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CONTENTS
SAAL Quarterly is under the editorship of Dr T. Ruanni F. Tupas and Beatriz P. Lorente. Please address your correspondence and contributions to: Dr T. Ruanni F. Tupas (elcttr@nus.edu.sg), Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119260.
PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS
Associate Professor Chng Huang Hoon Preamble Dr Ho Wah Kam, SAAL Patron, A/P Anne Pakir, SAAL Adviser, Dr Teng Su Ching, SAAL Financial Adviser, members , colleagues, and friends, On behalf of the SAAL Executive Committee, I welcome you to the 20th SAAL AGM. I leave you to read the details of what SAAL did in the last year (1 July 2004 to 30 June 2005) in the Secretary's report. Let me however highlight a number of key activities we were engaged in. Executive Committee The SAAL Executive Committee elected at the 19th SAAL AGM (14th August 2004) for the period 2004-06 are:
* Lakshmy Bhaskar subsequently stepped down in December 2004 and Peter Tan was co-opted as the Hon. Secretary (with effect from January 2005) by email agreement. Christian Chia also tended his resignation with effect from 30 July 2005. Today, we hope to welcome a new SAAL exco member Laurence Zhang of NIE -- we hope, with your approval, to successfully co-opt Larry into the exco today. We are also hoping to co-opt, again by majority vote, Lee Chien Ching to serve as our new Asst. Hon. Treasurer. SAAL Sub-Committees The newly established SAAL exco began the SAAL year last September by instituting a new organizational structure to run SAAL more efficiently, and to establish a more research-directed agenda for SAAL. For this reason, a SAAL retreat was held immediately after the 167th Exco meeting where the various sub-committees (Research & Publication, Finance & Membership, and Publicity & Outreach) were established and their duties discussed. The EXCO met 5 times during the period 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2005 (September, October, and November 2004, February and April 2005), completing the 171st meeting of the EXCO since SAAL's inception in 1985. At the meetings, we planned, organized and reviewed SAAL activities; discussed matters relating to SAAL research and publications, finance and membership, and outreach. SAAL'S 20th Anniversary Celebrations 2005 marks the 20th Anniversary of SAAL. To celebrate the occasion, the exco planned the following academic and social activities for members: 1. The 22nd SAAL Lecture Professor Sandra Lee McKay of San Francisco State University was invited to deliver the 22nd SAAL lecture. Her lecture, 'The cultural basis of teaching English as an international language' held on 10th March 2005 at Ngee Ann Polytechnic was attended by about 50 people. 2. SAAL Talk Associate Professor David Deterding of NIE/NTU delivered a talk entitled 'The status and intelligibility of Singapore English in other parts of the world', on 7 April 2005. The talk was jointly hosted by SAAL and the Centre for English Language Communication (CELC), National University of Singapore. About 30 people attended the talk, held at the CELC Seminar Room. 3. 1ST Special Interest Group (SIG) Meeting To build up research and publication networks among SAAL members and friends, SAAL is encouraging the establishment of Special Interest Groups or SIGs. We are happy to note that the first SIG on Child Language Research in Singapore has been established. On 3rd September 2005, about 25 students, teachers and researchers and 4 panelists will gather at NUS to discuss Child Language Research in Singapore. It is hoped that this research group will keep in touch with one another after the September SIG meeting. It is also SAAL's aim to establish other SIGs. If you would like to start a group, we encourage you to get in touch with us. 4. SAAL Gala Dinner The 20th Anniversary celebration will culminate in a gala dinner to be held on 28 October 2005 (Friday) at the NUSS Guildhouse at Suntec City. Details will be available sometime in August/September. We hope you will support this SAAL subsidized event and join us in marking SAAL's 20th year. SAAL Quarterly The SAAL Quarterly was co-edited by T. Ruanni F. Tupas and Beatriz Lorente. 