English Phonological Errors Produced by Saudi Learners - Essay Example

Running head: DISSERTATION PROPOSAL A Study of English Phonological Errors Produced by Saudi Learners. of Client of of Class A Study of English Phonological Errors Produced by Saudi Learners. Introduction The English language has become a global form of communication within which much of the international business is conducted. According to Rubdy (2006), the acquisition of the English language as a skill can many times be fundamental to economic survival. Therefore, it becomes important for all nations to have courses that teach English as a second language available to their students in order to promote participation in a global economy (p. 117). However, attaining a second language becomes subject to the phonological influence of the primary language. This can cause a great deal of strain in the efforts to communicate in English when pronunciation is diminished because of difficulties with forming English words through a tongue that is trained to form sound within the framework of another language. Learning a second language at an earlier age may diminish this effect as the ability to form language can be more easily manipulated. Phonological errors occur when syllables are either missed or not pronounced within a communication. The forms of these errors can include, but not necessarily be limited to errors involving consonants, vowels, substitutions, additions, omissions, movements, exchanges, prosody (the metrical sound of the way that the language is formed), metathesis (the transposition of letters, sounds, or syllables), or non-contextual errors where there seems to be no definable source (Jaeger, 2005, p 147). According to Binturki (2008), the most common phonological errors that are found in Saudi speakers within their use of the English Language are with the interdentally fricative /v/ and to some degree with the /p/ and /i/. As well, the positions of certain words created difficulty form many users of the English language with the common Arabic dialect of Nadji as their primary language (p. i). The proposed study will be based upon the study done by Tiono and Yostanto (2008) on the phonological errors that were common among Indonesian speaking students when learning the English language (p. 80). The study was centrally focused on the English consonantal sounds that do not exist in the Indonesian language. The researchers identified six specific sounds that were absent in Indonesian and therefore caused difficulty for these students who had completed six courses of education in English (Tiono and Yostanto, 2008, p. 81). An auditory examination was given to 25 students from a private university in East Java, Indonesia where the phonological differences could be appreciated through listening to the pronunciation variables. This study will be conducted replicating the methodology of the Tiono and Yostanto (2008) for Saudi Arabian students. Literature Review International Studies in Phonological Errors Tiono and Tostanto (2008) created a study that examined the auditory phonological issues for Indonesian college students who had the specific difficulty of consonant sounds in English that do not exist within the Indonesian language. After identifying six specific consonants that did not exist within the Indonesian language, the researchers were able to identify 34 specific errors that occurred because of this gap between the Indonesian language and the English Language (p. 80). According to Lord (2008), there are differences between the Spanish language and the English language that are defined by Voice Onset Times that are created by aspirations that occur after /p, t, k,/ in tonic syllables which are marked by voiceless stops in English that do not occur in Spanish (p. 174). According to Yeni-Komshian, Robbins, and James (2001), Korean L2 learners had a more profound difficulty with the formulation of verbs than nouns. This was perhaps due to the fact that in Korean the verb is more prominent than the noun (p. 283). A study done by Broselow and Xu (2004) reveals that the many variations of the development of language by Mandarin Chinese speaking students who then take courses in English create a disparity between the two languages that is difficult to overcome. There is a pronounced difficulty with final obstruent pronunciations in English by students whose primary language is English (p. 135). The differences in the way a primary language sounds from a secondary language can be profound and significant, making it difficult for older students to acquire a fluency in the secondary language. Education at an earlier age can provide Arabic Studies in Phonological Errors According to Schmitt and McCarthy (1997), Arabic speaking students have a distinct number of errors through the use of English consonants. It has been the conclusion through teaching practices that the most common way for vocabulary to be learned is through reading and associating the new words in context. However, this does not seem to be significant or effective when teaching those with Arabic as a primary language. The appreciated differences in the structure of words and the way in which context is processed in the Arabic language in comparison to the English language makes this method ineffective (p. 187). Randall (2007), however, discovered that Arabic learners in comparison to Japanese learners of the English as a secondary language were more easily taught vocabulary in contextual teaching scenarios. The Japanese language based learners were more prone to use the direct word recognition approach to vocabulary than were those students with Arabic as their primary language (p. 78). Tucker and Corson (1997) suggest, however, that