Jette G Hansen Edwards | The Chinese University of Hong Kong (original) (raw)
Papers by Jette G Hansen Edwards
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Nov 30, 2018
This study examines language attitudes towards different varieties of English through listener ju... more This study examines language attitudes towards different varieties of English through listener judgments of speaker and speech traits; in addition, the study explores the relationship of these judgments to the intelligibility, as well as the perceived accentedness and comprehensibility, of varieties of Asian English and General American English. While a great deal of research has examined the intelligibility, accentedness, and comprehensibility of English, including varieties of Asian English, no research to date has examined the relationship between language attitudes and the aforementioned dimensions of Asian English speech. That is, little is known about how listeners' judgments regarding speaker and speech traits relate to intelligibility, as well as how such judgments relate to the way in which the listener evaluates the accentedness and comprehensibility of the speaker's speech. The current study addresses these issues through an examination of listener reactions to three varieties of Asian English (Hong Kong English, Singapore English, and China English), as well as American English.
The most important test that a teacher's resource book must pass is that it is indeed useful... more The most important test that a teacher's resource book must pass is that it is indeed useful to teachers. Peer Response passes that test with flying colors. Not only do the authors offer tips based on research and their own experience within the chapters, but they have also ...
Journal of monolingual and bilingual speech, Nov 5, 2019
This study examines the impact of Hong Kong listeners’ English language proficiency on the intell... more This study examines the impact of Hong Kong listeners’ English language proficiency on the intelligibility and perceived accentedness and comprehensibility of speakers of English from Hong Kong, China, Singapore and the United States. The study had two main aims: (1) to examine how proficiency impacts listeners’ perceptions of how accented and comprehensible different varieties of English are and how this differs from speech intelligibility; (2) to examine whether listeners benefited from a shared background effect differently by proficiency level. The research findings have pedagogical implications as they can improve understanding of which proficiency levels may benefit most from instruction and how a shared background may mitigate proficiency effects. They also help researchers understand the extent to which listeners’ own English proficiency impacts their evaluations of the speech characteristics of other speakers of English, an area of research that is still relatively unexplored.
World Englishes, Sep 11, 2018
This study examines the accentedness, comprehensibility, and intelligibility of speakers of Engli... more This study examines the accentedness, comprehensibility, and intelligibility of speakers of English from China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States (US) by listeners from Hong Kong, Singapore, China, and the US on two speech tasks (read vs. conversation). It also examines the effect of shared background on scores for all listeners as well as the effect of international experience for the Hong Kong and the US listeners. The study found that although accentedness and comprehensibility were positively correlated, neither variable was significantly correlated with intelligibility. The study found that shared background increased ratings of accentedness and comprehensibility but not intelligibility scores, and that international experience also had an effect during the conversational task, in that listeners with international experience received significantly higher intelligibility scores than those without any such international experience. 1 INTRODUCTION The current study examines the intelligibility, accentedness, and comprehensibility of three varieties of English in Asia-the English spoken in China (China English), Hong Kong (Hong Kong English), and Singapore (Singapore English), as well as American English, which has gained prominence in Asia in the past decade due to the influence of the American mass media (Hansen Edwards, 2016b; Tan, 2012, 2016). Despite the fact that many researchers and a growing number of speakers of these varieties (
International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2009
The Politics of English in Hong Kong, 2018
The Politics of English in Hong Kong, 2018
Language is a complex and dynamic system. If we consider word meaning, which is the scope of lexi... more Language is a complex and dynamic system. If we consider word meaning, which is the scope of lexical semantics, we observe that some words have several meanings, thus displaying lexical polysemy. For example, head in English means the body part and a group leader. This situation may change over time, giving rise to semantic change, whereby a word acquires new meanings or loses existing ones. For example, tweet refers to the chirp of small birds, but in recent years it has been used also to refer to a post on Twitter (cf. e.g. entry 'tweet, v.' in the Oxford English Dictionary). Sometimes two meanings coexist before one takes over, as in the case of the French word témoin 'person giving testimony', which originated from the Old French tesmoin 'testimony/person giving testimony', and derived from the Classical Latin word testimonium 'testimony' (Koch 2016: 25).
