King Abdul-Aziz University
College of Science & Arts
English Department
ENGL 499
Practicum in Linguistics
Research paper
"Errors of Pronunciation That Made By Arab Learners"
Name: Hanan Almohammadi.
ID: 1425604
Submitted to: MS Hadia Ebrahim
List of Acronyms
KAU=(King Abdul Aziz University)
CA =(Contrastive Analysis)
EA =( Error Analysis)
EFL =( English as a Foreign Language)
ESL = (English as a Second Language)
FLT = (First Language Transfer)
IPA = (International Phonetic Alphabet)
L1 = (First Language)
L2 = (Second Language)
MSA = (Modern Standard Arabic)
NL= (Native Language)
TL= (Target Language
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter1
1. Abstract
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Statement of the problem
1.3 Objective of the study
1.4 Research question
1.5 Hypotheses
1.6 Significance of the study
1.7 Methodology
1.8 limits of the study
Chapter2
2. Literature review.
2.1 Syllable Structures in Arabic and English.
2.2 Stress Patterns in Arabic and English
2.3 Problems and Explanations.
2.3.1 Problem /p/ vs. /b/
2.3.2 Problem /v/ vs. /f/
2.3.3 Problem /Ɵ/ and /ð / Egypt the + the
2.3.4 Problem /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ ch + j
2.3.5 Problem /r/
2.4 Reflection of pronunciation errors.
2.5 MSA vs. Vernacular Arabic Pronunciation.
Chapter 3
3. Methodology
Chapter 4
4. Data Analysis.
Chapter 5
5. Conclusion.
"Errors of Pronunciation That Made By Arab Learners"
CHAPTER1
1.Abstract
In this research, we will focus on English pronunciation errors made by native Arab learner when they are speaking, presenting speeches or giving presentations. It also aims to shed light on the area of English consonant cluster system. We hypothesized that the most common reason for the difficulties of English pronunciation that encountered by Arab learners, because the different of sound between Arabic and English. For current study, the instruments used for collecting data information included were sound record test by native speakers of Arabic speaking were compared between different dialects. The findings of the study revealed that participants had difficulties pronounce eleven consonant sounds. Furthermore results show that a great number of participants, unintentionally insert a vowel sounds in English syllable to break for consonant clusters. Paying keen attention to these errors and trying to correct them will affect the process of English language acquisition and learning.
1.1 Introduction
The Importance of Pronunciation Despite the fact that nowadays human beings have writing systems to record their languages and numerous digital machines to make saving them even easier, people still communicate through speaking more than they do through writing. Therefore much attention is to be paid to pronunciation, as it contributes to conveying the right message in oral discourse. If the message is not properly articulated, pronunciation might sometimes hinder communication or lead to the wrong apprehension of what is said. Zimmermann (2004, p.29) stated that “Pronunciation is crucially ”.important, as it is usually the first thing people notice about a language learner’s English This is one of the reasons why, for the purpose of this study, the researcher will concentrate on English pronunciation errors made by native Arab speakers, while they are conversing, delivering speeches or giving presentations. Paying keen attention to these errors and attempting to correct them will affect the process of second language acquisition and learning. In some cases erroneous pronunciation might lead to the wrong spelling as well. The following examples by Zimmermann (2004, p.31) illustrate this impact; “ …’will’ is often replaced by ‘well’ and ‘park’ by ‘bark’, ‘sale’ by ‘sell’ are often confused and so on.” The examples above mean that the pronunciation errors can affect other linguistic levels at the same time. On the other hand, spelling also directly contributes to some pronunciation errors. Words such as, debt, lieutenant, laugh, dough, to mention only a few, are very confusing to the learner and might lead to pronunciation errors based on the written form. This highlights the fact that English has a deep orthography system in which the relationship between letters and sounds is not a one to one relationship. In other words, a group of letters might represent only one sound as in (tio) making the sound /ʃ/. Another problematic area in English orthography as well, is when one letter is represented by different sound articulations i.e. the letter (a) in words such as man, car and cautious. On the contrary, the Arabic orthographic system is shallow. The letter sound relationship in Arabic is more explicit than that in English. In Arabic the word is almost pronounced as it is written. Especially in consonants, except for some rare cases, almost every letter represents a sound. The rare cases are those of assimilation as in the word / The /n/ is assimilated to /m/, because of the adjacent stop /b/. On the other hand, Arabs depend more /ذنب ðəmb on their diacritic system to insert vowels or to add stress to words, especially in connected speech.
