An instrumental study of the monophthong vowels of Singapore English

Abstract

The formants of the conversational vowels of five male and five female Singapore English (SgE) speakers are measured and compared with comparable measurements of British English (BrE) in order to gain a comprehensive view of the vowel space of Singaporean speakers and to determine which of the vowel distinctions of BrE are not maintained in SgE. It is found that the distinctions between /iː/ and /ɪ/ and also /e/ and /æ/ are not maintained in SgE, and any distinction between /ɔː/ and /ɒ/ is small. It is also found that SgE /uː/ is more back than BrE /uː/. It is further suggested that the fewer number of vowel contrasts in SgE does not contribute to much loss of intelligibility.