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Asian Englishes
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Voiceless Stop Consonants in Malaysian

English
a

Toshiko Yamaguchi & Magns Ptursson

a

University of Malaya Department of English Language Faculty of

Languages and Linguistics 50603 Kuala Lumpur MALAYSIA
b

University of Hamburg Institute fr Phonetik Allgemeine

Sparchwissenschaft und Indogermanistik, Bogenalle 11 20144
Hamburg GERMANY
Published online: 11 Mar 2014.

To cite this article: Toshiko Yamaguchi & Magns Ptursson (2012) Voiceless Stop Consonants in
Malaysian English, Asian Englishes, 15:2, 60-79, DOI: 10.1080/13488678.2012.10801330
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13488678.2012.10801330

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Voiceless Stop Consonants in Malaysian English:

Measuring the VOT Values1

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Toshiko YAMAGUCHI & Magns PTURSSON

Abstract: This paper studies the nature of voiceless stop consonants with a special focus
on a change from []/[] to [t] at the word-initial position in Malaysian English (ME).
Drawing on the acoustic phonetic measurement of stop consonants produced by 12
speakers, we maintain that ME is creating a new system of stop consonants. More
precisely, we state the following: First, the new alveolar stop [t] originating from voiced
and voiceless dental fricatives (e.g., that, think) is always shorter than the original [t] (e.g.,
teach) in terms of the voice onset time (VOT) values. That is to say, ME possesses two
acoustically different alveolar stops. Second, because of the presence of the new [t], the
generally agreed phonetic values of VOT for [p] and [t] are reversed. Third, although ME
is often characterised by the speakers ethnic differences, the acoustic quality of the new
[t] is consistent independent of the first language. Fourth, the use of the new [t] is, overall,
less frequent than the standard pronunciation of dental fricatives. Fifth, the occurrence
and frequency of the new [t] is sporadic, partly because it is speaker specific.

1. Introduction
When foreign people visit Malaysia and listen to Malaysian English (ME), it is
relatively easy to perceive some evident differences compared to Standard English.2
For example, final stops are frequently deleted and syllable final consonant clusters
are simplified, and occasionally, the frication of stops is heard and the dental
fricatives [] and [] are replaced by an alveolar stop. While it is far beyond our
capacity to characterise this stop consonant relying on our causal observation, our
growing enquiry was whether this replaced sound is phonetically identical to the
original alveolar [t]. There has been no systematic study on stop consonants in ME to
answer this question, and this lack of information intrigued us and led us to examine
this problem more closely. This study presents the results of acoustic measurements
of ME and an account of two types of [t] in conjunction with the other voiceless stop
consonants.
In this paper, we examine the voiceless stop consonants [p t k] at the word-initial
1 Our heartfelt thanks go to Dr. Michael Jessen for the generosity he showed in reading earlier versions of the
paper and making invaluable comments. All remaining errors are our own.
2 For the definition of Standard English, we quote Preisler (1995), who introduces the notion of common core
English that embraces those structural and cultural properties of the language which are shared by native
speakers (p. 343). Common core English has two main varieties, British and American English. The term
Standard English as we are using it in this paper refers to these two varieties of English, which for
historical reasons have an equal claim to the designation of Standard English (Preisler, 1995, p. 341).

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Voiceless Stop Consonants in Malaysian English: Measuring the VOT Values

position in ME based on speech samples elicited from educated Malaysians, placing

