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The pronunciation of TH in word-initial position in Malaysian English

A new dental stop [t] is emerging in a variety of New English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2014

Toshiko Yamaguchi
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Extract

Mesthrie & Bhatt (2008: 125) note that ‘all New Englishes varieties treat [θ] or [ð] as something other than an interdental fricative’. Malaysian English, as a variety of New English, constitutes an interesting case study. In Malaysian English, what Mesthrie & Bhatt (2008: 125) call ‘something other than an interdental fricative’ is realized as the dental stop [t] (e.g. thought), which in this paper is dubbed ‘a new [t]’ or presented orthographically as [th > t], whose acoustic quality is strikingly different from the ordinary alveolar stop [t] (e.g. taught).

Type
Research Article
Information
English Today , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 13 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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