise a nuclearvowel followed by either / / or one of the final approximants / /, so they arenot described as sequences of two vowels as diphthongs in English are. In thispaper Cantonese diphthongs are treated as sequences of two vowels (cf. Fok, 1974).
10. Depending on the speaker, the words ‘strength’ and ‘strengths’ may bepronounced with or without the / / sound.
11. In American English and some accents of British English, words like “four” and“far” are pronounced with / / at the end.
12. In the discussion of the typical pronunciation problems encountered by nativespeakers of Cantonese, we focus on the production side, but it should be borne inmind that Cantonese speakers may also encounter problems in perceiving theexact sounds of English.
13. Because of the shortening effects of final voiceless consonants, the vowels in wordswith a final voiceless plosive, such as ‘rope’ and ‘mate’, should be shorter thanthose in words with a final voiced plosive, such as ‘robe’ and ‘maid’. However,since most Cantonese speakers are unaware of this length difference, when thefinal plosives of these words are unreleased, the pronunciation of the word with avoiceless plosive is practically the same as that of the corresponding word with avoiced plosive.
14. Final voiceless fricatives also have a shortening effect on preceding vowels, butmost Cantonese speakers are also unaware of this length difference (see note 3above).
15. Consonant clusters occurring across word boundaries are termed word-boundarysequences in Anderson (1983).
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