special emphasis on a change from []/[] to [t]. This study considers what we call
a new alveolar stop [t] (also signalled as [th>t]), which indicates that ME has four
physically distinct sounds for voiceless stops, namely, [th>t], [t], [p], and [k] (Figure
6). As shown from our speech samples, ME features three salient characteristics of
stops which are also shared by some other New Englishes and Australian English3:
(1) the deletion of final stops, (2) the realisations of dental fricatives as alveolar stops,
and (3) the frication of stops. The first two characteristics have often been mentioned
in connection with Singapore English, which ME resembles in many respects
because of the geographical proximity of the two countries and the shared history of
the rise of these varieties (see Platt & Weber, 1980). Today, these first two features
are frequently discussed to illustrate the two languages (Baskaran, 2005; Deterding,
2010; Gut, 2005; Low & Brown, 2005; Moorthy & Deterding, 2000; Schneider,
2003a, 2003b, among others). The third feature is studied with respect to Australian
English (Jones & McDougall, 2009; Loakes & McDougall, 2010).4 Although
these three features have often been interpreted with reference to sociolinguistic
characteristics such as regional, register-specific, or ethnic variations (except for the
studies on Australian English cited above), this combined picture is not salient in
our study. On one hand, we observe that the distribution of individual sounds is not
regular as it bears on the performance of individual speakers, but on the other hand,
the acoustic quality of the new [t] and the coherent relative voice onset time (VOT)
durations of the four stops are clear examples of the emergence of a new system of
stop consonants (Figures 1 and 6).5
The next section defines sporadic change following Lehmann (1992) and looks
closely at the sporadic realisations of a change in [th>t] in ME. Drawing upon
measurements of VOT (voice onset time) in the speech samples of 12 speakers (S1,
S2, S3, etc.), the main part of this study then describes and interprets the nature of
voiceless stops in word-initial position. The final section presents our conclusions,
where we discuss our two main findings. The first finding is that the two-category
distinction that is valid for Standard English does not operate in the same way in
3 We are aware that Australian English is not a variety of New Englishes. We refer to the studies mentioned in
this paper for two reasons. First, all the subjects who participated in these studies have Australian English as
their first language but they frequently used fricated stops. Second, fricated stops are phonetically peculiar
and hence worth mentioning.
4 This third feature has not been studied as frequently as the other two. Platt and Weber (1980, p. 172) briefly
refer to a case where the dental fricative [] in they is realised as [d] with a slight friction such as [dz].
5 Maddieson (1997, pp. 619-621) claims that there are two patterns of human-language sounds: One is
learned and the other is universal. As far as we understand his proposal, the data we have at our disposal
support the learned pattern. The sheer difference between his and our proposals lies where in his study the
learned pattern focuses more on language-specific differences (such as the distribution of aspiration) but
rarely concerns social or individual aspects.

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Asian Englishes, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2012

ME; aspiration is not an important variant but voicing is. The second finding is
that although ME yields irregularity caused by factors specific to speakers (such
as expression of emotions and different speaking rates),6 it also displays language
inherent systematicity, giving rise to the emergence of a new sound inventory.

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2. Sporadic Realisations of [th>t]

We assume that ME is undergoing a sound change that is markedly sporadic
in the sense defined by Lehmann (1992). As Lehmann rightly claims (1992, p. 183),
sound change refers to the modifications of a phoneme that lead to realignments of
old elements. As he goes on to say (1992, pp. 201-203), sporadic change refers to
sound changes that happen irregularly (see also Campbell, 2004, p. 27), do not affect
all speakers, and do not happen in all environments. As an example of sporadic
change, the modern English word seven has three realisations, [svn], [svm], and
[sbm], all of which may be used by one speaker. But pronunciations such as [lvm]
or [lbm] will be rare or non-existent for the word leaven [lvn],7 even though the
phonetic environment for /n/ is the same in both examples. According to Lehmann
(1992, p. 203), many sporadic processes are assimilatory and operate by phonemes;
sporadic change is crucially different from allophonic change, which brings about
regularthat is, predictablerealisations. In Lehmanns words (1992, p. 202),
sporadic changes involve a direct change from one phoneme to another, with no
gradual modification of allophones and therefore are described as spontaneous
and saltatoryin recognition of the immediate shift from one phoneme to another.
Because of their abrupt change by phonemes, Lehmann continues, these sporadic
processes could result from the speakers awareness of specific social dialects or
styles (1992, p. 203); they are likely to be caused by factors not inherent to language
structure.
The focus of our attention here is the substitution of dental fricatives by alveolar
stops and their sporadic realisations in our spoken data. As noted earlier, this is a
feature often mentioned in relation to the New Englishes spoken in Southeast Asia
(Brown & Deterding, 2005; Deterding & Kirkpatrick, 2006; Low & Brown, 2005).
Of our 12 participants, 11 showed this feature (Figure 1). A striking fact is that
although they replaced dental fricatives with alveolar stops, all of our participants
also retained dental fricatives in their sound inventories. Importantly, among our
participants, dental fricatives were used more frequently than alveolar stops (Figure
6 According to Allen, Sean, Joanne and DeSteno (2003), differences in speaking rate are responsible for most
of the individual differences in VOT. These differences are, according to their view, the essential acoustical
elements which permit to a listener to identify a speaker.
7 This is the transcription in the cited text but not a transcription in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

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Voiceless Stop Consonants in Malaysian English: Measuring the VOT Values

