Analysis of The Difficulties of Balinese Vendors in Pronouncing The English Sounds.

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ABSTRACT

Dalam tugas akhir ini, saya menganalisis kesulitan yang dialami oleh pedagang-pedagang asongan di Bali dalam mengucapkan bunyi bahasa Inggris yang dipakai oleh para pedagang tersebut untuk menjalin komunikasi dengan para wisatawan mancanegara. Kesulitan-kesulitan tersebut diakibatkan oleh adanya perbedaan bentuk bunyi bahasa antara bunyi bahasa Inggris dengan bunyi bahasa Bali. Saya memilih ini sebagai topik bahasan dalam tugas akhir saya untuk menunjukkan bahwa bunyi bahasa suatu negara, terutama bahasa Inggris yang dipakai sebagai bahasa internasional, belum tentu bisa diucapkan dengan benar oleh orang-orang yang menggunakan bahasa tersebut sebagai bahasa asing.

Sebagai sumber analisis, saya menggunakan pedagang-pedagang asongan di Bali. Kesulitan yang dialami oleh pedagang-pedagang asongan di Bali dalam mengucapkan bunyi bahasa Inggris menyebabkan mereka mengganti bunyi-bunyi tersebut dengan bunyi yang mereka bisa ucapkan dan terdengar mirip dengan bunyi yang asli.

Proses-proses analisis dalam tugas akhir saya meliputi bidang linguistik, khususnya Phonetics dan Phonology serta Psycholinguistics. Phonetics dan Phonology digunakan untuk menganalisis bunyi bahasa Inggris apa saja yang

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Proses-proses analisis dalam tugas akhir saya meliputi bidang linguistik, khususnya Phonetics dan Phonology serta Psycholinguistics. Phonetics dan Phonology digunakan untuk menganalisis bunyi bahasa Inggris apa saja yang

tidak ada di bunyi bahasa Bali sehingga menyebabkan pedagang-pedagang asongan di Bali kesulitan dalam pengucapan bunyi bahasa Inggris.

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APPENDICES

English vowel sounds that are difficult to pronounce by the

Balinese vendors

Balinese vowel sounds which replace English vowel sounds that are difficult to

pronounce by the Balinese vendors

[i:] [i] are difficult to pronounce by

the Balinese vendors

Balinese consonant sounds which replace English vowel sounds that are difficult to

pronounce by the Balinese vendors

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

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A good example of mastering English as an important language for communication can be found in Bali. Bali is the most popular place for tourism in Indonesia, because there are a lot of tourist attractions with beautiful views, such as beaches, Balinese temples and souvenir markets which offer various things with various prices. There are a lot of vendors in those places and they have to build communication with the foreigners as consumers in order to sell their goods. In building communication, they have to adapt their language with the foreigner’s language. Still, a lot of Balinese people speak English with their Balinese pronunciation, including the vendors who use English to communicate with foreigners. Consequently, misinterpretations sometimes happen, so a lot of them use non verbal language as an end result.

The language used by Balinese vendors while interacting with foreigners is called bahasa pasar. Bahasa pasar is the English version created and used by the Balinese vendors to communicate with the foreign buyers in English in offering their goods. This kind of language is not focused on correct pronunciation, and this language is only spoken in tourism places.

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non-standard English sounds in their conversation with foreigners as consumers. I collected these data when I spent my holiday in Bali in June 2006 and January 2007.

The subject of the difficulties in pronouncing English sounds by the Balinese vendors is interesting to discuss in order to determine possible areas of difficulty for the Balinese vendors in pronounce English sounds. In addition, it makes me curious to analyze the English pronunciation spoken by the Balinese vendors so I can understand the reasons why Balinese vendors make mistakes in pronouncing the English sounds and to know whether their background education in learning English affects the way Balinese vendors speak English.

In this analysis, there are two linguistic areas that I use as the approaches. The first area is Phonetics and Phonology. Phonology is the study of sound systems in particular languages. It is concerned with significant units of sound called phonemes and the relationships between them. Phonetics is concerned with the description of speech sounds without reference to any particular language. It also looks at details of pronunciation. (Deterding, 1998: 2)

The second linguistic area is Psycholinguistics. Psycholinguistics is the study of the psychological and neurological factors that enable humans to acquire, understand and use language. The theory applied in this area is interference theory, especially in phonological interference.

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I hope this analysis will help people to understand more why the Balinese vendors use that particular style of English and what kind of mistakes that Balinese vendors usually made.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

In this thesis, I would like to discuss the following problems:

1. Which English sounds are difficult for the Balinese vendors to pronounce? 2. What factors cause these difficulties based on phonological differences?

1.3 Purpose of the Study

In this thesis, I would like to show:

1. The English sounds that are difficult for the Balinese vendors to pronounce. 2. The factors that cause these difficulties based on phonological differences.

1.4 Method of Research

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1.5 Organization of the Thesis

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I would like to draw some conclusions based on the analysis

that I have carried out in the previous chapter. From my analysis, I find some English

sounds that are difficult for the thirty Balinese vendors to pronounce. This is the

result of the dissimilarities between English phonology and Balinese phonology. The

thirty Balinese vendors tend to use Balinese phonology which has similarity with

English phonology. As a result, it frequently causes the inaccurate pronunciation by

many Balinese vendors.

