INTRODUCTION
There are many kinds of languages in the world. Every person is born and raised up in a particular language community and as a result the language that the person is more exposed to will become his or her mother tongue. For example, Indonesia, as an independent country, has an official language called “Bahasa Indonesia” and people all over Indonesia must learn the National Language. However, there are several other dialects as well, as the result of the fact that there are various tribes living within the country, and certainly each of the dialects serves as a distinction feature which is unique to a certain group of society. In such kind of environment, Hokkien is also considered a dialect, even though it originated from a foreign country.
The writer is interested in writing a thesis in the domain of formal linguistics, where the topic as the field of study for the thesis, namely, the topic dealing with English phonemes which are often pronounced incorrectly by speakers of other languages. To be more specific, the writer investigates a problem in learning pronunciation, where phonemic interference of the students’ mother tongue occurs during utterance of English.
This research is conducted in Fakultas Sastra Universitas Methodist Indonesia Medan, in the English Literature Study Program. The writer noticed that some Chinese students of Fakultas Sastra have a problem with phonemic interference of their mother
tongue, i.e. “Medan Hokkien1”. Therefore, the subjects used for this research are Fakultas Sastra students and the object of the study is their English pronunciation. In this thesis, the part of language to be studied is phonemes – particularly phonemics.
According to the writer, learning other languages is interesting and useful because of globalization era. We will face many people from all over the world in the future, at least in public and working places. Some languages have similarities and differences with other languages. In this case, when a Chinese student in Fakultas Sastra Universitas Methodist Indonesia (UMI) Medan intends to learn English, he will easily master English by learning the proper pronunciation of English. He can use his mother tongue language as the foundation to comprehend English. However, there are mother tongue interferences which affect the student in pronouncing English. So, in order to be able to master English well especially the appropriate phonemes, the system and the characters of English should be known well.
1.1 The Background of the Study
Every language has its own pronunciation characteristics also called the sound system of a language. The production of language sounds involves the air pressure, movement and position of organs of speech, such as tongue, lips and their position relative to the palate, and the oral cavity. The combination of these aspects in different languages can be very different. Thus, when one studies a new language, one has to overcome the difficulty of mastering all the sounds in the new language, in terms of ability to identify the different sounds and to produce them correctly.
Based on this, the writer investigates this difficulty among college students in Medan who are from the Chinese ethnicity background and are studying English language. In this study, the writer chooses some Chinese students in Fakultas Sastra Universitas Methodist Indonesia (UMI) Medan who still have their mother tongue interference, Hokkien, which affects their way in pronouncing English appropriately and fluently as how a native speaker does speak it. Therefore, the writer is interested in conducting a study on the phonemics so that the Chinese students can easily learn how not to mispronounce English. Then, the phonetic transcription of their utterances will be represented by using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
1.2 The Problems of the Study
The problems of this study will be related to the phonemic interference of mother tongue of English pronunciation. The problems of the study can be formulated as follows.
1. What are the phonemic interferences in English made by the Chinese students in Fakultas Sastra Universitas Methodist Indonesia (UMI) Medan?
2. Which ones of those interferences do build up gap between the listener and the speaker?
1.3 The Objectives of the Study
a. to find out the phonemic interferences in English made by the Chinese students in Fakultas Sastra Universitas Methodist Indonesia (UMI) Medan.
b. to identify the most dominant interference in English pronounced by the Chinese students in Fakultas Sastra Universitas Methodist Indonesia (UMI)
Medan which builds up a gap between them and the listener.
Furthermore, the wider objective of this thesis is to contribute something to human
knowledge.
1.4 The Scope of the Study
The subjects that the writer takes in this thesis are some Chinese students in Fakultas Sastra UMI and the object is their English pronunciation as the writer has observed that some students in this faculty, especially the Chinese, have not mastered English pronunciation. The students still can not overcome their mother tongue interference in pronouncing English which might affect the native speaker in understanding the meaning of the words.
The scope of the study is essential in order to avoid the incorporation of irrelevant information to the conducted research. Consequently, this study focuses on the study of English phonemes pronounced by the Chinese students in Fakultas Sastra UMI. Therefore, this thesis will only provide information about the English and Hokkien phonemes as the core elements of this study by using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as a means of the data analysis and the mother tongue interference is Medan Hokkien as the students’ mother tongue is Medan Hokkien.
In this thesis, there are two significances of the study, namely:
1. Theoretically, this study deals with the Chinese students in Fakultas Sastra Universitas Methodist Indonesia in pronouncing English properly by overcoming their mother tongue interference. So, it is aimed to give information to the readers about the competence of the Chinese students in pronouncing proper English phonemes.
4. THEORETICAL REVIEW
5. In this chapter, the writer discusses the theoretical review used in this study. The writer would like to begin by clarifying the terms used in the present study, such as: interference, mother tongue and Hokkien. After this, the writer shall explore phonology and phoneme. The writer hopes that the present chapter provides a useful theoretical background to the present study.
2.1 Clarification of the Terms
6. In second-language learning, there is always a source language as a bridge to learn the target language. The source language in this case is mother tongue. Therefore, in using both languages, there is something which influences one another named interference. Glottopedia (s.v. “interference”) defines interference as: “the influence of one language (or variety) on another in the speech of bilinguals who use both languages.”
7. According to Weinreich (1953: 1), the interference happens due to the familiarity of the speaker with more than a language. He states that, "those
instances of deviation from the norms of either language which occur in the
speech of bilinguals as a result of their familiarity with more than one language,
phenomena."
8. Crystal (1987: 372) defines phonemic interference as:
9. “when we encounter a foreign language, our natural tendency is to hear it in terms of the sounds of our own language. We actually perceive it rather differently from the way native speakers do. Equally, when we speak a foreign language we tend to attempt to do so using the familiar sounds and sound patterns of our mother tongue. We make it sound, objectively, rather differently from how it sounds when spoken by native speakers.”
10.
11.Chomsky (1968: 400) also adds further about the mother tongue interference which may cause a problem for the learners as:
12. “any sound-types in the L2 that have no obvious counterpart in the L1 are likely to cause problems for learners. Thus the English dental fricatives, [θ] and [ð], are a familiar stumbling-block for beginning learners from many language backgrounds.”
13.
14. Wells (1982: 96-97) mentions that sound types are also a stumbling-block for native speakers as being among the last sounds that children acquire and
tending to be replaced by [f, v] or [t, d] in various local accents.
15. The influence of one language on another in the speech of bilinguals is relevant both to the field of second language acquisition (where the interference
from the learner's native language is studied) and to the field of historical
linguistics (where the effects of interference on language change are studied).
There is a verb that is derivationally related to the noun interference, i.e. to
interfere. Then, the source language that is used in learning target language
named mother tongue is defined by Pokorn (2005: 3) as:
16. "the speaker's dominant and home language, i.e. not only the first language according to the time of acquisition, but the first with regard to its importance and the speaker's ability to master its linguistic and communicative aspects.”
18.language that a person gets from his mother or a person’s home language, but also other
19. languages that he masters well. “Master” in this case means the linguistic and the communicative aspects of the language. Tulasiewics and Anthony Adams
describe mother tongue in their book entitled "What Is Mother Tongue?"
