Intelligibility in Chinese English
On 15 September 2018, at Yangzhou University in China, David Deterding gave a keynote presentation entitled 'Intelligbility in Chinese English' at the 6th International Conference on English Phonetics Teaching in China.
Giving the keynote presentation
Tokens of misunderstanding that were presented included the following, where the speaker said 'a certain time to went french' (with the intended meaning 'a certain time to go to France'), but the listener from the UK heard 'a certain time to wear french'. It seems that the absence of a final [nt] in went and also the unusual syntax both contributed to this misunderstanding occurring.
In another token, the speaker said 'I'm not qualified', but the listener from the UK heard 'I'm not confide'. This seems to have been caused by the absence of [w] in qualified.
While at Yangzhou University, he also gave a workshop on 'Methods in the analysis of World Englishes', focusing on the use of R to plot vowels and obtain tests of significance for a range of measurements.
Giving the workshop