PHONOLOGICAL VARIATION BETWEEN SINGAPOREAN AND HONG KONG SPEAKERS OF CANTONESE

Abstract

Cantonese is a dialect of Chinese, and it is widely used in Hong Kong, and some other areas in China. However, the usage of Cantonese is not limited to the Greater China Area. Due to the Singaporean history, there are quite a lot of Cantonese in Singapore, and some of them know how to speak Cantonese. Sociophonetic variations are often found in Cantonese, and it has been analysed by various researchers in Hong Kong and some overseas regions. However, the sociophonetic phenomenon of Singapore Cantonese is not being analysed by researchers before. This project interviewed five Hong Kongers and five Singaporeans, which aimed at The analysing their pronunciation of Cantonese. During the interview, they needed to complete three tasks, which include a reading aloud passage, a short speech, and a word list. Then, their spoken data were analysed by the author impressionistically. The data was coded in Microsoft Excel and analysed by Microsoft Excel and R. It is found that Singaporeans have higher chances to pronounce words that are more innovative, in comparison with Hong Kongers. For Hong Kongers and Singaporeans, both pronounce words with ng- the most innovatively, and the words with g- the most standard. The differences in the standardness are explained to be the result of language learning. As most Hong Kongers learn Cantonese in schools, but not for Singaporean, Hong Kongers are more sensitive to the pronunciation of Cantonese. There are some limitations in this paper, including the small scale of participants and the inadequate number of tokens in some tasks. Further research can expand the scope of the interview, to have a broader picture of the sociophonetic phenomenon of Cantonese all over the world.