Recent work by researchers from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Department of Linguistics and Georgetown University demonstrates that the pronunciation of vowels is a part of what makes Hawai‘i English unique compared with other varieties of English. Hawai‘i English, the name given to the English that is spoken in the islands, is commonly spoken alongside Pidgin/Hawai‘i Creole, and is an understudied variety. This work provides a stepping stone toward our knowledge of the ways that people from Hawai‘i speak. The results of this work were recently published in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association; the full citation is given below.
Kirtley, M. Joelle*, James Grama*, Katie Drager*, and Sean Simpson+ (2016) An acoustic analysis of the vowels of Hawai‘i English. Journal of the International Phonetic Association. doi:10.1017/S0025100315000456.
* The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
+ Georgetown University