Abstract/Summary

This book is a collection of papers that represent research in Malaysia focusing on segmental and suprasegmental phonology. Most of the authors were presenters or participants at the one-day seminar on Speech Research in a Malaysian Context that was organized on 24 July 2017 at the Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia. The seminar was part of a series of events in the Intonation Workshop Series 2017, a training activity that was supported by the Newton Mobility Grant 2016 RD1 Fellowship for research and training: Intonation in Malay and in Malaysia (Project Code: NG160107) that was awarded by the British Academy to the editors of this volume. The project had three aims: to support the development of analytical skills in intonation among academics in Malaysia; to train them in the intonation in English, a well-documented language, as a framework for describing intonation in other languages; and to initiate a full-scale investigation of the intonation patterns of Bahasa Melayu with a view to publishing research in this area, thus contributing to what we know about intonation in languages around the world. The seminar brought together academics researching different aspects of speech in a Malaysian context, and in different languages spoken in Malaysia. As Malaysia is home to a vibrant multilingual community whose speakers speak a combination of the world languages, this volume will be relevant to researchers in Malaysia as well as other parts of the world.