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PASAA

Publication Date

2022-01-01

Abstract

The expansion of the English language produced by non-native speakers has, in recent decades, been discussed by applied linguists from various theoretical perspectives. The discussion has highlighted evidence showing that the multiplicity and diversity of English uses have given rise to an acceleration in the rate of inter variety contacts where pronunciation, as it is claimed, is the principle factor in international intelligibility. Further, it has been demonstrated that difficulty in intelligibility increases with the typological distance between interlocutors’ first languages, referring to the distinct way that English pronunciation is strongly shaped by the phonetics of speakers’ first language. Consequently, a careful examination of the typological distance between speakers’ L1 and the target language—English—is compelling for the underpinning of the teaching and learning of pronunciation. Unfortunately, in English language teaching pedagogy, variations in pronunciation may be neglected in favor of other factors. In addition, pronunciation teaching experts stress that the study of pronunciation should be developed by locally-based educators, researchers, and authorities who are exposed to the relevant socio-cultural context, rather than being dominated by native speaker scholars based in Anglophone countries. Thai English pronunciation is considered to be one of the minor accents in World Englishes, and some local English language educators in Thailand may have insufficient in-depth knowledge of the linguistic characteristics of this accent. Presented here is a systematic review of Thai-accented English phonology, analyzed and synthesized via a review of relevant literature: the characteristics of Thai-accented English are clearly displayed, providing a reference for future researchers aiming to explore further Thai-accented English. The review can also be applied to other L1influenced Englishes in the Southeast Asian region which possess similar phonological and phonetic characteristics.

DOI

10.58837/CHULA.PASAA.63.1.13

First Page

348

Last Page

370

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