Data Sets

Brunei

ASEAN

Hong Kong + Taiwanese — HK2 : 1969

S1 = Taiwanese female
S2 = Hong Kong male

Context: S2 is talking about the cost of tertiary education in America..

S2 : ... you send the kid you know to the university (1.3) tuition is a major part of it you know (.) all the (.) you know (.) dorm (.) the meal plan (.) just killing

S1 : view pen what is that

S2 : yeah meal you know eating you know

S1 : ah meal

S2 : meal you know add (.) because (.) breakfast you know lunch dinner all buffet (.) all you can eat

Intended Words : dorm, meal plan, add

Heard as : dom, view pen, air

Discussion : S1 does not understand dorm, as this term is more common in the USA than in the UK. She lets this word pass, thoughshe asks about it later, when S2 uses the term again -- see HK2 : 2033). There is nothing about the pronunciation of dorm that is problematic. It is just that S1 is not familiar with the word, though she said that she would have understood it if he had used the full word dormitory.

S1 hears meal plan as view pen, and she does ask about this. The [l] at the end of meal is pronounced as a vowel (it undergoes L-vocalisation), so the word is said as [mɪʊ], and S1 hears it as view; but perhaps the bigger problem is plan, in which the [l] is omitted and the vowel is not very open, so it sounds like [e] rather than [æ]. S2 explains meal, but he does not explain plan, and we were only able to figure it out with his subsequent help.

The phrase meal plan is common in American universities, where the purchasing of a comprehesnive meal plan by students is quite expensve. But this phrase is less common outside America, and this is part of the reason why S1 does not understand it.

Finally, add is pronounced with no [d] at the end, and S1 was unable to figure it out. She guessed air, though she knew this was not right. Once again, we were only able to figure out that it was add with the help of S2. One problem here, in addition to the missing final consonant, is that the syntax is uncertain: "meal you know add because breakfast you know lunch dinner all buffet" seems a bit confused. It seems that he was trying to say: "All the meals get added together, because all three meals every day are buffet." But it is a bit hard to work this out.