Teaching the Mother Tongue in a Multilingual Europe (2005: 5) as:
20. "the language community of the mother tongue, the language spoken in a region, which enables the process of enculturation, the growing of an individual into a particular system of linguistic perception of the world and participation in the centuries old history of linguistic production."
21. So, the mother tongue can also be defined as a language spoken in a region which enables the process itself. When a person was between 1 until 5 years old
and he is an Indonesian, his first language was Bahasa Indonesia. However, since the
age of 6, he has moved to the United States till present. Then, his mother tongue was not
only Bahasa Indonesia, but also English as he lived in the United States early and long
enough to acquire English naturally. In addition, he also masters English in linguistic
and communicative aspects which strengthen his ability in speaking English well.
22. To prove this case, Calvet states the description of mother tongue as:
23. "a mixture of myth and ideology. The family is not necessarily the place where languages are transmitted, and sometimes we observe breaks in transmission, often translated by a change of language, with children acquiring as first language the one that dominates in the milieu." (2006: 159)
24. After the descriptions of mother tongue, the term of Hokkien will be defined due to the relationship of Hokkien as the mother tongue of the Chinese students
in Fakultas Sastra UMI. Hokkien is known as a division of Chinese dialect which has
Taiwan, Indonesia, etc. Suppose you are the one living in Medan, then you will agree
that Hokkien is the most wide spread dialect in town among several others that exist in
the Chinese society. This kind of fact can easily be proven, particularly, when two or
more persons gather together, either acquainted or not, they will be ready to apply the
dialect among themselves. Due to this fact, the application of the dialect is like a kind of
unwritten law. Therefore, in short, it can be said that Hokkien is also a “lingua franca”
for a certain country, like Indonesia, especially in Medan.
25. However, when we are talking about Chinese, people always assume that language or mother tongue used by the Chinese is Mandarin rather than Hokkien.
Moreover, specifically in Medan, not all Chinese people can pronounce Mandarin.
Mandarin is usually learnt at schools. So, the mother tongue that is used by the Chinese
in Medan is Hokkien. To differ both Mandarin and Hokkien, it is important to know
their backgrounds. Wikipedia (s.v. “Mandarin”) gives a description of Mandarin as:
26. “a group of related varieties or dialects spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. Because most Mandarin dialects are found in the north, the group is also referred to, particularly among Chinese speakers, as the "northern dialect(s)". When the Mandarin group is taken as one language, as is often done in academic literature, it has more native speakers (nearly a billion) than any other language.”
27. With the above description on Mandarin, it is clear that Mandarin is widely spoken in the world. But as a second international language which can be learnt through schools.
28. The language which affected the Chinese students in Fakultas Sastra UMI in pronouncing English is Medan Hokkien. Wikipedia (s.v. “Medan Hokkien”)
29. “a local variant of Hokkien spoken in Medan, Indonesia. It is the
lingua franca in Medan as well as other northern city states of North Sumatra
surrounding it, and is characterised by the pronunciation of words according to the Zhangzhou dialect, together with widespread use of Indonesian and English borrowed words. It is predominantly a spoken dialect: it is rarely written in Chinese characters, and there is no standard romanisation.”
30. So, Medan Hokkien has been influenced by the Indonesian language as well which makes it distinct from the original Hokkien in mainland China. With the
above description on Medan Hokkien, it is clear that Medan Hokkien is widely spoken
in North Sumatra, especially in Medan.
2.2 Phonology
31. In the study of a language, formal linguistics is based on a structural approach to the language. Formal linguistics is the approach to the study of language, that see the formation of language and its elements to be the key to understand linguistic processes and structures. Almost all linguistic theory has its origin in practical problems of formal linguistics. One of the theory is phonology. Phonology has developed to describe how sound is produced and pronounced.
32. To know obviously about phonology, it is necessary to clarify the definition according to some linguists. The definition of phonology is defined by Lass (1984: 1) as
33. “the subdiscipline within linguistics concerned with ‘the sound of language’ . . . phonology proper is concerned with the function, behaviour, and organization of sounds as LINGUISTIC items; as opposed to phonetics, which is a rather more ‘neutral’ study of the sounds themselves.”
35. Lass (1984: 4) also describes some other points of general agreement relating to phonology as follows.
36. “no language has consonants made with the tip of the tongue against the vocal folds, or vowels made with simultaneous spreading and rounding of the lips (for obvious reasons); but no language appears to have segments made with the tongue-tip against the left premolars. . . including such items as places of articulation, airstream), positions of the velum, states of the glottis, etc., which can be used to classify.”
37. It is clear that not all number of sound types can be used in human languages based on the articulation, positions of the velum, states of the glottis, and etc. To know more about the sound system, Crystal states the aim of the phonology in his book entitled How Language Works (2005: 66) is:
38. “to discover the principles that govern the way sounds are organized in languages and to explain the variations that occur. . . by analyzing an individual language to determine which sound units are used and which patterns they form-the language's sound system. . . compare the properties of different sound systems. . . .”
39. He also states that phonetics and phonology are different. According to Crystal, the difference between both of them as:
40. “phonetics is the study of all possible speech sounds, phonology studies the way in which a language's speakers systematically use a selection of these sounds in order to express meaning. . . . No two speakers have anatomically identical vocal tracts, and thus no one produces sounds in exactly the same way as anyone else. Phonology is the study of how we find order within the apparent chaos of speech sounds.” (2005: 67)
42. “the study of both phonetics (the science of speech sound) and phonology (how sounds pattern and function in a given language) are going to help you to learn more about language in general and English in particular. If you’re an English native speaker, you’ll be likely to discover much about your mother tongue of which you were previously unaware. If you’re a non-native learner, it will also assist in improving your pronunciation and listening abilities.”
43. In addition, Trubetzkoy also describes that phonology concerns with phonemes. He states that:
44. “phonology is concerned not with the sounds of speech as physical, physiological, or psychophysiological phenomena but rather with phonemes, the sound intentions present in the linguistic conciousness and realized in speech. . . study of such systems has shown that the relations among their elements are of many different types.” (2001: 3)
45. From the description above, we see that the phonology is a field in learning not only the sounds of speech but also the phonemes in speech. For addition, it also concerns in the phoneme systems. Nathan defines phonology in his book Phonology: A Cognitive Grammar Introduction (2008: 10) as it is:
46. "not only about phonemes and allophones. . . also concerns itself with the principles governing the phoneme systems--that is, with what sounds languages 'like' to have, which sets of sounds are most common. . . there are prototype-based explanations for why the phoneme system of the languages of the world have the sounds that they do."
47. So
it is clear that phonology is the study which concerns about phonemes, allophones, and the phoneme systems.
2.3 Phoneme
48. Kno
produced by organs of speech together with certain attributes. The picture of the organs of speech can be seen in Figure 1 according to Nasr (1997: 7), below.
49.
50.
51. The Organs of Speech 52. 1-nasal cavity
2-lips 3-teeth
4-aveolar ridge 5-hard palate
6-velum (soft palate) 7-uvula
8-apex (tip) of tongue
9-blade (front) of tongue
10-dorsum (back) of tongue
11-oral cavity 12-pharynx 13-epiglottis 14-larynx 15-vocal cords 16-trachea 17-esophagus 53.
54.
