An Emergence of English

Language Variety in Cambodia

The 12th ESEA Conference:

Trends and Directions
Presenter: Keuk Chan Narith
RUPP/ IFL – English Department
 An Emergence of English language variety in Cambodia

Purposes of the paper

1. to seek preliminary understanding of features
of Cambodian people and learners’ language;
2. to investigate causes which encourage to such
features;
3. to examine intelligibility of English language
used in this country to foreigners, native or
non-native speakers of English language; and
4. to discuss alternatives for improving English
language training in Cambodia.
An Emergence of English language variety in Cambodia

Background information
 The history of English language spread
into Cambodia
- before civil war (1975): French was a
dominant foreign language in Cambodia
due to French colonization (1863-1954);
English was little learnt and spoken in the
American colonization (1970-1975).
 An Emergence of English language variety in Cambodia

- after Genocidal regime (1980–late 1980s):

English and French were prohibited;
Russian and Vietnamese were taught in
schools.
- UNTAC (1990s): English became a
dominant foreign language. In mid 1990s,
the Royal Government of Cambodia
declared English and French as foreign
languages in Cambodia.
An Emergence of English language variety in Cambodia

 Needs of English language:

- living survival
- higher education
- diplomatic relationship
- seeking residency abroad
 An Emergence of English language variety in Cambodia

 English language training:

In addition to formal training of teachers
of English sponsored by AUSAIDS, a huge
number of private/ informal English
language classes were opened. In this
situation, the Khmer people who have
known English better would teach the
ones who don’t English language.
 An Emergence of English language variety in Cambodia

Literature review
 Kirkpatrick (2005)’s study for International
seminar at RELC:
The added /s/ sound at the end of the
words spoken by Cambodian could be
seen as another expanding circle or
learner features of English language.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

 Stern (1997)
In order to study a language variety in
one country, ones must study the
language that learners produce, which he
calls as interlanguage studies.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

 Littlewood (1994): constructivist view:

Second [or foreign] language learners,
similar to children of their first language,
are actively constructing rules of the
target language they are exposed to and
gradually adapting these rules in order to
form the target language system.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

 Ellis (1996): Cognitive processing

- noticing
- comparing
- integrating
- restructuring
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

Framework of the study

 Littlewood (1997)’s suggestion:
1) Language transfer
The learners use their previous native
language experience as a means of
organizing the second language.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

2) Overgeneralization
The majority of intralingual errors are
instances of the same process of
overgeneralization that has been observed
in first language acquisition.
Learners use their previous knowledge of
the second [or foreign] language that they
use to generalize the target language
systems.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

3) Non-standard errors
The assumption is that the speech which
learners produce is a direct reflection of
the rules which they have internalized,
that is, of their underlying competence in
the second [or foreign] language.
Two factors for discussion:
- immediate communication strategies
- performance factors
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

4) Errors due to the effects of teaching

If a learner is taking part in formal
instruction, some errors will be a direct
result of misunderstanding caused by
faulty teaching or materials.
- Material uses
- The effectiveness of teaching
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

 Method
- Qualitative analyses of the recorded materials
in forms of interviews, group discussions,
learners’ presentations and other means of
communication and written materials offered by
his students.
- Participants: year-two students at RUPP,
Institute of Foreign Languages, English Dept.
and 2 Australian, 1 American, 1 Swedish, and 1
Singaporean.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

Findings & Conclusion

 One major problem is phonological
features.
- Learners mistress English words.
- Learners mispronounce /ð/, and /d/; /θ/, /∫/,
and /s/; /z/ and /Ʒ/.
- Learners do not pronounce the ending
sounds of words.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

‘…yes main problems for Khmer people who speak

English is that there’re two problems for Khmer
speakers: one is intonation. So you talk about in
Khmer you say [table], this is a table [no stress]. In
English we say [Table], so we stress [ta] and we go
down on [ble]. Another one is that Khmer do not
pronounce clearly the end of the words. …when I first
came here I never knew what they said because I
never heard the end of the words. I can’t understand
what they said,’ said an American teacher who has
been working in Cambodia for four years.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

