| Author: | Chui, Sze Ming Trace |
| Title: | Perspectives on Hong Kong students' attitudes to English accents |
| Advisors: | Evans, Stephen (ENGL) |
| Degree: | M.A. |
| Year: | 2015 |
| Subject: | Accents and accentuation English language -- Pronunciation by foreign speakers. English language -- Pronunciation -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- China -- Hong Kong. Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Department of English |
| Pages: | 91 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | The globalisation of English has given rise to the emergence of nativised English varieties. With World Englishes scholars’ dedication to legitimise regional varieties, a great deal of research has been focused on the linguistic description and analysis of varieties, particularly in phonology. However, attitude is shown to be a more influential factor in determining the status of a variety. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate Hong Kong senior secondary students’ acceptability of five English accents (namely the Philippine accent, Hong Kong accent, American accent, Indian accent, and British English accents) by taking students’ medium of instruction into consideration. The study also seeks to understand students’ identification and acceptability of their own accent, their perception to the Hong Kong English accent, and their current pronunciation model and accent learning. The findings are derived from both quantitative (i.e. questionnaire survey) and qualitative (i.e. focus group interviews) methods and are based on 162 students from two English-medium (EMI) and one Chinese-medium (CMI) schools. Some of the main findings regarding students’ acceptability to accents are as follows: (1) although the British and American accents are still considered to be more acceptable, students tend to display less reservation about the use of non-native accents in informal English-speaking contexts, (2) EMI students tend to rate the two native speaker accents significantly higher, and (3) CMI students tend to rate the local accent significantly higher. The study concludes by offering some implications for the development of Hong Kong English and English pronunciation teaching. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| b28237341.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 1.33 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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