A STUDY ON ARTICULATION PROBLEMS OF THE SEVENTH GRADE OF HEARING-SPEECH DEFECTIVE STUDENTS OF SLB NEGERI 3
YOGYAKARTA
A THESIS
Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By:
By Uri Respati
Student Number: 031214139
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
2011
i
A STUDY ON ARTICULATION PROBLEMS OF THE SEVENTH GRADE OF HEARING-SPEECH DEFECTIVE STUDENTS OF SLB NEGERI 3
YOGYAKARTA
A THESIS
Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By:
By Uri Respati
Student Number: 031214139
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
ii
iv
Listen to the child well, to what he is saying, almost saying, and not saying at all. He has something he wants to tell you, something that has meaning for him,that is important to him.
Respect him as a speaker. Listen to him enough to hear him out. It is wonderful for him as a growing person to feel that he is being heard, that others care about what he is saying. Assume he is doing the best he can and that it is more important for him to want to talk to you than to sound correct.
-Wendell Johnson-
Suara Hati
Dengan keterbatasan diri yang ada, tidak akan menjadi penghalang untuk kita
tetap mampu mendulang keberhasilan. Itulah salah satu motivasi terbesar di saat
aku mulai menapakkan mimpi dan angan dalam kehidupan baru. Sebuah kehidupan
yang telah lama terbayang dalam setiap waktu. Di saat aku mencoba untuk
menemukan jati diri, di sinilah tempat yang telah lama kunanti dan kuimpikan.
Dan disinilah tempat dimana aku harus memulai meronce butiran harap dan mimpi
itu. Karena kuyakin bahwa disinilah tempat dimana ku mampu mengenakan
liontin keberhasilan.
-a poem by Bima, 17 year- old student with special needs-
This thesis is dedicated to: ¾ My beloved parents
Sukanti Rahardjo. B. & Hesti Susiati ¾ My dearest sister & brother
Mayang Rineksi & Kalis Darubeksi
v
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY
I honesty declare this the thesis, which I have written, does not contain the work or parts of the work of other people, except those cited in the quotations and the references, as a scientific paper should.
Yogyakarta, 29 July 2011 The writer,
vi
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:
Nama : Uri Respati
Nomor Mahasiswa : 031214139
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
A STUDY ON ARTICULATION PROBLEMS OF THE SEVENTH GRADE
OF HEARING-SPEECH DEFECTIVE STUDENTS OF SLB NEGERI 3 YOGYAKARTA
Beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalty kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta
Pada tanggal: 29 Juli 2011 Yang menyatakan
Uri Respati
vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This page is dedicated to the people in my life for their never-ending support, love, and pray during the time I finished my thesis.
I would like to address my first and greatest gratitude to Allah S.W.T who has guided me all the time and has given me strength to finish this work.
I address my deepest gratefulness to Veronica Triprihatmini, S.Pd., M.Hum., M.A., as my major sponsor for her assistance in guiding me through many confusing processes of this work. I would like to express my sincere appreciation for her patience to be the listener and advisor on my complaints and problems. I deeply thank her for the willingness to spare time in giving me precious criticism, advices, and many corrections on my work even during her busy days.
I would also like to extend my deepest thankfulness to all of PBI’s lectures for all shared knowledge and intellectual experiences and secretary staff for their support during my study.
I address my indisputable thanks to my father Sukanti Rahardjo Bintoro S.Pd., my mother Hesti Susiati, my sister Mayang Rineksi, my brother Kalis Darubeksi. I will never stop thanking God for my very best family.
My best gratitude goes to all teachers in SLBN 3 Yogyakarta, especially Mr. Setyo, Mrs. Puji, Mrs. Ratna, Mrs. Rahmi, Mrs. Merry for their support and opportunity to conduct the research in their school.
I also would like to offer my thankfulness to all friends in PBI, and many other names that cannot be mentioned one by one for giving a sincere love, patience, and support to finish my thesis.
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE……….…….i
APPROVAL PAGES………...ii
DEDICATION PAGE……….…….iv
STATEMENT OF WORK'S ORIGINALITY……….…..v
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PUBLIKASI………..vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS………...viii
LIST OF TABLES………...xi
LIST OF APPENDICES………..…...xii
ABSTRACT……….…...xiii
ABSTRAK………...xv
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ... 1
A. Research Background... 1
B. Problem Formulation ... 3
C. Problem Limitation ... 3
D. Research Objectives ... 4
E. Research Benefits ... 5
F. Definition of Terms ... 5
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW ... 8
A. Theoretical Description ... 8
ix
1. Pronunciation Acquisition ... 8
2. Mother Tongue Interference in the Foreign Language……….9
3. Description and Classification of English Speech Sounds ... ……,,.11
4. A Brief Overview of Hearing-Speech Defect ... 15
a. The Nature of Sound ... 15
b. Causes of Hearing Defect………17
c. The Level of Hearing-Speech Defective ... 18
d. The Effects of Hearing-Speech Defect on Understanding Language and Speech ... 20
e. Examples of Possible Hearing-Speech Difficulties ... 22
f. Speech Reading as Method for communication...………...23
5. Misarticulation ... 24
a. Causes of Misarticulation ... 24
b. Types of Misarticulation ... 28
B. Theoretical Framework ... 29
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ... 31
A. Research Method ... 31
B. Research Participants ... 32
C. Research Instruments ... 35
D. Data Gathering Technique ... 37
E. Data Analysis Technique ... 38
x
CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION………..40
1. English Articulation Problems Faced by the Seventh Grade Hearing-Speech Defective Students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta.………...….42
2. The possible causes of the English articulation problems faced by seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta ………...55
3. Possible Solutions to Overcome Articulation Problems………...59
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION………70
A. Conclusions……..………...70
B. Suggestions………..………...72
REFERENCES……….73
APPENDICES………..76
xi
LIST OF TABLES
Page
Table 2.1. English consonantal articulation………....12
Table 2.2 English vowel sounds………..………..14
Table 2.3. English diphthong sounds….………...15
Table 3.1. Record students’ pronunciation...39
Table 3.2. Comparison of students’ pronunciation and expected pronunciation..39
Table 4.1. Misarticulation that were categorized as substitution………..43
Table 4.2. Misarticulation that were categorized as distortion……….46
Table 4.3. Misarticulation that were categorized as omission……….48
Table 4.4. Misarticulation that were categorized as sound addition…………....49
Table 4.5. Misarticulation that were categorized as substitution……….50
xii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Documented Students’ Pronunciation………76 Students’ Profile……….79 Letter of Permission ………..………...85
xiii ABSTRACT
Respati, Uri. 2011. A Study on Articulation Problems of the Seventh Grade of Hearing-Speech Defective Students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.
