I know [pɪlɪpɪno] but i say [fɪlɪpɪno]: An investigation into Filipino foregin domestic helpers’ influence on Hong Kong Chinese’s L2 English phonology acquisition

As a response to a preliminary study (Leung 2010) of five HK learners of English which found that those who had grown up hearing Filipino-accented English showed no trace of this accent in their production, this study probes further to look for more subtle signs of exposure to Filipino English. Data were collected from 10 speakers aged 2½ to 25 who were divided into three groups. Both Groups A and B were initially exposed to Filipino-accented English input at home, and Group A continued to receive such input. Group C had not received any Filipino-accented English input at home. Findings from two perception tasks targeting English words with /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, and /v/ onsets spoken in a Filipino accent showed that speakers with exposure to Filipino-accented English could better perceive these words than those who had none. A decline from Group A to C was found in their ability to recognise target phonemes, indicating that quantity and/or recency of input play a role. These results raise the issue of incipient/passive-bi¬lin¬gual¬ism (Diebold 1964; Romaine 1995) and call for more detailed study of attitude, accommodation and identity with respect to the acquisition of a given second language variety.