5). But in recent studies on ME, such as those by Baskaran (2005, 2008) and Bautista
and Gonzalez (2009), this substitution has been generalised in a way that omits
mention of the use of the standard pronunciation. The realisation of dental fricatives
as stops in ME is sporadic in the sense that it does not occur in all speakers and even
varies within a single speaker. For example, in our study, the same speaker (S11)
realised the initial consonant in thought (W88) as a dental fricative [] and as an
alveolar stop [t] in the sentence Einstein thought intensively about relativity (Sen59),
while another speaker (S2) realised the initial sound in thought as a fricated alveolar
stop (Sen5). Other speakers (S1, S9, and S12) always realised the initial consonant in
thought as [t] in a word or sentence, whereas one speaker (S10) constantly realised it
as [] (Figure 5).10 Another speaker (S3), who was a conscious speaker of English,
very rarely produced [t] for dental fricatives.
Although our participants frequently realised voiceless or voiced dental fricatives
with a voiceless stop [t], it rarely happened that a voiced dental fricative was
substituted by a voiced stop [d]; for example, the initial sound of words such as the,
that, this, or they was pronounced as [t]. This result, however, does not tally with the
general views of previous studies (e.g., Baskaran, 2005, p. 26; Brown & Deterding,
2005, p. 12; Deterding & Kirkpatrick, 2006, pp. 395-396; Schneider, 2003b, p.
57). Among our participants, the substitution was quite frequent in the word-initial
position but quite rare in other positions. For example, all 12 speakers pronounced
the word mouth with [] in the sentence Please open the mouth (Sen15). This result
again contradicts previous studies that make the following generalisations, namely,
that <th> is realised as [f] word finally, particularly in Singapore English (e.g., Bao,
2003, p. 32; Moorthy & Deterding, 2000, p. 26), and that substitution is equally
common in the word-initial, word-medial, and word-final positions (Baskaran, 2005,
p. 26). Note, however, that S1 consistently pronounced North Wind as [ntwn], but
this case was a rare exception in our samples.
As discussed above, the production of [t] in place of dental fricatives was sporadic
in our samples. By contrast, what was consistent was the acoustic quality of the new
stop [t]. Among our speakers, this sound was always voiceless and unaspirated even
though the underlying dental fricative was voiced [] (e.g., this or that) or voiceless
8 W is an abbreviation for Word, referring to one of the words listed in the Appendix.
9 Sen is an abbreviation for Sentence, referring to one of the sentences listed in the Appendix.
10 This participant acquired English while living as a young child in the UK. However, as other features of her
speech, such as her syntax, clearly show that she is a speaker of ME. In general, the replacement of the dental
fricative by a stop is of low frequency (Figure 5). But, taken literally, S10s linguistic attitude is not radically
different from that of S3, S5, or S11, who are proficient speakers of English (Figure 1). We thus believe that it
is relevant to include S10 as a subject because she proves the hypothesis that Malaysian speakers will
eliminate their local accent, when they have greater input of standard pronunciation.

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Asian Englishes, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2012

[] (e.g., thing or thought).

Many previous studies have shed light on the nature of stops by referring to
some aspects of a speech community or to factors not inherent to language structure.
To our mind, previous studies have largely discarded examination of the precise
phonetic quality of the sounds that results from sporadic production. Consequently,
the wide variability in the realisation of stops has not been sufficiently discussed.
Although Moorthy and Deterding (2000) investigated a change from [] to [t] in
Singapore English, the focal point of their study was the frequency of the occurrence
of these sounds. Our intention in the next section, the core of the study, is to fill the
lacuna in this area by summarising our findings resulting from measurements of
the positive VOT values of stops. We chose to measure VOT on the grounds that
although differences exist among individual speakers and within a single speaker,
what appears consistent among speakers, and hence reliable, is the VOT, that is, the
time lag between the release of the stop closure (when the stop consonant is released)
and the onset of the voicing of the following vowel (when the vocal folds begin to
vibrate).
3. Voice Onset Time of Voiceless Stop Consonants in Malaysian English
3.1. Methodology
We investigated the speech of 12 ME speakers: 8 females (S1, S2, S5, S7, S8,
S10, S11, and S12) and 4 males (S3, S4, S6, and S9). All of the speakers were well
educated (university students or holders of a masters degree or PhD and working
at a university) and conscious of the social importance of speaking good English.
Our speakers can be considered to have a functional native command of English,
though perhaps not a genetic native command (Schneider, 2003a, p. 238). Eight
(S1-S4; S6-S9) speakers had a Chinese language background (i.e., they had acquired
Chinese as their first language from their parents), two (S10 and S11) had a Malay
language background (i.e., they had acquired Malay as their first language from
their parents), and one (S12) had a Tamil language background (i.e., she had
acquired Tamil as her first language from her parents). Thus, most of the speakers
regarded English as a second language, although S5 considered it to be her first
language, which she had acquired from her parents and used at home. S7 went to
an English-medium school, although her language at home was always Chinese.
S10 had acquired English in the UK when she was a child (from the age of 2 to
9) but regarded Malay, which was the major language of communication at home,
as her first language. S11 considered herself bilingual (Malay and English). All
of the speakers stated that they currently used English actively every day either at
their workplace, at university, in their social life, or at home. They all asserted that
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Voiceless Stop Consonants in Malaysian English: Measuring the VOT Values