Learning pronunciation of a foreign language brings different problems from learning pronunciation of the first language. The difficulties are due to interference of the first language to the target language. Students tend to hear all speech sounds in the target language in terms of their own language system. Due to their low hearing ability, hearing-speech defective students are not fully exposed to speech sounds both of the mother tongue and a foreign language. As a result, the students are confronted with the problems of recognizing and discriminating the sounds as well as the problems of producing the sounds.
This research aimed to investigate the articulation problems faced by the seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta.. There were three research questions: (1) What are the English articulation problems faced by the seventh grade of hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta? (2) What are the possible causes of the English articulation problems faced by the seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta? (3) What are the possible solutions to overcome those articulation problems?
To answer the first problem, the researcher used the theory of misarticulation by Johnson(1967) and Cerney (2007). The students’ pronunciation was recorded using an audio-visual recorder and transcribed into the phonetic transcription. After recording, the researcher compared the phonetic transcription of the students’ pronunciation with the phonetic transcription based on the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2003). The researcher observed misarticulation phenomena. As for the second problem, Johnson’s (1967) and Casey’s (1981) theories were employed to find the causes of the misarticulation. Finally, the possible solutions to overcome the articulation problems were given by referring to the theories of Rusyani, Sahulata (1988) and Edja & Dardjo (1995).
The method employed in this research was a case study. The research participants were three students of the seventh grade students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta. The researcher used observation and interview as the instruments in this research.
xiv
when the students pronounced and differentiated voiced and voiceless sounds and pronounced several vowels and diphthongs.
xv
ABSTRAK
Respati, Uri. 2011. A Study on Articulation Problems of the Seventh Grade of Hearing-Speech Defective Students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Pembelajaran pengucapan bahasa asing membawa masalah yang berbeda dari pembelajaran pengucapan bahasa ibu. Kesulitan tersebut disebabkan oleh adanya pengaruh dari bahasa ibu ke bahasa asing yang akan dipelajari. Siswa cenderung untuk mendengar semua bahasa cakap pada bahasa asing tersebut dalam tatanan sistem bahasa ibu mereka. Sehubungan dengan rendahnya daya dengar siswa, siswa tunarungu tidak sepenuhnya terpapar pada bahasa cakap dari bahasa ibu maupun bahasa asing. Sebagai akibatnya, siswa dihadapkan pada masalah pengenalan dan pembedaan suara, demikian juga dengan produksi suara.
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengidentifikasi permasalahan artikulasi yang dihadapi anak-anak tunarungu kelas tujuh SLBN 3 Yogyakarta. Ada tiga pertanyaan dalam penelitian ini: (1) Permasalahan artikulasi apakah yang dihadapi anak-anak tunarungu kelas tujuh SLBN 3 Yogyakarta? (2) Apakah kemungkinan penyebab permasalahan artikulasi yang dihadapi anak-anak tunarungu kelas tujuh SLBN 3 Yogyakarta? (3) Solusi apakah yang dapat dilakukan untuk mengatasi permasalahan artikulasi tersebut?
Untuk menjawab permasalahn pertama, peneliti menggunakan teori kesalahan artikulasi oleh Johnson (1967) dan Cerney (2007). Pengucapan anak direkam dengan menggunakan audio-video recorder dan selanjutnya ditulis dengan menggunakan transkrip fonetik. Setelah merekam, peneliti membandingkan transkrip fonetik dari hasil pengucapan para siswa dengan menggunakan transkrip fonetik berdasarkan kamus Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2003). Untuk permasalahan kedua, teori Johnson (1967) dan Casey (1981) diterapkan untuk menemukan kemungkinan penyebab kesalahan-kesalahan artikulasi. Yang terakhir, solusi yang memungkinkan untuk mengatasi kesalahan artikulasi mengacu pada teori dari Rusyani, Sahulata (1988), and Edja&Dardjo (1995).
Metode yang digunakan pada penelitian in adalah studi kasus. Para partisipan dalam penelitian ini adalah tiga siswa tuna rungu kelas tujuh SLBN 3 Yogyakarta. Peneliti menggunakan observasi dan wawancara sebagai instrumen dalam penelitian ini.
xvi
artikulasi yang terjadi pada para siswa. Kesalahan-kesalan tersebut adalah pengurangan bunyi, penambahan bunyi, substitusi, dan distorsi. Contoh kesulitan dapat dilihat ketika para siswa mengucapkan dan membedakan bunyi dengan vibrasi (voiced) dan bunyi tanpa vibrasi (voiceless), mengucapkan beberapa bunyi hidup (vowel) dan diftong.
1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter deals with the introduction of the research and basic-terminologies. There are six major concerns addressed in this chapter. It covers research background, problem formulation, problem limitation, research objectives, research benefits and the definitions of terms used in the research.
A. Research Background
The world organization in the field of education under the United Nations, namely the UNESCO (United Nation Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), carries out programs to support international education. One of the principles is Education for All. As a member country of the United Nations, Indonesia is also obliged to develop its national education.
2
One of the national visions in the field of education is that the Indonesian students are able to compete in the globalization era by developing their competency in the English language as an international language. Syafei (1988:1) says that the general aim of teaching the English language to students is to enable them to master all skills of the language, which include listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In terms of pronunciation as part of the speaking skill, learning the English language as a foreign language is quite difficult for most students in Indonesia. Learning pronunciation of a foreign language brings different problems from learning pronunciation of the first language. The difficulties are due to interference of the first language to the target language. Students tend to hear all speech sounds in the target language in terms of their own language system.
Due to their low hearing ability, hearing-speech defective students are not fully exposed to speech sounds both of the mother tongue and a foreign language. As a result, the students are confronted with the problems of recognizing and discriminating the sounds as well as the problems of producing the sounds. As stated by Bowd (1990: 91), children with hearing impairments or defects face difficulties in both production and comprehension of the spoken language.
