Sociolinguistic variation of /r/ and /l/ in English: Investigation of Thai speakers in the south
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Abstract
The present study has three primary objectives. In Thai, the use of prevocalic /r/ and /l/ represents a stylistic marker. The substitution of /r/ with the lateral [l] and cluster /r/ and /l/ deletion are considered non-standard. The first objective of the present study is to investigate how Thai learners produce the English prevocalic /r/ and /l/. The theoretical frameworks employed are Lado’s Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis and Flege’s Speech Learning Model. It ascertains which of the two most closely corresponds to the challenges encountered by learners when producing English orally. Secondly, it demonstrates how phonological context and extralinguistic variables of age, gender, and speech style constrain the sound variation of prevocalic /r/ and /l/ in L2 English. Thirdly, in terms of prevocalic /r/ and /l/, the present study aims to facilitate the forecasting of potential directions of linguistic change. A comparison is conducted of the speech production of the prevocalic /r/ and /l/ by L2 Thai learners of English. The research instruments used are minimal-pair reading and passage reading representing respectively the formal and informal styles. The speech data for the study was provided by 50 Thai undergraduate students, selected based on their age, gender, and the provinces in which they were born and raised using the friend-of-a-friend approach. A combination of quantitative and spectrographic analyses was employed in the examination of the data.
The results showed that the most preferred variants in the initial /r/ and cluster /r/ are the flap [ɾ] and /r/-cluster deletion [Ø] respectively. For the prevocalic /l/, the predominant sound in the initial and initial cluster positions are respectively the lateral [l] and /l/-cluster deletion [Ø]. Lado’s Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis can better predict the oral production of the prevocalic /r/ and /l/. The linguistic factor of phonological context governs /r/-/l/ substitution in the prevocalic /r/, and age group and phonological context play a significant role in variation in the prevocalic /l/. The increased incidence of /r/-/l/ substitution in passage reading might confirm that a language change towards /r/-/l/ substitution in the prevocalic /r/ is ongoing.
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