4 issues (SQ67-70) were brought out during this period. We thank members who have contributed to the Quarterly and we encourage all of you to continue to send your short articles our way. With effect from SQ69 (Feb 2005 issue), the SAAL Quarterly became a mainly electronic publication, available from the SAAL website. We have already seen evidence that the Quarterly's online presence has generated interest not just locally but abroad. We are confident that as we develop the Quarterly further, this modest publication will achieve a good reach in the near future. AILA Matters The AILA Review Volume 17, 2004 was received and distributed to all our members early this year. On the AILA 2002 bank account, Dr Lim Beng Soon, our Hon. Treasurer and Dr Teng Su Ching, our financial adviser, have worked closely with the consultancy firm TeoFoongWongLCLoong for several months. We are happy to report that the AILA/SAAL account tax has been filed in May 2005. In addition, we attempted to apply for charity status for SAAL. However, we were told that SAAL did not qualify as a charity because our goals are too narrowly defined. Looking Ahead The SAAL exco conducted a survey of our membership last year -- we asked members what kinds of activities they would like to see SAAL engage in. 31 survey forms were returned. The top three activities requested for are the following: talks, lectures and workshops. Other requests received include the wish to have access to online information, interaction with other AILA affiliates and focused discussion groups. Members also prefer SAAL activities to be made available once every 3-6 months. Among the discussion topics requested for are the following: how to publish in Singapore and internationally, critical literacy, discourse analysis, research methodology, language and gender, etc. Members also would like to see frequent updates on linguistic conferences and sharing/circulation of current articles. These are all good feedback for the exco, and in the year ahead, we will actively look into realizing at least some part of this wish list. Thank Yous It leaves me now to thank various individuals who have supported me and SAAL in the last year. First, my very capable and hardworking Vice President, and a deeply valued long-time friend, Ee Ling, my immense gratitude for your constant support in all things big and small. My thanks to both Hon. Secretary Lakshmy and Asst. Hon. Secretary Jackie for tirelessly keeping various kinds of records for SAAL, including the minutes of exco meetings, and filing all the organizational reports for SAAL. Unfortunately, we had to accept Lakshmy's resignation in December 2004 due to her heavy schedule. We will miss working with Laks, who has proven herself in the short time of her service, an excellent secretary. We are grateful that in our hour of need, Peter agreed and was successfully co-opted as Secretary in January 2005 until a new secretary is elected in July 2006. We must put on record the very good work that Peter has done for SAAL so far -- he ably took over all the duties that Laks used to shoulder for SAAL even though he is heavily taxed elsewhere. I am very grateful to my Hon. Treasurer Beng Soon and Asst. Hon. Treasurer Christian who have kept a sharp eye on SAAL finances. In particular, thanks Beng Soon for working so hard with Su Ching, our financial adviser in resolving the AILA/SAAL tax matters with our consultants. Christian has expressed his wish to step down from the SAAL exco with effect from 30 July 2005. We extend our best wishes to him and hope to see his continued support for SAAL. To my exco members, Beatriz, Chien Ching, Chris, Radhika, and Ruanni, a big thank you for helping to run SAAL in the last year. Beatriz and Ruanni also doubled up as co-editors of the SAAL Quarterly, and I must say that under their editorship, they have significantly elevated the academic standard of the Quarterly. Alvin Leong, our webmaster has not only ably maintained the SAAL website but has also assisted the SAAL Quarterly editors in putting the Quarterly online -- thank you, Alvin SAAL has been ably guided by three key figures -- our Patron Dr Ho Wah Kam, our Adviser A/P Anne Pakir and our Financial Adviser Dr Teng Su Ching. To my three mentors and friends, I am indebted to all of you for your guidance and support. Finally, I must record my gratitude to our auditors Alvin Leong and Vincent Ooi, Jenny Gan and Goh Yeng Seng, and most of all, to you, our members who have made everything possible. Thank you all for your continued support and hard work. At any time, I welcome your email or phone call if you have something to share with us, be it a research idea or a proposed talk, or just an idea to improve some aspect of SAAL. I certainly hope you will join us in marking SAAL's 20th anniversary on 28th October 2005. See you soon!
