Exposure to accents and pronunciation modelling: A case study of a secondary school in Hong Kong

Abstract

© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This study seeks to explore the controversial issue of pronunciation modelling in the secondary classroom in association with the medium-of-instruction (MOI) policy in Hong Kong. The investigation centres on two dimensions: (1) students' exposure to English accents throughout their weekly school timetable by means of a data log sheet and (2) the phonological differences between the speech of local subject and English language teachers. The findings suggest that students' main source of English exposure at school is the English pronunciation of both English language and content-area teachers in English-medium lessons, who shared numerous Hong Kong English (HKE) features although in differing proportions. The paper concludes by prioritising the educated HKE vowel and consonant features and promoting an internationally intelligible endonormative model in the globalised world.