The research focuses on the problems that hearing-speech defective students, who are weak in receiving information through their auditory sense, encounter when they learn the English pronunciation. This phenomenon also happens among the students of Sekolah Luar Biasa Negeri (SLBN) 3 Yogyakarta, specifically the seventh
grade students. The students’ pronunciation is considered necessary to be identified, because their ability to produce English sounds influences students’ pronunciation.
B. Problem Formulation
Considering the fact that there are many elements of pronunciation in the English language, the discussion is limited on the articulation in which it covers whether the students pronounce English words correctly or not. The problems are formulated as follows:
1. What are the English articulation problems faced by seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta?
2. What are the possible causes of the English articulation problems faced by the seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta?
3. What are the possible solutions to overcome those articulation problems?
C. Problem Limitation
Hearing-speech defective students in SLBN 3 Yogyakarta are students with special needs because they have difficulties in receiving information which is given in the form of sounds. In learning pronunciation they also have difficulties in pronouncing English words.
4
misarticulation as well as the possible solutions to overcome the problems. Since there are many pronunciation elements in English language, the discussion is limited only on the articulation. It will not include the process of the pronunciation, which consists of phonation, nasal resonance, and prosody. According to Sattler (1992: 546) pronunciation as part of the speech system is divided into four major areas on the basis of a processing classification system: phonation, which contains duration, loudness, pitch and quality of the sound; nasal resonance, which contains vibration; articulation which is related to the production of consonant and vowel sounds in various sequences to form words; and prosody, which contains melody, rhythm and the rate of the speech flow.
This research is focused only on one group of students, namely the seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta. This research takes the seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta based on the consideration about the students’ background that they have never received specific lessons that assist their pronunciation.
D. Research Objectives
The objectives of this research are first, to find out English articulation problems faced by the seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta; second, to find out the possible causes of the problems; and third, to find
out possible solutions to overcome pronunciation problems stated before. Based on the conclusions of the literary study and the research findings, several suggestions
will be presented at the end of this thesis.
E. Research Benefits
It is expected that this research will be able to provide contribution to English teachers in SLBN 3 Yogyakarta in overcoming their students’ problems in pronouncing English words. For the seventh grade students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta as the research participants, this research will hopefully assist in the improvement of their pronunciation. The researcher wishes she could give them valuable information how to minimize the difficulties in pronouncing English words. For other researchers especially students of English language education programs who are interested to conduct research on hearing-speech defective students, hopefully the results of this research could inspire them and encourage them to conduct deeper studies on hearing-speech defective students. Finally, this research is expected to change public opinions and beliefs that hearing-speech defective students are unable to learn to pronounce English words to an understandable level.
F. Definitions of Terms
This section presents the definitions of terms, which aim to avoid confusion. They are language, sound, hearing-speech defect, and SLB/B N 3 Yogyakarta.
1. Language
6
mentions that language is a group phenomena that is generated and maintained in community living; a code or a tool or an instrument of communication. According to Pei (1966:141), language is a system of communication by sounds, operating through the organs of speech and hearing among members of a given community, and using vocal symbols possessing arbitrary conventional meanings. In this research, language is defined as a means of which persons with hearing-speech defect interact. They do not rely on using oral language as their primary language, but also using sign language and total communication (which is combination of both sign language and verbal communication).
2. Articulation
Articulation is the production of speech sounds in the mouth and throat (Richards, Platt, Weber; 1985: 17). In this research, Articulation refers to the production of speech sounds made by the hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta when they are asked to pronounce English words.
3. Sound
According to Crystal (1987: 152), sound refers to the production (or articulation) in the vocal tract, acoustic transmission, or auditory reception. In this study, sound refers to what hearing-speech the defective students produce when they are pronouncing English words.
4. Hearing-Speech Defect
Hearing defect is a condition where an individual is not able to hear and it is seen through his speech or other sounds (Mangunsong, 1998: 68). Speech defect, on
the other hand, is impairment in the production and the use of oral language. It includes disabilities in making speech sounds, producing speech with a normal flow, and producing voice (Hallahan, Kauffman, & Pullen, 2009: 304). In this research, hearing-speech defect is the condition where an individual has impairments in both hearing as well as speech, which leads to problems in his language development. 5. SLB/B N 3 Yogyakarta
8 CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, the researcher examines some theories that support this
research. There will be two major sections of this chapter: the theoretical
description and theoretical framework. The theoretical description provides a
detailed discussion related to the research. The theoretical framework discusses a
framework based on the theoretical description.
A. Theoretical Description
The theoretical description involves the discussion about pronunciation
acquisition, mother tongue interference in the foreign language, description and
classification of English speech sounds, a brief overview of hearing-speech defect,
and misarticulation.
1. Pronunciation Acquisition
In language learning, the role of pronunciation is significant.
Communication cannot be made if there is no intelligibility between the speaker
and the listener. To be intelligible, someone has to be able to pronounce well.
(Kenworthy, 1997: 13) mentions that intelligibility means the state of being
understood by the listener at a given time in a given situation. The speaker needs
to be intelligible so that he can communicate.
Kenworthy points out that if teachers set intelligibility as the goal rather
than native-like pronunciation, it means learners are aiming for pronunciation
which is “close enough”. Hence, intelligibility is equal to understandability. The
more words a listener is able to identify, the more intelligible the speaker is.
Communication involves more than simply sending a set of well-produced
sounds into the air at the listener. Teachers should include pronunciation practice
in their class in order to develop student’s competence. Teaching pronunciation is
very important because if a non native speaker has a very bad pronunciation, he or
she will not able to communicate orally no matter how good his or her control of
the grammar and vocabulary of the target language might be.
2. Mother Tongue Interference in the Foreign Language
Brown (1987:38) states “we have all observed children acquiring their first
language easy and well, yet the learning of a foreign language often meets with
great difficulty and sometimes failure”. From this statement it can be seen that it is
more difficult to learn a new language than to acquire the first language. It
happens because when someone learns a new language, his or her first language
will interfere with new language and this will hinder the success of the new
language learning process.
However, it can also be seen that not all errors in the foreign language
come from the interference of the first language. It is true that the first language
can affect the process of foreign language acquisition. It can happen that the
10
language. He may only avoid using the rules that are absent in his first language
when he speaks the foreign language.