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English was a language that they liked to use and that it played a more important role
on some occasions (e.g., in communication with colleagues) than their first acquired
language. Because Chinese and Indian ethnic groups study Malay in school, they are
also fluent in that language, and so we considered Malay as a second language for
them in addition to English. In Table 1, the two languages are shown in reverse order
for S12 because she felt more fluent in Malay than in English. In our selection of
informants, we wanted to have a relatively homogenous group of educated speakers
of ME whose data would be representative of consciously spoken ME. Information
about the participants background was obtained through questionnaires and direct
contacts by the first author. Table 1 summarises our discussion above.
Table 1: Linguistic, Social, and Ethnic Information of the 12 Participants
Gender

Age

First language

Second language

Ethnicity

S1

Female

33

Chinese

English/Malay

Chinese

S2

Female

38

Chinese

English/Malay

Chinese

S3

Male

40

Chinese

English/Malay

Chinese

S4

Male

32

Chinese

English/Malay

Chinese

S5

Female

21

English

Malay

Chinese

S6

Male

21

Chinese

English/Malay

Chinese

S7

Female

57

Chinese

English/Malay

Chinese

S8

Female

24

Chinese

English/Malay

Chinese

S9

Male

19

Chinese

English/Malay

Chinese

S10

Female

24

Malay

English

Malay

S11

Female

50

Malay

English

Malay

S12

Female

26

Tamil

Malay/English

Indian

For our tests we used three types of text: (1) the fable The North Wind and the
Sun, which is a standard text often used in phonetic research11; (2) a list of isolated
words; and (3) a list of meaningful sentences (see Appendix for examples). We also
added a free speech sample in which each speaker spoke about his or her work,
workplace, or studies and which lasted two to three minutes. Because the written
texts were provided to the speakers, they helped us to compare the speakers use of
the language in the same linguistic environment. In contrast, the free speech sample
11 We should note that Text 1 contained only one case of the voiceless dental fricative in the medial position
(North Wind). All of the cases of the dental fricative except for one (North Wind) were voiced. Four speakers
(S2, S6, S11, and S12) replaced [] with [t]. S2 had seven tokens of this case, which was the highest. S5
replaced [] with [] seven times. We decided to include this text because of the unique variations the
speakers produced.

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enabled us to examine each speakers individual characteristics. We considered the

three types of text to be formal and the free speech sample to be informal. Foulkes
and Docherty (2006, pp. 414-415) make a similar distinction; they consider word list
reading formal and conversational speech informal.
Lisker and Abramson (1964) showed that different kinds of texts can influence
the length of VOT. In their research, the VOT was longer in isolated words than in
sentences and in spoken texts. The same tendency was confirmed in our materials.
However, it was not relevant for our research to differentiate according to different
kinds of texts. We therefore present the results of our measurements as a whole.
3.2. Measurements
Our texts were recorded in a studio at two different points in time (September
2010 and January 2011). To measure the recordings, we had at our disposal an
analysis programme used extensively in current phonetic research, namely Praat
(Boersma & Weenink, 2008). Although Jessen (2001) lists 14 features (e.g.,
duration of closure, length of the preceding/following vowel) that can be relevant
for discriminating stop consonants, we followed the suggestion of an earlier study
by Lisker and Abramson (1964), whose findings have been considered reliable and
are still currently valid (see Bijankhan & Nourbakhsh, 2009; Cho & Ladefoged,
1999; Klatt, 1975; Maddieson, 1997; Morris, McCrea & Herring, 2008). Thus, in
this study, we treated the positive VOT as the justifiable and constant feature that
separates the categories of stop consonants. If the VOT was shorter (longer) than 30
msecs, the stop consonant was perceived as unaspirated (aspirated). Aspiration thus
implied a long delay (i.e., a long lag) in VOT. This delay is generally represented in
a spectrogram as noise after the burst that follows the release of the stop closure. We
measured the VOT in the word-initial position followed immediately by a vowel. For
this paper, we did not consider other positions in our speech samples.
Standard English distinguishes between two types of stops, namely voiced and
voiceless, the latter of which correlates with aspiration (Lisker & Abramson, 1964).
In the medial position, stops are realised as voiced or voiceless, whereas in the initial
position, the voiced stops [b d g] can be realised as unvoiced and unaspirated and the
unvoiced stops [p t k] are realised as unvoiced and aspirated (Lisker & Abramson,
1964, pp. 384-385). ME, however, differs considerably in this regard; the stops [b
d g] are fully voiced both word initially and word medially. Our speech samples
showed the following two characteristics: (1) in only a few cases were the stops
[b d g] unvoiced and unaspirated and (2) not all [p t k] stops were aspirated word
initially. These two new criteria applied to all of our speakers, regardless of their first
language.
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Voiceless Stop Consonants in Malaysian English: Measuring the VOT Values

Another factor that can influence the degree of aspiration is vowel height (Yava
& Wildermuth, 2006, pp. 260-261); the higher the tongue, the greater the delay in the
onset of voicing (see also Morris et al., 2008). Our study, however, did not find vowel
height to be significant. We therefore present examples irrespective of the vowels
after the stop.