55.
56. Figure 1
57. The set of sounds is called the speech sounds language and represented by phonemes. Webster’s II New College Dictionary defines phoneme as: “one of the set of the smallest units of speech that distinguish one utterance or word from another in a given language.” (s.v. “phoneme”)
59. “an abstract set of units as the basis of our speech. . . and the complete set of these units is called the phonemic system of the language. The phonemes themselves are abstract, but there are many slightly different ways in which we make the sounds that represent these phonemes.”
60. Sounds are heard. Letters are seen. Letters provide a means of symbolizing sounds. Murray explains in his book entitled The Structure of English (1995: 75) that:
61."the central concept in phonology is the phoneme, which is a distinctive category of sounds that all the native speakers of a language or dialect perceive as more or less the same. . . . [A]lthough the two [k] sounds in kicked are not identical--the first one is pronounced with more aspiration than the second--they are heard as two instances of [k] nonetheless. . . . (In other words, we cannot hear phonemes, but we assume they exist because of how the sounds in languages pattern as they are used by speakers.)”
62. To know more about phonemes, it can be seen through the analogy with the letters of the alphabet. Greenbaum in his book entitled The Oxford English Grammar states that:
63."the concepts of phoneme and allophone become clearer by analogy with the letters of the alphabet. We recognize that a symbol is a despite considerable variations in size, colour, and (to a certain extent) shape. The representation of the letter a is affected in handwriting by the preceding or following letters to which it is joined." (1996: 62)
64. Systematically, every phoneme can be identified into two main classes known as vowel and consonant. According to Roach (2009: 2), it is important to learn English pronunciation through the phonemes rather than letters of the alphabet:
66. In learning one’s utterance, there are phonemic systems that should be recognized. Pike (1947: 57) developed a phonemic theory for deriving an easily-learned writing system from a spoken language:
67. “the purpose of practical phonemics, therefore, is to reduce a language to writing. The sounds of a language are automatically and unconsciously organized by the native [speakers] into structural units, which we call phonemes…a practical orthography is phonemic…it has one, and only one, symbol for each sound unit…once a native learns an orthography which is closely correlated with his sound units, there is no ’spelling’ problem.”
68. Then, Swadesh (1934: 117-129) describes further about the phonemic system concerning how the native speakers hear the speech with a foreign tongue spoken:
69.
“the phonemes of a language are, in a sense, percepts to the native speakers of the given language, who ordinarily hear speech entirely in terms of these percepts. If they hear a foreign tongue spoken, they still tend to hear in terms of their native phonemes. . . . If linguists occasionally have difficulty in discovering the phonemes of a language, it is usually when the language is not native to them. . . in dealing with their own language, they be confused by some irrelevant or only partly relevant insight.”
70. Phonetic symbols might represent the phoneme systems as the sound of the language. They are called as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). IPA is the standardized phonetic symbol in the world. Roach describes International Phonetic Alphabet (2001: 5):
72. Phonetic transcription is a system for transcribing sounds that occur in a language, whether oral or sign. The most widely known system of phonetic transcription, the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), provides a standardized set of symbols for oral phones. The standardized nature of the IPA enables its users to transcribe accurately and consistently the phones of different languages, dialects, and idiolects. The IPA is a useful tool not only for the study of phonetics, but also for language teaching, professional acting, and speech pathology. The use of IPA is very important when we are learning languages. Especially when learning foreign languages, the most important thing that we should know in advance is how to pronounce the word, instead of how the word is written.
73. The importance of IPA is mentioned by Trask (2007: 124) as: 74. "though they are primarily designed for representing speech sounds (objective
75. physical events), the IPA symbols are naturally also widely used for representing the phonemes of particular languages."
76. The IPA is not only used to represent speech sounds but also to represent the phonemes of particular languages. However, the phoneme symbol consisting of an IPA symbol in phoneme slashes might not be pronounced exactly as how the IPA symbol is pronounced. Crystal (2008: 125) states that:
78.The influence of accent on how a person pronounces English is described by
Trudgill (2004: 7), "your accent is the way you pronounce English when you speak it--and of course everybody therefore has an accent. Your dialect, on the other hand, has to
79. do also with the grammatical forms that you use, as well, perhaps, as any regional vocabulary that you employ.”
80. So, the accent of Hokkien mother tongue affects the way how the Chinese pronounce English, escpecially in terms of the phonemes or phonemic contrast. Roach (2001: 6) describes accents as:
81."differences between accents are of two main sorts: phonetic and phonological. When two accents differ from each other only phonetically, we find the same set of phonemes in both accents, but some or all of the phonemes are realised differently. There may also be differences in stress and intonation, but not such as would cause a change in meaning. . . . Within the area of segmental phonology the most obvious type of difference is where one accent has a different number of phonemes (and hence of phonemic contrasts) from another."
82. Therefore, due to the purpose of this thesis is to see the English pronunciation of the Chinese students in Fakultas Sastra UMI, transcription based on IPA is highly recommended to be used because readers are not expected to become specialists in phonetics, but to become aware of the mother tongue accent which can affect the phoneme of a language.
2.3.1 Sound
suprasegmental (stress and length, intonation, and juncture). The sound which passes the vocal cord with vibration is called voiced sound. The sound which passes the vocal cord without vibration is called voiceless sound.
2.3.1.1 Consonants
84. Roach (2004: 240) defines consonants as they are produced by restricting and then releasing the flow of air in three ways: vibrating the vocal cords, changing the part of the anatomy which restricts the air flow, and changing the extent to which the air flow is restricted. Consonants with relatively little vibration of the vocal cords are called voiceless consonants (p, t, k, θ, s, ʃ, tʃ, f, h). Consonants with relatively more vibration of the vocal cords are called voiced consonants (b, d, g, ð, z, dʒ, ʒ, v, m, n, ŋ, l, r, w, j).
85. All articulated sounds are consonants. Consonants include all breathed sounds,
86. all voiced sounds formed by means of an obstruction in the mouth, all those in which
87. there is a narrowing of the air passage giving rise to a frictional noise, and certain sounds which are gliding. The classification of English consonants can be seen through these following descriptions by Roach (2004: 241-243):
A. According to the organs which articulate them.
3. Labio-dental - Air flow is restricted with the top teeth on the bottom lip (if both lips are used the sound is called bilabial). (f, v)
4. Alveolar - Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the hard plate (alveolum) behind the top front teeth. (t, d, r, l, s, z, n)
5. Palatal - Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the soft palate behind the alveolum. (j)
6. Alveo-palatal – Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the soft plate behind the front teeth. (ʃ, tʃ, ʒ, dʒ)
7. Velar - Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue far back in the mouth. (k, g, ŋ) 8. Glottal - Air flow is restricted by tightening the folds in the vocal cords (glottis).
(h) 88.
