phonology data.docx

7/29/2019 Phonology Data.docx

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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.

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