407 | www.ijar.lit.az INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Of ACADEMIC RESEARCH Vol. 3. No. 6. November, 2011, II Part MERGER OF /e/ AND /æ/ IN PUNJABI ENGLISH Hafiz Ahmad Bilal 1 , Muhammad Asim Mahmood 2 , Rana Muhammad Saleem 3 1 Department of English, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Punjab, 2 Department of Applied Linguistics, GC University, Faisalabad, Punjab 3 Department of English, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Punjab (PAKISTAN) E-mails: escholer@gmail.com, masimrai@gmail.com, msaleemrajput@yahoo.com ABSTRACT The study is conducted to testify the claim that in Punjabi English, the distinction between /e/ and /æ/ is not maintained (Kachru, 2005) (1) . The subjects were selected from among the graduate students of University of Sargodha, who were fluent in speaking English with Punjabi as their L1. 30 male and 30 female speakers were recorded, using minimal pairs. Formant values of the vowels (F1 and F2) were measured along with the durational properties using Praat. The results showed that Pakistani speakers of Punjabi English did not merge the two vowels rather they maintained the distinction between the two, realising them as long and short vowel. Key words: Formants, acoustic analysis, praat, Punjabi English, vowel length 1. INTRODUCTION English has got the status of lingua franca not only around the globe but it has been an emerging second language in Asia and in the Subcontinent particularly. If we consider the population of the subcontinent, we find that the number of English speakers outnumber the native speakers. Again it is observable phenomenon that the local languages (i.e. Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, etc) have influenced the foreign variety of English in such a way that it is not one English rather Englishes are being spoken in the subcontinent. Asian Englishes have shown the tendency to merge /e/ & /æ/ (Garesh, 2006; Kachru, 2005; Deterding, 2007; Gonzalez & Alberca, 1978 as cited in Bautista & Gonzalez, 2006; Zuraidah, 2000 as cited in Bautista & Gonzalez, 2006) (2-6) . The same feature is identified in the Punjabi English as spoken in India (Kachru, 2005) (7) . The study under discussion is an attempt to examine if the Punjabi English as spoken in Pakistan merges the two vowels or identifies them as two different phonemes. 2. MATERIALS AND METHODS 2.1. Participants The participants were selected from among the students of BS of English department of University of Sargodha. Among 60 participants, 30 were male and 30 were female, all with Punjabi as their first language and comprised the age group of 18 to 25. It was taken into consideration in the selection procedure that the participants could converse in English in various situations, thus representing the English speakers with Punjabi as their first language. The other selection criteria included that the participants should have been exposed to English for at least ten years in their educational career. 2.2. Material 2.2.1. Selection of Words In order to restrict the potential range of speech data, it was decided to limit the study to the analysis of the two mid-front vowels i.e. /e/ and /æ/ through word list recordings to elicit the required vowels rather than free speech, or a read passage. Although word list speech is unnatural, this was not considered as a significant issue since the study is concerned with the technical aspects of formant measurements and not the speaking style. The word list consists of monosyllable words with CVC structure. Three different contexts for each vowel were used. Following are the contexts and the words. Context 1 -- /hVd/ = head, had Context 2 -- /sVt/ = set, sat Context 3 -- /pVt/ = pet, pat The purpose of choosing these contexts was to reach to a reasonable conclusion about the realisation of these vowels because it is established “that vowel formant patterns are affected not only by the identity of the vowel but also by the consonant environment”. (Hillenbrand, Clark & Nearey, 2001, p. 748) (8) Further, the preceding consonants have more effect overall than those following vowels. (Hillenbrand et al., 2001; Roeder, 2009) (9-10) The selection was made keeping three different patterns of consonants before vowels. The effect of /hVd/ context, which is called “null context” (Steven & House, 1963, as cited in Roeder, 2009, para 3) (11) , on the formants of vowels, was negligible as compared to formant values of vowels in isolation (Steven & House, 1963, as cited in Roeder, 2009) (12) . Here the air stream has no resistance in the cavity till the vowel is produced. “The frame /h-d/ is particularly suitable for studies of English vowels, since (i) /h/ has so little influence on following vowels, and (ii) it so happens that a real English word results for nearly every "pure" vowel in this sequence.” (Wells, 1962, para 54) (13)