The Phonetic Problems in Consonant Sounds of Thai International Students Pronunciation - Coursework Example

Running head: Phonetic Problems The phonetic problems In consonant sounds Of Thai international pronunciation Topic This paper is based on the research work done to study the phonetic problems in consonant sounds of Thai international students’ pronunciation at The University of Sydney. The paper focuses on studying the sounds of specific problematic consonant such as /l/, /v/, /z/ as pronounced by the Thai people. The research aims to examine the pronunciation differences that are observed in the Thai people. Research question The research investigated the phonetic problems in consonant sounds focusing on consonant /l, v, z/ sounds. This investigation was designed to answer the following questions: 1. Can participants pronounce consonant /l, v, z/ sounds? 2. How do participants pronounce consonant /l, v, z/ sounds in different positions? Introduction Globalization has led the people across the world to communicate to each other for various purposes. This necessitates a common standard language as the medium. English has become the standard medium and is used across the globe as a powerful means for transfer of ideas. English was originally used only in some parts of the world like The British Isles, The USA, Australia and New Zealand. The usage has spread to approximately 500 million people who use English as their first or official language. There are also a larger number of people using English as their second language. It is found that the number of people using English as a second language is overtaking the number of English speakers in the world (Stockwell, 2007). Brown (1991) points out that pronunciation is a contributor towards an efficient and effective English learner. English learners encounter difficulties in spoken English. Thai students encounter these difficulties in particular because of the phonetic approach learnt and practiced by them, which is inherently different than the English phonological system and reflects in the typical consonant pronunciation. (Yangklang, 2006, p.2). Kruatrachue (1960) observes that although English vowels are not problematic, there are three groups of consonant that pose a problem for Thai learners. These are enlisted below: 1. Consonants /ν, θ, z, š, ž, č, ĵ/ that do not occur in Thai 2. Consonants that exist in Thai but are pronounced differently 3. Consonants /b, d, f, s, l, r/ that exist in both languages but with different distributional patterns Moreover, there is prosodic feature in English which is difficult for the Thais to pronounce. The research is an important step towards understanding the phonetics of the Thai people with regard to the way they pronounce English words, especially certain consonants. The results of the research will greatly assist the Thai students in being aware about their pronunciation problem and help them improve their English speaking abilities. Background Thai students are studying in the different parts of the world where English is used. They need to use the language effectively to communicate and to score well in the English admission requirement for non- native English speakers so that they can study in overseas schools or universities. The most common English language tests such are TOEFL (Test of English as Foreign Language) and IELTS (International English Language Testing System). Although the students appear for such exams and even clear them with due guidance from the English language institutes, they still encounter pronunciation problems. Kruatrachue (1960) identifies three major consonant problems for Thai learners. Thai do not use /z/ but replace it with /s/ for all words because of which the wrongly pronounce ‘zoo’ and ‘sue’. There is no /v/ in Thai and so they generally pronounce /v/ as /w/ such as vet and wet, vest and west. Another major problem is /l/ sound. In English, /l/ occurs on all positions but in Thai. It occurs only at the beginning of words. Even though Thai and English phonology have /-l/, /-l/ never occurs as a final sound in Thai and so they have a problem with /-1/ (Yangklang, 2006) Chaithawin ( Yangklang, 2006) found that there are five ways that Thais produce /-l/ sound /-l/, /-w/, /μ /, /-n/ and /Ø/. The research aims to identify and examine the pronunciation problem for Thai students to use the results to improve their language performance. English may be learnt as a language, but it will be meaningless if the user is not able to communicate effectively. As Wong (Wei, p.2) states that “When the non-native speakers’ vocabulary and grammar are excellent, if their pronunciation falls below a certain threshold level, they are unable to communicate effectively.” Research Methodology Participants A population sample of 17 students was classified into three groups as follows: 1. Group A consisted of ten Thai international students at University of Sydney. 2. Group B with five Australian born Thais 3. Group C with two Australian native speakers Research instrument The instrument used in this research is a pronunciation test containing consonant sounds /l, v, z/ in different positions; initial, middle and final sounds. The words which are often wrongly pronounced were selected as shown in the list below. Consonant /l/ Initial sounds: live, leaves Middle sounds: valley, alone Final sounds: National, feel Consonant /v/ Initial sounds: valley, vacate Middle sounds: moving, seven Final sounds: Live, have, remove, leave Consonant /z/ Initial sound: zoo Middle sound: dizzy Final sound: organize The identified words were collectively used in a paragraph format cited below. Mike and Sue are moving to live in the valley near the national zoo. They have to remove the furniture so they can vacate the apartment by seven o’ clock. This makes Sue feel dizzy so she leaves Mike to organize it alone. Data Collection The data were collected by offering the pronunciation test to all 17 participants who were asked to read aloud while their voices were recorded. Method of analysis The collected data was investigated, analyzed and interpreted both quantitatively and qualitatively. 