Moreover, some of the spelling dilemmas in English resulted from the archaic pronunciation and spelling by the non-native speakers who were working in the printing press industry some centuries ago. They were affected by their native tongue and this led to the fossilized spelling forms we recognize now as Standard English spelling. :The best description of what happened might be When the printing press was introduced in the fifteenth century, not only were archaic pronunciation “frozen”, but the spelling did not always represent even those pronunciations, since many of the early printers were Dutch and (were unsure of English pronunciation. (Fromkin and Rodman 1983, p.157 The above interrelated spelling and pronunciation problems were mentioned as examples that contributed to making English orthography deep and problematic. These problems made English spelling a complicated task for the Arabic learner. Because English orthography is more complicated than Arabic, the native speaker of Arabic might adopt some repair strategies from his or her L1 orthographic system to facilitate his or her spelling and pronunciation task, i.e. reading words such as debt, listen, and fasten as they are written. Kharma and Hajjaj (1997, :p.14) summarize this as The spelling of Arabic is overwhelmingly regular. In contrast, the spelling of English is seemingly very irregular.
1.2 Statement of the problem
This study focuses on the pronunciation errors that result from the impact on the vernacular dialects of the native speakers of Arabic. In addition, difference sounds between Arabic and English. Paying keen attention to these errors and trying to correct them will affect the process of English language acquisition and learning.
1.3 Objective of the study
1-To finds the implication of student's pronunciation errors portrait to their academic and social life.
2-To analyze whether the vernacular dialects of Arabic affect the pronunciation of English as a second language?
3-To investigates the cause that contributes to the student's pronunciation errors.
4-To suggests some simple methods that are can avoid the problem.
1.4 Research questions
This study is attempting to address the following questions:
1-What is the implication of students' pronunciation portrait to their academic and social life?
2- Does the students' mother tongue affect students' pronunciation?
3- In what way does vernacular dialects of Arabic affect the pronunciation of English as a second language?
4- How we can avoid this error ?
1.5 Hypotheses
The errors of pronunciation that made by Arab learners when they are speaking or giving presentation that is because effect of students mother tongue and the deference to English and Arabic language.
That is deferent well be to make a problem of Arab learners in their social life. Pronunciation is one of the most important things that students have to master in order to communicate appropriately and fluently. According to Fangzhi (1998:39), that it is important to pay attention to pronunciation since it results in whether or not someone's message can be passed or not by other people.
1.6 Significance of the study
They are a lot of problems that occurring to students when learning English as a second language. Pronunciation one of most common problems that are happened to their learners as Arab learners. If they are can't pronounce English well, they can't communicate with students or teachers English native speaker. Gilbert (cited in Otlowsky, 2004:3) stated that if someone cannot hear English well, she or he is cut off from the language. And if someone cannot be understood easily, she or he is cut off from conversation with native speakers. We can conclude from the statements above that pronunciation gives a significant effect of the meaning of what someone says. However, almost all English teachers make little attempt to teach pronunciation in any overt way and only give attention to it in passing. If the message is not properly articulated, pronunciation might sometimes hinder communication or lead to the wrong apprehension.
1.7 Methodology
In our current study we try to describe the portrait of Arab students' pronunciation and analyze the implication of students' pronunciation towards the teaching and learning of English. The method that we used it was sound record test. It's give to Arab students whose learning English like a second language.
1.8 Limits of the study
The participants of this study were a group of 60 students of three different years from king Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah,( the first, the second and the third years) of English language students, And with various Arabic dialects (Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian).
Chapter2
2.Literature Review
Many linguists and researchers on (SLA) concluded that the English pronunciation problems among speakers of other languages are the same but it is according to each language background, such as Arabic language. English and Arabic are two different languages in nature, especially in the phonological system. It is important to know more about phonetics and phonology in general before specifying the differences between both languages. According to Yule (2010, p.292), "phonetics is defined as the study of speech sounds characteristics, while phonology studies the patterns and systems of sounds uttered in a language".
So because that we try to focus on the following linguistic areas: Syllable Structures in Arabic and English, Stress Patterns in Arabic and English, Categories of Pronunciation Errors, phonology.
