This dissertation, "A Comparative Analysis of the Phonetics of Hong Kong Cantonese and Guangzhou Cantonese" by Wing-li, Wu, 胡永利, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled "A Comparative Analysis of the Phonetics of Hong Kong Cantonese and Guangzhou Cantonese" Submitted by Wu Wing Li for the degree of Master of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in March 2006 The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong and Guangzhou differs substantially in lexicon as a result of the different socioeconomic situations. But in terms of pronunciation, there is controversy whether the differences of the two varieties are substantial. On the one hand, though Hong Kong Cantonese was derived from Guangzhou Cantonese and thus the two varieties have very similar phonological systems, there are subtle differences in pronunciation which are often distinguishable by the native speakers. On the other hand, as the people from the two cities are now in more frequent contacts, their languages are influencing each other to a larger extent and may have become less and less easily distinguishable. This research focuses on comparing and contrasting the Cantonese sounds of young adult native speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese and Guangzhou Cantonese. An impressionistic analysis, a formant frequency analysis of the vowels, and a fundamental frequency analysis of the tones of the recorded Cantonese sounds of the two groups of speakers were carried out. It was found that there are more phonetic similarities than differences between Hong Kong Cantonese and Guangzhou Cantonese. Many of the phonetic features described for Hong Kong Cantonese were also found in the speech of the native speakers of Guangzhou Cantonese. DOI: 10.5353/th_b3581298 Subjects: Cantonese dialects - China - Hong Kong - Phonetics Cantonese dialects - China - Guangzhou - Phonetics