S endings pronunciation by senior english majored students at an giang univerity

Thesis Title: -S PRONUNCIATION BY SENIOR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY By: THÁI HOÀNG KHANG Field of Study: ENGLISH LANGUAGE... ABSTRACT This research investigates -s

AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Thesis Title: -S PRONUNCIATION BY SENIOR ENGLISH MAJORED

STUDENTS AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY

By: THÁI HOÀNG KHANG

Field of Study: ENGLISH LANGUAGE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The undergraduate thesis writing process in my final year at the An Giang University allowed me to gain valuable insight into many aspects of student’s pronunciation More importantly, I could not have obtained the fruit

of my labor without the assistance of my beloved friends and teachers Over this period, I have acquired a range of pronunciation knowledge and reseach writing skills beneficial for my future career Plus, I am much obliged to my supervisor's warmth, friendliness, kindness, and helpful advice, as without him, it would be impossible for me to complete my undergraduate thesis

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Rector Board of An Giang University, the Faculty of Foreign Languages, for giving me a wonderful opportunity to conduct my research I am also grateful for all of the students in class DH19TA1, DH19TA2, DH19AV for all of their help in my data collection process for this thesis

Secondly, I would like to send my sincere appreciation to Mr Nguyen Duc Hanh as the person in charge of guiding me and contributing a lot of time and effort to support my graduation I am forever in debt to his meaningful guidance in helping me exploit all of my potential and limiting my weaknesses when conducting the research

Furthermore, I would like to send my best regard to Huynh My Linh, Phan Tuyet Cuong, and Diep Minh Nhi Even though they did not have the responsibility for my undergraduate thesis, they still supported me with all of their strengths whenever I struggled with my work

Altogether, it would have been impossible for me to complete the undergraduate thesis without the care and support of the people around me It

is hard to find words that express all of my gratitude thoughtfully; however, I really want everyone to know that I value their support extremely much

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the thesis entitled “-s endings pronunciation by

Senior English Majored Students at An Giang University” represents my own

work and that has not been previously submitted to any other university or institute in application for admission to degrees or other qualifications

ABSTRACT

This research investigates -s final consonants pronounced by the Faculty of Foreign Languages senior students at An Giang University, including the common mistakes, factors influencing students' pronunciation, and comparing the results from the H-group and the L-group Additionally, it also compares the similarities and the differences between the high language experience group and the low language experience group In order to provide the answers, the mixed-approach method was conducted The research instruments of the study included the English language experience questionnaire, the reading wordlist, the reading text, and the interview for the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data Then, those data were used

to analyze and provide information about the common mistakes and factors that influenced the students' pronunciation of English -s final consonants The findings indicated that FFL seniors’ -s endings were often omitted, added, or replaced with similar sounds, usually with the sound /s/ It was revealed that these mistakes were caused by the nonexistence of the -s endings in the Vietnamese, the confusion, and the lack of attention Moreover, when comparing the answers from the H-group and the L-group, there were similarities and differences in -s endings production between them The similarities were in the variation type of -s endings as both groups had the mistakes of reduction and substitution Moreover, the factors of confusion and lack of concentration were another resemblance between the two groups Nevertheless, insertion only appeared in the L-group The L-group was also influenced by the Vietnamese mother tongue and age, while H-group did not have this phenomenon Finally, the study mentioned the implications, the

