Understand me or not? Accent, acceptability and intelligibility in International English: The case of Singapore

Abstract

It has been claimed on numerous occasions by prominent Singaporeans that Singapore English is difficult for non-Singaporeans to understand, and that this might adversely affect Singapore's standing and performance in the global marketplace. This study investigates the intelligibility and acceptability of Singapore English relative to other international varieties of English. Interviews were conducted with speakers of several varieties of English. Individual words and sentences were extracted from these interviews and played to respondents, who were asked both to transcribe words and to subjectively evaluate the utterance that they heard. The transcription provided a basis for discovering whether the word had been accurately identified, and the subjective evaluation allowed for the demonstration of the respondents' perceptions with regard to four factors, i.e. own use, acceptability, familiarity and ease of understanding. Singapore English was found to be relatively easy to understand, as well as generally well-accepted, among the respondent groups surveyed.