Descriptive Analysis of Monophthongs in Pakistani English: Articulatory and Acoustic Evidence
Abstract
This study presented an acoustic description of monophthongs in Pakistani English (PakE), an indigenized variety of non-native Englishes. The study addressed the following research questions: what are the acoustic characteristics of monophthongs in PakE as spoken by Punjabi speakers, in what ways do these monophthongs differ from or resemble those of Standard British English (SBE), how many monophthongs can be identified in PakE, and what patterns of vowel merger, if any, are observable. Monosyllabic words with /hVd/ context were recorded in a carrier phrase and analysed using Praat. The first two formants (F1 and F2) and vowel duration were extracted. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS. The values were compared with those of SBE to observe the similarities and differences. The results showed PakE having 10 monophthongs (four front, two central, and four back) classified into five long and five short vowels, unlike SBE, which has five long and seven short vowels. Depending upon these results, it was concluded that vowels in PakE behave differently. These differences lead to the variation in pronunciation patterns. The findings provide empirically grounded phonetic evidence that contributes to the descriptive documentation of PakE, offers a reference framework for future phonological and comparative World Englishes research, and supports applied linguistic domains such as pronunciation teaching, speech technology development, and accent-sensitive language assessment. The study contributes to the codification of PakE as an indigenized variety of English.
Keywords: acoustic measurement; monophthongs; formant frequencies; Pakistani English; PRAAT
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Abbas, S., Umar, A., Bilal, H. A., Raza, M. U., & Safdar, A. (2020). Acoustic analysis of consonants of Pakistani English. Elementary Education Online, 79(04), 4405–4429. https://doi.org/10.17051/ilkonline.2020.04.764846.
Ahad, A., Rahman, G., & Hamid, A. (2020). Acoustic analysis of English long vowels produced by Pashto speakers. Liberal Arts & Social Sciences International Journal, 4(2), 215–229. https://doi.org/10.47264/idea.lassij/4.2.17.
Ahmad, M., Mahmood, M. A., Mahmood, M. I., & Siddique, A. R. (2019). Use of modal verbs as stance markers in Pakistani English newspaper editorials. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 9(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.29333/ojcmt/5722
Ahmad, S. R., & Ali, S. (2023). Impact of Urduised English on Pakistani English fiction. Journal of Research in Humanities, 50(1), 61–75.
Ahmad, M., Mahmood, M. A., & Siddique, A. R. (2025). Determining the L2 academic writing development stage: A corpus-based research on doctoral dissertations. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 63(1), 413-431. https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2023-0028.
Aitchison, J. (2001). Language change: Progress or decay? (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press. http://marjoriepak.com/aitchison-ch1.pdf.
Asghar, I., Abbas, S., Bilal, H. A., & Anwar, J. (2021). Merger of high vowels in Pakistani English: An acoustic investigation. PalArch’s Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology, 18(7), 65–77. https://archives.palarch.nl/index.php/jae/article/view/7596/7163.
Baumgardner, J. (1993). The English language in Pakistan. Oxford University Press.
Bhatia, T. K. (2008). Punjabi. In K. Brown, & S. Ogilvie (Eds.), Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world (pp. 885–890). Elsevier Ltd. https://archive.org/details/concise-encyclopedia-of-languages-of-the-world_202204/page/n5/mode/2up.
Bilal, H. A., & Asghar, I. (2023). Acoustic profiling of central vowels of Pakistani English: Describing the nativised variety. Linguistic Forum: Journal of Linguistics, 5(30), 65–77. http://doi.org/10.53057/linfo/2023.5.3.6.
Bilal, H. A., Azher, M., Ishfaq, M., & Mumtaz, A. (2021). Acoustic investigation of back vowels of Pakistani English. Review of Education, Administration & Law, 4(1), 37–52. https://doi.org/10.47067/real.v4i1.110.
Bilal, H. A., Faiz, R., Asghar, I., & Abbas, S. (2025). Mapping segmental variations in Pakistani English: A sociophonetic study. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 31(2), 194–210. http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2025-3102-14
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2023). Praat: doing phonetics by computer (Version 6.3.09) [Computer program]. http://www.praat.org/.
Buriro, W. M., Zaki, S., & Ashraf, A. (2023). Grammatical features of Pakistani English: A corpus analysis of Pakistani English newspapers and magazines. Linguistic Forum-A Journal of Linguistics, 5(3), 89–113. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14757109.
Cruttenden, A. (2014). Gimson's pronunciation of English (8th ed.). Routledge.
Deterding, D. (2007). Singapore English. Edinburgh University Press.
El-Dakhs, D. A. S., Ozfidan, B., & Ahmed, M. M. (2024). Perceptions of English Language Teacher Effectiveness: Insights from Students and Teachers at a Private Egyptian University. Revista de Cercetare si Interventie Sociala, 87 (4), 58-79. https://doi.org/10.33788/rcis.87.4
Fatima, M., Siddique, A. R., Ahmad, M., & Mahmood, M. A. (2023). Exploring linguistic variation in Pakistani English newspaper editorials through multidimensional analysis. Newspaper Research Journal, 44(4), 425-451.https://doi.org/10.1177/07395329231194005.
Gargesh, R. (2006). South Asian English. In B. Kachru, Y. Kachru, & C. Nelson (Eds.), The handbook of world Englishes (pp. 90–113). Blackwell Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470757598.
Gobbo, F., & Marácz, L. (2021). Two lingua francas? Social inclusion through English and Esperanto. Social Inclusion, 9(1), 75–84. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v9i1.3662.
Graddol, D. (1997). The future of English? British Council. https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/pub_learning-elt-future.pdf.