limitations and suggestions for future research areas

Key Words: -s endings, common mistakes, factors, H-group and L-group

TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii

DECLARATION viii

ABSTRACT ix

TABLE OF CONTENT x

LIST OF TABLES xiii

LIST OF FIGURES iv

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale of the Study 1

1.2 Research Aims 3

1.3 Research Questions 3

1.4 Significance of the Study 3

1.5 Structure of the Tshesis 4

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Theoretical Framework 5

2.1.1 English Consonants and Vietnamese Consonants 5

2.1.2 Nature of Pronunciation 6

2.1.3 Significance of Pronunciation 6

2.1.4 Indicators of Good Pronunciation 7

2.1.5 Factors Affecting Pronunciation Learning 7

2.1.6 Main Features of Pronunciation 10

2.1.7 Consonant Clusters 11

2.1.8 Inflectional Morphemes 11

2.1.9 Inflectional –s Endings 13

2.2 Related Studies 18

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 20

3.1 Research Design 20

3.2 Population 21

3.3 Samples 22

3.4 Research Instruments 23

3.4.1 English Language Experience Questionnaire 23

3.4.2 Wordlist 23

3.4.3 Text 23

3.4.4 Interview 24

3.5 Collection of Data 24

3.6 Data Analysis 24

3.7 Validity and Reliability of the research instruments 25

3.8 Research Procedure 25

CHAPTER IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 27

4.1 What are common mistakes in producing -s endings among senior English-majored students at An Giang University? 27

4.1.1 Reduction 29

4.1.2 Insertion 30

4.1.3 Substitution 30

4.2 What are the factors impacting students’ production of -s endings ? 31 4.3 What are the similarities and differences between Vietnamese learners of English with low and high English language experience regarding pronouncing -s endings ? 34

4.3.1 Common mistakes in wordlist reading 34

4.3.2 Common mistakes in the text reading 39

4.3.3 Influenced factors 41

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS 44

5.1 Summary of the Results 44

5.1.1 What are common mistakes in producing -s endings among senior English-majored students at An Giang University? 44

5.1.2 What are the factors impacting students’ production of -s endings ? 44

5.1.3 What are the similarities and differences between Vietnamese learners of English with low and high English language experience regarding pronouncing -s endings ? 45

5.2 Implications 46

5.3 Limitations 46

5.4 Recommendations for Further Research 47

5.5 Conclusion 47

APPENDICES 51

APPENDIX A 51

APPENDIX B 58

APPENDIX C 66

APPENDIX D 70

APPENDIX E 71

APPENDIX F 72

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Comparison of Vietnamese and English consonant sounds in

syllable-final position 5

Table 2 English Consonants 14

Table 3 Rules of Pronouncing Inflectional –s Ending 15

Table 4 Pronunciation of Inflectional –s Ending in Three Forms 17

Table 5 Final consonant error types by Nguyen (2019) 25

Table 6 Summary of Participants’ production of -endings 28

Table 7 Reduction errors in the wordlist and text 29

Table 8 Substitution errors in wordlist and text reading 31

Table 9 Factors impacting participants' production of English -s endings 32

Table 10 -s endings produced by the H-group in the wordlist 34

Table 11 -s endings produced by the L-group in the word list 36

Table 12.The Most Common Substitutes for Each Word-final Consonant in Each Group 37

Table 13 -s endings produced by the L-group in the text reading 39

Table 14 -s endings produced by the H-group in the text reading 40

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 The participants' English Language Experience 22

Figure 2 Participants Studied English phonetics and phonology courses 22

Figure 3 Results of the participants' production in -s endings in wordlist task 27

Figure 4 Results of the participants' production in -s endings in text reading task 28

Figure 5 The frequency of common mistakes in -s endings 32

Figure 6 Factors impacting -s endings in the H-group 42

Figure 7 Factors impacting -s endings in the L-group 42

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter of the thesis will first mention the rationale of the study Then it indicates the research aim, research questions, and the significance of the study The chapter ends with the structure of the thesis

1.1 Rationale of the Study

It is undeniable that Vietnam aims for tremendous success and has long incorporated English into its educational system as a developing country Even though the English language is not the most spoken one globally, a statistic from ETS (2020) Global showed that the number of countries that consider it an official language is 53, and around 400 million people speak English as their first language Therefore, it is unmistakable when the Ministry

of Education and training (2021) adopts a new policy to make English become

a compulsory subject at every elementary school from 2022-2023 Currently,

in the progress of educational development and especially in the graduation criteria, the need to have English certification such as IELTS certificates is exceptionally paramount In order to score a high band in IELTS speaking test, precise and subtle pronunciation is mandatory Nevertheless, in reality, the number of English speaking students who can correctly produce -s endings s

is very limited (Nguyen, 2019)