The average value of our measurements of [p t k] is presented in msecs for each

speaker. In the figures, the number in parentheses next to each speaker (S) indicates
the number of utterances.
3.3.1. The substitution [th>t]
ME stops cannot be fully described without referring to the alveolar stop that
originates from the dental fricatives [] and []. In our samples, this new stop [t]
was always voiceless. In most cases, the VOT of this new [t] was very short (clearly
less than the critical 30 msecs). This corresponds to an unaspirated [t], whereas the
original [t] has a much greater variation of VOT. Figure 1 displays the results for our
speakers.
Figure 1: VOT [in msecs] of the New [t]12
40

30

28.5
24.5

25

msec

36.6

33.7

35

23.7

20

22.6
18

20.3
15.3

15

15.6

16

10
5
0

S12(18)

S11(5)

S10(0)

S9(15)

S8(3)

S7(4)

S6(12)

S5(1)

S4(7)

S3(3)

S2(18)

S1(9)

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3.3. Results

speakers and utterances

The height of the columns and the values on top of the columns represent mean
VOT values across all of the measured stop tokens per speaker. The number of
12 The zero (0) for S10 means that she did not produce a single example of an alveolar stop for the dental
fricatives. All of her dental fricatives were realised as voiced or voiceless as in Standard English.

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Asian Englishes, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2012

tokens per speaker is given in parentheses after each speaker abbreviation (S1 to S12).
For speakers S3 and S11, the average VOT value was just above the critical 30 msecs;
for everyone else, it was much less. However, we observed individual cases where
this new [t] exceeded the critical 30 msecs; for example, S1 produced one example
of an exceptionally long VOT of 86 msecs (thought in Einstein thought intensively
about relativity in Sen513), which was the longest VOT for the new [t] in our samples.
Other speakers produced the following long VOTs: S3 produced a VOT of 62 msecs
(three in The learning will take place as I see at three levels in his free talk)14, S9 one
of 52 msecs (thought in Einstein thought intensively about relativity in Sen5), S11
one of 48 msecs (things in I see three things on the table in Sen26), and S12 one of
49 msecs (three in I see three things on the table in Sen26).
The high degree of speaker variability, as presented above, in producing the
new [t] could have been influenced by the individual speakers internal or emotional
condition (see Introduction).15 S5 produced only one instance of the new [t] in her
speech sample (Figures 1 and 5). It is intriguing that this speaker produced [] and
[t] for the same word (thing) within the same context. In her free talk, she said the
following: You can hear people say some things that are quite out of ordinary or
when16 you listen back to what people have said, its just amusing to see why people
say things the way they do [...]. The <th> in the second thing was realised as a
voiceless stop, whereas the first thing retained the voiceless dental fricative. The
replacement of [] with <t> might result from her empathy with what people talk
about. The addition of the evaluative adjective amusing validated her emotional
attachment to her own speech.
In general, the new [t] was realised more frequently when speakers read sentences
or talked freely. In the word list, all but four speakers tended to pronounce the words
as in standard English, the exceptions being S4, S6, S9 (thing in W1), and S12 (thing
in W1 and thought in W8), who had a strong tendency to substitute.
3.3.2. The original alveolar [t]
The measurement of the original alveolar stop [t] showed a much longer VOT
than did the new [t]. Figure 2 depicts the results for our speakers.
13 It is possible, but hardly possible to prove, that this speaker was thinking of taught when she spoke this
sentence. This would explain her exceptionally long VOT in this case.
14 This sentence does not make sense grammatically. A grammatical sentence would be As I see it, the learning
will take place on three levels.
15 Concerning the definition of emotion, Kagans (2007, p. 1) summary of the discussion by ancient
philosophers dovetails with our observation. Emotion is defined as an appraisal of a change in feeling.
16 Alternatively, and when would make more sense.