B. According to the manner in which the organs articulate them.
1. Plosive - Air flow is stopped and released suddenly. (p, t, k, b, d, g)
2. Fricative - Air flow is released gradually and makes a kind of hissing sound. (s, z, 89. θ, ð, ʃ, ʒ, f, v, h)
3. Affricate - Air flow is stopped and released gradually (resembling a plosive but 90. with separation of the articulating organs performed less quickly, with the result that a fricative sound is perceived during the process of separation). (tʃ, dʒ)
4. Nasal - Air flow is channeled through the nasal cavity. (m, n, ŋ)
6. Glide - Air flow is only partially restricted (these sounds are often called semi-vowels). (j, w)
91. English Consonants in Details
92. To understand more about the manner and the organs of articulation, Silitonga (2008: 1-35) describes the English consonants as:
A. English Plosive Consonants
93. The explosion of a consonant is formed by the air as it suddenly escapes at the instant when the stop is released. Plosive consonants are formed by completely closing the air passage, then compressing the air and suddenly opening the passage, so that the air escapes making an explosive sound. There are six plosive consonant phonemes in English. They are represented in phonetic transcription by the letter p, t, k, b, d, g.
1. /p/
94. In pronouncing the principal member of the English p, the air passage is completely blocked by closing the lips and raising the soft palate; the air is compressed by the pressure from the lungs, and in doing so makes an explosive sounds; the vocal cords are not made to vibrate. The formation of the sound may 95. be expressed shortly in defining it as a voiceless bilabial plosive consonant.
96. In pronouncing the principal member of the English t, the air passage is completely blocked by raising the soft palate and raising the tip of the tongue to touch the teeth-ridge, the air is compressed by pressure from lungs, and when the tongue is removed from the teeth-ridge, the air suddenly escapes through the mouth, and in doing so makes an explosive sound, the vocal cords are not made to vibrate. The formation of the sound may be expressed shortly by defining it as a voiceless alveolar plosive consonant.
3. /k/
97. In pronouncing the common varieties of k, the air passage is completely blocked by raising the back of the tongue to touch the fore part of the soft palate, the soft palate being at the same time raised so as to shut off the nose passage, the air is compressed by tongue with the palate is released by lowering the tongue, the air suddenly escapes through the mouth, and in doing so makes an explosive sound; the vocal cords are not made to vibrate. The forming of the principal member of English k may be expressed shortly by defining it as a voiceless velar plosive consonant.
4. /b/
98. The principal English b is formed like the principal English p that the force exhalation is weaker and the vocal cords are made to vibrate so that voice is produced during the articulation of the sound. The formation of the principal English b may therefore be expressed shortly by defining it as a voiced bilabial 99. plosive consonant.
100. The principal member of the English d is formed like the principal English t except that the force of exhalation is weaker and the vocal cords are made to vibrate so that voice is heard. The formation of the principal English d may be therefore be expressed shortly by defining it as a voiced alveolar plosive consonant.
6. /g/
101. The principal English g is formed exactly like the principal English k except that force of exhalation is weaker and the vocal cords are made to vibrate so that voice is heard. The formation of the principal English g may therefore be expressed shortly by defining the sound as a voiced velar plosive consonant.
102.
B. English Fricative Consonants
103. Fricative consonants are formed by a narrowing of the air passage at some points so when the air is expelled by pressure from the lungs, it escapes with a kind of hissing sound. In English, there are ten fricative consonant phonemes. They are represented by the letters s, z, θ, ð, ʃ, ʒ, f, v, h, r.
1. /s/
of the tongue and the teeth-ridge is extremely narrow. The soft palate is in its raised position, and the vocal cords are not made to vibrate. The formation of the s may be expressed shortly by defining the sound as a breathed blade-alveolar fricative consonant.
2. /z/
105. The principal English z is the voiced consonant corresponding to the breathed s. The formation of the sound may be expressed shortly by defining it as a voiced blade-alveolar fricative consonant. It is articulated by the blade of the tongue against the teeth-ridge, the front of the tongue being at the same time slightly raised in the direction together, and the hard palate. The teeth are brought closed together, and the passage between the blade of the tongue and the teeth-ridge is extremely narrow. The soft palate is in its raised position, and the vocal cords are made to vibrate so that voice is produced.
3. /θ/
106. The sound θ is articulated by the tip of the tongue against the upper teeth, the main part of the tongue being fairly flat, the air passage between the tip of the tongue and the upper teeth is narrow, the soft palate is in its raised position and the vocal cords are not made to vibrate. The formation of θ may be expressed shortly by defining it as a breathed dental fricative consonant.
4. /ð/
108. be defining it as a voiced dental fricative consonant. 5. /ʃ/
109. The normal English ʃ is articulated by the tip and blade of the tongue against the hinder part of the teeth-ridge, the whole of the main body of the tongue being simultaneously held in a raised position after the manner. The teeth are closed or fairly closed together, the sound cannot be properly pronounced with the wide opened mouth. The space between the blade of the tongue and the teeth-ridge is narrow, though wider than for s; on the other hand, the air channel in the region of the palate is narrower than in the case of s. There is protrusion of the lips. The soft palate is in its raised position, and the vocal cords are not made to vibrate. The formation of ʃ may be expressed shortly by defining the sound as a breathed alveo-palatal fricative consonant.
6. /ʒ/
110. The principal English ʒ is formed like ʃ except that the air pressure is weaker and the vocal cords are made to vibrate so that voice is produced during the articulation of the sound. It may be described as a voiced alveo-palatal fricative consonant.
7. /f/
8. /v/
112. The principal English v is formed like the principal English f except that the vocal cords are made to vibrate so that voice is produced during the articulation of the sound. The formation of v may therefore be expressed shortly by defining it as a voiced labio-dental fricative consonant.
9. /h/
113. The letter h denotes the sound of pure breath having a free passage through the mouth. This letter is used in transcribing English and many other languages to represent any one of the sounds produced when the mouth is held in a vowel position and the air is emitted through the wide opened glottis. The different varieties of h are known as breathed glottal fricative consonants, since the friction produced by the air passing through the glottis is the feature common to all of them.
10. /r/
C. English Africate Consonants
115. An affricate consonant is a kind of plosive in which the articulating organs are separated more slowly than usual. In pronouncing ordinary plosive, the separation is made with great rapidity, and the acoustic effect of the consonant might be called ‘clean-cut’; the plossion itself may be regarded as an instantaneous noise, if a vowel or an aspiration h follows, the ear cannot detect any intermediate glide between the plossion and the vowel or aspiration. In English, there are two common affricates which may be represented phonetically by tʃ, dʒ.
1. /tʃ/
116. In pronouncing the principal member of the English tʃ phoneme, the air passage is completely blocked by raising the soft palate and raising the tip and blade of the tongue into the position, that is a closed position in which the main part of the tongue is shaped nearly as for ʃ, while the stop is being held, the air is compressed by the pressure from the lungs, when the tongue is removed from the teeth-ridge, the air escapes through the mouth: the removal of the tongue is performed in such a way as the effect of the audible homorganic fricative ʃ before any following sound is reached; the vocal cords are not made to vibrate. The formation of tʃ may be expressed shortly by defining it as a voiceless alveo-palatal affricate consonant.
2. /dʒ/
117. The principal member of the English dʒ phoneme is formed like tʃ
118. vocal cords are made to vibrate so that voice is produced during the articulation of the sound. The formation of the sound may therefore be expressed shortly by
119. defining it as a voiced alveo-palatal affricate consonant.
D. English Nasal Consonants
120. Nasal consonants are formed by closing the mouth passage completely at some points, the soft palate being held in its lower position so that the air is free to pass out through the nose. There are three nasal consonant phonemes in English which are represented phonetically by the letters m, n, ŋ.