In daily conversation, students who have good pronunciation will be easy to communicate because the competency of pronunciation is one aspect that determines the level of someone's speaking ability (Venia, 2018) Additionally, a mistake that is made in pronouncing sounds may cause misunderstanding in communication Different pronunciation makes different meaning, even changing the meaning of the word For example, if a person forgets pronouncing the sound /t/ in /naɪt/ (night), people may misunderstand it

with nine /naɪn/

Aside from helping people to avoid misunderstanding, having good pronunciation is also essential because it will increase their confidence when they communicate with their friends or teachers When students' pronunciation

is easy to be comprehended, they are confident to talk in front of the class Moreover, people assume that those who cannot pronounce well are incompetent and lack English knowledge (Yates, 2009) Therefore, in the process of teaching and learning English, pronunciation must be concentrated

on

Specifically, in the context of studying English at An Giang Univerity, the seniors at the Faculty of Foreign Languages usually have problems of overusing the sound /s/ when pronouncing -s endings This is because students believe that the /s/ sound appears more frequently than other sounds In addition, many students often omit the -s endings in their conversation, for

example, the sound /s/ in /pəˈhæps/ ‘perhaps’ is usually pronounced as /pəˈhæp/

According to Ngo (2005), Vietnamese phonology appears to be more sophisticated than English, yet in the long term, this system becomes simpler and more acquisitive than English Ngo (2005) also added that it might take a non-native speaker two months to learn Vietnamese phonology deeply, and then that person will undoubtedly be able to pronounce any Vietnamese word

In contrast, the British or American language requires people to constantly learn how to pronounce new words with much help from dictionaries throughout their lives Since Vietnamese native speakers are familiar with their mother tongue, they usually struggle to learn any language that is not relatively close to and not as easy as their language (Nguyen 2007) Plus, -s endings do not appear in the Vietnamese language, thereby causing more trouble for students when they pronounce English

As mentioned above, English will be the main subject when children start their learning journey, leading to English skills being more concentrated (Tran, 2017) However, pronunciation is not one of the four vital skills, and tend to be less focused in class and not to be studied as a separate subject at schools (Truong, 2015) As a result, students know how to speak a word in English; however, their English is not accurate (Nguyen T A., 2007) Moreover, learners nowadays often try to achieve fluency rather than accuracy (Truong, 2015), leading to the lack of -s endings Besides, teachers tend to ignore students' mistakes in producing sounds (Silva, 2011) , which causes more problems since the students usually forget their mistakes quickly if they

do not receive any warning

The pronunciation of -s endings will have different pronunciation based on the last sound in word This is because to produce -s endings correctly, students understand the rules of pronunciation According to Dale (2005), “when you are speaking English, the –s endings include three different sounds.” To be specific, the three different sounds are /s/, /z/, /iz/

Even though pronouncing -s endings has different rules, students still

do not apply them in daily conversations and mispronounce them Some of them pronounce correctly, and others have wrong pronunciations Students do not have an awareness of how to pronounce inflectional –s endings although they have learned them at the university Muslimah (2013) conducted research

on inflectional –s endings on the third person verb and found that the student did not pay attention to the rule of producing inflectional -s endings It can be seen that most of the students did not apply the rules of pronunciation of English inflectional -s endings

Nguyen (2018) conducted a study about the sound /s/, however, the research focused on two sounds at the same time which were /s/ and and / ʃ/ Since the research had to concentrate on two sounds, thereby, it was not an indepth study about the /s/ sounds Another reseach related to the -s endings

is the study of Venia (2018), which discussed about the inflectional –s

endings In the research of Venia (2018), she only uses the wordlist and the text, which could not provide enough information about the factor that influenced the -s endings pronunciation Considering the research gap of the two previous study, the current research will only concentrate on the -s endings and use more research instruments to gain more insight into the the common mistakes and the factor that influenced the -s endings production

1.2 Research Aims

This research aims to help people gain more insights into An Giang University FFL senior students' common mistakes in pronouncing -s endings Moreover, the factors which influenced the -s endings pronounced by participants are mentioned Later, the study will compare the L-group and the H-group to gain insight into the common mistakes and the factor that influenced the -s endings pronunciation

1.3 Research Questions

This study has three research questions as follows:

1 What are common mistakes in producing -s endings among senior English-majored students at An Giang University?

2 What are the factors impacting students’ production of -s endings?

3 What are the similarities and differences between Vietnamese learners of English with low and high English language experience regarding pronouncing -s endings?