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Voiceless Stop Consonants in Malaysian English: Measuring the VOT Values

Figure 2: VOT of the Original [t]

70
57.1

60

msec

50

48.5

54.4

62.6

61.7
53

52.8

48.1

50.8

44.2

40
26.5

30

28

20
10

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S12(35)

S11(39)

S10(44)

S9(11)

S8(15)

S7(25)

S6(19)

S5(26)

S4(15)

S3(22)

S2(14)

S1(34)

speakers and utterances

S4 and S12 had an average VOT value below the critical 30 msecs and therefore
produced an unaspirated [t]. Note that, overall, the VOT values for the original
alveolar [t] were significantly higher than those for the new [t] (Figure 1). Both types
of stop were clearly differentiated by means of VOT. Here, we are witnessing the
birth of a new stop in the ME consonant system, that is, an alveolar stop emerging
from an underlying dental fricative. Briefly speaking, there are two acoustic
phonetically distinct alveolar stops.17
Another point worthy of mention is the unexpectedly great range of individual
variation in VOT for the original alveolar [t]. The longest realisations were above 100
msecs (e.g., time carried a VOT of 150 msecs in I have no time in the case of S1 in
her free talk), whereas the shortest realisations were around 10 msecs (e.g., to carried
a VOT of 15 msecs in Come to London now in the case of S3 in Sen16). There are
certainly factors that can explain this wide range of individual variation, such as the
expression of emotion noted in the previous section. According to Morris et al. (2008,
p. 310), suprasegmental factors such as a fast or slow speaking rate can explain most
of the variability in the duration of VOT (see also Allen et al., 2003). Although we
did not control the speaking rate, we admit that an explanation based on different
speaking rates seems quite probable.

17 An alternative interpretation would be to refrain from speaking of a new alveolar stop to avoid postulating a
new stop category. We could instead emphasise the gradual durational differences in VOT values between the
new and old alveolar stop. There are several factors that could influence the duration of VOT, some of
which would be speaking rate, context, and place of articulation.

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Asian Englishes, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2012

3.3.3. The bilabial [p]

Figure 3 provides the results of the measurements of the bilabial [p].
Figure 3: VOT of [p]
100

92.5

90
80
60

67.3
60.3

64

59.9

62

53

50

48.2

40

42.4

41.6

37.6

36.2

30
20
10
S12(13)

S11(12)

S10(12)

S9(3)

S8(6)

S7(3)

S6(4)

S5(15)

S4(2)

S3(3)

S2(3)

S1(5)

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msec

70

speakers and utterances

There were generally fewer examples of [p] than of the other voiceless stops,
except in the cases of S5, S10, S11, and S12. The tendency observed among our
speakers was to make the VOT of [p] longer than that of [t], a fact that does not
accord with the general expectation (Cho & Ladefoged, 1999; Maddieson, 1997).
Cole, Kim, Choi and Hasegawa-Johnson (2007, p. 191) show examples of individual
differences where the VOTs of alveolars and labials are of the same duration, but
the reversed value which we observed in our speakers does not occur in their data.
However, this observation was not quite consistently valid in our data. S5, S8, and
S11 provided exceptions; that is, the VOT of their [p] had a shorter average value than
that of their original [t] (Figure 2). A wide range of VOT variation was also exhibited
for [p], ranging from an unaspirated 7 msecs (people in You can hear people say
some things in the case of S5 in her free talk) to a strongly aspirated 121 msecs (poor
in He was always poor in the case of S6 in Sen20).

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Voiceless Stop Consonants in Malaysian English: Measuring the VOT Values

3.3.4. The velar [k]

Figure 4 gives the results of the measurements for the velar [k].
Figure 4: VOT of [k]
80
70

65.7

67.3

68.6

msec

60.2

56.4

55.6

49.4

50
40
30
20
10
0

S10(16)

S9(10)

S8(24)

S7(10)

S6(17)

S5(29)

S4(10)

S3(18)

S2(10)

S1(17)

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63.4

S12(19)

60

67.5

66.7

61.2

S11(20)

59.6

speakers and utterances

In this study, the velar stop had the longest VOT, which accords with the general
expectation (Lisker & Abramson, 1964; Maddieson, 1997). Like other stop sounds,
the velar stop also showed a wide VOT variation depending on the speaker, ranging
from 19 msecs (e.g., confess in [] was obliged to confess that [] in the case of
S5 in her free talk) to 140 msecs (e.g., key in The key to the solution in the case of
S6 in Sen22). As Figure 4 indicates, S5 had the shortest VOT of all of our speakers.
Interestingly, she showed the same tendency when pronouncing [p], producing a
very short VOT of 37.6 msecs (see Figure 3). Consequently, S5 formed a sequence
of [p k t] whereby [t] and [k] were reversed. This should be regarded as a specific
feature ascribed to this speaker, as most of the other speakers had a rather constant
VOT duration of around 60 msecs for the velar [k], which produced the longest VOT
among the stops (see Point 4 in the next section).
4. Conclusions
The stops in ME mirror the changes that are taking place within the language.
Generally speaking, ME reveals a wide range of sporadic variations among speakers
and within a single speaker it also exhibits a considerable degree of systematisation.
In addition, the fact that our speakers still used a large number of Standard
English pronunciations for the dental fricatives (Figure 5) may well indicate that if
speakers have more exposure to Standard English, the new system identified in the
previous sections should disappear or be minimised (see Point 5 below). Hence, our
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Asian Englishes, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2012

conclusions are as follows:

