The lack of culturally appropriate norms for assessing the speech and language status of Malaysian children has been an ongoing issue in Malaysia. At present, there are no normative data against which to assess the phonological skills of Malaysian children. Malaysian Chinese children are usually bilingual or multilingual. They acquire English, Mandarin Chinese and Malay during their preschool years. English that is used in Malaysia is commonly recognized as Malaysian English (MalE). MalE has distinctive phonological characteristics that are different from those of so-called Standard English (SE). However, the variations of MalE may not be completely understood by many speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in Malaysia, and this may lead to difficulty in differentiating speech differences resulting from MalE dialectal features and true speech disorders. As well as establishing speech norms for MalE speaking children, information is needed about the current assessment practices of the phonological development of MalE speaking children. Three studies were carried out for the present thesis. The first study was designed to provide insight into Malaysian SLPs’ perspectives on the current use of articulation and phonology assessments in the country. It reports the results of a survey of 38 Malaysian SLPs in term of the types of articulation and phonological assessments currently used, SLPs’ perceptions about the adequacy and accuracy of current articulation and phonological assessment in meeting clinical needs, the experiences of SLPs in using current articulation and phonological assessments, as well as their perception of the need for further research in the areas of articulation and phonology. The findings indicated that informal articulation or phonological assessments were widely used. Only a minority of the respondents used standardized articulation or phonological assessments. The majority of the respondents felt that the lack of locally developed standardized tests and the utilization of informal assessments of articulation and phonology in their clinics did not provide accurate diagnoses or intervention plans. They felt that there was a need for collecting phonological developmental data and creating articulation and phonology assessments for Malaysian children. The second study was designed to identify characteristics of the consonant and vowel inventories of MalE as well as phonetic realizations of speech sounds, by investigating the speech production of ten adult Chinese speakers of MalE. The participants were asked to read a list of 206 single words which contained all expected MalE consonants, consonant clusters and vowels. These speech sounds were sampled in several different words and in different syllable-word positions. This study goes beyond previous studies of MalE phonology by using a quantitative auditory phonetic analysis. The characteristics observed were first categorized according to their frequency of occurrence and then further grouped into categories based on the possible influences of British English or American English as well as local Malaysian languages (Mandarin Chinese and Malay) and dialects. The interference patterns within MalE resulting from the influence of local languages and Chinese dialects were also discussed. The phonological features of MalE which converged with developmental phonological processes in SE children were explored. An understanding of the phonological features and realizations of MalE speech sounds is important because this will help speech-language pathologists to differentiate dialectal phonological features exhibited by MalE speaking children from phonological differences and disorders. The third study which was also the major study of this thesis was designed to provide valid and reliable normative data for the phonological development of MalE speaking Chinese children between the ages of 3 and 7 years. This study provided a description of the children’s phonological system in MalE in terms of i) age of acquisition of speech sounds, ii) speech sound accuracy and iii) phonological process use. 264 typically developing English speaking Malaysian Chinese children between the ages of 3 and 7 years were recruited to participate in this cross-sectional study. In a pilot study, eleven words were eliminated from the list used in the second study, leaving a list of 195 words which sampled consonants, consonant clusters and vowels in various syllable-word positions and phonotactic structures. The words were illustrated and presented colourfully in composite pictures to elicit a large and well-controlled single word speech sample. All the speech data gained were transcribed phonetically and analyzed quantitatively. The findings revealed that MalE children’s speech sound accuracy was underestimated when MalE dialectal features were not taken into consideration. MalE speaking children exhibited phonological acquisition patterns that were both similar and different to SE. The differences found were mainly due to the cross-linguistic effects of Mandarin Chinese and Malay which were acquired at the same time by MalE speaking children. The influence of Mandarin Chinese and Malay appeared to accelerate or delay the phonological acquisition of MalE based on phonetic similarity theory. The findings of the present study highlight the need to consider MalE dialectal features in the phonological analysis of MalE speaking children. The differences in phonological acquisition of MalE and SE indicate that the norms of SE are not suitable to be used for MalE speaking children. This study will provide useful and locally appropriate normative developmental data on phonological acquisition for MalE speaking Chinese children. Speech-language pathologists in Malaysia will be able to use it as a guideline in assessing and treating clients with articulation and phonological disorders. In addition, these normative developmental data are a prerequisite to the eventual establishment of a phonological assessment tool specifically designed for MalE.