1.4 Significance of the Study

This research attempts to provide answers to issues regarding -s endings pronunciation Since there is a lack of study about the -s endings produced by Vietnamese speakers, therefore, the issue is still unclear to many people Moreover, the research outcomes of not pronouncing -s endings precisely have not been convincing enough

The seniors of the Faculty of Foreign Languages in this research can raise their awareness of pronouncing -s endings Plus, these students can understand their accuracy when they pronounce -s endings Therefore, they can improve their -s endings pronunciation based on the results of their production tasks

For the students who study English, they can use this research as a material for enhancing their -s endings pronunciation Based on the provided information in the study, students who study English will have a better insight into what influenced the -s endings pronounced English majored and learnt from it

The current research compares -s endings pronunciation by the high and low experience learners Consequently, it helps gain insights into features

of the English -s endings pronounced by each group of learners so that teachers of English can identify the same and different aspects Hence, teachers will have a clear idea of common mistakes, thereby choosing suitable teaching strategies

The study can also have benfefits for the university and the head hunter of companies Since this research raises students’ awareness to help them strengthen their pronunciation, leading to the increase of students’ English proficientcy Specifically, with the increase in students’ competences,

it will lead to enhancing human resources, companies and universities can recruit workforce with higher ability

This study enhances the researcher’s understanding and experience in

a specific study of -s endings Furthermore, other researchers can use this study as a reference material for their further research in the field of producing

-s endings

1.5 Structure of the Tshesis

There are five chapters in this thesis

Chapter 1 Introduction provides information about the rationale of the

study, the research aims and questions, the significance of the study and the organization of the study

Chapter 2 Literature review focuses on the theoretical background of

the study

Chapter 3 Methodology describes the participants, and methods used

to collect the data, data analysis, validity and reliability of the research instruments

Chapter 4 Results and discussion shows the results of the collected

data and discusses the results

Chapter 5 Conclusions answers the main research questions and gives

recommendations for research or practice

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter focuses on the differences and similarities between English and the Vietnamese language regarding consonants Moreover, the chapter will mention the theories about pronunciation, consonant clusters, inflectional morphemes, and inflectional -s endings This chapter ends with the reviews of previous studies related to -s endings pronunciation

2.1 Theoretical Framework

2.1.1 English Consonants and Vietnamese Consonants

According to Nguyen and Brouha (1998), Vietnamese language is considered to be a monosyllabic language because each syllable is equivalent

to a word Therefore, consonant clusters in the English do not exist in the Vietnamese Language (Ha, 2005; Luu, 2011) Moreover, the Vietnamese language includes three phonemes: tones or tonemes, consonants, and vowels The Vietnamese language includes only six consonants at the end of words all

of which are shared with the English languge (p, t, k, m, n, and ng) However, the English language has an almost endless list of final consonants and final consonant clusters

Table 1 Comparison of Vietnamese and English consonant sounds in

syllable-final position

/p/ (chớp or shop) /t/ (mít or cat) /k/ (gác or attack) /m/ (Tám or beam) /n/ (non or son) /ŋ/ (ngừng or slang)

/b/ (crab), /d/ (hold), /g/ (bug), /θ/ (myth), /ð/ (loathe), /f/ (beef), /v/ (improve), /s/

(perhaps), /z/ (showbiz), /∫/

(wash), /ʒ/ (indulge), /t∫/ (watch), /dʒ/ (judge), /l/ (until), /-pt/ (kept), /–ps/ (shops), /–kt/ (looked), /-ks/ (kicks), /–ft/ (thrift), /– sp/ (wasp), /-st/ (best), /–sk/ (desk ), /–lp/ (gulp ), /–lb/ (alb), /-lt/ (guilt), /–ld/ (greenfield), /–lk/ (milk), /–lf/ (werewolf ), /-lv/ (halve), /–lθ/ (filth ), /-lt∫/ (difficult ), /-ldʒ/ (bulge), /-lm/ (overwhelm), /–mp/ (outtrump ), /-mf/ (triumph), /–mθ/ (gloomth ), /–nt/ (explant), /-nd/ (land), /–nθ/ (month), /–nz/ (maims), /-nt∫/ (wrench), /-ndʒ/ (binge), /- ŋk/ (pink), /-ksθ/

(sixth), /–kst/ (whisked), /–lpt/ (sculpt), /-mpt/ (prompt ), /-mps/ (pimps)

The concentration of this study is on three English final consonant sounds (/s/, /z/, /iz/), appearing only in the initial position in the Vietnamese phonetic system and all of them are unfamiliar to Vietnamese (Ngo, 2005, p 8) Therefore, Vietnamese speakers often face inaccuracy in pronouncing these sounds in the syllable final positions (Tang, 2007)