A/P Chng Huang Hoon ↑ Top | ← Publications
A* 1000 Most Mispronounced English Words. This book aims to teach improved English pronunciation, and is intended for three kinds of readers: those who want to speak well; students preparing for oral examinations; and those who 'enjoy word challenges'. The author has taught spoken English in schools and tertiary institutions, as well as to working adults. She has also written such books as Elvis Lived in Katong: Personal Singapore Eurasiana. A* 1000 Most Mispronounced English Words has, as its main section, a list of 1,000 commonly-mispronounced words, followed by 'bonus' sections containing pronunciation pitfalls drawn from fields such as art and music. There are also brief commentaries on pronunciation issues, such as American influence and changing preferences. An audio CD is included for the reader to check the pronunciation of entries. In devising her lists, Tessensohn has drawn on her 18 years' experience of teaching spoken English. The pronunciation of each entry is given in three parts: conventional English orthography, a series of circles indicating its stress pattern, and IPA symbols. The lists are arranged alphabetically; this will benefit readers consulting the work selectively as a reference. However, the reader on a mission to improve his or her speech might find it more helpful if the mispronounced words were arranged by category, so that the focus is on only one aspect of error at a time. Indeed, word lists encourage the all-too-Singaporean fault of memorizing without understanding, whereas a categorial approach might achieve better success in fixing errors across the board and enhancing the student's understanding of how English spelling and phonology work. There could, for instance, be a section on polysyllabic words to include such words as probably, February, secretary and library, and another on diphthongs and triphthongs to treat homophones such as flower and flour (between which most Singaporeans make a spurious distinction). Words that do not fit neatly into any category could fill a 'Miscellaneous' section. An alphabetical list would, however, still be very useful as an index to every entry found in the book. Readers unfamiliar with IPA symbols will welcome the use of conventional orthography as a key to pronunciation. However, I have several concerns with the author's system. For instance, the pronunciation of al dente is given as 'ul DON tay', but show this to any Singaporean reader and he or she will be apt to rhyme the first syllable with pool or pull rather than the intended dull. While an orthography-based system would just about work for speakers of traditional native varieties of English (e.g., British, American), for whom spelling-sound correspondences are relatively fixed, it would be endlessly problematic for a Singaporean readership because the Roman alphabet is used here to write or transliterate English, Malay, Arabic, the various Indian languages, Singlish, Hanyu Pinyin, etc. What is needed is a pronunciation table illustrating the intended correspondences, using fixed spellings -- this could be read out on the accompanying CD, to which readers may refer if they are unsure. Tessensohn does attempt to adapt her orthographic system to local needs, but at times this has the unfortunate consequence of perpetuating the very errors an experienced teacher would seek to correct. For example, 'air' is used to denote the vowels one finds in pet, pat and pair: in effect this legitimizes the failure to distinguish systematically between what are, prescriptively, three different vowels. IPA symbols are the only failsafe means of representing these and other subtle phonemic distinctions, but their exclusive use in such a book would, admittedly, put it out of the grasp of many readers. It is a catch-22 situation: to make the transcriptions usable by lay readers, the author finds she has to use representations familiar to them, but these representations are themselves based on common mispronunciations. Furthermore, the orthographic system can be rather puzzling, such that one is often forced to revisit a word in order to decode its pronunciation key: the equivalent of a lost tourist wandering the streets so that he can understand his map. For instance, admirable and admiralty are rendered as 'AIRDmiribirl' and 'AIRDmirirlty', which will probably flummox the reader. Also, one finds schwa (unstressed vowel in afraid) spelt variously as 'e', 'uh', 'ir', and 'er'; the latter two are also used to represent the vowel in bird. However, both vowels differ in terms of stress (schwa is never stressed), length and quality. Indeed, the orthographic guide does not even indicate vowel length -- a surprising oversight, considering that it is