How the mother tongue influences the target language can be seen in
Lado’s theory: (1957: 11):
a. Location and description of segmental problems. Does the native language
have a phonetically similar phoneme? Experience shows that when the
foreign language uses a phoneme which does not exist in the learner’s native
language, he will substitute it with some other phoneme from his native stock
and the consequences are that the learner will have the problem in hearing as
well as producing the new phoneme.
b. Difficulty in pronouncing a phoneme versus difficulty in pronouncing a
sequence. A sequence having one of the phonemes of the foreign language
that cannot be found in the native language could be listed as a problem
sequence.
c. Difficulty in pronouncing a word versus difficulty in pronouncing a phoneme
or a phoneme sequence. Sometimes a student mispronounces a word although
he has mastered the phonemes and sequences involved. This happens because
he does not know how to pronounce that word.
d. Problems of spelling pronunciation. Student may mispronounce words
because of the influences from the writing system. When both the foreign
language and the native language use the same alphabets, the problem could
be laid in the same symbol that might represent two different sounds in the
two languages. In such case the student tends to transfer the native language
symbolization to the foreign language. The other possibility is when the
symbol in one word that represents one sound turns out to represent a
different sound in another word.
e. Pronunciation problems with words that show similarity in two languages.
Since words having similarity in the form in two languages show patterns of
correspondences between the foreign language and the native one, the
student’s mispronunciations will often be predictable in terms of those
patterns.
f. Unpredictable alternation between two potential substitutions. The Indonesian
language lacks the phoneme [θ] that might approximate English [θ] as in
think. The result is that Indonesian learners may substitute it with [s] or [t].
The reason for this is that the individual tends to transfer the sound system of
his mother tongue.
3. Description and Classification of English Speech Sounds
According to Indriani (2005:8), the English speech sounds can be classified
into consonants, vowels, and diphthongs.
a. Consonants
A consonant is a type of sounds used before or after a vowel or diphthong to
form a syllable. According to O’grady (2001:7), there is constriction or complete
closure in the vocal tract, which might be at the lips, at the back of the mouth and
12
consonant sounds. According to Indriani (2005:8), there are 24 consonants in
English, namely:
Table 2.1. English consonantal articulation
Consonant Word
In relation to the position of the vocal cords, the consonants can be divided into:
1. Voiceless : p, t, k, f, s, ʃ, ʧ,θ, h. 2. Voiced : the rest of the consonants.
In terms of the place/point of articulation, the consonants can be divided into:
1. Bilabial : the two lips are the primary articulators, e.g: b, p, m, w.
2. Labio-dental : the lower lip articulates with the upper teeth, e.g.: f, v.
3. Dental : the tongue tip and rims articulate with the upper teeth, e.g.: θ, ð.
4. Alveolar : the blade, or tip and blade, of the tongue articulate with the alveolar
ridge, e.g.: t, d, l, n, s, z.
5. Post-alveolar : the tip (and rims) of the tongue articulate with the rear part of
the alveolar ridge, e.g.: r.
6. Palato-alveolar : the blade or the tip and blade of the tongue articulate with
the alveolar ridge and there is at the same time a raising of the front of the
tongue towards the hard palate, e.g.: ʃ, ʒ, ʧ, ʤ.
7. Palatal : the front of the tongue articulates with the hard palate, e.g.:j.
8. Velar : the back of the tongue articulates with the soft palate, e.g.: k, g, ŋ
9. Glottal : an obstruction, or a narrowing causing friction but not vibration,
between the vocal cords, e.g.: h.
In terms of the manner of articulation, the consonants can be divided into:
1. Complete Closure:
Plosive: a complete closure at some point in the vocal tract, behind which the
air pressure builds up and is released explosively, e.g.: p, b, t, d, k, g.
2. Affricate: a complete closure at some point in the mouth, behind which the air
pressure builds up; the separation of the organs is slow compared with that of a
plosive, so that friction is a characteristic second element of the sound, e.g.: ʧ,
ʤ.
3. Nasal : a complete closure at some point in the mouth but the soft palate being
lowered the air escapes through the nose, e.g.: m, n, ŋ.
4. Intermittent Closure:
Roll : a series of rapid intermittent closures or taps made by a flexible organ on
a firmer surface, e.g.: r
5. Partial Closure:
Lateral: a partial closure is made at some point in the mouth, the air stream being
14
6. Narrowing:
Fricative: two organs approximate to such an extent that the air stream passes
through them with friction, e.g.: f, v, ʃ, ʒ, s, z, θ, ð, h.
7. Glides:
Semi-vowel: they are usually included in the consonantal category on
functional grounds, but from the point of view of phonetic description they are
more properly treated as vowel glides, e.g.: w, j.
b. Vowels
According to Fromkin (2000:478), a vowel is a sound in which there is little
construction is made in the vocal tract and the sound is louder and longer than the
consonant. Vowel sounds are produced by different positions of the tongue within
the mouth cavity and by the rounding and the surrounding of the lips.
According to Indriani (2005: 12), there are 12 cardinal vowels in English,
namely:
Table 2.2 English Vowel Sounds
Vowel word i: tea Ι sit
E pen Æ sad ɜ: bird
ə ago
ɑ: art
ʌ up
u: food
υ foot
ɔ: war
ɒ not
c. Gliding Vowels or Diphthongs
Diphthongs can be defined as some vowels that are represented as sequences of
vowel symbols because the tongue and/or lips move from one position to another
(Fromkin, 2000:509).
According to Indriani (2005:13), there are 9 diphthongs, namely:
Table 2.3. English diphthong sounds
aɪ eɪ ɔɪ
ɪə ʊə eə
ɔə aʊ əʊ
4. A Brief Overview of Hearing-Speech Defect a. The Nature of Sound
Hearing is one important means for human beings to receive information.
Although people are still able to learn through the senses of sight, smell, touch,
taste, etc., the sense of hearing facilitates and enhances the learning process.
Most children learn through their hearing from a very early age. Heward (1980:
177) states:
16
discriminate meaningful sounds from background noise, perceive loud and quiet sounds, and localize and imitate sounds.”
Heward (1980: 177) adds that as the hearing child grows, he develops
language by constantly hearing language used around him and by associating
these sounds with innumerable activities and events. He learns that people
convey information, and exchange their thoughts and feelings, by speaking and
hearing. The process of language acquisition appears to occur naturally and
spontaneously in the hearing child.