2.1Syllable Structures in Arabic and English
A comparison of Arabic and English syllable structures might facilitate the task of finding out why Arabic speakers sometimes have stress shift or vowel insertion as repair strategies. “English and Arabic are two languages that differ greatly in the range of syllable structure patterns”, (Odisho, 1979, p. 205). He also adds "Thus great interference is expected when English assumes the status of the target language for the native speakers of Arabic".
In his study on consonant clusters and abutting consonants, Odisho (1979, p. 207) found out that “Arabic and Syriac do not permit medial clusters”, instead they “allow one consonant to abut on another” i.e. madrasa (school) CVC.CV.CV. Breaking the word of 3 syllables makes it obvious that the middle consonants /d/ and /s/ belong to different syllables and although they are adjacent, they do not make a medial consonant cluster.
2.2 Stress Patterns in Arabic and English
The syllable structure of any language has a direct impact on its stress patterns. As the case is above with syllable structures, Arabic and English also have noticeable differences in terms of stress patterns. The combination of syllable structure and stress patterns might interpret in what way FLT occurs in stress shifts. Kharma and Hajjaj (1997, pp. 24-25) simplify the English word stress patterns as follows:
1) All one-syllable words, spoken in isolation, are stressed.
2) A two-syllable word has one stressed syllable, on the first as in ‘study, or on the second as in be’lieve.
3) Prepositions, like verbs, often have stress on the second syllable, e.g. a’bove.
4) If a word has a diphthong or a tense vowel, the stress often falls on it, e.g. ho’rizon.
5) If there is no tense vowel or diphthong, stress often falls on the third short vowel from the end or the second from the end if followed by two consonants e.g. ‘cinema, hori’zontal.
6) In words of three or more syllables there is usually one stressed syllable, but occasionally there may be two, e.g. ex’cessively or ‘over’esteimate.
Kharma and Hajjaj (1997, p. 26) summarize the Arabic word stress patterns in 4 categories:
1) A word of one syllable whether short or long, takes a primary stress, e.g. ‘min (from), ‘bard (cold).
2) A word of two or three syllables takes a primary stress on the first syllable, e.g. /ʔbædæn/ (never), /kætæbæ/ (he wrote).
3) A multi-syllable word takes the primary stress on the last syllable if it is long, e.g. /yæktu’bu:n/ (they write).
4) If the last syllable is not long, the primary stress falls on the last long syllable, e.g. /ʔihti’mæmuhu/ (his interes).
From the above comparisons between the English and the Arabic syllable structures and stress patterns, we notice that differences between syllable break down and stress exist. As a result, the native speakers of Arabic might have difficulties stressing the right syllable or adopt some repair strategies such as vowel insertion or stress shift depending on their competence of the Arabic syllable structure and stress patterns.
2.3 Problems and Explanations
2.3.1 Problem /p/ vs. /b/
One of the most common problems of Arab speakers is differentiating between the sound /p/ and /b/ , which are voiced and voiceless sounds . Indeed , they can pronounce /b/ successfully since it exists on Arabic , but the aspirated /p/ does not exist on Arabic . In English , pronouncing the sound /b/ instead of /p/ changes the meaning such as the difference between /bæt/ and /pæt/ (Murcia , Brinton & Goodwin , 2010 , 51 ) /b/ sound is a voiced manner and has Bilabial stop and produced by lips . Even though /P/ sound is a voiceless and bilabial . Arab learners have difficulties pronouncing /p/ correctly because they are not aware of the way how to produce it and produced by lips and speaker should push the air stronger outside the mouth . Example , beat has another meaning from peat . Learners should be more aware of the difference in meaning first and then try to pronounce them together and compare.
2.3.2 Problem /v/ vs. /f/
Another problem That Arab speakers had when they learn English is differentiating between the /v/ /f/ sounds. “Arabic doesn’t have a contrastive /v/ sound, although the sound does occur as a positional variant of /f/ before voiced stops and Fricatives” (Avery brlich, 1992, P 111). /f/ sound is a voiceless manner and has Labiodental place. Even though /v/ sound has a labiodental, Arab learners have difficulties pronouncing /v/ correctly because they are not aware of the way how to produce it. /v/ is a voiced produced between lips and teeth, and speaker should vibrate the sound between the lips and the teeth. Example, fan has another meaning from van. Students should be more aware of the difference in meaning first and then try to pronounce them together and compare. Arab speakers can pronounce /f/ easily because it is part of Arabic language. Even though they know that the two sounds are different they still find difficulties pronouncing the /v/ sound.
