Accent characteristics and variation in Maltese English

Abstract

This study examines phonetic and phonological variation within the variety Maltese English. The study begins with a theoretical overview of the status of Maltese English as both a variety and an accent. It then goes on to assess the validity of the hypothesis that Maltese English is characterised by phonetic and phonological variation through an anlaysis of a total of thirty-five Maltese English speech samples that were recorded from radio broadcasts for the purpose of the present inductive inquiry. Owing to the unstructured nature of the data, it was considered necessary to provide some structure for the analysis. A checklist, consisting of sixteen Maltese English features that have been documented as being most salient in the local variety of English, was devised. The data was analysed using this checklist as a basis and the results then encoded into two matrices showing that Maltese speakers of English fall into different gradations of Maltese English according to the number of features present in their speech. The speakers were then organised in such a way as to show that there are different degrees of perceptibility of accent in Maltese English. On the basis of my data, I also ranked the segmental traits analysed in such a way as to get a picture of which features emerge as more persistent and which less so in the speech of Maltese speakers of English.