1. Quantitative Data Analysis The statistic method was employed to measure the participants’ pronunciation achievement. The study measured the percentage scores of correctly pronounced words. 2. Qualitative Data Analysis The qualitative data closely investigated the words in the pronunciation test. The specific phonetic problems in each selected word were identified and the data obtained from three different groups was compared to highlight the difference. Research Result The research findings are organized according to the questions enlisted earlier. The findings, are therefore, presented in two parts based on the two research questions. Each part is further classified into three sub parts according to three groups of participants. Results Q1. Can participants pronounce consonant /l, v, z/ sounds? Ans1. The number of people who mispronounced each of the three groups was different. Group A results: In response to the consonant /l/ sound, all the ten Thai international students pronounced initial and middle /l/ sounds correctly. A few of them pronounced final /l/ sound perfectly. Four students wrongly pronounced final /l/ sound in the word “national” and seven of them mispronounced the word “feel”. For the consonant /v/ sound, all the ten students mispronounced initial /v/ sound in the word “valley”, and four of them mispronounced the word “vacate”. Similarly, some of them pronounced middle /v/ sounds. Seven students wrongly pronounced the word “moving”, and four of them did so in the word “seven”. Seven of them mispronounced final /v/ sound in the word ‘have’. Likewise, five students mispronounced “leaves”. There are also two students mispronounced “remove”, and three students mispronounced “live”. For the consonant /z/ sound, three out of ten students pronounced the initial /z/ sound correctly. Nine students mispronounced the middle /z/ sound, while none of them pronounced final /z/ sound correctly. Group B results: This group of five Australian born Thais responded differently to the test. In response to the consonant /l, v, z/ sounds, all the five Australian born Thais pronounced all initial, middle and final sounds correctly. Except for the final /v/ sound in the word “leaves”, two of them mispronounced it. Group C results: The two Australian native speakers correctly pronounced all consonant /l, v, z/ sounds in the initial, middle as well as the final sounds. However, they wrongly pronounced final /v/ sound in the word ‘leaves’. Q2.How do participants pronounce consonant /l, v, z/ sound in different positions? Ans2. Group A: In response to the consonant /l/ sound, students who mispronounced final /l/ sound pronounced it in the words “national” and “feel” as /w/ sound. For the consonant /v/ sound, all students pronounced /v/ sound as /w/ in initial sound in the words “valley” and “vacate”. Similarly, some of them pronounced /w/ instead of /v/ in the words “moving and “seven”. Some students also pronounced final /v/ sound as /p, f, ø/. Three students pronounced /v/ as /p/ in the word “have” and two out of ten students pronounced /v/ as /f/ in this word. Likewise, one student pronounced /v/ as /p/ and another student pronounced /v/ as /f/ in the word “leaves”. Also, three out of ten students did not pronounce any sound (ø) in this word. Students who mispronounced “live” substituted /p/ for /v/, students who mispronounced “ remove” substituted /f, p/ for /v/. In the consonant /z/ sound, students who mispronounced the initial and middle /z/ sounds pronounced them as /s/ sound. None of them could pronounce final /z/ sound. Two students did not pronounce (ø), while the rest of them pronounced it as /s/ sound. Group B: The five Australian born Thais did not pronounce the /v/ sound correctly and pronounced ‘leave’ as ‘lease’. Group C: Similar to the two Australian born Thais, both native speakers pronounced final /v/ sound in the word “leaves” as “lease”. The research questions provided a framework to understand how the mother tongue, Thai, influences the English pronunciation. It was found that Thai international students encounter major difficulties pronouncing consonants /v, z/ sounds in all positions, but they have a phonetic problem only in final sound of consonant /l/. Secondly, participants in a group of Australian born Thai and Australian native speakers do not have difficulties pronouncing these consonants. Finally, Thai international students mispronounced final consonant /l/ and initial and middle /v/ sounds as /w/ sound. They also pronounced final /v/ sound as /f, p, ø/ sounds. Moreover, they pronounced consonant /z/ sounds as /s/ sounds in all positions. Discussion & Recommendations The overall result of the research brings out the issues behind the pronunciation of Thai international students in consonant /l, v, z/ sounds. The data collected from this sample is compared with that of the Australian born Thais and Australian native speakers to highlight the difference. As per study, it