1. /m/
121. The principal member of the English m phoneme is formed when the mouth passage is completely blocked by closing the lips, the soft palate is lowered. So when the air is emitted by the pressure from the lungs, it passes out through the nose, the tongue is held in a neutral position, the vocal cords are made to vibrate so that voice is produced. The formation of the sound may be expressed shortly by defining it as a voiced bilabial nasal consonant.
2. /n/
that voice is produced. This formation may be expressed shortly by defining the sound as voiced alveolar nasal consonant.
3. /ŋ/
123. The principal member of the English ŋ phoneme is formed when the mouth passage is completely blocked by raising the back of the tongue to touch the fore part of the soft palate, the soft palate is in its lower position. When the air is emitted by the pressure from the lungs, it issues through the nose, the vocal cords are made to vibrate, so that voice is produced. The formation of this ŋ may be expressed shortly by defining it as a voiced velar nasal consonant.
124.
E. English Glide (Semi-vowel) Consonants
125. Semi-vowels are defined as independent vowel glides in which the speech organs start by forming a weakly closed articulated vowel immediately move to another sound of equal or greater prominence; the initial vowel position is not held for any appreciable time. It is the rapid gliding nature of the sounds, combined with the use of rather weak force of exhalation that renders them consonantal. In English, there are two semi-vowel consonants which are represented phonetically by the letters w and j.
1. /w/
are made to vibrate so that voice is heard. The formation of w may be expressed shortly by defining the sound as a labio-velar semi-vowel consonant.
2. /j/
127. The position of the starting point of the principal English j may be described as: the front of the tongue is raised rather high in the direction of the hard palate, the lips are spread, the soft palate is in its raised position, the vocal cords are made to
128. vibrate so that voice is heard. The formation of j may be expressed shortly by
129. defining the sound as an unrounded palatal semi-vowel consonant.
130. Through the descriptions above, English consonants and their features can be formulated as Table 1, below:
131. Table 1. English Consonants and Their Features
558. 559.560.561.562.563.564.565.566.567.568.569.570.571.572. 573.574.575.576.577.578.579.580.581.582. 583. 584.585.586.587.588.589.590.591.592.593.594.595.596.597. 598.599.600.601.602.603.604.605.606.607.
608.
609. Final Consonants in English
610. A final consonant is any consonant that is the last sound in a word. Consonant sounds that end words are very important as they can determine a grammatical aspect as well as word meaning.
611.
2.3.1.2 Vowels
612. According to Roach (2004: 240), vowels are produced by directing the flow of air into different parts of the mouth. They can be adjusted by changing the position of the tongue, by rounding of the lips, and by the degree of opening of the mouth. All vowels are voiced. The position of the tongue can be described in terms of how far forward the tongue is and how high it is. All vowels can be described in terms of their location on both vertical and horizontal axes. Roach (2004: 241-243) categorizes vowels as follows, depending on the position of the tongue:
1. Front - The tongue is in the front of the mouth. (i:, ɪ, e, æ) 2. Central - The tongue is further back in the mouth. ( :, , ə ə ʌ, ɑ:) 3. Back - The tongue is in the back of the mouth. (ʊ:, ʊ, ɔ:, ɔ) 4. High - The tongue is high in the mouth. (i:, ɪ, ʊ:, ʊ)
5. Mid - The tongue is lower in the mouth. (e, , :, ə ə ʌ, ɔ:, ɔ)
7. Rounded - The corner of the lips come close to each other. (ʊ:, ʊ, ɔ:, ɔ, ɑ:) 8. Neutral - The corner of the lips in between. ( :, , ə ə ʌ)
9. Unrounded - The corner of the lips stay away from each other. (i:, ɪ, e, æ)
613. English Vowels in Details
614. Vowels in English can be divided and described into following according to Silitonga (2008: 36-54):
1. /i:/
615.The letter i: is the member of the English i phoneme used when the vowel is relatively long. The following is a formal description of the manner of forming the vowel:
a. Height of tongue: nearly closed.
b. Part of tongue which is the highest: centre of front. c. Position of lips: unrounded.
d. Opening between the jaws: narrow to medium. 2. /ɪ/
616.The letter ɪ or i without the length mark : stands for the members of the English i phoneme used when the sound is relatively short. The following is a formal description of the manner of forming this English short ɪ or i as:
a. Height of tongue: nearly half-closed.
b. Part of tongue which is the highest: the hinder part of front. c. Position of lips: unrounded.
3. /e/
617.The following is a formal description of the manner of forming the sound: a. Height of tongue: intermediate between half-closed and half-opened. b. Part of tongue which is the highest: the front.
c. Position of lips: unrounded.
d. Opening between the jaws: medium. 618.
4. /æ/
619.The following is a formal description of the manner of forming æ: a. Height of tongue: between half-opened and opened.
b. Part of tongue which is the highest: the front. c. Position of lips: unrounded.
d. Opening between the jaws: medium to wide. 5. /ɑ:/
620.The following is a formal description of the manner of forming ɑ: as: a. Height of tongue: fully-opened.
b. Part of tongue which is the highest: in advance of the centre of the back. c. Position of lips: rounded.
d. Opening between the jaws: medium to wide. 6. /ɔ/
621.The following is a formal description of the manner of forming the sound: a. Height of tongue: half-opened.
c. Position of lips: rounded.
d. Opening between the jaws: medium to wide. 7. /ɔ:/
622.ɔ: is the member of the English ɔ phoneme which is used when the vowel is relatively long. The following is a formal description of the manner of forming the sound:
a. Height of tongue: between half-opened and opened. b. Part of tongue which is the highest: the back. c. Position of lips: rounded.
d. Opening between the jaws: medium to fairly wide. 8. /u/
623.The following is a formal description of the manner of forming the short u as: a. Height of tongue: just above half-closed.
b. Part of tongue which is the highest: the fore part of the back. c. Position of lips: rounded.
d. Opening between the jaws: medium. 9. /u:/
624.The notation u: is employed to denote those members of English u phoneme which are used when the vowel is relatively long. The following is a formal description of the manner of forming this sound:
d. Opening between the jaws: narrow to medium. 10. /ʌ/
625.The following is a formal description of the manner of forming this English sound:
a. Height of tongue: half-opened.
b. Part of tongue which is the highest: the fore part of the back. c. Position of lips: neutral.
d. Opening between the jaws: wide. 11. / :/ ə
626.The following is a formal description of the manner of forming the sound: a. Height of tongue: about half way between opened and closed.
b. Part of tongue which is the highest: the central, culminating at the junction between front and back.
c. Position of lips: neutral.
d. Opening between the jaws: narrow. 12. / /ə
627.An of intermediate quality is often called the neutral vowel or schwa. Thisə
following is a formal description of the manner of forming the sound: a. Height of tongue: about half way between opened and closed. b. Part of tongue which is the highest: the central part.
c. Position of lips: neutral.