the basis of so many pronunciation errors. Another notable omission is secondary stress. Also, perplexingly, some syllables are underlined and some words starred, seemingly at random. Tessensohn refrains from providing IPA transcriptions for words in the bonus sections, explaining that many of them are foreign. But, since her own transcriptions are approximations using English sounds, the issue of foreignness should not even arise. Although Tessensohn claims to have based her selection of words on the errors made by her former students, we find entries like panacea, impugn and soup?on which, if mispronounced, elude the average Singaporean for the very reason that they are comparatively rare -- in which case they hardly qualify as 'most mispronounced'. Granted, she justifies their inclusion by explaining that these words are mispronounced even by 'sophisticated' speakers, and that the book is also intended for those who already speak well. But a book intended to help Singaporeans should address more of the usual suspects -- however boring they might be -- such as the minimal pairs courses~causes (which even academics confuse); the plural form indices (most newsreaders, evidently influenced by American news networks, mispronounce the final syllable as 'cease', assuming wrongly that it patterns like analysis and basis); the initial vowel in twenty; misplaced stresses in cucumber, inevitable, mechanism, precedent, Chinese and devotee; and the erroneous insertion or omission of segments in athletic and anxious. In all fairness, however, one can hardly expect any such list to be exhaustive; every punter is bound to have a pet pronunciation peeve that has escaped the author's attention. One of the bonus sections is on tricky, mainly English, names. It includes oft-cited examples such as Molyneux, Cowper and Cholmondeley (puzzlingly spelt 'Cholmondelay'-- an attested, but very much a minority, variant). However, of greater relevance to the intended readership would have been names more commonly encountered (and mispronounced) by Singaporeans, such as Aloysius, Stephen, Cairns, Theresa and Thailand. The latter two are often pronounced (wrongly) by educated speakers with a hypercorrect dental fricative (as in think); this may profitably be discussed in connection with Thames and Thomas (which appear in the book) in a category -- rather than a list-based approach. Other possible inclusions are Clementi and Killiney -- as frequently mispronounced as they are encountered (both should be stressed on the second syllable; that of Killiney is pronounced 'lie'). My main criticism of the book, however, is that it is rife with errors both factual and typographical, e.g., 'stardards' (standards), 'diparate' (disparate), 'ebulliant' (ebullient), 'unctous' (unctuous; its given pronunciation is wrong too). There is also inconsistency between -ise and -ize ('recognised', 'anglicize'), and curiously the IPA symbol for schwa is a laterally inverted (rather than upside-down) 'e'. The pronunciation keys are sometimes in conflict: the 'circles' system correctly places the stress of albeit on 'al', but the orthographic and IPA transcriptions place it on 'be'; and for some reason the IPA transcription erroneously treats the 'l' as silent, contrary to its orthographic counterpart. Nasturtium is transcribed 'nirs TUR shirm', but the middle syllable is in fact 'STUR', the result of what is known in phonology as the Maximum Onset Principle. Child is, somewhat bizarrely, 'CHYERLD' (which does not accord with its IPA counterpart, itself incorrect). No doubt, some speakers (e.g., American) insert schwa before syllable-final /l/, but this is of questionable relevance to the Singaporean context. Tessensohn also suggests that auxiliary has five syllables, implying (wrongly) that a hiatus follows 'li'; and basically is given four syllables (i.e., the common Singaporean mispronunciation). On the back cover of the book there is a baffling cartoon, captioned 'Sometimes, it is not your fault', showing a boy saying 'Noah built an ark and the animals came in pairs' and the bemused hearer imagining that the animals are in 'pears'. In the context of the messages surrounding the cartoon, the most obvious interpretation -- if not that intended by the author -- is that pairs and pears are somehow pronounced differently, but in RP and even the more conservative General American, Irish English and Edinburgh Scots, they are in fact homophonous. Errors also abound in foreign names and expressions. For example, the book opens with a challenge to the reader to try pronouncing, among other things, 'Dv?rak': this is properly Dvo?