IntroductionFootnote ¹

“Spa(R) … Could you tell me where I can find a spa(r)?” “Are you sure you want to find a spar?” A Chinese traveller, inquiring about the nearest spa while on a tour in South Africa, left the local hotel receptionist confused. This anecdote involved the overuse of the R-colouring sound and aroused my interest in rhoticity in China English. Rhoticity in English refers to ‘the production of historical or orthographic /r/ in the syllable coda of words such as father and card” (Becker, Reference Becker2014: 141). However, since the R-colouring sound in English, a simple allophone feature, does not distinguish word meanings, its pronunciation features and phonological environments have seldom been taught in EFL classes in China.

English varieties with the occurrence of this coda /r/ (also called R-colouring) are described as rhotic; if they do not have coda /r/ they are non-rhotic (Wells, Reference Wells1982: 139). Of the Inner Circle varieties, American and British English are the most well-known rhotic and non-rhotic varieties, respectively. In China, British English has long been established as the norm or a teaching model in orthodox schools, especially primary and middle schools, while American English, a new and growing variety, is learned either in after-school English classes, or through English TV news, internet videos or American movies. Therefore, R-colouring is thought to be a symbol of Americanisation by most Chinese EFL teachers. This is something that some Chinese EFL learners usually acquire by themselves, because of the preference for American culture and media (Sundkvist & Gao, Reference Sundkvist and Gao2016).

However, little research has been carried out on the current use of rhoticity by English-language learners nationwide in China, because it has been considered as an individual accent preference or performance rather than a reflection of complex interactions between English varieties and social identities. The objectives of this research are thus twofold. First, I aim to examine the extent to which rhoticity exists in China English. Second, I aim to understand linguistic and sociolinguistic factors in rhoticity production and to find out whether the rhoticity in China English is a product of Americanisation.

Is there a China English pronunciation?

It is estimated that Mainland China has 390 million English-language learners (Wei & Su, Reference Wei and Su2012: 14), and their English proficiency keeps improving with the rapid growth of English education ‘fuelled by the recent political and social development of Chinese society’ (Bolton & Graddol, Reference Bolton and Graddol2012: 3). Many linguists foresee that Chinese English or China English will grow and emerge as an important and new variety of English, and an important component of world Englishes (Bolton, Reference Bolton2003; Jiang, Reference Jiang2003; Hu, Reference Hu2005; Deterding, Reference Deterding2006; He & Li, Reference He and Li2009).

However, among the many studies of linguistic features of China English, few have attempted to closely analyse its phonological features (Deterding, Reference Deterding2006), because this involves some difficulties that researchers cannot gloss over. First, it has never been an easy task to collect, transcribe and analyse phonological data on a large scale. Second, compared with lexical, syntactic and pragmatic features, salient phonological features are much more difficult to summarise because ‘over time, the sounds of languages tend to change’ (Campbell, Reference Campbell2004: 16).Third, it is not possible to describe any distinctive features of English pronunciation used by speakers from all over China, because of the complex multilingual and multi-ethnic situation in Mainland China (Bolton, Reference Bolton2003; Kirkpatrick, Reference Kirkpatrick2007; Ao & Low, Reference Ao and Low2012). Based on the assumption that there is more than one variety of English in China, some researchers believe that phonological features of an indigenous variety of Chinese English are more significant and require more research attention than those of one national variety of China English (Ao & Low, Reference Ao and Low2012; Sundkvist & Gao, Reference Sundkvist and Gao2016).

I argue that the issue of whether there exist any features of China English pronunciation has been alleviated in recent years by the dominance of Putonghua Footnote ² education and large-scale migration across Mainland China. The multilingual and multidialectal ecology has been changing with the government's vigorous nationwide promotion of Putonghua and the greatest population migration in recent times in Mainland China. More teachers from different regions with different dialect backgrounds have been employed by kindergartens and primary schools in densely populated big cities. ‘Regional languages and local dialects are giving way to the spread of Putonghua’ (Bolton & Graddol, Reference Bolton and Graddol2012: 7), and thus Putonghua has become the first language of almost every English teacher and learner in China. The substantial variation in the way in which English is spoken by learners and users from different Chinese regions has gradually diminished in the past decade. A distinctive pronunciation style of China English is emerging and is technically becoming easier to identify because of the change in the L1 ecology of Mainland China.

Previous studies of rhoticity in Asian English varieties

There are many studies of rhoticity in Southeast Asian English varieties, such as Brunei English (Sharbawi & Deterding, Reference Sharbawi and Deterding2010), Singapore English (Tan & Gupta, Reference Tan and Gupta1992; Poedjosoedarmo, Reference Poedjosoedarmo, Brown, Deterding and Ling2000; Low & Brown, Reference Low and Brown2005; Deterding, Reference Deterding2007), Malaysian English (Baskaran, Reference Baskaran, Schneider, Burridge, Kortmann, Mesthrie and Upton2004; Hickey, Reference Hickey and Hickey2004; Rajadurai, Reference Rajadurai2006) and Hong Kong EnglishFootnote ³ (Poon, Reference Poon2006; Deterding, Wong & Kirkpatrick, Reference Deterding, Wong and Kirkpatrick2008). The results of these studies are summarised in Table 1.

