In this chapter, we review phonetics in pronunciation teaching and learning from a historical perspective, before going on to look at paradigms for pronunciation and second language (L2) phonology with a focus on phonetic issues. Research identifying the importance of access to phonetic cues, auditory and visual, both in experimental and classroom settings, is presented, demonstrating the increasing emphasis on technology in this field. We then move on to recommendations for teacher training, with a review of approaches to describing intonation for pedagogic purposes. Finally, we present suggestions for the future of pronunciation teaching and learning.

Phonetics is studied by students on a variety of courses, where it may be either elective or obligatory, and its inclusion in the syllabus can be implicit or explicit. In all cases, however, the teaching of phonetics must take into account the needs of students in relation to the rest of their programme, and the use they will make of phonetics in their further studies or work. Here we focus on the explicit teaching of phonetics, as experienced by students of, for example, linguistics and speech and language therapy. We consider key issues in teaching and learning across all aspects of phonetics, including theory, ear-training and production, transcription of segments and prosodic features, and acoustics. The chapter is underpinned by both phonetics research, where it exists, and that from broader educational research and theoretical perspectives. Finally, we consider future directions for the teaching of phonetics, mapping this against the United Kingdom Professional Standards Framework for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

How is speech produced, perceived and processed? How is it used by individuals and speech communities, and how does it change over time? How is speech learnt, by first- and second-language speakers, and how does it present when it is disordered? These questions, alongside many more, are of interest to researchers in the broad field of phonetics. Phonetics has a long history, dating at least from writing systems in the ancient world, and has continually evolved as a discipline in response to new theories, methods and technologies (see, for example, Heselwood et al., 2013, for a full historical overview). Today, the field is broad, and interdisciplinary, as shown by the coverage of phonetics journals and conferences, and the chapters in this handbook.

Discourse features in Hong Kong English have not received much attention; for example, Bolton (2002a) includes chapters which deal with phonology (Hung 2000, reprinted in Bolton 2002a), grammar (Gisborne 2000, reprinted in Bolton 2002a) and lexis (Benson 2000, reprinted in Bolton 2002a), but there is no chapter on discourse. Nor is there much discussion in Bolton (2003), Kachru (2005) or Kachru and Nelson (2006), the latter two works looking at the broader context of Asian Englishes. One recent attempt to fill this gap is Wong (2007), which is an analysis of the forms and functions of question tags in the International Corpus of English, Hong Kong component (ICE-HK). Added to this are a number of corpus-based studies which compare the use of English discourse features between Hong Kong speakers and native speakers (Cheng and Warren 2001a, 2001b; Fung and Carter 2007b), but these studies do not presume a distinctive variety of Hong Kong English, generally referring to Hong Kong speakers as non-native speakers (NNS) or students, and their findings are not always consistent with our data. It may be more useful, therefore, to look at the discourse features which Deterding (2007) discusses in relation to Singapore English, as these may be relevant to Hong Kong English, given common substrate influence from Cantonese.

Compared with discourse, there has been more discussion of vocabulary in Hong Kong English; see for example Benson (2000), Bolton (2003), Carless (1995), Chow (2001), Cummings (2007) and Taylor (1989). These studies draw their data from certain genres or kinds of discourse.

This chapter starts by surveying general works on Hong Kong English and then goes on to consider specific books and key articles in each area.

General works on Hong Kong English

Both Platt (1982) and McArthur (2002) provide a comprehensive overview of all the features of Hong Kong English with reference to the larger context of varieties of Asian Englishes, while Kirkpatrick's (2007) description is presented in terms of implications for international communication and pedagogy.

Pennington (1998b) is an edited volume of nineteen chapters, in which authors discuss the linguistic situation in Hong Kong in the run-up to the Handover in 1997, not all of them on Hong Kong English. Wright and Kelly-Holmes (1997) survey the changes in language use during this period.

Kingsley Bolton has published extensively on Hong Kong English. Examples of his work include Bolton (2003), which is a sociolinguistic history of Chinese Englishes, including English in Hong Kong, and Bolton (2002a), which draws together sixteen chapters from different authors on linguistic and literary topics, including information on finding resources for analysing the variety, and ends with a chapter pondering the future for Hong Kong English.

For a historical perspective on language education in Hong Kong, see Lord and Cheng (1987).

Phonetics and phonology

For a brief overview of some of the features of the phonology of Hong Kong English, see Bolton and Kwok (1990).