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Article published In: Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
Vol. 37:2 (2022) ► pp.357–394

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Phonetic variation in Standard English spoken by Trinidadian professionals

 | University of Münster
 | University of Münster
 | University of Münster
 | University of Münster
Published online: 3 November 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.00098.wes
Abstract
This paper analyzes the speech of 27 Trinidadian professionals (lawyers, lecturers, and politicians), who are typical speakers of Standard Trinidadian English in formal contexts, where traditionally Standard English is targeted. We investigate phonetic variation in Trinidadian English speech with regard to the varying integration of Creole features. The paper presents the results of an acoustic study of 10 vowels and an auditory analysis of three consonantal variables, using data from the Trinidad and Tobago component of the International Corpus of English.
The analysis shows that exonormative influences do not play a role. Individual Trinidadian Creole features are integrated into standard speech (voiced TH-stopping, partial overlap of bath-start-trap, partial overlap of strut-lot) and some realizations are identical in both codes (face and goat), while others are avoided (voiceless TH-stopping, the realization of down with as a monophthong with a velar nasal, the cloth-thought merger, and the realization of mouth as [ɔʊ]). These results from Trinidad confirm the validity of Irvine’s (Irvine, Alison. 2004. A good command of the English language: Phonological variation in the Jamaican acrolect. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 19(1). 41–76. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . 2008. Contrast and convergence in Standard Jamaican English: The phonological architecture of the standard in an ideologically bidialectal community. World Englishes 27(1). 9–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) model of load-bearing and non load-bearing variables for the distinction between English and Creole. The conclusion highlights methodological differences to Irvine’s study and discusses an extended conceptualization of Standard English that incorporates variation along the dimension of exo- versus endonormativity.
Article outline
  • 1.Standard Englishes in the Anglophone Caribbean
  • 2.Variation in Trinidadian English/Creole
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.Results
  • 5.Load-bearingness in Trinidadian English/Creole
  • Notes
  • References
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Cited by one other publication

Jackson, Samantha, Philipp Meer & Mirjam Schmalz
2025. Trinidad and Tobago, English and Creoles in. In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

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