Effects of Co-Articulation on Pakistani English: A Case Study of Multilingual Speakers in Islamabad

Abstract

The postmodern era is linguistically hybrid since the speakers of different languages show the characteristics of Assimilation, Elision and Dissimilation in their everyday speech. This study intends to unravel these patterns in the English of Pakistani Punjabi speakers employing Generative Phonology as the main theoretical framework for the study. For the said purpose, 24 Punjabi native female speakers have been selected to analyze the production of English words in their connected speech to investigate the effects of coarticulation. As the phonemic inventory and phonotactic constraints of
Punjabi and English are different, it is assumed that the Pakistani English speakers whose L1 is Punjabi apply the Punjabi phonotactic constraints on English which causes differences in co-articulatory process in their L2 production. The findings suggest that Punjabi speakers use assimilation, elision, dissimilation while speaking English, though the patterns vary from person to person.