- Learners tend to pronounce /s/ at the end

of words – adjectives, adverbs,
prepositions, etc.
Ex. In an interview 3:
Yes. In fact the study always have a difficulty but –er- in
–er- my study in IFL I face some of problems such as –
er- er- manys document[s] I have to reads mores such
–er- more such for example I have tos search for mores
book[s] for develop myself but I think I don’t have
enough time for me to work ands study at the same
time. ([s] means the speaker dropped ending sound).
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

Some of these features are caused by

non-equivalence in the two languages in
phonological propositions in the form of
language transfer and overgeneralization
of the target language.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

 A second major problem is the features

caused by language transfer. It is affected
by learners’ experience in the native
language and knowledge of other
languages they know and use.
- Culturally, Khmer language and Khmer
culture do affect English language
learning.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

Ex. One obvious feature of English language

which is not found in Khmer language is
article (a, an, and the).
Khmer learners of English language may
interchangeably use a, an and the, or
they may not use these articles at all. Let’s
look into the extract of one university
learner’s introduction of a reflection paper.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

A short story, An Incident, was given me a valuable of life

of human being after I read it. The story was set in China
more than fifty years ago. The incident was happened at ʌ
South Gate during the winter of 1917 when ʌ rickshaw
man was hired for taking a rich man to ʌ South Gate.
Suddenly, when ʌ old woman crossing the road, she had
left the pavement without warning to cut across in front of
the rickshaw. The main actor is ʌ rickshaw man who is the
kindly gentleman. Another people are ʌ old woman, ʌ
police man and ʌ man who is hiring the rickshaw, ʌ rich
man. (9 articles were dropped)
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

 Another major problem is caused by the

learners’ immediate needs to use English
language to achieve some communicative
purposes.
- Beginners, or less competent people or
learners attempt to speak English
language for their living survivals and
communication.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

Ex. One student sent his message to his

lecturer for his late submission of his
assignment:
“Thanks, lecturer for your apology. I
submit my assignment late.”
This learner got the wrong lexical choice of
apology for forgiveness or just permission.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

 Another major problem is caused by

teaching.
- Materials available in Cambodia for
English language teaching and learning.
- American English-made materials
- British English-made materials
- Other English-made materials: writers
in Singapore, Philippines, Indian.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

 Intelligibility
- An American teacher, who has been
teaching English for 4 years in Cambodia,
found it hard to understand Cambodian
people, esp. his students’ English
language because the dropping of ending
sounds of words.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

- An Australian teacher, who has stayed in

Cambodia or five months, noticed that
English spoken in Cambodia is similar to
English in other Southeast Asia countries.
She added that Cambodian people do
attempt to communicate, to speak English.
She could understand it quite well.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

- Another Australian teacher had problem

with the sounds – it’s difficult to
distinguish between thing, sing, etc.
- A Singaporean teacher, working as a
teacher in the Teacher Attachment
Program, found a bit difficult at the
beginning to understand each other in the
classes. It took him one or two sessions.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

- An advisor to English language learning

and teaching, a Swedish professor, spent
quite a long time to understand her
students’ essays. She pointed out that
Khmer students used ‘on the other hand’
to add more ideas, rather than to contrast
their previous arguments.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

Discussion
 In terms of intelligibility, Smith (1997)
suggest that people who involve in
communication in the target language
should try to make themselves intelligible,
comprehensible, and interpretable to their
interlocutors.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

 Communicative strategies should be used

to foster communication and/or refresh
communication breakdown.
 Learners should have been exposed to
such communicative strategies and English
language varieties, esp. Englishes in
Southeast Asian countries to reduce
miscommunication in the target language.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

 More studies should be done in Cambodia in

order to explore in-depth features of English
language (interlanguage) adopted by
Cambodian learners and people.
 Another research should also look into how
much intelligible and comprehensible Cambodian
learners’ English language is, ane when
communication breaks up, how Cambodian
speakers refresh it to bring success in
communication.
 An Emergence of English language Variety in Cambodia

 The observation and investigation into

teachers and learners’ attitude to English
language variety in Cambodia should be
conducted so that any attention and
measure should be developed to
strengthen the quality of and redirect
ways of English language teaching and
learning.
 Reference
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3. Crystal, David. 1997. English as a Global Language. Cambridge: CUP
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Thank you!