A contrastive analysis of the phonologies of two Fiji English dialects: A diagnostic guide for speech–language pathologists

Abstract

Speech–language pathologists (SLPs) are increasingly aware of the need to minimize the impact of cultural and linguistic mismatch when working with culturally and linguistically diverse clients. Consequently, there is a growing body of literature designed for the SLP to obtain an understanding of the characteristics of languages and dialects that may be outside the SLPs' previous experience. This paper provides a review of the phonological features of two Fiji English dialects (Fijian Fiji English and Fiji Hindi Fiji English). This information is provided to assist English-speaking SLPs' diagnostic decision-making when working with people from Fiji who wish to improve their speech intelligibility and to differentiate between speech difference and speech sound disorder in young Fiji children. The Fiji languages influence the phonetics and phonology of Fiji English dialects to varying degrees. Consequently basilectal (heavily accented) speakers have many differences when compared to acrolectal (lightly accented) speakers. Acknowledging the diversity in Fiji English speech production, this paper provides a review of phonetic and phonemic variants for basilectal and acrolectal speakers of Fijian Fiji English and Fiji Hindi Fiji English.

Keywords:

• Speech–language pathology
• Assessment
• Multilingual
• Fiji
• Fiji English
• Fiji Hindi
• Fijian
• Phonology
• Pacific

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Mr Rajendra Prasad, Dr Jan Tent, and Prof. Jeff Siegel, for their early assistance in collating information for this manuscript. The first author acknowledges support from a Charles Sturt University Postgraduate Research Scholarship (CSUPRS).

Disclaimer statements

Contributors Suzanne Catherine Hopf has conceived and designing the study, collected the data, analysed the data, interpreted the data, written the article in whole or in part, revised the article. Sharynne McLeod has written the article in whole or in part, revised the article. Paul Geraghty has revised the article.

Funding None.

Conflicts of interest There are no real or potential conflicts of interest related to the manuscript.

Ethics approval Ethical approval was not required for the preparation of this manuscript.

ORCID

Suzanne C. Hopf http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5572-9956 Sharynne McLeod http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7279-7851