Indian English Phonology Essay

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The word received which is employed to mean socially acceptable, shows that this is a social rather than a regional dialect. It is a dialect of English spoken by educated southern British. Although there are many varieties spoken in India, they are largely mutually intelligible because these varieties merge into one variety which is popularly known as General Endian English (GIE). Indian English (IE) is a new dialect of English with millions of speakers in the Indian population. They include speakers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and worldwide. English was brought to India by the British in the seventeenth century. After India got its independence in the year of 1947, English was accepted as one of the 15 official languages in the constitution that can be used in the government communications and taught in the school system.

Present Contrastive analysis takes in to consideration primarily the phonologies of …show more content…

In fact there are some similarities in the vowel system of RP and GIE. To conclude it can be stated that the contrastive analysis clearly indicates phonological differences among the concerned phonologies. These differences are responsible for problems in pronunciation leading to issues related intelligibility. India with its multilingual legacy gives birth to numerous regional varieties. If the regional varieties of Indian English are taken in to consideration, the present problem can multiply manifold in the Indian context. Apparently GIE is seen as phonology of educated English speakers exclusive of speakers who are not highly educated and therefore show higher amount of L1 transfer. Further GIE doesn’t take in to account regional varieties and resulting regional accents which cause unintelligibility. Hence intelligibility research requires focus on language specific strategies to establish measures for International

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