The hearing defective child, however, is not able to participate in this
process without special help. He misses many early and critical opportunities for
developing language and awareness of the world around him. Hallahan and
Kaufman (1978:243) explain that the child who is deaf from birth or is deafened
before he has learned to speak is severely defected when it comes to the task of
learning oral language. Because he cannot hear, he will have great difficulty in
all areas of speech and language. He will have a voice with strange pitch, quality,
and intensity. He will speak with an abnormal rhythm, and he will make
misarticulation. Johnson (1967: 120) argues that a child whose hearing sensivity
is definitely defected may be expected to exhibit misarticulations as one of the
consequences of his auditory defect.
b. Causes of Hearing Defect
As mentioned by Soemantri (1996:75), hearing defects can result from a
number of factors, among others:
1) Prenatal factors
a) One or both parents of the children have a hearing defect or genetic
abnormality.
b) The mother suffers from a disease during pregnancy, such as rubella
and morbili, specifically during the first trimester, that is during the
formation of the baby’s middle and inner hearing organs.
c) Poisoning of medicines that the mother suffers from during pregnancy.
This happens if she takes too many or improper medicines, for
example in the case of unwanted pregnancy and she tries to have it
aborted. Poisoning can also happen if the mother is addicted to
alcohol.
2) Perinatal factors
a) A prolonged process of delivery. If the process of delivery takes too
long time, the baby might suffer from a lack of oxygen. Another
possibility is if the doctor has to use a suction apparatus due to
difficulty during the process of delivery. These might cause a defect
18
b) Prematurity, that is when the baby is born earlier than the normal
period of pregnancy.
3) Post natal factors
a) Hearing defect occurs due to infections, such as infections of the
brain (meningitis)
b) The application of certain medications.
c) Accidents resulting in injury or defect of the individual’s inner
hearing organ.
c. The Level of Hearing-Speech Defects
Deaf children and those who experience hearing problems cannot be
classified in the same group. This is due to the differences in terms of the
process, types, and cause of hearing defects, which makes each child has
different problems of hearing.
In determining the level of hearing-speech defect, the term decibels or
dB, namely the measure of intensity or loudness of a sound, is used. 0 dB is a
point which represents the smallest sound the person with normal hearing can
perceive. Hallahan, Kauffman, & Pullen (2009:348) classify the levels of
deafness as follows:
1. Slight
This level refers to persons whose ability to hear is about 16 to 25 dB
less than normal persons.
2. Mild
This level refers to persons whose ability to hear is 26 to 40 dB less than
normal persons.
3. Moderate
This level refers to persons whose ability to hear is about 41 to 55 dB
less than normal persons.
4. Moderate-severe
This level refers to persons whose ability to hear is about 56 to 70 dB
less than the normal persons.
5. Severe
The persons can hear the sounds only if they are 71 to 90 dB louder.
6. Profound
The persons who are considered to be in this level are the ones who can
hear sounds that are 91 dB or more, less than the normal ones.
The terms slight, mild, moderate, moderate-severe, severe, and profound
are used to refer to degree of hearing-speech defect, as measured by the intensity
of sound a person requires before he or she can hear. Hearing defect or
impairment is a general term referred to individuals with impairments ranging
20
In order to avoid the confusion in terminology, the hearing impairment or
defect is divided into three namely the “hard of hearing”, “deafened”, “deaf”
(Johnson, 1967: 408).
1. Hard of hearing (slight-mild): one who has sufficient hearing to learn to
produce and to understand speech and language naturally by ear.
2. Deafened (moderate-moderate severe): one who has developed an
awareness of speech and language naturally by ear but who no longer
has sufficient hearing to enable him adequately to hear his own speech
or that of others with or without a hearing aid.
3. Deaf (severe-profound): one who at the time of life when speech and
language usually develop did not have sufficient hearing to make its
natural acquisition possible.
d. The Effects of Hearing-Speech Defect on Understanding Language and Speech
Hearing and language development have close relationship and becomes a
great problem for hearing-speech defective students. Hearing-speech defective
people have problems in dealing with the use of language. Language structure
used by hearing-speech defective people is different from the normal ones. Bowd
(1990:91) said that children with impaired hearing are handicapped in regard to
speech development because they cannot properly hear themselves vocalize, and
thus receive inadequate feedback. Speech defect usually characterized by nasal
voice, is not clear so that you cannot understand other people. This is because the
occurrence of articulation errors and the effort to change the speech patterns
(compensatory pattern.) Hearing defect is a cause of speech defect, because deaf
hearing loss is the condition that cannot deliver stimulation to the central
auditory perception in the brain.
In addition, he said that there are two important things that characterize
barriers hearing-speech defective students in language aspects. First, the
consequences due to hearing-speech defective lead to difficulty in accepting all
kinds of sound stimuli from the surrounding. Second, due to limitations in
receiving sound stimulation, they will have difficulty in producing sounds. Both
conditions directly affect the development of language and speech.
Hallahan, Kauffman & Pullen (2009:348) explain the effects of hearing
impairment on language development as follows:
1. Slight: In quiet environments, the individual has no difficulty
recognizing speech, but in noisy environments, faint speech is difficult
to understand.
2. Mild: In quiet conversational environments in which the topic is known
and vocabulary is limited, the individual has no difficulty in
communicating. Faint or distant speech is difficult to hear even if the
22
3. Moderate: The individual can hear conversational speech only at a close
distance. Group activities, such as classroom discussions, present a
communicative challenge.
4. Moderate-Severe: The individual can hear only loud, clear
conversational speech and has much difficulty in group situations.
Often, the individual’s speech is noticeably impaired though intelligible.
5. Severe: The individual cannot hear conversational speech unless it is
loud and even then, cannot recognize many of the words. Environmental
sounds can be detected, though not always identified. The individual’s
speech is not altogether intelligible.
6. Profound: The individual may hear loud sounds but cannot hear
conversational speech at all. Vision is the primary modality for
communication. The individual’s own speech, if developed at all, is not
easy to understand.
e. Examples of Possible Hearing-Speech Difficulties
This part presents some examples of possible hearing-speech difficulties
(Sattler, 1992: 100), such as:
1. Difficulty in discriminating consonant sounds; for example, hearing mat
for bat, tab for tap.
2. Difficulty in discriminating and learning short vowel sounds.
3. Difficulty in sounding out a word, sound by sound; for example,
difficulty saying k-a-t for cat.