Table 1:

An overview of rhoticity in Southeast Asian English varieties

Table 1 shows that the degree of rhoticity is generally not high in Southeast Asian English varieties except in Brunei English. This low degree of rhoticity is derived from the early British colonial influence. The degree of rhoticity in these varieties is reported to be growing because of the increasing influence of American media and culture.

However, to date, rhoticity in China English has rarely been characterised or discussed. Sundkvist and Gao (Reference Sundkvist and Gao2016: 55) carried out an empirical and regional study of rhoticity in Yunnan Province, a very south-western province in China known for extensive ethnic diversity. They found different degrees of rhoticity across three tasks: interview (38%), reading (45%) and questionnaire (65%). Unfortunately, only eight informants were interviewed and recorded in the study, far from sufficient to represent the large population across China or even the complex ethnic composition in Yunnan Province.

Participants and methodology

Seventy-two non-English-major Chinese undergraduates were recruited for this study, consisting of 41 females and 31 males from 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities across Mainland China. They speak different dialects or Chinese varieties, but all of them acquired Putonghua before they were six years old and Putonghua has been their most frequently used language since primary school. The participants were invited to take part in a reading task and complete a written questionnaire.

During the reading task, the participants were asked to read a short passage of 194 words, and a 33-word list. The passage contains 25 target words with R-colouring tokens, and the word list includes 17 target words and 16 fillers. The target words in this study cover all of the R-colouring phonological environments, summarised and classified by Becker (Reference Becker2014: 152) in his study of rhoticity in New York City English as presented in Table 2.

Table 2:

Target words classified by phonological environment

Both read-aloud tasks, i.e. passage reading and word list, were recorded and two investigators, one from the United States, the other speaking Irish English, were invited to investigate whether R-colouring occurred in each token produced by the participants. The presence of a clear R-colouring sound was marked as 1; and the absence as 0. The R-colouring tokens that sounded with non-native accents to the two investigators are marked as UCR (unclear R-colouring).

After the two read-aloud tasks, the participants took part in a written questionnaire that consisted of the following five questions about their English variety use and accent preferences.

1. 1. Do you know the pronunciation differences between American and British accents?

2. 2. Do you know where to apply the ‘R’ sound in the American accent?

3. 3. Which English variety do you speak?

4. 4. Which English variety or accent do you prefer?

5. 5. Why do you prefer this accent? If you have no accent preferences, why?

Discussion: Americanisation or localisation?

Overuse or overgeneralisation in SLA is sometimes equated with hypercorrection in the sociolinguistic context (Siegel, Reference Siegel, Doughty and Long2003: 200). Whether in the sociolinguistics or language change milieux, hypercorrection is interpreted as an erroneous outcome resulting from an attempt to emulate a particular, more prestigious, language variety (Labov, Reference Labov1963, Reference Labov1966; Siegel, Reference Siegel, Doughty and Long2003; Campbell, Reference Campbell2004). Labov (Reference Labov1966) attributed the increasing use of R-colouring in New York City to mimicking the speech style of the social class with the highest prestige, speakers of which showed the greatest use of this variable. Campbell (Reference Campbell2004) also listed an example of rhoticity overuse phrase-finally when the speakers attempted to emulate a more prestigious dialect in which a rhotic sound is often added only between two vowels as a linking-r, but never in phrase-final positions.

Tan and Gupta (Reference Tan and Gupta1992) reported that for some Singapore English speakers, the R-colouring sound was a prestige feature. Could the high rhoticity and the overuse of rhoticity in China English be the result of an attempt to emulate the more prestigious American English or be an influence of American media? Based on a close examination of rhoticity features in the reading tasks, I contend that the phonological influence from the native language is the major drive for the high rhoticity in China English, and that the transference from the native language phonemic and phonotactic constraints heavily influences the production of rhoticity in China English. As Figure 1 shows, half of the participants do not think they speak either British English or American English. Figure 2 tells that most of the participants chose either American or British accents out of their own interests or rather practical motives, such as for travelling or studying abroad. The influence from teachers and American media only play a limited part in this phenomenon. Moreover, based on the responses to questions 1 and 2, even those who prefer the American accent do not know exactly when and how rhoticity should be used. Therefore, as indicated by the results of both the perceptual judgements and the questionnaire, the rhoticity in China English cannot be interpreted as a symbol of Americanisation, but reflect a trend towards the localisation of English in China.

Some may wonder why the English produced by Chinese speakers has not, until recently, been so rhotic or ‘localised’, since English has long been spoken as a primary foreign language in China. Two recent changes in language status have contributed to the rhoticity of China English: on the one hand, the dominance of the British English variety has been weakened in China, as Chinese people have started to communicate with more people with various English accents from a greater number of different countries at home or abroad in the context of educational globalisation and multilingualism; on the other hand, regional dialects or languages have given way to rhotic Putonghua, as widespread and mass migration has taken place in China. It can be predicted that, liberated from the input of a single English variety, English will be more localised with phonological features grafted from Putonghua.