The Politics of English in Hong Kong, 2018
The Politics of English in Hong Kong, 2018
The Politics of English in Hong Kong, 2018
Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 2020
This study examines the construction of linguistic identities at a time of significant political ... more This study examines the construction of linguistic identities at a time of significant political tension in Hong Kong, with a focus on Hong Kong’s three official languages: Cantonese, the most widely spoken variety of Chinese in Hong Kong; English, the longest serving official language of Hong Kong; and Putonghua, the official language of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which became an official language in Hong Kong after the 1997 Handover of Hong Kong to PRC rule. Given the current political tensions between Hong Kong and the PRC, particularly in light of grassroots political movements such as the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the ongoing 2019 civil unrest due to the proposed introduction of an extradition treaty between Hong Kong and mainland China, the status of Hong Kong’s three languages is particularly interesting. Past research has primarily focused on the perceived value of these three languages in terms of instrumentality and integrativeness. The current study expands pr...
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2019
This study examines perceptions of language threat in Hong Kong against a background of increasin... more This study examines perceptions of language threat in Hong Kong against a background of increasing political tensions between Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China (PRC). These tensions gained international attention in 2014 during the 79-day protests known as the Umbrella Movement and more recently in 2019 due to the proposed introduction of an extradition treatybetween Hong Kong and mainland China. It is against this politically divisive landscape that the article examines perceptions around Hong Kong's three spoken official languages: English, Cantonese, and Putonghua. Quantitative and qualitative survey data were collected in 2017 from 568 students across 15 tertiary institutions in Hong Kong, with questions probing whether the respondents perceived that Cantonese was under threat, and if so, from which language-Putonghua or English or both. Respondents were also asked whether the current political tensions in Hong Kong were impacting their attitudes towards Cantonese, English, or Putonghua. A series of open-ended questions sought to find out why the respondents held particular perceptions towards these three languages. Gender as well as cultural identification were also examined as previous research has found that they significantly impact language attitudes in Hong Kong.
Asian Englishes, 2018
This study explores whether a shift is taking place in terms of how the native speaker construct ... more This study explores whether a shift is taking place in terms of how the native speaker construct is viewed in relation to Asian Englishes. It investigates this issue through a speech ratings task. The goal of the current research is not to judge nativeness or ultimate attainment of the participants. Rather, the study investigates whether the construct of native speaker is being redefined as new varieties of English are gaining acceptance as legitimate varieties of English. The study comprises ratings of speech samples from 33 native speakers of English from Asia and 7 native speakers of English from Inner Circle countries. A total of 45 listeners rated each sample for nativeness on a 9-point Likert scale. The study also examined how listeners' perceptions of where the speaker was from and which the variety they felt the speaker spoke influenced ratings, as well as how the listeners' own backgrounds influenced ratings.
Multilingua, 2018
The study employs a case study approach to examine the impact of educational backgrounds on nine ... more The study employs a case study approach to examine the impact of educational backgrounds on nine Hong Kong tertiary students’ English and Cantonese language practices and identifications as native speakers of English and Cantonese. The study employed both survey and interview data to probe the participants’ English and Cantonese language use at home, school, and with peers/friends. Leung, Harris, and Rampton’s (1997, The idealized native speaker, reified ethnicities, and classroom realities.TESOL Quarterly 31(3). 543–560) framework of language affiliation, language expertise, and inheritance was used to examine the construction of a native language identity in a multilingual setting. The study found that educational background – and particularly international school experience in contrast to local government school education – had an impact on the participants’ English language usage at home and with peers, and also affected their language expertise in Cantonese. English language us...
