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1.0 The Subject
The subject for our project is Rajeshwaran a/l Muthu. He is 11 years old and is an
Indian. He is currently studying in SJKT Kulim. His first language is Tamil. He uses
Tamil and Bahasa Malaysia to communicate with his family members. He seldom
uses English with his family and friends. He was capable of understanding the text
but he had some difficulties in pronouncing certain words. He made some minor but
perceptible mistakes when he was reading the text.
2.0 The Reading Passage
Captain Jack Sparrow crosses paths with a woman from his past, and he is not sure
if it is love or if she is a ruthless con artist whos using him to find the fabled Fountain
of Youth. When she forces him aboard the Queen Annes Revenge, the ship of the
formidable pirate Blackbeard, Jack finds himself on an unexpected adventure in
which he does not know who to fear more whether the Blackbeard or the woman
from his past.
2.1 The Orthographic Transcription
| kptn dk sprkrsz pz w wmn frm z pst | nd hi z ntrft s lvr fi zruls kn tst huz juz m t fand fel ntnv
ju | weni fsz m bd kwinnz rvend | pv fmdl rt
blkbd| dk fandz hmselfn n nkspektd dventrn wthidz nt
nhu tf m we blkbd wmn frm z pst |
2.2 The Phonemic Transcription
| kptn dk spr krsz pdz w wmn frm z pst | nd s nt s
ft s lfr fsi:s rudls kn tst u juz mtu fand fel ntenv
jut | wen fsz m bd kjunnz rvend | spv dfrmdbl
prtblkbd | dk fandz mselfn n nspektdventrn wt ds nt
nu tufr mrwe blkb wmn frm s pst |
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3.0 Analysis and Discussion of Pronunciation Features and Problem
(Consonants or Vowels)
Based on the subjects reading, we managed to notice many pronunciation errors
that he made. We made an analysis based on the pronunciation difficulties that he
faced. The words that he was unable to pronounce were:
3.1 Consonants
The subject was unable to pronounce the glottal sound /h/. This could be considered
as one of his major pronunciation difficulties. For example, instead of pronouncing
the word he (h), he pronounced it as // and instead of pronouncing the word
himself (hmself), he pronounced it as /mself/. Besides that, he also had difficulty in
pronouncing the // sound. For example, he pronounced ship (p) as /sp/ and she (i)
as /si/. This simply means that he is unable to differentiate between the consonant
/s/ and //. Both /s/ and // are fricative phonemes but different place of articulation is
used to pronounce them. /s/ is alveolar whereas // is post-alveolar. When /s/ is
pronounced, the air escapes through a narrow passage along the centre of the
tongue and the sound produced is comparatively intense (Roach, 2008). When the //
sound is produced, the tongue will be in contact with an area which is slightly further
back than /s/. Therefore, the subject was unable to distinguish between the two
phonemes and he uses similar place of articulation (alveolar) when he pronounces
the two phonemes. Moreover, he also found it difficult to pronounce the /t/ sound
(affricate). For example, instead of pronouncing which (wt), he pronounced it as
/wt/. The place of articulation for this phoneme is also similar as the // phoneme;
post-alveolar but since he used the /t/ phoneme, he was therefore using alveolar.
Hence, the subject was not aware about the existence of the post-alveolar sounds
like // and /t/. The subject also stressed on the/r/ sound in words like more. He
pronounced / m / as / m r /. The subject was also unable to identify the difference
between the consonants /j/ (palatal) and /w/ (bilabial). He pronounced queen (kwin)
as /kju:n/. Lastly, he also had difficulty in producing the // and the // sounds. For
example, he pronounced ruthless (ruls) as /rudls/, youth (ju) as /jut/, the
() as /d/ and paths (pz) as /pdz/. Both the phonemes are of dental sounds;
// being lenis and // being fortis. He substituted the // sound with /d/ sound
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(plosive) and // sound with /t/ sound (plosive). He identifies the dental sounds as
plosives.
