A study into the international intelligibility of Hong Kong English

Intelligible, Intelligent, Likeable?

Andy Kirkpatrick (akirkpat@ied.edu.hk)

Why Important?

• Fear that NVEs are mutually / internationally unintelligible is one reason they are not promoted as classroom models

• Belief that NS varieties are mutually / internationally intelligible is one reason they are promoted as classroom models

• Hong Kong advertises itself as Asia’s World City (this actually seems to mean that you can do business in English here)

• Competition from Singapore (Sydney?) (Shanghai?)

• A skilled and multilingual workforce

• Two contradictory principles (Levis 2005):

• The nativeness principle (it is possible and desirable to achieve native-like pronunciation in an FL)

• The intelligibility principle (speakers simply need to be understandable)

But listen to these conversations

(i) Two Australians

(ii) A White South African and An Australian

(iii) A Bruneian and a Filipina

(iv) Two People from Hong Kong

Method

28 final year English majors recorded in

short conversations (‘Can you tell

me what you did in your last vacation?)

6 selected (3 F and 3M) based on L1

Cantonese and immersion being their only

extended overseas experience

Listening comprehension-type worksheets

developed

Tapes played to two groups of students in

Singapore (N=19 and 18) and two in Australia (N=11 and 24). One group

in each place heard the tapes only once, the second group heard them twice.

Listeners’ tasks:

Complete the worksheets

Judge intelligence of speakers and say why

Judge likeability of speakers and say why

Measuring relative intelligibility (words) / comprehensibility (utterances) / interpretabilit

y (illocutionary force)

Smith et al 60+%

Kirkpatrick and Saunders 80+%

Kirkpatrick, Deterding and Wong 80+%

Results

Are these speakers intelligible?

Average overall score of people who listened to the tapes only once was 81%

[Average for F speakers: 86%]

[Average for M speakers: 74%]

5 /19 Singaporeans who heard the tape only once scored 100% and 13/19 scored more than 80%. 1/19 scored 76%.

Singaporeans in Australia also scored very highly (100% / 89%) as did the Filipina (95%) and 2 Indonesians (92% / 84%). The Hong Kong student in Oz scored 97%.

A number of NNS students in Australia found the speakers less intelligible than did the NS students (cf. also Kirkpatrick and Saunders). For example, all Australian NS scored more than 80% after only one hearing, but two South Koreans, an Indonesian and a Brazilian did less well. This may be more a comment on their own English language proficiency, however, than on the intelligibility of the HK speakers.

Are these HK speakers more intelligible than their Singaporean counterparts?

(i) Only 50% of Australian listeners found Singaporeans 80% intelligible

(ii)17/28 HK listeners scored between 60-80%

(iii)11/28 HK listeners scored less than 60%

Who was the most / least intelligible and why?

Most intelligible : F1

Least intelligible: M1

[first person / poor worksheet design (densely packed info) / unfamiliar name]

Very few problems at sound/word level.

The ‘TH’ of ‘Kathy’ was written as an /f/ sound by three listeners, helping confirm the ‘TH’ to /f/ in HK speakers’ English.

See Deterding, Wong and Kirkpatrick for a description of the pronunciation of Hong Kong English based on this data.

Who was the most intelligent and why?

Most intelligent: M2

‘Yes, winner of debate must have some intelligence’

‘Yes. He is able to understand the interviewer and answer intelligently’

‘Yes. Fluent, spontaneous response’.

Language / Accent and Intelligence

‘Yes. Pronunciation is crisp though accent is strong’

‘He sounds intelligent. Speaks in the way I associate with intelligent people’

‘Average. Her accent is less standard compared to the rest’

‘Yes. For a Hong Kong citizen, he speaks fairly well English. Understandable’

• Least intelligent: F1 (Note, also most intelligible)

• ‘No. Puts people down’

• ‘No. She thinks she is smart’

• ‘No. She thought she was good in English’

• ‘No: She gives answers to the question that are not really related’

[likeability / intelligence ‘fusion’?]

Who is the most/least likeable and why?

Most likeable: M3

Least likeable: F1 – who was also judged the least ‘intelligent’ and most intelligible.

But M2 was judged the most intelligent was also ranked the second least likeable.

[M3]‘Yes. He shared more than just answered questions seemed interested in the interview’

‘Yes. He has interests in many fields’

‘Yes. I want to go to Japan too and he sounds humble’

‘Yes. He seems to be a responsible perosn and willing to work hard.’

BUT

‘No. He sounds like a workaholic’

[F1]‘Not really. She seem proud and imputed that some did not speak as well as her’

‘No. egoistic and loud mouth’

‘No. She seems like a proud person. Empty vessels make most noise’

‘No. She’s a tat too proud of her language proficiency’.

‘No. She sounds a little conceited’

Possible number of listener responses is 576 and the listeners gave 466. So the great majority gave reasons for their judgments about intelligence and likeability and most of these (but not all) were based on facts gleaned from what they had heard.

Apart from anything else, this suggests that the speakers were, in Smith’s terms, highly ‘interpretable’.

Conclusions and Implications

Generally speaking:

These speakers are highly intelligible

These speakers are considered intelligent

and likeable.

Listeners rely on facts to make judgments

about speakers’ intelligence and likeability

These six multilingual speakers [L1 Cantonese]

will provide internationally intelligible classroom

models of English for their learners and

they represent suitable linguistic classroom

models.

Whether this ‘model’ will be ‘socially’

accepted by HK stakeholders as suitable for

the HK classrooms is, of course,

another matter entirely.