2.3.3 Problem /Ɵ/ and /ð / Egypt the + the
Both /Ɵ/ and /ð / are dental fricative and; /ð / is voiced and /Ɵ/ voiceless manner. "speakers of some dialects in Arabic may substitute /t/ and /d/ for /Ɵ/ and /ð / respectively, while speakers of other dialects may substitute /s/ and /z/” (Avery & Ebrlich, 1992, Page According to Wise (1975), Egyptian speakers has special needs
Because their dialect is different from other dialects in the same language. In Egypt, people usually replace the sound /Ɵ/ and /ð / with the sound /z/ even though both sounds are part of Arabic.
This case related to the Egyptian culture and their accent has old roots. Egypt has more than 98% Muslims in its population, which means they are reading the holy book (Quran). Reading Quran requires an accurate pronunciation, including the sounds /Ɵ/ and /ð/
Nevertheless, for reasons that are not clear, Egyptian still struggle with pronouncing it correctly because of the Egyptian culture.
This indicates how this problem is serious for them and hard it is to solve
For Example:
Wrong pronunciation: Sing correct: Thing
Wrong pronunciation: zair correct: There
2.3.4 Problem /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ ch + j
In Arabic there are no /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ sounds, /tʃ/ is voiceless and /dʒ/ is voiced; both have affricate manner and take the palatal place of articulation. The problem is that Arabic does not have affricate sound. This problem carries over into reading English. They might encounter different problem with different sound such as /k/ when it is written in form of Ch as in Christin. Students at the beginning might overgeneralize the use of ch as it pronounced /tʃ/. For example, if Arab speakers read the word Characters, the first sound should take /k/.However, Because Arabic has a good sound –to- symbol correspondence; beginning learners might not identify the correct way of saying it.
2.3.5 Problem /r/
“The English /r/ maybe pronounced as a trill” (Avery Ebrlich, 1992, Page 112). There are number of ways to produce /r/and Arab speakers usually have difficulties pronouncing the dark /r/.
Dark /r/ is a voiced palatal liquid. This sound for Arab speakers is one of the hardest sounds to adjust by the mouth to. In English, there are two ways to pronounce there. One of them is used by English native speakers which are voiced palatal liquid like the /r/ in ‘Peter’. The second way is voiced alveolar liquid like ‘rain’. These differentiations might
confused the learner in the beginning.
2.4 Reflection of pronunciation errors
The researcher is interested in error analysis, especially pronunciation errors In Arab learner, as a communicate with other people do not only reflect the level of education the ESL/EFL learner receives, but it is also a reflection of their personal profile and prestige, especially if they are formal officials or diplomats addressing audience in public.
2.5 MSA vs. Vernacular Arabic Pronunciation
Meaning in
English Deviated pronunciation-
accent Standard pronunciation
Sea /bəhər/ Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Gulf area /bəhr/ بحر A
Form/Style /ʃekel/ Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian /ʃəkl/ شكل B
Sin /zəmb/ Egyptian
/(ð)zəneb/ Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Gulf area /ðəmb/ ذنب C
Married /emzaweʒ/ Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian /mɒtazawiʒ/ متزوج D
Security /əmen/ Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Gulf area /əmn/ أمن E
Much/Many /ketiːr/ Egyptian
/ektiːr/ Lebanese, Syrian /kəθiːr/ كثير F
For example /mæselen/ Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrian.
/ mætelen/ Libyan /mæθelen/ مثلا G
Table 1
Table 1 illustrates examples of different Arabic dialects to demonstrate the underlying repair strategies taking place while pronouncing some words according to the characteristics of each dialect. In examples A and B the countries mentioned have a lot of vowel insertion in their vernacular dialects. In example C, the Egyptians substitute the /ð/ for /z/ as we mentioned before. In addition to this, the vowel insertion by the Lebanese and Syrians assimilated the /m/ to /n/. While for the Egyptians the change is for the first consonant /ð/, which does not to exist in colloquial Egyptian Arabic. There is no vowel insertion in the Egyptian case and the /n/ sound is assimilated into /m/, as MSA pronunciation exhibit, affected by the following final consonant /b/ forming a final consonant cluster, which the other dialects do not exhibit.