4. Difficulty in sounding relating printed letters such as “f”, “pl”, and “ide”
to their sounds.
5. Difficulty in separating sounds that make up blends; for example,
difficulty determining that “fl” has the sound f-f…l-l.
6. Spelling and reading sight words better than phonetic words.
Those examples indicate their weaknesses. However, the examples can be
used as the base to understand how hearing-speech defective students pronounce
English sounds. Further, the teacher will be able to develop a teaching program
or activities to help them minimize their weaknesses. Besides, these can be used
as the starting points to link between the theory and facts whether it is true or not
that all the examples mentioned above become obstacles for the students to learn
a certain language.
f. Speech Reading as Method for Communication
The hearing-speech defective child may or may not have difficulty in
producing normal speech, but he is likely to have significant difficulty in
understanding the speech of others. With assistance he can learn to fill in the gaps
through speech reading. Johnson (1967: 422) defines speech reading as the art of
understanding a speaker’s thought by watching the movements of his lips, his face,
24
activities and the total situation in which communication is being carried on. The
term speech reading is also known as “lip reading”.
Richards, Platt and Weber (1985:57) mention that lip reading or speech
reading is a method used by deaf people and others to identify what a speaker is
saying by studying the movements of the lips and face muscles. The use of facial
expressions can help the students to interpret what is being said to them.
5. Misarticulation
a. Causes of Misarticulation
In learning English, children often experience a process of misarticulation.
Most noticeably, misarticulation affects pronunciation and vocabulary. Some
experts point out the causes of misarticulation as described in the following part.
Johnson (1967: 120) explains the known causes why some children fail to
develop good speech as follows:
1) Abnormalities of the Organs of Speech
The normal mode of producing a number of consonant sounds requires at
least reasonably good dentition. If the teeth are badly spaced or misaligned, or if
there is poor occlusion between the upper and lower dental arches, considerable
difficulty in articulation may result.
Although such dental irregularities do tend to present obstacles to good
articulation, it does not mean that people with this condition are impossible to
make normal speech. The tongue, lips and other parts of the mouth are very
adaptable, capable of considerable flexibility of movement and it is possible to
produce normal sounding with articulatory movements that vary considerably
from the typical pattern. Many persons have succeeded in developing adequate
and sometimes even superior speech in spite of dental abnormalities.
Besides dental abnormalities, the roof of the mouth or hard palate and the
tongue may also be important factors in the structure or functioning of the speech
mechanism that can contribute to articulation difficulties. The tongue must
establish contact with it in particular ways to form certain speech sounds in the
normal manner. If the hard palate is unusually high and very narrow, the tongue
may have difficulty in making the required contacts in the normal way, and
certain speech sounds may be distorted as a consequence.
The tongue is the most important of all the articulatory structures. Faults
of structure or function which interfere with its movements may result in
misarticulations. In some cases the tongue cannot make the necessary movements
to the teeth, the gum ridge, the hard and soft palates which are essential to normal
articulation. The individual may have difficulty also in grooving the tongue so as
to direct the air stream properly for the s, sh, and similar consonants. Another
condition which commonly occurs to individual is known as “tongue-tie”. In this
condition the little web of tissue lying underneath the front part of the tongue, by
26
short or is inserted in the tongue too close to the lip. As a consequence, the
movements of the front part of the tongue may be too restricted for purposes of
good articulation.
2) Poor Speech Models
It is well established that speech is learned essentially through imitation.
Most children learn to talk by imitating the speech of their parents and older
siblings. Occasionally a parent or older child in the family has hearing-speech
defected. An example of faulty learning from a poor speech model was shown in
the case of one whose principal trouble was a substitution for the “r” sound. A
father who accompanied his child to a clinic started the interview by saying “I
bwought (brought) Danny heuh (here) because he can’t make his ah (r) sounds
wight (right).” (Johnson, 1967:128).
3) Lack of Stimulation and Motivation
Infantile speech habits sometimes seem to persist because there is no
motivation to change them, or because there is even positive motivation to retain
them. Occasionally, however, environmental conditions are not adequate to
motivate good speech learning. Sometimes very inadequate speech is sufficient
to meet the child’s need for communication. Now and then a child is permitted to
supplement his inadequate speech with gestures to the extent that he feels no
need to develop better speech. A somewhat related situation is that in which the
child does not receive enough good speech stimulation. He may be so isolated
from other children, as well as adults, that he seldom needs to speak. Moreover,
under such condition he does not hear much speech to imitate. This happens to
the hearing-speech defective child. Frequently this lack of speech stimulation is a
consequence of parental neglect, more often unintentional than malicious.
Casey (1981:120) also points out some factors that lead to misarticulation:
1) The Degree of Hearing Loss/Level of Deafness
The hard of hearing child with supplementary assistance of a hearing aid
may in many cases develop adequate speech not markedly different from his
hearing peers. The deaf child, on the other hand, has to be formally taught to
speak, having no spontaneous speech.
2) The Age of Onset of Hearing Loss
The age of onset of hearing loss is also crucial in the acquisition of
effective speech. The older a child is when he acquires hearing loss, the greater is
his existing background of aural experiences and his established oral language.
3) Parents’ Attitudes
Parents’ attitudes considerably influence the language development of
deaf children. If deaf child is not accompanied by their parents while studying or
in daily communication, his language development will be greatly affected. The
parents will find it difficult to understand and teach new vocabulary to their
28
who have hearing defects become the main cause of obstruction of access to
children's learning in a family environment
4) Time of Intervention
Education is very influential on the language development of deaf
children. The earlier a child is given education and training how to communicate,
the more quickly the child will develop language.
b. Types of Misarticulation
Johnson (1967) and Cerney (2007) mention four types of misarticulation,
as follows:
1. Omission
Omission is one type of misarticulation that often occurs in the language
process. A speech sound may be more or less habitually omitted, as in saying pay
[
peɪ
] for play [ple
ɪ
]. Another example of a speech omission is saying “at” for“hat” or “oo” for “shoe.” This process can be found in the initial, middle or final
position of the word where one or more sounds (a vowel, a consonant or whole
syllable) in a word or phrase are omitted.
2. Substitution
Substitution is the process of substituting certain a sound with another
sound. The example is taken from the word run [wΛn] rather than [rΛn]. In this
process the r sound experiences change into w.