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Nov 30, 2018
This study examines language attitudes towards different varieties of English through listener ju... more This study examines language attitudes towards different varieties of English through listener judgments of speaker and speech traits; in addition, the study explores the relationship of these judgments to the intelligibility, as well as the perceived accentedness and comprehensibility, of varieties of Asian English and General American English. While a great deal of research has examined the intelligibility, accentedness, and comprehensibility of English, including varieties of Asian English, no research to date has examined the relationship between language attitudes and the aforementioned dimensions of Asian English speech. That is, little is known about how listeners' judgments regarding speaker and speech traits relate to intelligibility, as well as how such judgments relate to the way in which the listener evaluates the accentedness and comprehensibility of the speaker's speech. The current study addresses these issues through an examination of listener reactions to three varieties of Asian English (Hong Kong English, Singapore English, and China English), as well as American English.
The most important test that a teacher's resource book must pass is that it is indeed useful... more The most important test that a teacher's resource book must pass is that it is indeed useful to teachers. Peer Response passes that test with flying colors. Not only do the authors offer tips based on research and their own experience within the chapters, but they have also ...
Journal of monolingual and bilingual speech, Nov 5, 2019
This study examines the impact of Hong Kong listeners’ English language proficiency on the intell... more This study examines the impact of Hong Kong listeners’ English language proficiency on the intelligibility and perceived accentedness and comprehensibility of speakers of English from Hong Kong, China, Singapore and the United States. The study had two main aims: (1) to examine how proficiency impacts listeners’ perceptions of how accented and comprehensible different varieties of English are and how this differs from speech intelligibility; (2) to examine whether listeners benefited from a shared background effect differently by proficiency level. The research findings have pedagogical implications as they can improve understanding of which proficiency levels may benefit most from instruction and how a shared background may mitigate proficiency effects. They also help researchers understand the extent to which listeners’ own English proficiency impacts their evaluations of the speech characteristics of other speakers of English, an area of research that is still relatively unexplored.
World Englishes, Sep 11, 2018
This study examines the accentedness, comprehensibility, and intelligibility of speakers of Engli... more This study examines the accentedness, comprehensibility, and intelligibility of speakers of English from China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States (US) by listeners from Hong Kong, Singapore, China, and the US on two speech tasks (read vs. conversation). It also examines the effect of shared background on scores for all listeners as well as the effect of international experience for the Hong Kong and the US listeners. The study found that although accentedness and comprehensibility were positively correlated, neither variable was significantly correlated with intelligibility. The study found that shared background increased ratings of accentedness and comprehensibility but not intelligibility scores, and that international experience also had an effect during the conversational task, in that listeners with international experience received significantly higher intelligibility scores than those without any such international experience. 1 INTRODUCTION The current study examines the intelligibility, accentedness, and comprehensibility of three varieties of English in Asia-the English spoken in China (China English), Hong Kong (Hong Kong English), and Singapore (Singapore English), as well as American English, which has gained prominence in Asia in the past decade due to the influence of the American mass media (Hansen Edwards, 2016b; Tan, 2012, 2016). Despite the fact that many researchers and a growing number of speakers of these varieties (
International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2009
The Politics of English in Hong Kong, 2018
The Politics of English in Hong Kong, 2018
Language is a complex and dynamic system. If we consider word meaning, which is the scope of lexi... more Language is a complex and dynamic system. If we consider word meaning, which is the scope of lexical semantics, we observe that some words have several meanings, thus displaying lexical polysemy. For example, head in English means the body part and a group leader. This situation may change over time, giving rise to semantic change, whereby a word acquires new meanings or loses existing ones. For example, tweet refers to the chirp of small birds, but in recent years it has been used also to refer to a post on Twitter (cf. e.g. entry 'tweet, v.' in the Oxford English Dictionary). Sometimes two meanings coexist before one takes over, as in the case of the French word témoin 'person giving testimony', which originated from the Old French tesmoin 'testimony/person giving testimony', and derived from the Classical Latin word testimonium 'testimony' (Koch 2016: 25).