¨¢k. Later in the book, RSVP is spelt out as 'Respondez S'il Vous Plait', but the correct French is r¨¦pondez s'il vous pla?t. In the same section, aide-de-camp is transcribed 'aiee day KONGK'. French, of course, famously has silent final consonants, but not in aide; 'day' is not French; and sounding camp with a final /k/ would be inconceivable in any accent of French (including Meridional French, which may have a velar nasal but never a velar stop and, unlike Standard Northern French, does not have nasalized vowels). Using the author's system, aide-de-camp would more accurately be transcribed 'aid dir KONG' as an English approximation. Another obvious error is al dente, whose middle syllable, as cited previously, is transcribed 'DON': a case of confusing Italian with French. S¨¦ance and charg¨¦ d'affaires have the wrong accent ('¨¨' instead of '¨¦') and Scheherazade is misspelled as 'Scherazade'. All this may be splitting hairs, but the above examples are, in fact, familiar enough to be thought of as almost a part of English language and culture. In view of the pressing need to improve spoken English in Singapore, any effort towards this end should be welcomed and encouraged. A* 1000 Most Mispronounced English Words is a potentially valuable book for teachers, as well as the lay reader wishing to improve his or her pronunciation. Its greatest merit is in being a small and simple book that will not intimidate the reader (who almost certainly already lacks confidence in his or her pronunciation). It is a pity that it is so flawed, though with the errors corrected, it could prove to be a very useful introduction to the pronunciation of English, especially if used with the guidance of a knowledgeable instructor.
Reviewed by Ludwig Tan ↑ Top | ← Publications CURRENT RESEARCH BY SAAL MEMBERS
Taking Charge of One's Learning -- A Tall Order? Autonomous learners should take responsibility for their learning and not always rely on their tutors for instructions on what to do next. They should understand that different learners have different needs, progress at a different pace and require a certain amount of independence to become effective learners. Such learners should have the 'capacity for detachment, critical reflection, decision-making, and independent action' (Little, 1991: 4). In Asia, the culture of teacher reliance and respect for teachers has been imbibed in students from young. Students often look to teachers for feedback on their progress, instructions on how to improve their language skills, and what topics to study to do well in their examinations. Although there is a need for students to become more proactive in their learning, it is difficult for them to take charge of the process as they have to take into account examination considerations. Their idea of taking charge is perhaps to ensure they study hard by devoting many hours to preparing for the examinations. This paper looks into the journey of a group of ESL and EFL learners taking an English proficiency course at the National University of Singapore to becoming autonomous learners. To be responsible for their own learning, they kept a portfolio of their language goals, learning strategies, reflections on classroom activities and language progress, written work, and participation in the self-access centre. This paper discusses the benefits of learning to become autonomous students, the problems faced in the process, and the compromises made in their arduous journey. This paper also looks at whether the language proficiency of these students has improved. Reference
(Paper presented at the AILA 2005, 24-29 July 2005, Madison, Wisconsin, USA) ↑ Top | ← Publications RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS To serve SAAL members and the larger applied linguistics community in Singapore and the region, the SAAL Quarterly will be publishing brief notes and bibliographies on specific research areas within applied linguistics and related fields. The purpose of this section is to present an overview of past or current research on particular topics which may be of interest to many of us. The scope of each topic may be determined by, for example, a specific research area, a period of research, or a geographical location. We are inviting all of you to suggest topics which you wish us to consider for this new section. We hope that this small initiative will expand into larger research programmes and/or collaborative work among us and the applied linguistics community in the region.
A Bibliography of Child Language Research in Singapore Bibliography (Part II)
Abbreviations Academic research pieces are given by their standard abbreviations (PhD, D.Phil, MA, MSc, MEd, HT), and all are unpublished. Other abbreviations are:
* Part 1 is available at http://www.saal.org.sg/sq70.html. ↑ Top | ← Publications |
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