The Samoan vowel shift: A phenomenon in phonetics and phonological awareness (2019)

View/ Open
Type of Content
Journal ArticlePublisher
Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific StudiesISSN
2463-641XCollections
Abstract
This paper is a response to a phenomenon in the area of Samoan phonology, or to be exact, the vowels' pronunciation. It involves a shift in the utterance of vowels in the past thirty years or so. And it comes to this. A gradual blurring in the articulation of the vowel sound has been noted. It appears that the glottal stop had rubbed off on the vowel for reasons that are linguistic, sociological and even pedagogical. This 'emerging reality' is yet to be addressed in literature even though evidence of its first appearance can be traced back to the early eighties. Time moves on and there hasn't been a question raised for reasons not quite clear to the writers, hence the purpose of this response. In this writing we hope to raise the issue, as we believe it is crucial to any type of research that delves into both Samoan phonetics and phonology, and the extent of both in language and learning application.
Keywords
glottalization; glotallized,; diacritic marks; mistaken identity; dilemma; diaspora; vowel sounds; phonology; phenomenonRights
CC BY 4.0Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Nofoilo i leo Samoa - Samoan phonological awareness : a study of Samoan early literacy development and implications for effective teaching strategies.
Aukuso, Saili (2021)The higher aim of any school system is to ensure that children under its watch are successful in reading and writing. Parents too are committed to their children’s education, doing their part to support their children’s ... -
An investigation of the effectiveness of integrating sound-field amplification and classroom-based phonological awareness intervention on the early reading development of young school children
Good, Pua Virginia (University of Canterbury. Communication Disorders, 2009)Sound-field amplification systems (SFA) have proven effective in overcoming classroom listening difficulties associated with noise, distance and reverberation. However, whether improving the classroom listening environment ... -
"Cricket is in the blood" (Re)producing Indianness: Families negotiating diasporic identity through cricket in Singapore
Lin, Yan (University of Canterbury. Sociology and Anthropology, 2006)Diaspora invokes a way of living. Geographic displacement, either voluntary or forced, brings about heightened processes of negotiation between the past, the present and the future. Effectively, diaspora creates a space ...