The Politics of English in Hong Kong, 2018
The Politics of English in Hong Kong, 2018
The Politics of English in Hong Kong, 2018
Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 2020
This study examines the construction of linguistic identities at a time of significant political ... more This study examines the construction of linguistic identities at a time of significant political tension in Hong Kong, with a focus on Hong Kong’s three official languages: Cantonese, the most widely spoken variety of Chinese in Hong Kong; English, the longest serving official language of Hong Kong; and Putonghua, the official language of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which became an official language in Hong Kong after the 1997 Handover of Hong Kong to PRC rule. Given the current political tensions between Hong Kong and the PRC, particularly in light of grassroots political movements such as the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the ongoing 2019 civil unrest due to the proposed introduction of an extradition treaty between Hong Kong and mainland China, the status of Hong Kong’s three languages is particularly interesting. Past research has primarily focused on the perceived value of these three languages in terms of instrumentality and integrativeness. The current study expands pr...
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2019
This study examines perceptions of language threat in Hong Kong against a background of increasin... more This study examines perceptions of language threat in Hong Kong against a background of increasing political tensions between Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China (PRC). These tensions gained international attention in 2014 during the 79-day protests known as the Umbrella Movement and more recently in 2019 due to the proposed introduction of an extradition treatybetween Hong Kong and mainland China. It is against this politically divisive landscape that the article examines perceptions around Hong Kong's three spoken official languages: English, Cantonese, and Putonghua. Quantitative and qualitative survey data were collected in 2017 from 568 students across 15 tertiary institutions in Hong Kong, with questions probing whether the respondents perceived that Cantonese was under threat, and if so, from which language-Putonghua or English or both. Respondents were also asked whether the current political tensions in Hong Kong were impacting their attitudes towards Cantonese, English, or Putonghua. A series of open-ended questions sought to find out why the respondents held particular perceptions towards these three languages. Gender as well as cultural identification were also examined as previous research has found that they significantly impact language attitudes in Hong Kong.
Asian Englishes, 2018
This study explores whether a shift is taking place in terms of how the native speaker construct ... more This study explores whether a shift is taking place in terms of how the native speaker construct is viewed in relation to Asian Englishes. It investigates this issue through a speech ratings task. The goal of the current research is not to judge nativeness or ultimate attainment of the participants. Rather, the study investigates whether the construct of native speaker is being redefined as new varieties of English are gaining acceptance as legitimate varieties of English. The study comprises ratings of speech samples from 33 native speakers of English from Asia and 7 native speakers of English from Inner Circle countries. A total of 45 listeners rated each sample for nativeness on a 9-point Likert scale. The study also examined how listeners' perceptions of where the speaker was from and which the variety they felt the speaker spoke influenced ratings, as well as how the listeners' own backgrounds influenced ratings.
Multilingua, 2018
The study employs a case study approach to examine the impact of educational backgrounds on nine ... more The study employs a case study approach to examine the impact of educational backgrounds on nine Hong Kong tertiary students’ English and Cantonese language practices and identifications as native speakers of English and Cantonese. The study employed both survey and interview data to probe the participants’ English and Cantonese language use at home, school, and with peers/friends. Leung, Harris, and Rampton’s (1997, The idealized native speaker, reified ethnicities, and classroom realities.TESOL Quarterly 31(3). 543–560) framework of language affiliation, language expertise, and inheritance was used to examine the construction of a native language identity in a multilingual setting. The study found that educational background – and particularly international school experience in contrast to local government school education – had an impact on the participants’ English language usage at home and with peers, and also affected their language expertise in Cantonese. English language us...
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development , 2019
This study examines language attitudes towards different varieties of English through listener ju... more This study examines language attitudes towards different varieties of English through listener judgments of speaker and speech traits; in addition, the study explores the relationship of these judgments to the
intelligibility, as well as the perceived accentedness and
comprehensibility, of varieties of Asian English and General American English. While a great deal of research has examined the intelligibility, accentedness, and comprehensibility of English, including varieties of
Asian English, no research to date has examined the relationship between language attitudes and the aforementioned dimensions of Asian English speech. That is, little is known about how listeners’
judgments regarding speaker and speech traits relate to intelligibility, as well as how such judgments relate to the way in which the listener evaluates the accentedness and comprehensibility of the speaker’s speech. The current study addresses these issues through an
examination of listener reactions to three varieties of Asian English (Hong Kong English, Singapore English, and China English), as well as American English.