3. Distortion
Distortion is the type of misarticulation characterized by the changing of
speech sounds to sounds that are not normally used or to change the whole
meaning of the word or it does not contain meaning. Distortion occurs by turning
the flip and change the sound of consonants as happened in the word morning
[mɔ:nɪŋ] said to be [bɔ:dɪŋ] .
4. Sound Addition
Sound addition refers to the process by which an extra sound is added to a
word. Sound addition is also called insertion. An example is the word something
which is pronounced [sΛmpθIŋk] instead of [sΛmθIŋ]. In this case, two sounds
are added, namely p and k.
B. Theoretical Framework
Pronunciation ability cannot be separated from the intelligibility aspect in
communicative abilities. Learners need to understand and to be understood so they
can communicate. Unfortunately, persons with special needs such as hearing-speech
defective students have lack of pronunciation competence, resulting in articulation
errors. The lack of pronunciation competence is also faced by the seventh grade
hearing-speech students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta.
The difficulties in receiving, recognizing, discriminating and producing the
30
language make the students difficult to pronounce English words. In this case, the
seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta experience
the phenomena of misarticulation in learning English.
This research aims to find out the phenomena of misarticulation of the
seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta. Further, it
tries to find some possible causes of the problems and, finally, some possible
solutions to overcome those problems.
Misarticulation cannot be avoided when one learns a new language.
Misarticulation is one of the related problems to this research. To answer the first
problem, the descriptions as pointed out by Johnson (1967) and Cerney (2007) are
used to identify the kinds of articulation problems faced by the hearing-speech
defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta such as omission, sound addition,
substitution, and distortion. In order to analyze the data, the researcher recorded
student’s pronunciation and transcribed into phonetic transcription. As for the second
problem, Johnson’s (1967) and Casey’s (1981) theories are employed to find the
causes of misarticulation. Finally, the possible solutions to overcome the articulation
problems refer to the theories by Rusyani, Sahulata (1988), Edja & Dardjo (1995).
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
This chapter discusses the methodology used in the research. There are five sections in the methodology, namely research method, research participants, research instruments, data gathering techniques, and research procedure.
A. Research Method
This research was conducted to identify the English articulation problems faced by the hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta and their causes. It also concerned some possible solutions to overcome the problems. However, the object of the research, namely three students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta, was not meant to represent the whole population of students with hearing-speech defects.
Since the focus was laid on only one group of students, the method of the research was a case study. A case study has the qualitative value of providing descriptive data. Ary, Jacobs, Razavieh (2002:440) define this type of research as follows:
“Case study is an in-depth study of a single unit, such as one individual, one group, one organization, one program, and so on. The goal is to arrive at a detailed description and understanding of the entity.”
32
Further, they explain that in a case study the researcher tries to discover all the variables that are important in the history or development of the subject. The emphasis is on understanding why the individual or group does what he does and how behavior changes as the individual responds to the environment. A case study can establish cause and effect, indeed one of their strengths is that a case study observes effects in real context (Cohen & Manion, 2000:181).
This method was chosen because the researcher did not have enough subject to conduct pre-experimental research which required more research subjects. The small number of subjects in this research was due to the different levels of deafness and the difficulty in managing the class. Investigating the articulation problems was done by identifying types of misarticulation produced by the seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of SLBN3 Yogyakarta.
B.Research Participants
The main research participants were the seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta consisting of three students. There were three reasons for choosing them to be the subject of this study. First, they were fresh beginners of the English language as a foreign language. Second, they are better than other classes in terms of their ability to receive information and produce words. In addition, they were more active than those in the other classes. The other research participants were teachers and parents, who helped the researcher to find the information about the hearing- speech defective students.
The research activities were conducted both at SLBN 3 Yogyakarta, which was located in Jl. Wates 147 Yogyakarta and in the participants’ houses. The data collection was carried out twice a week, starting from April 07 to June 14, 2009.
The presentation of students’ profiles containing the backgrounds and their history of the hearing loss was described below. This was helpful for analyzing the problems. This part consists of the names of the participants, the levels of deafness, the time when they began to show loss of hearing and their language development.
Student A:
34
Student B:
As pointed out by his parents during the interview, this student had the hearing defect since the time he was born. He was born at 8 months of gestation. At the age of 2, he started to lose his hearing ability. After some examinations, he was declared to be deaf. His hearing was 101dB - 95 dB. The parents gave him assistance and trained him to talk rather than use sign language to communicate. After some time with his parent’s guidance and therapy in a specialized institution, his Indonesian language capacity developed. His pronunciation was clearer than before even though he encountered problems to produce some sounds. At the age of 5 he had an accident which caused head injuries and his teeth broken. The doctor’s examination showed that his head was badly injured. Again, at the age of 10, he had an accident. It was very probable that the series of accidents made his hearing deteriorate.
Student C:
This child acquired hearing loss since his birth. The level of his deafness was 86 dB – 95 dB. This meant that the child was classified as deaf. He was born premature and had visual impairment as well. His left eye was blind. To communicate, he relied on sign language and speech reading. His vocabulary was very limited, which made the parents and teachers difficult to communicate with him. The parents admitted that they could not provide active and effective assistance because they sometimes did not understand his language. They found it difficult to explain new words to develop his vocabulary and, furthermore, they did not know sign language.
C. Research Instruments
The instruments of this research were observation and interview. 1. Observation
According to Ary, Jacobs, and Razavieh (2002:430), observation is the most basic method for obtaining data in qualitative research. The observation was conducted in three ways. The first observation was conducted in class where the students were attending English language lessons. The researcher was non-participant. She did not make any interaction with the students in the class. The purpose of this observation was to know how the students learned the English language in class and to know how the teacher delivered the learning materials to the students.
The second observation was done in the articulation class where the students learned how to pronounce Indonesian words. In this observation, the researcher paid attention to how the teacher gave the treatment to the students. As in the first observation, the researcher did not take part in the teaching-learning activities. Through this observation, the researcher expected to get more knowledge on how to deal with hearing-speech defective students and give possible solutions or speech training to the students.
36
and gave necessary corrections when they made errors. Through this observation, the researcher achieved detailed information that the researcher needed because she saw directly the conditions of the students’ in terms of pronunciation. The activities were recorded with a audio-visual recorder. Later, the researcher transcribed the students’ utterances in phonetic symbols. Thus, there are two documents of the students’ pronunciation, namely audio-visual and written records.