628. After knowing the descriptions of the English vowels above, they can be formed with their features as Table 2, below:
629. Table 2. English Vowels and Their Features
630. Vo 631.632.633.634.635.636.637.638.639.640.641.642. 643. Fr 644.645.646.647.648.649.650.651.652.653.654.655. 656. Ce 657.658.659.660.661.662.663.664.665.666.667.668. 669. Ba 670.671.672.673.674.675.676.677.678.679.680.681. 682. Hi 683.684.685.686.687.688.689.690.691.692.693.694. 695. Mi 696.697.698.699.700.701.702.703.704.705.706.707. 708. Lo 709.710.711. 712.713.714.715.716.717.718.719.720. 721. Ro 722.723.724.725.726.731.732.733.734.735.736.737. 738. Ne 739.740.741.742.743.744.745.746.747.748.749.750. 751. U 752.753.754.755.756.757.758.759.760.761.762.763.
764. Syllable is the presence of the vowel. One syllable is a sequence of two vowels. Because the decisive articulator determining the quality of vowel sounds is the tongue, it is possible for vowel quality to change over the duration of articulation if the position of the tongue changes. If the articulatory configuration shifts from one vowel into another the resulting composite sound is called diphthongs (or gliding vowels), such as: u, aə ɪ, au, ɔɪ, ɪə ə, e , eɪ, u .ə
2.3.2 English Phonemes withTheir Positions in Utterances
765. The occurrences of the English consonants in different word positions, in phonetic transcriptions, are presented in the following Table 3 which words and phonetic transcriptions are consulted with Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, The 7th Edition:
766. Table 3. English Consonants and Their Positions in Utterances
771. 772. peel 773. spell 774. keep
775. 776. tap 777. star 778. hit [hɪt]
779. 780. kitchen 781. equal 782. quick
783. 784. three 785. nothing 786. tooth
787. 788. soup 789. escape 790. piece
791. 792. shoot 793. fashion 794. cash
795. 796. chat 797. picture 798. catch
799. 800. fun 801. often 802. puff
803. 804. house 805. behalf 806.
-807. 808. burn 809. about 810. knob
811. 812. dawn 813. ready 814. sad
815. 816. gallery 817. again 818. pig
819. 820. then 821. either 822. breathe
823. 824. zoo 825. lizard 826. size
827. 828. judge 829. angel 830. lodge
831. 832. - 833. leisure 834. beige
835. 836. vest 837. divide 838. pave
839. 840. machin 841. famine 842. drum
843. 844. neck 845. tent 846. sun
847. 848. - 849. anger 850. tongue
851. 852. let [let] 853. alley 854. tell [tel]
855. 856. rain 857. free 858.
-859. 860. why 861. aware 862.
-863. 864. you [ju] 865. beyond 866.
-867.
868. The occurrences of the English pure vowels in different word positions, in phonetic transcriptions, are presented in the following Table 4 which words and phonetic transcriptions are consulted with Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, The
869. 7th Edition:
870. Table 4. English Vowels and Their Positions in Utterances
871. 872. Initial 873. Medial 874. Final
875. 876. eagle 877. deep 878. ski
879. 880. inn [ɪn] 881. sing 882. party
883. 884. elf [elf] 885. bell 886.
-887. 888. add 889. fat 890.
-891. 892. arcade 893. harm 894. far
895. 896. odd 897. pot 898.
903. 904. - 905. put 906. to [tu]
907. 908. - 909. ruby 910. blue
911. 912. ugly 913. skull 914.
-915. 916. urban 917. germ 918. fur
919. 920. address 921. tobacco 922. umbrell
923.
2.3.3 Minimal Pairs
924. The application of minimal pair procedure is to further analyze the phonemic terms of vowels and consonants made in the previous description. According to McGilvray (2005: 112), a minimal pair is:
925. “a pair of words that differ in a single phoneme. . . often used to show that two sounds contrast in a language. For example, we can demonstrate that [s] and [z] contrast in English by adducing minimal pairs such as sip and zip, or bus and buzz. Since the only difference in these words is the [s] vs. [z], we conclude that they belong to distinct phonemes."
926.
927. Pairs of phonemic segments, which have been proven to be separate phonemes by finding them in contrast in identical environments, are clarified as Table 5 and 6 follows which words and phonemes are consulted with Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, The 7th Edition:
928. Table 5. Phonemic Analysis of English Consonants
929. Pairs of Suspicious
Segments
930. Example of Identical
Environments
931. p and b 932. pin [pɪn] 933. bin [bɪn]
934. p and f 935. palm 936. farm
937. p and t 938. cheap 939. cheat
940. t and d 941. tie [taɪ] 942. die [daɪ]
943. t and l 944. take [teɪk] 945. lake [leɪk]
946. t and ð 947. letter 948. leather
949. t and θ 950. tank 951. thank
952. k and g 953. buck 954. bug [bʌg]
955. s and z 956. sink [sɪŋk] 957. zinc
961. s and ʃ 962. sign [saɪn] 963. shine
964. b and v 965. bow [bau] 966. vow [vau]
967. b and w 968. ball [bɔ:l] 969. wall
970. d and ð 971. dough 972. though
973. d and l 974. duck 975. luck [lʌk]
976. θ and z 977. breathe 978. breeze
979. ð and ʒ 980. neither 981. seizure
982. ʃ and tʃ 983. share 984. chair
985. dʒ and tʃ 986. joke 987. choke
988. dʒ and j 989. gel [dʒel] 990. yell [jel]
991. dʒ and ʒ 992. legion 993. lesion
994. dʒ and g 995. judge 996. jug [dʒʌg]
997. v and f 998. veil [veɪl] 999. fail [feɪl]
1000. v and w 1001. verse 1002. worse
1003. r and w 1004. run [rʌn] 1005. one [wʌn]
1006. r and l 1007. race [reɪs] 1008. lace [leɪs]
1009. l and w 1011. lake [leɪk] 1012. wake
1013. l and n 1014. lock [lɔk] 1015. knock
1016. n and m 1018. night 1019. might
1020. n and ŋ 1021. sin [sɪn] 1022. sing [sɪŋ]
1023. m and ŋ 1024. rim [rɪm] 1025. ring [rɪŋ]
1026. m and l 1027. mate 1028. late [leɪt]
1029. Table 6. Phonemic Analysis of English Vowels
1030. Pairs of Suspicious
Segments
1031. Example of Identical Environments
1032. ɪ and i: 1033. ill [ɪl] 1034. eel [i:l]
1035. ɪ and e 1036. pin [pɪn] 1037. pen [pen]
1038. ɪ and æ 1039. sit [sɪt] 1040. sat [sæt]
1041. u and u: 1042. full [ful] 1043. fool [fu:l]
1044. e and æ 1045. beg [beg] 1046. bag [bæg]
1047. e and ɔ 1048. let [let] 1049. lot [lɔt]
1050. ɔ: and ɑ: 1051. jaw [dʒɔ:] 1052. jar [dʒɑ:]
1053. ʌ and ɑ: 1054. come 1055. calm
1056. ʌ and ɪ 1057. luck [lʌk] 1058. lick [lɪk]
1059. i: and u: 1060. tea [ti:] 1061. too [tu:]
1062. ɔ and ɪ 1063. cod [kɔd] 1064. kid [kɪd]
1065. æ and ɔ 1066. sack [sæk] 1067. sock [sɔk]
1068.