In examples (D) and (E), there is also vowel insertion but in two different positions. In (D) the pronunciation of word /mɒtazawiʒ/ is totally changed and a vowel was inserted in an initial position due to the existence of deviated consonant cluster /mz/. Whereas, in (E) the vowel insertion occurred before the final consonant to avoid the difficult consonant cluster. Egyptians pronounce the word /əmn/ as it is, because as Watson denoted above, Yemeni and Egyptian Arabic sometimes exhibit final consonant clusters. Examples (F) and (G) display two contradicting cases, even within the same vernacular dialect.
In (F) all the dialects converted the /θ/ into /t/ due to what they are used to doing in their dialects. The Syrians and the Lebanese inserted a vowel in an initial position. In the last example the same dialects in (F) converted the same sound /θ/ to /s/ instead of /t/ as they did in the previous example.
Chapter 3
3.Methodology
Many linguists and researchers on (SLA) concluded that the English pronunciation problems among speakers of other languages are the same but it is according to each language background, such as Arabic language. English and Arabic are two different languages in nature, especially in the phonological system. It is important to know more about phonetics and phonology in general before specifying the differences between both languages. According to Yule (2010, p.292), "phonetics is defined as the study of speech sounds characteristics, while phonology studies the patterns and systems of sounds uttered in a language".
So because that we try to focus on the following linguistic areas: Syllable Structures in Arabic and English, Stress Patterns in Arabic and English, Categories of Pronunciation Errors, and reflection of this problem.
In our current study we try to describe the portrait of Arab students' pronunciation and analyze the implication of students' pronunciation towards the teaching and learning of English. The method that we used it was sound record test. It's give to a group of 60 students of three different years of king Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah,( the first, the second and the third years) of English language. They were students with various Arabic dialects (Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian).
Chapter 4
4.Data Analysis
A common mistake made by many international students studying English as a second language such as Arab learners is not paying adequate attention to English pronunciation. This underestimation of the importance of pronunciation is mainly because students tend to think mistakenly that pronunciation is less important compared to other aspects of the English language such as grammar, lexicology and vocabulary.
The method that we use in this study was sound record test .The test contains sentences were given to the students to read individually, and they were told that their pronunciation would be recorded and their recordings would be used in the research study.
All the recordings for Saudi learners in group of 60 students of three different years of KAU with various Arabic dialects (Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian)
The data was collected in classrooms in King Abdu Aziz University. The researcher, in this study used a recorder and cassettes for recording sample consonant speech sounds.
All data were collected and designed by the researcher himself. The test contains eleven consonant phonemes and three areas of consonant clusters were identified as problematic. Next, a list of thirty-one words containing the problematic sounds was created. The rest of the words were four which represented the three areas of consonant clusters. Utterances were phonemically transcribed and then compared with the target language in order to decide what is correct and what were not.
At the beginning of this study process, the participants were informed of the objectives of this research and that their identity would be kept confidential in the research report. Each participant was given an information sheet and a consent form that they were required to read and sign. Furthermore, the process of data collection was explained clearly in detail to all the participants.
The findings of the study revealed that there are a lot of linguistic factors that make Arab learners contribute to making pronunciation errors. One of them was a different between Arabic and English sound system as Swan and Smith state that “English has 22 vowels and diphthongs to 24 consonants”, while “Arabic has only eight vowels and diphthongs … to 32 consonants". The different dialects also one of factors that make Arab learner faced on a problems with English pronunciation. We suggest that the learners should be more attention to this problem whether acquire a language by formal or informal way. As a formal way in classroom can listen and repeat after the teacher, this method most common one to improve and correct the errors of pronunciation, Also teacher should be teaching the pronunciation skill as other skill and do not neglect it may be by use more practice like minimal pairs that can discover the errors throw focusing on one particular sound or by Audio lingual method that more formal and effects way.
Chapter 5
5.Conclusion
To conclude, this study focuses on the linguistic factors that make Arab learners contribute to making pronunciation errors.
We all need the proper pronunciation when learning a second language, in order for our speech to be intelligible to others. Intelligibility is the core of any communication process and pronunciation is its tool. In one’s native language the other party might tolerate an accent, fast speech, falling tones etc., as they can still get the message. When learning a second language the significance of proper pronunciation doubles. Conversing with TL speakers differs in many ways. They belong to different sound and orthography systems, syllable structures, stress patterns and different cultural background. In the conclusion section, the researcher attempts to suggest some research and pedagogical solutions to help cater for pronunciation problems for the native speakers of Arabic learning English as a second language
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