2. Interviews
Besides observations, the researcher also conducted interviews. According Ary, Jacobs and Razavieh (2002:434), “the interview is one of the most widely used methods for obtaining qualitative data”. Interviews provide information that cannot be obtained through observation, or they can be used to verify the observation. There are three types of interview which can be differentiated by their degree of explicitness and structure. They are open, semi-open and semi-structured.
The researcher used open interviews to some teachers in SLBN 3 Yogyakarta and the parents of the research participants. They were asked about the students’ competence in learning the English language in class and their backgrounds including physical conditions and education backgrounds. Furthermore, the interviews were conducted to obtain the information about the conditions of the hearing-speech defective students and everything that had any relations with hearing-speech defects. Sattler (1992:429) points out that interviews with parents are designed to elicit information about their concerns regarding the child; the child’s problems and how
they dealt with the problems in the past, the child’s medical, developmental, educational, social history, the family history, and the parents’ expectations for treatment and remediation.
The interviews were often similar to conversations between friends or relatives rather than formal interviews. The interviewees were given freedom to answer the questions and to give explanations. The researcher made the condition of the interview like sharing session. Several times the interviews were conditioned to be friendly and relaxing, especially with the parents, where they could also share their feelings and experience with their children.
D. Data Gathering Techniques
In order to collect data, the researcher observed, recorded and transcribed the pronunciation produced by the seventh grade hearing-speech students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta. Each of the students was given a piece of paper containing 10 English
words at a time and then the researcher asked the students to read the words themselves. When the researcher found some misarticulation, she directly made the corrections.
38
Table 3.1. Record students’ pronunciation No. Phoneme
Table 3.2. Comparison of students’ pronunciation and expected pronunciation
Words
Phonetic transcriptions Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary Students’ pronunciation
E. Data Analysis Technique
Data analysis is the process of organizing and ordering the data into patterns, or categorizing in such a way to find a theme (Moleong, 2000: 112). The researcher provided two analyses for analyzing the collected data. They were comparing the phonetic transcriptions of the students’ pronunciation of the given words and the expected pronunciation of the words by referring to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. The researcher chose that dictionary considering of the validity in which it uses the standardized symbols of English pronunciation transcription. After comparing the phonetic transcription of the students’ pronunciation with the dictionary, the researcher analyzed the articulation errors by using the theory of misarticulation by Johnson (1967) and Cerney (2007). It was followed by the
explanation of the causes of the problems and some possible solutions to overcome the problems.
F. Research Procedure
This research was conducted through some steps:
1. Preparation. In this step, the researcher asked for formal permission from SLBN 3 Yogyakarta to conduct this research.
2. Identification of the participants, in which the researcher selected the seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta as the participant in this research.
3. Instrument development. In this step the researcher prepared the video recorder and phonetic transcription to gather the data.
4. Data collection. In this step, the researcher obtained the data by recording and transcribing the students’ pronunciation.
40
CHAPTER IV
RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter discusses misarticulation, causes of the problems and some
possible solutions to overcome the problems. The data in study were taken from the
observation conducted on the seventh grade hearing-speech defective students of
SLBN 3 Yogyakarta and interviews with their parents and teachers. The participants
were three hearing-speech defective students. The following part is the findings and
the discussion on the misarticulation problems made by each of them, an analysis of
the causes of the problems and possible solutions.
1. English Articulation Problems Faced by the Seventh Grade Hearing-Speech Defective Students of SLBN 3 Yogyakarta
After conducting observation, the researcher found that there was a common
problem of misarticulation in pronouncing English phonemes. The example of the
difficulties could be seen when the students tried to pronounce and differentiate
voiced and voiceless sounds and pronounce several vowels and diphthongs. As a
result, these problems affected the shape of syllables and words. There are several
types of misarticulation. The types of misarticulation would be discussed in this
chapter as the classification of the students’ problems. The collected data showed that
each of the students experienced different articulation problems. The discussion of
articulation on each student along with the classification of types of misarticulation
will be discussed bellow.
Student A
During the pronunciation process, the researcher found four types of
misarticulation that happened in the initial, middle, and final position of sounds in the
words. The types of misarticulation that occurred to this student were as follows:
a. Omission
Omission is the process of omitting one or more sounds (a vowel, a consonant or
the whole syllable) in a word or phrase. It can be found in the initial, middle, or final
position of the word. The researcher found the sound which was omitted in the initial
position as in the word usual [juʒʊəl]. This student omitted the [j] sound because the
way how pronounced this sound in the Indonesian language was different from the
English language. As the result, this student pronounced this word as [uʒʊəl]. This
process happened because items in the Indonesian language were given a new shape
in the English language. In this case, the Indonesian language as the first language
influenced the way she pronounced English words. In the Indonesian language, the
name of the letter and its sound were the same. [u] in the Indonesian language was
pronounced as [u] but in the English language it was pronounced as [ju]. Other
phoneme that can be categorized as items on the Indonesian language that were given
42
The omission process also occurred in the middle position of the word.
Omitting the sound in the middle position occurred in the word poor [pʊə/r] where
the sound [ə] was omitted and in the word both [bəʊθ] / [boʊθ] where the sound [u]
was omitted. This student pronounced those word as [pu:r] instead of [pʊə/r] and
[boθ] instead of [bəʊθ] / [boʊθ]. Another omission occurred in the final position of
the word. Pronouncing three words that contained two sounds, the student showed
omission in the final position. There were the [p] sound as in the word pump [pʌmp]
which was pronounced [pʌm] and jump [dʒʌmp] which was pronounced [dʒʌm] and
the [k] sound as in the word desk [desk] which was pronounced [des].
b. Sound addition
Sound addition refers to the process by which anextra sound is added to a word.
The data collection showed four words that experienced sound addition. Sound
addition occurred in the middle and final position of the word. The sound addition in
the middle position occurred in the word often [ɒfn], where the sound [t] was added,
the sound [g] was added in the word night [naɪt], the sound [w] was added in the
word answer [ɑ:nsə] and the sound [ə] was added in the word church [tʃɜ:tʃ]. As the
result, this student pronounced [ɒftn] instead of [ɒfn], [naigt] instead of [naɪt],
[answər] instead of [ɑ:nsə/r], and [ʧərʧə] instead of [tʃɜ:tʃ].