1069. Hokkien sounds are classified into consonants and vowels according to Macgowan (1992: iii-v). The description of Hokkien consonants and vowels is as Table 7 and 8 following:
1070. Table 7. Hokkien Consonants Description
1071. S ymbol
1072. Description 1073. p 1074. as in English ‘cap’.
1075. p h
1076. aspirated p.
1077. t 1078. as in English ‘bat’. 1079. t
h
1080. aspirated t.
1081. k 1082. as in English ‘calm’. 1083. k
h
1084. aspirated k. 1085. s 1086. as in English ‘sit’. 1087. t
ʃ
1088. as in English, but followed by dipthongs. 1089. t
ʃh
1090. aspirated tʃ as in English ‘charm’.
1091. h 1092. as in English, never silent ‘house’ except it is at the final. 1093. b 1094. as in English ‘ball’.
1095. g 1096. as in English ‘get’. 1097. n 1098. as in English ‘neck’. 1099. ŋ 1100. as in English ‘bang’.
1101. l 1102. as in English ‘live’, sometimes approached the sound of d. 1103. m 1104. as in English ‘meet’.
1105. ⁿ 1106. at the close of a word, means that the whole word is to have a nasal sound.
1107. j 1108. as in English ‘jug’, sometimes has the sound of dʒ. 1109.
1110. Table 8. Hokkien Vowels Description
1111. Symbol
1112. Description 1113.
ʌ
1114. as in English ‘mud’. 1115.
æ
1116. as in English ‘mad’. 1117.
u
1118. as in English ‘you’.
1119. 5
1120.
ə
1121. as in English ‘firm’. 1122.
e
1124.
ɪ
1125. as in English ‘him’. 1126.
ɔ
1127. as in English ‘law’.
1128.
1129. There are also dipthongs in Hokkien sound, such as: ou, aɪ, au, ɪa, oa,
ɪau, oe, eɪ, ua, ɪu.
2.3.5 Hokkien Phonemes with Their Positions in Utterances
1130. The occurrences of the Hokkien consonants in different word positions, in phonetic transcriptions, are presented in the following Table 9 which words are consulted with English and Chinese Dictionary of the Amoy Dialect:
1131.
1132. Table 9. Hokkien Consonants and Their Positions in Utterances
1133. 1134. Initial 1135. Medial 1136. Final
1137. 1138. pát 1139. tʃha-put-tɔ 1140. láp
1141. 1142. pheŋ-kɔ 1143. tōa-phao 1144.
-1145. 1146. téŋ 1147. kám-tɔŋ 1148. kut
1149. 1150. thɔŋ-tɪ 1151. thɪt-thɔ 1152.
-1153. 1154. koàⁿ-sɪ 1155. paŋ-keŋ 1156.
bí-1157. 1158. khek-kí 1159. kɔŋ-khí 1160.
-1161. 1162. siū 1163. siau-sɪt 1164.
-1165. 1166. tʃiā (cart) 1167. sɪm-tʃuak 1168.
-1169. 1170. tʃhut-gōa 1171. kiáu-tʃhá 1172.
-1173. 1174. hɔ (give) 1175. káu-hiā (ant) 1176. kɔh
1177. 1178. bɪn (face) 1179. su-bun 1180.
-1181. 1182. gɪn-haŋ 1183. hak-giáp 1184.
-1185. 1186. no (two) 1187. ták-nɪⁿ 1188. loān
1189. 1190. ŋau-jɔŋ 1191. peŋ-thəŋ 1192. siɔ
ŋ-1193. 1194. lēŋ-gōa 1195. tōa-laŋ 1196.
-1197. 1198. mē 1199. tham-sɪm 1200.
la-1201. 1202. - 1203. mɪⁿ-pau 1204. sīⁿ
-1209.The occurrences of the Hokkien vowels in different word positions, in phonetic transcriptions, are presented in the following Table 10 which words are consulted with English and Chinese Dictionary of the Amoy Dialect:
1210. Table 10. Hokkien Vowels and Their Positions in Utterances
1211. Symb
1212. Initial 1213. Medial 1214. Final
1215.
1245. A major characteristic of the English language is the use of strong and weak stress. Every word or more than one syllable has a syllable which is emphasized more than the others. Accented syllables receive more force and are louder than unaccented ones. Correct use of stress is essential for achieving proper pronunciation of words. Fromkin (2009: 298) states that:
1246. “speakers of a language know which syllable receives primary stress, which ones receive secondary stress, and which ones are reduced (are unstressed). It is part of their implicit knowledge of the language. It’s usually easy to distinguish between stressed and reduced syllables, because the vowel is reduced syllables is pronounced as a schwa [ ], except at the ends ofə
certain words such as confetti or laboratory.”
A. Words stress on the first syllable
1. The majority of two-syllable nouns and adjectives are accented on the first syllable.
1248.Example: PRESent, EXport, CHIna, CLEVer, HAPpy 2. Compound nouns are usually accented on the first syllable.
1249.Example: BLACKboard, NOTEbook, BLUEbird, TOOTHbrush 3. Numbers that are multiples of ten are accented on the first syllable.
1250.Example: TWENty, THIRty, FORty, FIFty, SIXty
4. Phrasal verbs which have a noun counterpart get the stress on the first syllable. 1251.Example: CHECKout (Where’s the CHECKout counter?)
1252. PRINTout (Here’s the PRINTout for you.) B. Words stress on the second syllable
1. The majority of two-syllable verbs are accented on the second syllable. 1253. Example: preSENT, exPORT, deCIDE, beGIN, disCUSS 2. Compound adjectives are usually accented on the second syllable.
1254. Example: bad-TEMpered, old-FASHioned
3. Compound verbs are usually accented on the second syllable. 1255. Example: outDONE, outDO, outSMART
4. Prepositions in phrasal verbs get the word stress.
1256. Example: set UP (I’ll set UP a meeting for you.) 1257. hold UP (Hold UP your hand.)
1258.
1259. All the vowel phonemes can be pronounced slightly longer by means of colon [:] especially when they occur before voiced consonants and also at the end of the words. However, the length is not considered to be significant in English as they are not distinctive. In other words, english vowels followed by the colon [:] are just the allophones.
2.4 Theory of the Data
1262. THE METHOD OF THE STUDY
3.1 The Data
1263. The data are the key to have a research on a particular topic. The data for this research is the spoken language of some Chinese students in Fakultas Sastra UMI. Data which were collected are the spoken data of the individuals. The writer had a field research on the students’ utterances.
3.2 The Source of the Data
1264. The topic of this study is the phonemic interference of the Chinese students in pronouncing English, so the data for the thesis were acquired from the English utterances of the Chinese students in Fakultas Sastra UMI as the respondents. The respondents are the Chinese students, particularly the students from the third semester up to the eighth semester in Fakultas Sastra UMI as they have learnt and passed the subject of Laboratory Practice I and II, and Phonology. It strengthens that the students must have known better in English pronunciation compared to those freshmen who have not known further about good pronunciation in English.
3.3 The Research Design
critical thought.
1266. This study was conducted with descriptive qualitative research through some Chinese students in Fakultas Sastra Universitas Methodist Indonesia Medan. There are many Chinese students of parallel classes, such as morning and evening classes, starting from the third up to the eighth semester. This population is too large for the flexibility of the research. Therefore, a sample had to be randomly drowned from the population.