Cette recherche analyse des productions orales en français d’apprenants malaisiens. L’objectif est de proposer une meilleure approche à l’enseignement du passé en cours de français en Malaisie. Pour ce faire, nous analysons l’importance de l’influence translinguistique sur l’apprentissage du passé en français langue étrangère. La base de données est constituée de deux corpus : d’une part des apprenants malaisiens apprenant le français en Malaisie et d’autre part des apprenants anglais. En comparant les deux corpus, nous souhaitons déceler le degré de l’influence translinguistique sur les deux types de population. Nous analysons leurs productions verbales et plus particulièrement l’expression du passé (passé composé / imparfait) et les traces d’influences translinguistiques qui pourraient provenir des langues connues (soit anglais, malais, mandarin pour les malaisiens, soit anglais pour les apprenants anglais) à travers les modalités d’expression du temps et de l’aspect. La comparaison des données, à la lumière de l’analyse des langues connues par les apprenants, montre que statistiquement les apprenants malaisiens sont plus enclins à élider le verbe et à utiliser des formes verbales neutres que les apprenants anglais. L’analyse des deux corpus montre également que les apprenants malaisiens produisent plus d’occurrences verbales non-conformes dues à une confusion entre les différents tiroirs verbaux français que les apprenants anglais dont les occurrences non-conformes découlent en majorité d’une non-conformité morphologique ou grammaticale. Si certaines différences ont en effet été notées, des similarités se dégagent des deux corpus et contribuent à dégager certaines hypothèses concernant l’acquisition du français langue seconde : d’une part, l’ellipse verbale concerne principalement des verbes d’état et d’autre part, l’aspect lexical du verbe influence le choix de l’aspect grammatical. / This study analyses oral productions in French of Malaysian beginner learners. The objective is to offer an improved approach to the teaching of past tenses in French language classes. In order to do so, we analyse the importance of translinguistic influence in past tense learning in French as a second language. The data are made of two corpora : on the first hand, 17 Malaysian learners in Year 10 preparing their IGCSE oral exam which represent 6 hours of recording and on the second hand, 4 English learners preparing their IGCSE oral exam which represent 45 minutes of recording. The Malaysian learners study French in Penang, Malaysia at the Prince of Wales Island International School. The comparison of both corpora leads to underlining the translinguistic influence on each type of population. We pay special attention to oral production and especially the expression of the past (passé compose / imparfait) and traces of translinguistic influence that could derive from the learners’ known languages (English, Mandarin and Malay for the Malaysian corpus and English for the English corpus). The study will also present the expression of time and aspect in each relevant language. The comparison of data, viewed from the known languages perspective, shows that statistically Malaysian learners are more prone to omitting the verb and to using neutral verbal forms than the English learners. The analysis of both corpora also confirms that Malaysian learners produce more non-conform occurrences due to a confusion between different French tenses than the English learners whose non-conform occurrences are mostly due to grammatical or morphological non-conformity. If indeed, major differences were found, certain similarities stick out and allow us to highlight French second language learning hypotheses. Firstly, French second language learners seem to omit state verbs mostly when omitting verbs and secondly, the close link between lexical and grammatical aspect for the learners.

In Malaysia what was at first Standard English has over time changed and a variety called Malaysian English has arisen. This variety of English is full of colloquial expressions and the grammar also differs slightly from that of Standard English. This paper surveys Malaysian speakers’ attitudes towards Malaysian English and Standard English. A questionnaire was used to collect the data. The results show that the informants consider Malaysian English useful for informal and everyday communication whereas Standard English is more useful for international communication as well as more formal purposes. A good command of Standard English is still regarded as important. It became evident that while the informers were aware of Malaysian English and its linguistic characteristics, identifying them in written sentences was not easy. The informants’ attitudes towards Malaysian English and Standard English showed that one variety does not have to exclude the existence of the other. / Vad som först var standardengelska har i Malaysia över tid ändrats och en ny variant kallad malaysisk engelska har växt fram. Denna variant av engelska är full av lokala uttryck och grammatiken skiljer sig delvis från standardengelskans. Denna studie undersöker talares attityder till malaysisk engelska och standardengelska med hjälp av en enkät. Resultaten visar att malaysisk engelska är användbar för informell och vardaglig kommunikation medan standardengelska är mer användbar för internationell samt mer formell kommunikation. Att behärska standardengelska anses fortfarande vara viktigt. Det blev tydligt att även om informanterna var medvetna om malaysisk engelskas lingvistiska särdrag så var det inte helt enkelt att identifiera dem i skrivna meningar. Informanternas attityder till malaysisk engelska och standardengelska visade att en variant inte nödvändigtvis utesluter den andra.