3.2 Vowels
The subject was very confused as he was unsure of the correct vowels to be used
with certain words. Firstly, instead of pronouncing to (t), he pronounced it as /tu/.
So, the subject used long vowel /u:/ instead of the short vowel //. Another example
illustrated is the pronunciation of the word ruthless. The subject pronounced the
word as /rudls/ instead of /ruls/. He used the longer vowel /u:/ instead of the
shorter one /u/. Besides that, the subject tends to be confused between the schwa;
// and //. For instance, he pronounced the word formidable (fmdbl ) as
/frmdbl / and pirate (part) as /prt/. Lastly, the subject faced difficulty to
identify the difference between another two short vowels; namely the schwa // and
//. Instead of pronouncing the word from as /frm/, he pronounced it as /frm/.
3.3 Diphthongs
There were certain diphthongs that were not pronounced accurately by the subject.
For instance, word like fabled (febld) was pronounced as /febld/. The word
fountain /fantn/ which should not be pronounced with diphthong was pronounced
with the diphthong /e/; /fanten/. Lastly, the subject was not able to pronounce the
diphthong // too. Instead of pronouncing the word Blackbeard as /blkbd/, the
subject pronounced it as /blkbd/.
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4.0 Explanation of Possible Causes for the Pronunciation Problem
Five possible causes for the subjects pronunciation problem were identified. They
are namely ethnicity, influence from the mother tongue, educational background,
socio-economic background and the geographical aspect.
Ethnicity plays a very significant role as different people of different ethnic possess
different languages. Therefore, the subject, being an Indian uses Tamil as his major
language to communicate. Most of the Indian students face great difficulty in
pronouncing h sounds (Deterring, 2006). In Tamil, there are altogether eighteen
consonants and twelve vowels. The English consonant chart and Tamil consonant
chart have very few differences, the /h/ phoneme being one of them. The /h/
phoneme is present in the English consonant chart as glottal sound whereas is
absent in the Tamil consonant chart. Therefore, the subject, being an Indian tends to
be influenced with the Tamil language. Since there is no /h/ sound in Tamil, so, the
subject does not pronounce /h/ sound in English too. For example, instead of
pronouncing himself as /hmself/, it will be pronounced as /mself/.
In addition, mother tongue also affects the pronunciation of a non native speaker.
The pronunciation patterns or spelling and habits of first language (L1) can influencethe pronunciation of English learner (Baljit Bhela, 1999).The subjects mother tongue
is Tamil. In Tamil, the /r/ sound will usually be stressed after long vowels. Hence, the
subject here was influenced by his mother tongue as he pronounced the word more
(m) as /mr/. The fricative consonants // and // in English are usually replaced
with plosives /t/ and /d/ respectively as there are no fricative consonants in Tamil
language. Therefore, the subject pronounced ruthless (ruls) as /rudls/, youth
(ju) as /jut/, the () as /d/ and paths (pz) as /pdz/. Southern Indian
speakers (Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada) will usually be confused with the
/s/ and the // as the // phoneme does not exist in Tamil. Hence, he pronounced ship
(p) as /sp/ and she (i) as /si/.
Moreover, educational background is also one of the causes of pronunciation
problems among children. The subject is currently studying in a Tamil school and the
school lacks facilities. Therefore, the English teachers in the school do not use
devices like LCD, computers and cassettes to teach. Due to that, the students will beunable to hear the correct Received Pronunciation in order to rectify their own
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pronunciation. Most of the teachers also being non native speakers pronounce
certain words differently when they teach. Instead of pronouncing from as /frm/,
they pronounced it as /frm/ (Malaysian English). The students being unaware about
this tend to follow their teachers pronunciation rather than the Received
Pronunciation.
Besides that, socio-economic background also influences difference in
pronunciation. The student is from a middle class family and the father acts as a sole
breadwinner after his mothers death. So, being a single parent, the subjects father
faces financial problems and he could not afford to buy sufficient books for his son.