3.4 The Technique of Data Collection
1267. In order to collect the data in this thesis, the writer met the respondents in their spare time in the campus for a kind of pronunciation test through the chosen listed words of English based on the basic core vocabulary by Ogden (1930). Then she asked them to pronounce each of the words and their pronunciation was recorded by using a recorder as soon as it was uttered. After that she transcribed the recording voices into phonetic transcriptions or phonetic symbols, so that the phonemes could be analyzed easily.
3.5 The Plan of Organizing the Data
1268. After all data were collected, the data were organized using the following steps:
1. Collecting the data from the students as the respondents by recording their sounds.
2. Listening carefully to their pronunciation.
4. Analyzing the phonetic transcriptions or phonetic symbols whether there were missed phonemes pronounced by the Chinese students.
5. Deciding which phonemes in English often mispronounced by the Chinese students connected to the phonemes that Medan Hokkien has.
6. Finding out whether the mispronounced phonemes in English are available in Hokkien phonemes.
7. Clarifying the mother tongue interferences on English pronunciation made by the students build a gap between the speaker and the listener.
1269. 1270. 1271. 1272. 1273. 1274. 1275. 1276. 1277. 1278. 1279. 1280. 1281. 1282. 1283. 1284. 1285.
1286. CHAPTER IV
1287. PHONEMIC INTERFERENCE OF MOTHER TONGUE ON
ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION OF SOME CHINESE STUDENTS IN FAKULTAS SASTRA UNIVERSITAS METHODIST INDONESIA MEDAN
1288.
4.1 Data Analysis
825. late mispronounced words and shown them in the list of mispronounced words as in Table 11 below.
Table 11. List of Mispronounced Words
No. Respondent 1 Respondent 2 Respondent 3
-836. - -
-837. - -
-838. - [si:krəʔ]
-839. [sɔ:ʔ] [sɔ:ʔ] [sɔ:ʔ]
840. [sʌʔ] [sʌʔ] [sʌʔ]
841. - -
-842. - -
-843. - -
-844. - - [sɔf]
845. - -
-846. - -
-847. - -
-848. [tɪn] - [tɪn]
849. - -
-850. - -
-The correct pronunciation reference was taken from Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary The 7th Edition. However, due to the fact that Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary The 7th Edition is British, the writer also considers the correct pronunciation based on American pronunciation, which can also be found in the same dictionary as in Table 12.
Table 12. Correct Pronunciation
No. Words Phonetic Transcriptions
1. come [kʌm]
2. get [get]
4. go [g u]ə
5. keep [ki:p]
6. let [let]
7. make [meɪk]
8. put [put]
9. seem [si:m]
10. take [teɪk]
11. be [bi] [bi:]
12. do [d ] [du] [du:]ə
13. have [h v] [hə æv]
14. say [seɪ]
15. see [si:]
16. send [send]
17. may [meɪ]
18. will [wɪl]
19. about [ bautə ]
20. across [ krə ɔs]
21. after [ɑ:ft ]ə
22. against [ genst] [ geə ə ɪnst]
23. among [ mə ʌŋ]
24. at [ t] [æt]ə
26. between [bɪtwi:n]
27. by [baɪ]
28. down [daun]
29. from [fr m] [frə ɔm]
30. in [ɪn]
31. off [ɔf]
32. on [ɔn]
33. over [ uv ]ə ə
34. through [θru:]
35. to [t ] [ə tu] [tu:]
36. under [ʌnd ]ə
37. up [ʌp]
38. with [wiθ]
39. as [ z] [æz]ə
40. for [f ]ə [fɔ:]
41. of [ v] [ə ɔv]
42. till [tɪl]
43. Than [ð n] [ə ðæn]
44. A [ ] [eə ɪ]
45. the [ð ]ə
46. all [ɔ:l]
48. every [evri]
49. little [lɪtl]
50. much [mʌtʃ]
51. no [n u]ə
52. other [ʌð ]ə
53. some [s m] [sə ʌm]
54. such [sʌtʃ]
55. that [ðæt]
56. this [ðɪs]
57. I [aɪ]
58. he [hi] [hi:]
59. you [ju] [j ] [ju:]ə
60. who [hu:]
61. and [ nd] [ n] [ə ə ænd]
62. because [bɪk z] [bə ɪkɔz]
63. but [b t] [bə ʌt]
64. or [ɔ:]
65. if [ɪf]
66. though [ð u]ə
67. while [waɪl]
68. how [hau]
70. where [we ]ə
71. why [waɪ]
72. again [ gen] [ geə ə ɪn]
73. ever [ev ]ə
74. far [fɑ:]
75. forward [fɔ:w d]ə
76. here [hɪə]
77. near [nɪə]
78. now [nau]
79. out [aut]
80. still [stɪl]
81. then [ðen]
82. there [ðe ]ə
83. together [t geə ð ]ə
84. well [wel]
85. almost [ɔ:lm ust]ə
86. enough [ɪnʌf]
87. even [i:vn]
88. not [nɔt]
89. only [ unli]ə
90. quite [kwaɪt]
92. very [veri]
93. tomorrow [t mə ɔr u]ə
94. yesterday [jest deə ɪ]
95. north [nɔ:θ]
96. south [sauθ]
97. east [i:st]
98. west [west]
99. please [pli:z]
100. yes [jes]
101. account [ kaunt]ə
102. act [ækt]
103. addition [ də ɪʃn]
104. adjustment [ də ʒʌstm nt]ə
105. advertisement [ dv :tə ə ɪsm nt]ə
106. agreement [ gri:m nt]ə ə
107. air [e ]ə
108. amount [ maunt]ə
109. amusement [ mju:zm nt]ə ə
110. animal [ænɪml]
111. answer [ɑ:ns ]ə
112. apparatus [æp reə ɪt s]ə
114. argument [ɑ:gjum nt]ə
115. art [ɑ:t]
116. attack [ tæk]ə
117. attempt [ tempt]ə
118. attention [ tenə ʃn]
119. attraction [ trækə ʃn]
120. authority
[ɔ:θɔr ti]ə
121. back [bæk]
122. balance [bæl ns]ə
123. base [beɪs]
124. behavior [bɪheɪvj ]ə
125. belief [bɪli:f]
126. birth [b :θ]ə
127. bit [bɪt]
128. bite [baɪt]
129. blood [blʌd]
130. blow [bl u]ə
131. body [bɔdi]
132. brass [brɑ:s]
133. bread [bred]
134. breath [breθ]
136. building [bɪldɪŋ]
137. burn [b :n]ə
138. burst [b :st]ə
139. business [bɪzn s]ə
140. butter [bʌt ]ə
141. canvas [kænv s]ə
142. care [ke ]ə
143. cause [kɔ:z]
144. chalk [tʃɔ:k]
145. chance [tʃɑ:ns]
146. change [tʃeɪndʒ]
147. cloth [klɔθ] [klɔ:θ]
148. coal [k ul]ə
149. color [kʌl ]ə
150. comfort [kʌmf t]ə
151. committee [k mə ɪti]
152. company [kʌmp ni]ə
153. comparison [k mpə ærɪsn]
154. competition [kɔmp təɪʃn]
155. condition [k ndə ɪʃn]
156. connection
[k nekə ʃn]