Hickey, R. (2005). South Asian Englishes. In R. Hickey (Ed.), Legacies of colonial Englishes (pp. 536–558). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486920.022.
Indrayani, L., & Nugraha, I. (2020). A case study of English schwa realization by Muna language speakers. International Journal of Literature & Social Sciences, 5(4), 960–967. https://doi.org/10.22161/ijels.54.20.
Jadoon, N. K., & Ahmad, M. (2022). Pakistani English: A glimpse of phonetic and phonological features. Pakistan Journal of Social Research, 4(1), 931–945.
Kachru, B. (2005). Asian Englishes: Beyond the cannon. Hong Kong University Press.
Kamran, U. (2022). Phonemic description of the six major sub-varieties of Pakistani English. Erevna: Journal of Linguistics and Literature, 6(1), 35–59. https://journals.au.edu.pk/ojserevna/index.php/erevna/article/view/266/117.
Kennedy, A. (1993). Of dacoits and desperados: Crime reporting in Pakistani English. In R. Baumgardner (Ed.), The English language in Pakistan (pp. 69–79). Oxford University Press.
Khalfan, M., & Anjum, U. (2024). An acoustic analysis of vowel nasalization in PakE. Linguistics and Literature Review, 10(1), 25–45. https://doi.org/10.32350/llr.101.02.
Khattak, S. N., & Shah, Z. (2022). Glocalization of English: An analysis of the phonological deviations of semivowels and liquids in Pakistani English. City University Research Journal of Literature and Linguistics, 5(1), 98–114. https://cusitjournals.com/index.php/CURJLL/article/view/710.
Kousar, S., Abbas, M. A., & Abrar, S. (2023). An acoustic study of the role of consistency of input in acquisition of English central vowels in Pakistan. Journal of Development and Social Sciences, 4(2), 110–118. https://doi.org/10.47205/jdss.2023(4-II)11.
Kousar, S., Ain, Q., & Abbas, R. T. (2023). Investigation of back vowels in PakE through acoustic lens. Balochistan Journal of Linguistics, 11(20), 1–19. https://journals.luawms.edu.pk/bjl/article/view/71.
Ladefoged, P. (2001). A Course in Phonetics (4th ed.). Heinle & Heinle.
Ladefoged, P., & Johnson, K. (2011). A course in phonetics (6th ed.). Thomson Wadsworth.
Mahboob, A., & Ahmar, N. (2004). Pakistani English: Phonology. In E. W. Schneider, K. Burridge, B. Kortmann, R. Mesthrie, R. & C. Upton (Eds.), A handbook of varieties of English (pp. 1003–1016). Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110197181-001.
Malik, M. Z. A., Shoukat, B., & Kharal, A. A. (2022). Acoustic analysis of the socio-phonetic variation in the English language long vowels. Pakistan Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 10(1), 50–56. https://doi.org/10.52131/pjhss.2022.1001.0173.
Mesthrie, R., & Bhatt, M. (2008). World Englishes: The study of new linguistic varieties. Cambridge University Press.
Morris, R. J., McCrea, C. R., & Herring, K. D. (2008). Voice onset time differences between adult males and females: Isolated syllables. Journal of Phonetics, 36(2), 308–317. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2007.06.001.
Pervez, N., Siddique, A. R., & Ahmad, M. (2024). Analyzing linguistic variations in the discussion sections of Pakistani English research articles: A multidimensional study. Linguistica Silesiana, 45(1), 103–134. https://doi.org.10.24425/linsi.2024.150392.
Rafique, S. (2020). Acoustic analysis of back vowels of Pakistani English [Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Sargodha].
Rahman, T. (1991). Pakistani English: Some phonological and phonetic features. World Englishes, 10(1), 83–95. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.1991.tb00139.x.
Rahman, T. (2020). Pakistani English. In K. Bolton, W. A. Kirkpatrick (Eds.), The handbook of Asian Englishes (pp. 279-296). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118791882.ch11.
Raza, W. (2008). Patterns in Pakistani English: Pronunciation and pedagogic priorities. Market Forces, 4(3), 102–112. https://kiet.edu.pk/marketforces/index.php/marketforces/article/view/191/192.
Roach, P. (2009). English phonetics and phonology: A practical course (4th ed). Cambridge University Press. https://assets.cambridge.org/97805217/17403/frontmatter/9780521717403_frontmatter.pdf.
Schneider, E. W. (2010). Developmental patterns of English: Similar or different? In A. Kirkpatrick (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of world Englishes (pp. 371–384). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003128755.
Shackle, C. (2023, December 31). Punjabi language. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Punjabi-language.
Stevens, K. N., & House, A. S. (1955). Development of quantitative description of vowel articulation. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 27, 484–493. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1907943.
Syed, N. A., & Atta, F. (2020). Pakistani speakers’ difficulties in learning English [v]-[w]. Pakistan Journal of Language Studies, 4(1), 21–42. https://pjls.gcuf.edu.pk/index.php/pjls/article/view/67/21.
Tallat, M. (2003). Pakistani English: A sociolinguistic variety. Journal of Research,4, 17–30. https://jorurdu.bzu.edu.pk/website/journal/article/5e84d6ec8e776/page.
Thomas, E. R. (2011). Sociophonetics: An introduction. Palgrave Macmillan.
Umer, S., & Riaz, F. (2021). Effects of co-articulation on Pakistani English: A case study of multilingual speakers in Islamabad. Journal of Gender and Social Issues, 20(2), 23–37. https://jgsi.fjwu.edu.pk/jgsi/article/view/321.
Westerman, D., & Ward, I. C. (2015). Practical phonetics for students of African languages. Routledge.
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
eISSN : 2550-2247
ISSN : 0128-5157