"What's them mutter with vowels": Exploring Philippine English intelligibility

• Main Author: Dino, Cheene M.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2013
• Subjects: English language—Dialects—Philippines—Mutual intelligibility; English language—Pronunciation by foreign speakers; Other English Language and Literature
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/6998
• Institution: De La Salle University

Many might frown upon the idea of a prescriptive pronunciation because it seems to gear towards overdependence to the American way. However, pronunciation is still one among the (many) factors to consider when a speaker wants to be intelligible. This study is anchored to the notion that a phonetic criterion is not a big deal unless it affects intelligibility. Thus, to test intelligibility, five participants were asked to deliver a series of 10 randomly arranged sentences. The sentences contain critical vowels with which no close-sounding vowels like /i/ and /l/ were placed close to each other. The arrangement was observed in order to detect whether the way Filipino speakers produce the sound affect intelligibility. Three rater – one is a Filipino, the other form the outer circle, and another from the expanding circle – were asked to assess intelligibility of sentences that contain some critical vowels for Filipino speakers. These critical vowels affect meaning when produced differently; thus, intelligibility was tested depending on how many sentences were correctly perceived by the raters. Findings aim to provide insights and implications to second language teachers in the light of world Englishes.