The subject only relies on some text books which are insufficient to learn accurate
English pronunciation.
Lastly, geographical aspect also plays an important role in affecting students
pronunciation. The dialect spoken in Perak is very different as compared to the
dialect spoken in Kedah. The accent will blatantly influence their pronunciation. The
subject may be influenced by South Tamil accent (as he resides in south Peninsular
Malaysia). Therefore, South Tamil accent is very different from the other parts
because long vowels are used frequently compared to short vowels. That could be
one of the reasons for the subject to pronounce the word to (t) as /tu/.
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5.0 Findings
Select two (or three) segmental or suprasegmental aspects and discuss why you
think these features are important to correct.
The suprasegmental features that will be discussed in this report are namely stress,
intonation and rhythm. Stress is a part of the English language. English speakers
use stress to communicate precisely. This is because stress in words enables a
person to understand something even if the person does not understand the word.
For example, imagine two people are speaking on the phone and the line connection
is not good. When one of them mentions a long word the other person only manages
to hear the first two syllables of it; photo and the individual is unsure if the word is
photograph or photographer. If the speaker has the knowledge about word stress
and uses it accurately, the listener will be able to identify the word because if the
word is photograph, the speaker will stress on the first syllable ( ftrf ) whereas
if the word is photographer, the speaker will stress on the second syllable
(ftrf). The subject in the recording was not aware about the stress patterns in
words For example, instead of stressing on the third syllable for the word
unexpected (nkspektd), he stressed on the last syllable /nkspektd/. If you
use word stress in your speech, you will instantly and automatically improve your
pronunciation and your comprehension ( Josef Essberger, 2008). Learners
pronunciation will be difficult to understand if the stress patterns and rules are not
followed as English language maintains the rhythm via this way.
Next, intonation should also be given attention as different intonation brings different
meaning according to different contexts and situations. For example, the sentence I
am absolutely certain illustrates definiteness if a fall is used before the word
certain. Another example is that the sentence I am going to buy a new car can
mean that the persona is either happy or irritated depending on his intonation. In
fact, when grammar and intonation are at odds, the intonation directly carries the
illocutionary force of the speech act. (Wennerstrom, 2001, page 149). In other
words, how you say something is more powerful than what you say. Therefore,
intonation conveys meaning. The subject in the recording lacks intonation as he
does not pause for commas and periods. So, sometimes the meaning is not
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conveyed. Hence, it is important to maintain the rhyme of the language by teaching
intonation.
Lastly, rhythm plays a very significant role in the English language. Since stress and
rhythm determine the pronunciation of consonants and vowelsas will be shown
belowmany segmental problems will not come up if stress and rhythmic exercises
are practised in the early stages (Brown, 2009). Sentence stress is crucial as
different meaning will be conveyed if a sentence is stressed properly. The subject in
the recording had the linking feature in his reading where he added sounds in
between words. For example, instead of pronouncing the word formidable as
/fmdbl /, he pronounced it as /frmdbl /. Therefore, the meaning of the word is
not clear and it affected the meaning of the sentence. The subject was also not fluent
as he had pauses everywhere and that made it difficult to comprehend. Sentence
stress is an important factor in fluency, as English spoken with only strong forms has
the wrong rhythm, sounds unnatural and does not help the listener to distinguish
emphasis or meaning.
Hence, these factors should be noticed and taught to children so that they will be
fluent in their pronunciation. These features make sentence meaningful. Therefore,
teachers should be aware of these features so that they will be able to create fluent
English speakers.
6.0 Conclusion
This coursework was very beneficial as I had the opportunity to observe the reasons
for children to make pronunciation errors. Therefore, I also realised that segmental
and suprasegmental features are crucial in conveying messages and ideasaccurately. All these features and the factors of pronunciation problems should be
taken care of and should be solved by teachers to create fluent English speakers.