1. A new alveolar stop [t] is emerging in ME. The origin of this new stop is a dental
fricative. In our study, speakers produced the voiceless new [t] regardless of the
voicing distinction of an original sound. This stop remained distinct from the
original alveolar [t] even for speakers (e.g., S4 and S12) who did not have aspirated
alveolar stops (Figure 2). An intriguing fact is that in all of our speech samples, the
dental fricatives [] and [] continued to exist together with the new [t] (Figure 5).
2. The change from [] or [] to [t] can be explained by drawing upon Fougeron and
Keating (1997), who developed the hypothesis of articulatory strengthening. This
hypothesis can provide two possible explanations for the change: (1) the stop [t]
is articulated more easily than [] or [] and (2) the voiceless [t] is perceptually
more prominent than its voiced counterpart.18 This explanation further clarifies
why the change from [] to [d] was not frequent and why dental fricatives in
word-final and syllable-final positions were less affected.
3. A two-category contrast of stop consonants in the word-initial position may
not be valid for ME in the same sense as it is for Standard English. In ME, the
voiceless stops [p t k] are not regularly aspirated in the word-initial position. That
is to say, in ME, the phonological contrast is in terms of the distinction between
voiced vs. voiceless, not in terms of aspirated vs. unaspirated, precisely because
aspiration is the factor that accompanies voiceless stop consonants. In other
words, the distinction between [p t k] and [b d g] is made in terms of voicing
only and not in terms of aspiration. Hence, the important point is that [p t k]
will remain voiceless with or without aspiration and regardless of their phonetic
environment. ME and Standard English pertain to two different systems.
4. The average relative VOT duration of stops in ME is schematised as follows (see
Figure 6 for the average value of each sound):
[th>t] [t] [p] [k]
(shortest to longest)
This differs significantly from the generally observed pattern in languages
(Abelli-Beruh, 2009; Bijankhan & Nourbakhsh, 2009; Cho & Ladefoged, 1999,
pp. 208, 218-219; Lisker & Abramson, 1964, pp. 391-394; Maddieson, 1997), as
follows:
[p] [t] [k]
(shortest to longest)
In this general pattern, the labial [p] has the shortest VOT and the velar [k] the
18 It is worth mentioning that the hypothesis of articulatory strengthening was already formulated by Straka
(1963), but it did not receive the attention it deserved at the time. The research by Fougeron and Keating
(1997) now seems to confirm entirely the hypothesis first formulated by Straka, which was based on
historical phonetic data from the Romance languages.

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Voiceless Stop Consonants in Malaysian English: Measuring the VOT Values

longest (Fischer-Jrgensen, 1968, pp. 78-79; Helgason & Ringen, 2008, p. 623;
Morris et al., 2008, p. 316). We presume that the VOT values of [t] and [p] in ME
are reversed because of the presence of the new [t], whose VOT is shorter than
that of the original [t]. We do not, however, have a principled explanation for this
pattern (i.e., why the alveolar [t] should have a shorter VOT than the labial [p]).19
Here, we tentatively state that this happens owing to the presence of the new [t]
and that although these sounds are phonetically distinct, they might pertain to the
phonologically same sound (cf. Burquest, 2006, pp. 2-3).20
5. In ME, there is no significant VOT difference between the speech of males and
females (cf. Morris et al., 2008, p. 316). Neither is there a difference attributable to
the first language of the speakers, namely Chinese, Malay, or Tamil. This shows
that although what Schneider (2003a, 2003b) calls nativisation (which is largely
sociocultural in nature) is in place, speakers are developing a new language system.
This process may slow down, however, if Malaysias language policy in the future
seeks to promote Standard English (see footnote 2) or the standard of English
(as stated in The Star, 10 April, 2011).21 Indeed, this promotion was a genuine
interest of the speakers who answered our questionnaire after the recordings; they
expressed the hope that such a change would occur in the near future.
6. With regard to Singapore English, it has been stated (Low & Brown, 2005, p.
133; Moorthy & Deterding, 2000) that the dental fricative, which is considered
the prestigious pronunciation, is realised more frequently in formal speech. Given
that free talk is informal and the reading of sentences formal, the new [t] does not
always occur more frequently in free talk. In our study, three speakers (S7, S8,
and S9) produced more [t]s in place of dental fricatives when they read sentences.
This shows that the distinction between formality and informality was apparently
not the most crucial element.22
19 The reverse order is not unique to ME; it also occurs in Danish in a different manner, that is, [p k t]. It is
assumed that the reverse order between [t] and [k] is probably due to an additional manner of articulation,
that is, the affrication of [t] (Fischer-Jrgensen, 1968, p. 78).
20 Burquest (2006, pp. 2-3) claims that [t] in write and writer in American English are phonetically realised
differently (writer with a flap, write with a complete burst) but are the same sound phonologically. Speakers
would not perceive the two [t] sounds as being different. Along the same lines, we can assume that [t] in place
of a voiceless dental fricative (e.g. thought) might not be perceived by ME speakers as different from the
voiceless alveolar stop [t] in taught, despite the considerable differences in positive VOT we measured.
21 As Mesthrie (2008, p. 26) rightly states, Standard English should be treated as a metalanguage in the
sense that many ME speakers have virtually little chance of encountering Received Pronunciation or Standard
American English. They normally learn English from local teachers at school or through everyday
interactions with local speakers.
22 Moorthy and Deterding (2000) differentiated formal and informal speech by type of conversation, whereby
speakers were asked to talk about two different topics. Informal speech dealt with any topic the student
participants were passionate about, whereas formal speech dealt with topics concerning the students courses
or life at university. If we follow these criteria, the recorded free talk from our speakers comes closer to
formal speech. But speakers can become passionate about content regardless of formality. The fact that in our
samples, the reading of meaningful sentences produced the new [t] as much as in the free talk may prove this.