is seen that Thai international students encounter difficulties pronouncing consonant /v, z/ sounds in all positions. The students can pronounce initial and middle sounds of /l/ but they cannot do so in final sound. This is because the final /l/ sound does not occur in Thai phoneme. Therefore, they mispronounced the final /l/ sound as /w/ sound. For instance, they pronounced “national” (/ˈnæʃ.nəl/) as “nationaw” (/ˈnæʃ.nɔː). Dusadee (as cited in Yangklang, 2006, p.4) states that the phoneme /l/ appears in both Thai and English phonemes but Thai phoneme /l/ differs from English phoneme /l/. Particularly, the final /l/ sound never occurs as a sound in Thai, while it does so in English. English final consonants and consonant clusters, thus, are frequently difficult to pronounce for Thai speakers. One of those consonants which do not appear in Thai is final /l/ sound. As a result, Thai learners substitute /w/ for /l/ sound. Smyth (1987) suggests that there are eight final consonant phonemes and no clusters in Thai. For the consonant /v/ sound, the students mispronounced initial and middle /l/ sound as /w/ while they pronounced final /v/ sound in three ways as /f, p, ø/sounds. This is also because of absence of /v/ phoneme in Thai. Kruatrachue (1960) illustrates that /v/ is difficult for Thai speakers to pronounce due to the fact that there is no /v/ in Thai phoneme. Thai speakers may substitute initial /w/ for /v/ and final /f, p/ for /v/. Likewise, Smyth (1987) concludes that as a result of difficult pronunciation, Thai learners substitute /p/ for /v/ in final sound. For the consonant /z/ sound, Thai students substitute /s/ for /z/ in initial and middle positions as well as /s. ø/ sound for final position, The reason of this shuffle is also similar to those /l,v/ consonants and as cited Kruatrachue (1960,p. 98) “Thai does not have /z/. Therefore sue) (zoo, rice) (rise, racer) (razor are difficult contrasts for Thai speakers. For them there is only one sound --/s/, for both /s, z/. The Australian born Thais pronounced all consonants correctly due to the fact that these participants develop two languages as their vernaculars. Stockwell (2007) indicates that people who are born in families generally speaking two or more languages develop all language equally and are called co-ordinate bilinguals. These people have abilities to associate each language with different domains. Therefore, these participants have no problematic pronunciation. However, wrong pronunciation of the word ‘leaves’ as ‘lease’ may be attributed to the Thai being a tonal language and hence some of the English words are also pronounced in the same manner (Smyth, 2002). Though, the consonant ‘v’ is pronounced just as in English. The pronunciation of Australian native speakers did not exhibit any problems. The pronunciation of these participants is perfect because they develop English as vernacular and are not interfered by other languages. Nevertheless, the final /v/ in the word “leaves” is dropped because they make the word easier to pronounce. Conclusion This study aimed to investigate the English pronunciation in consonants /l, v, z/ for Thai international students at The University of Sydney. The other two groups are also involved in the research in order to have a comparison factor for the pronunciation test. The results showed that Thai international students encounter problematic pronunciation and have difficulties pronouncing fricative consonants /v, z/ sounds in all positions and the glide consonant l/ in final position. Comparing these students’ pronunciation with other participants, it was found that /l, v, z/ sound can be considered to be problematic pronunciations for Thai students. The underpinning reason is that those consonants do not appear in Thai phoneme. The sounds /l/ and /r/ are undistinguishable to Thai speakers. The Thai students pronounced the sound ‘r’ more gliding than ‘r’ in English. Although the Australian born Thai and native speakers were used for comparison, it was discovered that even they dropped final /v/ sound and added /s/ sound during the pronunciation test. This unintended result was not considered as a problematic pronunciation for those participants because they could correctly pronounce other words. Rather, it was considered as a pronunciation error. References Brown, A. (1991). Teaching English pronunciation: a book of readings, London Routledge. Kruatrachue, F. (1960). Thai and English : A comparative study of phonology for pedagogical application, PhD Thesis. Indiana University, Retrieved August 22, 2009, from Fisher Library at University of Sydney. Smyth, D. (1987). Thai speakers. In M. Swan & B. Smith (Eds), Learner English: a teacher’s guide to interference and other problems (pp. 252-263). Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Smyth, D. (2002). Thai: an essential grammar. Retrieved on October 8, 2009 from http://books.google.com/books?id=qJUIj0V3bkkC&dq=Thai+pronounciation+problems&source=gbs_navlinks_s Stockwell, P. (2007). Sociolinguistics: A resource book for students. London: Routlege Wei, M. A literature Review in strategies for teaching pronunciation, PhD Thesis. University of Maryland at College Park. Retrieved August 27, 2009, from University of Maryland at College Park digital Theses. Yangklang, W. (2006). Improving English final /-l/ pronunciation of Thai students through computer-assisted instruction program, Master Thesis. Suranaree University of Technology. Retrieved August 26, 2009, from Suranaree University of Technology Digital Theses. Read More