From the analysis in the previous chapter, I find that it is difficult for the

thirty Balinese vendors to pronounce vowel sounds. The first English vowel sounds

which are difficult to pronounce are [i:] and [I]. The Balinese vendors replace these

vowel sounds with [i]. The second English vowel sounds that are difficult to

pronounce are [u:] and [ʊ], which are replaced with [u]. The third one is the sound

[ɑ:], which is replaced with the sound [a]. The fourth one is the sound [æ], which is

replaced with the sound [e]. The fourth sound [æ] can also be replaced with the

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quite similar. The difference between the sound [æ] and the sound [a] only occurs at

the front of the tongue, which is lower and a bit further in the back. The next difficult

vowel sound is [з:], and it is replaced with the sound [ə]. The last one is the sound

[ɔ:] which is replaced by [D].

From the explanation above, I conclude that the English vowels which are

difficult to pronounce by the Balinese vendors are the long vowels, considering that

long vowels do not occur in Balinese phonology. As a result, the long vowels will be

pronounced as short vowels by the Balinese vendors. Beside this, there are some

English vowel sounds that are absent in Balinese phonology. That is why, the thirty

Balinese vendors tend to replace the absence sounds with sounds that occur in

Balinese phonology.

Consonants sounds are difficult for the thirty Balinese vendors to pronounce,

especially the English fricatives and English affricates, considering the great

dissimilarity between English phonology and Balinese phonology about these

sounds. Therefore, the Balinese vendors replace these sounds with similar sounds.

The English fricative sounds which are absent in Balinese phonology are [f], [v], [θ],

[ð], [z], [ʃ] and [ʒ]. English labio-dental fricatives [f] and [v] tend to be replaced by

the Balinese voiceless bilabial plosive [p], while the English voiceless dental

fricative [θ] tends to be replaced by the Balinese voiceless retroflex plosive [ʈ]. The

English voiced dental fricative [ð] is commonly replaced by the Balinese voiced

retroflex plosive [ɖ]. The last English fricatives which tend to be naturally replaced

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[z], the English voiceless palato-alveolar fricative [ʃ] and the English voiced

palato-alveolar fricative [ʒ].

Some English affricate sounds that are difficult to pronounce by Balinese

vendors are the palato alveolar affricates [ʧ] and [ʤ]. The English voiceless palato

alveolar affricate [ʧ] is usually replaced by the Balinese voiceless palatal plosives

[c]. Meanwhile, the English voiced palato-alveolar affricate [ʤ] is naturally replaced

by the Balinese voiced palatal plosive [ɟ].

English alveolar plosives [t] and [d] tend to be replaced by the Balinese

retroflex plosives [ʈ] and [ɖ]. If the voiceless velar plosive [k] is put at the end of a

word, it is pronounced as a glottal plosive [ʔ]. However, if the English velar plosive

is put at the beginning or in the middle of a word, it is still pronounced as a voiceless

velar plosive [k], not a glottal plosive [ʔ].

It can be concluded from the analysis that the Balinese vendors usually replace

the English plosives, fricatives and affricates sounds with similar sounds from

Balinese phonology. They do this because they are greatly influenced by Balinese

phonology.

Both aspiration and weak forms cause difficulties in pronouncing English

sounds. Aspiration commonly occurs in all voiceless plosives when these sounds are

pronounced by English speakers. Aspiration and the weak forms do not occur in

Balinese phonology. The thirty Balinese vendors mostly use the strong form in

pronouncing English structure words because there is no weak form in Balinese

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These difficulties in pronouncing vowel and consonant sounds that are

experienced by the thirty Balinese vendors are closely related to negative transfer.

Mistakes occur frequently in the language transfer, owing to the fact that there are

significant differences between Balinese phonology and English phonology. In

pronouncing English sounds, the thirty Balinese vendors are greatly influenced by

Balinese phonology. Most of the difficult English sounds are replaced by the

Balinese vendors with similar sounds they know which are based on Balinese

phonology. As a result, a new language or Interlingua is created, called bahasa

pasar.

Bahasa pasar is the language created and used by the Balinese vendors when

interacting with foreign buyers and has its own pronunciation, which is based on

Balinese phonology not based on English phonology, considering that many English

sounds are difficult to pronounce by the Balinese vendors.

As a closing remark, I would like to say that the difficulties in pronouncing

English sounds faced by the thirty Balinese vendors happen because the Balinese

pronunciation greatly influences one’s English pronunciation. As a result, Balinese

vendors tend to replace the difficult sounds with similar sounds from Balinese

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Anandakusuma, Sri Reshi. Kamus Bahasa Bali. CV. Kayumas Agung, 1986.

Deterding, David H., and Gloria R. Poedjosoedarmo. The Sounds of English. Singapore: Pearson Education Asia Pte Ltd, 1998.

Jones, Daniel. An Outline of English Phonetics. New York: University of Cambridge, 1960.

Gimson, AC. English Pronouncing Dictionary. Great Britain: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1977.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Great Britain: Richard Clay Ltd., 1987.

Lyons, John. Language and Linguistics. New York: University of Cambridge, 1981. Rogers, Henry. The Sounds of Language. England: Pearson Education Limited, 2000.

Electronic Publications

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<http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk /IPA/ipachart.html>.

Schutz, Ricardo. “Stephen Krashen’s theory of Second Language Acquisition.” 20 August 2005. 16 August, 2006

<http://www.sk.com.br/sk-inst.html#inst>