Social perception of TH-stopping and postvocalic rhoticity in Malaysian English

Abstract

This study employs the matched-guise technique to examine the social perception of TH-stopping and postvocalic rhoticity in Malaysian English. 110 Malaysian participants listened to audio stimuli containing the target sociophonetic variables and judged the speakers in terms of identity, status, solidarity, and nationality. Listener judgments of status were found to diverge from Standard British English, the prescribed standard. TH-stopping did not affect standardness ratings, and rhoticity was perceived as more formal than non-rhoticity. Moreover, postvocalic rhoticity displayed stronger implicit indexical association with identity and status than TH-stopping despite it receiving fewer overt metalinguistic commentaries. The findings demonstrate a discrepancy between linguistic ideal and linguistic behavior among Malaysian English speakers: the British standard may be held in high regard, but a local norm of pronunciation exists independent of it.