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Asian Englishes, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2012

7. Mesthrie and Bhatt (2008, p. 126) claim that all New Englishes varieties treat []
and [] as something other than an interdental fricative. It would be meaningful
to see exactly how these sounds are realised in other varieties (i.e., in other New
Englishes) and to what extent their results approximate or differ from those of
ME.
Lastly, although we hope that our findings are valid for ME in general, we must
admit that these conclusions are based solely on the speech samples we collected
from 12 speakers.
Figure 5: Frequency of Dental Fricatives and th>t
120

113

frequency

88

57

60

51
41

39

43

43
29

28
18

20
9

[th>t]

83

80

40

S1

S2

S3

S4

S5

18

15

12

S6

S7

S8

S9

S10

S11

speakers

Figure 6: Average Duration of VOT for Stops

70
61.8

60
55.4

50

48.9

40
30
22.7

20
10
0

th>t

stops

74

[] and []

95

100

msec

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S12

Voiceless Stop Consonants in Malaysian English: Measuring the VOT Values

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Foulkes, P., & Docherty, G. (2006). The social life of phonetics and phonology. Journal of
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Appendix
The following are the two lists (words and sentences) used for the tests performed in
September 2010 and January 2011. Words (in the body of the text, these are indicated
as W followed by a serial number: e.g., W8):
1. thing
2. dispute
3. spade
4. time
5. them
6. key
7. good
8. thought
9. core
10. test
11. poor
12. buy
13. day
The following words were spoken only by the last three speakers (S10, S11, & S12):
14. going
15. taught
16. button
77

Asian Englishes, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2012

17. kitten
18. peak
19. teach
20. past
21. task
 entences (in the body of the text, these are indicated as Sen followed by a serial
S
number: e.g., Sen5):

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1. Where are you going?

2. Please go in.
3. The great thing is interesting.
4. We are thinking of this project.
5. Einstein thought intensively about relativity.
6. The weather is changing every day.
7. John took the spade with him.
8. We have no time.
9. I have no notice of this problem.
10. I want to buy a car.
11. We will pay tomorrow.
12. The price is too high.
13. This was a good choice.
14. He is an intelligent student.
15. Please open the mouth.
16. Come to London now.
17. We will be staying here.
18. The shop is near the station.
19. This is a serious problem.
20. He was always poor.
21. This is a great cure.
22. The key to the solution.
(This phrase was included in this list even though it is not a complete sentence.)
23. We are testing the car.
24. Past tense is used in this sentence.
25. I can see them over there.


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The following sentences were read only by the last three subjects (S10, S11, &
S12). Sentences 27, 29, and 30 contain a nonsense word to see whether this would
influence the pronunciation of <th>:
26. I see three things on the table.
27. Every thang is a mystery.
28. He taught us to describe our thinking.
29. Do you see the thungs over there?
30. Take the thib with you.
31. Mary notified us that yesterday was the thirteenth anniversary of her fathers
death.
32. They did not find any past tense in the text.
33. Tom said that task was misspelled.

Toshiko YAMAGUCHI
University of Malaya
Department of English Language
Faculty of Languages and Linguistics
50603 Kuala Lumpur
MALAYSIA
E-mail: tyamag@um.edu.my

Magns PTURSSON
University of Hamburg
Institute fr Phonetik
Allgemeine Sparchwissenschaft und Indogermanistik
Bogenalle 11, 20144 Hamburg
GERMANY
E-mail: magnus.petursson@uni-hamburg.de

79