| The current study aims to investigate 15 English consonants produced by Cantonese speakers of English from a sociolinguistic perspective because there is a lack of sociolinguistic research about the English pronunciation of Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong. This study investigates the effect of extralinguistic, including gender, age, social class, speech style, and frequency of oral English language use, and linguistic factors, consisting of linguistic environment and syllable/word position, on three types of English production, including accurate production, feature change, and deletion, of Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong.;The present study focuses on 15 English consonants, seven singleton consonants, /f, v, theta, th, r, n, l/ and eight consonant clusters /pl, pr, bl, br, kl, kr, gl, gr/, produced by Cantonese speakers of English. A total of 47 participants, 23 men and 24 women, were invited to participate in the study, and they were divided into three age groups, including 20--30, 31--45, and 46--60. Data were collected from a word list, two reading passages, answer to a passage, and an interview.;Among the demographic factors, only social class was found to be significant for accurate production, feature change, and deletion while gender and age were not significant for all types of production. The interrelationship of social class with family background, educational background, and oral English use of Cantonese speakers was shown to be crucial for better English pronunciation due to more exposure to oral English use. It is supported by the findings of the significant effect of frequency of oral English language use on accurate production and feature change because frequent use of oral English led to more accurate production and less feature change of the English consonants. Finally, linguistic environment and syllable/word position were significant factors for all types of production and their effect was relatively stronger than other significant factors. The results show that the participants encountered more difficulties in pronouncing the English consonants /v/, /theta/, /th/, /r/ which do not appear in the Cantonese language inventory. Although participants were able to articulate correctly in onset position, they had a strong tendency to delete /l/ syllable-finally. Deletion of /r/ or /l/ in the consonant clusters generally happened more frequently in /pl/, /pr/, /kr/, and /gl/ with a following back vowel or diphthong. Furthermore, the Markedness Differential Hypothesis (Eckman, 1977) helps explain the reasons for the higher accuracy of the English consonants in the syllable-initial and word-initial position which is less marked and less difficult compared with the more marked syllable-final position.;The current study may contribute to the area of linguistic variation in Hong Kong and it may help language teachers and practitioners to understand the reasons for learners' English pronunciation so that they may assist the learners more effectively with tailor-made teaching for a particular group of learners. The present research will hopefully shed light on the phonology of English by Cantonese speakers since the findings of this study will possibly lead to a future discussion of the English pronunciation of Cantonese speakers of English in Hong Kong. |