there is a profound difference in the way that text is organized in the Arabic language in comparison to the English language, creating a difficulty within the contextual recognition, despite the more positive comparison in learning contextually to the Japanese speaking student (p. 202). Saudi Studies in Phonological Errors According to Al-Jarf (9 March 2009), 63% of the spelling errors committed by Arabic speaking students from Saudi Arabia appeared to be phonological, while 37% were orthographic when 100 students were given a listening test and required to write out their answers. The most common issues with the answers that were wrong were an inability to hear and discriminate vowel phonemes and the final syllable or suffix (p. 1). According to Dabaan (1983), the difficulties and complexities of the orthography and the inconsistencies of writing in the English language compared to the Arabic language caused Saudi learners a great deal of difficulty (p. 10). According to Swan and Smith (2006), one of the most profound issues that face Saudi students in learning to write in English is that Arabic is spelled phonetically, while English is frequently not spelled according to phonetic markers. This also creates issues in pronunciation as words in English cannot always be phonetically pronounced (p. 198). However, one advantage that an Arabic speaking student will find in learning to speak English is that the phrasing is almost identical, therefore the sentence structures will be more easily understood (Swan and Smith, 2006, p. 199). Research Questions A series of questions will be used in order to frame the research that will be done for this study. The following research questions are central to the results of the study. 1. Do ESL Saudi learners commit phonological errors? 2. What are the sounds ESL Saudi students pronounce wrong? 3. Do ESL learners "know" that they commit pronunciation errors? This could be testified by (cross- sectional survey) examining their cognitive ability to distinguish between the pronunciation of English native speaker and non-native one. Methodology This study will be conducted through a qualitative methodology in order to understand the experience that Saudi students with an Arabic primary language have during attempts to learn to speak English. The phonological issues that arise during the course of learning English will be examined through samples of recorded oral readings taken from students from the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah Saudi Arabia. These students will be asked to perform pronunciation tasks in order to determine the most frequent errors in phonetics. Once the errors have been assessed through phonetically translating the taped responses, there will be an attempt to understand the cognitive awareness that the students have for the errors they have made. Students will be given an article to read, then the article will be heard by the student in order to assess if they recognize the phonological errors that were made during their own reading. Conclusion The proposed study and dissertation will attempt to provide information concerning the frequency and types of errors phonetically made by Saudi Arabian students who are learning English as a second language. Students at the Abdulaziz University in Jeddah Saudi Arabia will be given pronunciation tasks in order to determine the frequency and type of phonetic errors that are made in English when spoken with Arabic as a primary language. As well, cognitive recognition of these errors will be assessed. It will be determined whether the errors are simply errors, or a lack of understanding that they are errors. This study will provide valuable insight into the types of phonetic errors that are made by Saudi Arabian speakers of English as a second language. References Al-Jarf, Reima. (9 March 2009) Phonological and Orthographic Problems in EFL College Spellers. Tellus Conference Proceedings. Azad Islamic University - Roudehen, Iran. PDF. Binturki, Turki A. (2008). “Analysis of Pronunciation Errors of Saudi ESL Learners.” SACM Dissertation Services. PDF. Broselow, Ellen and Xu Zheng. (2004). Differential Difficulty in the Acquisition of Second Language Phonology. International Journal of English Studies. 4 (2) 135-163. Dabaan, Ibraham. (1983)“Implications of Error Analysis for the Teaching of English Phonology to Saudi Students. University of Kansas. Jaeger, Jeri J. (2005). Kid’s Slips: What Young Children’s Slips of the Tongue Reveal About Language. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Lord, Gillian. (2008). Second Language Acquisition and First Language Phonological Modifications. Selected Proceedings of the 10th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. 184- 193. Randall, Mick. (2007). Memory, Psychology and Second Language Learning. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pub. Rubdy, Rani. (2006). English in the World: Global Rules, Global Roles. London [u.a.: Continuum. Schmitt, Norbert and McCarthy, Michael. (1997) Description, Vocabulary, Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Swan, Michael, and Bernard Smith (2006). Learner English: A Teachers Guide to Interference and Other Problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tiono, Nani, I and Yostanto, Arlene, M. (June 2008). A Study of English Phonological Errors Produced by English Department Students. K@TA. 10 (1) 79-112. Tucker, G R, and David Corson. (1997). Encyclopedia of Language and Education: Vol. 4. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Yeni-Komshian, Grace, H., Robbins, Medina, and Flege, James E. (2001)“Effects of Word Class Differences on L2 Pronunciation Accuracy.” Applied Psycholinguistics. 22, 283-299. Read More