2.1.2 Nature of Pronunciation

In speaking, five components must be concentrated on if a person wants to communicate with the other: pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar structure, comprehension, and fluency (Venia, 2018) Of all the components, pronunciation is the most crucial factor in communication since good pronunciation leads to good communication between the speaker and the hearer (Venia, 2018) Pronunciation was defined as how a language or particular word or sound is spoken (Oxford dictionary, 2008) In other words, pronunciation is the way someone produces a specific sound

Richard and Schmidt (2016) stated that pronunciation is the procedure

of producing particular sounds In comparison, Pourhosein (2016) mentioned that the production of a sound system that did not hinder the speaker or the listener's point of view could be called pronunciation

Sultoni (2012) defined pronunciation as the language feature that efficiently indicates native speakers from non-native speakers of languages, showing that identifying native or non-native speakers could be done by listening to their pronunciation

Likewise, pronunciation could also be defined as the referent to the production of the sounds used to create meaning when a person communicates (Beth, 2009) He added that it contained segmental features such as consonants, vowels, and suprasegmental aspects, including stress, timing, rhythm, intonation, phrasing, and voice quality

In short, pronunciation is how speakers produce sounds to create meaning Additionally, pronunciation also contains segmental and suprasegmental aspects and the quality of the voice

2.1.3 Significance of Pronunciation

Pronunciation is essential in communication If a person has decent pronunciation skills, the hearer will comprehend what they are speaking about since their language has a particular purpose There are three factors that make

pronunciation necessary for students (Harmer, 2015) First, pronunciation can enhance students' speaking competence Second, it can raise students' awareness of sounds and features Last, by paying more concrentration to pronunciation, students will be mindful of the stressed and unstressed in a word

Even though having good vocabulary and grammar, a person will not fully comprehend the speaker's meaning if lacking the competence in pronunciation, proving the importance of pronunciation (Yates, 2009) To be intelligible, learners should master English sounds, rhythms, and cadences and put them together in communication This is because it will not be effective speaking even if someone masters grammar and vocabulary but is weak in pronunciation

Furthermore, students' self-confidence would be boosted with good pronunciation (Pourhosein, 2017) A decent pronunciation could efficiently allow them to understand their lesson, catch the news or the radio, or participate in English conversations, class discussions, role-plays, etc

To conclude, good pronunciation is essential for students since the improvements in students' speaking skills, awareness, and self-confidence are undeniable Plus, pronunciation contributes significantly to students' language competence level

2.1.4 Indicators of Good Pronunciation

To pronounce a word in English sufficiently, someone has to pay attention to indicators of pronunciation According to Djiwandono (2016:2),

“there are four indicators of good pronunciation: intelligibility, fluency, accuracy, and native-likeness”

- Intelligibility is pronouncing the whole text and whether its parts are heard clearly or not Hence, it will lead to misunderstanding

- Fluency is as a whole text can be pronounced fluently

- Accuracy is words and parts of the text that are pronounced accurately

- Native-likeness can pronounce the whole text, and its parts are pronounced like a native speaker

From the explanation above, it can be concluded that someone has to pay attention to the indicators of good pronunciation to get a good pronunciation

2.1.5 Factors Affecting Pronunciation Learning

There are some factors that affect the learning of pronunciation

Pourhosein (2011) points out six factors that affect the learning of pronunciation as follows:

Motivation and exposure

Motivation and exposure can influence someone to learn and have good pronunciation like a native It means students have the motivation to achieve their own goals for learning English It helps them determine whether they will improve their pronunciation like the native or let it be like it

Exposure to Target Language

It may come in their daily life, and the amount of prior instruction a learner received in the target language, meaning that someone can comprehend English pronunciation based on their daily activity in the school

or work field

Attitude

Students with motivation to learn with positive attitudes towards the target language and its speakers were more successful than the students with less positive attitudes It means that when having a positive attitude, learners will feel easier to have a good pronunciation

Instruction

Pronunciation is introduced in the study as the foreign language curriculum emphasizes as it will be the target language, and leaner will learn alphabet and sound system; however most of the curriulum rarely continues to study pronunciation to the next level It shows that pronunciation is not very important and people do not need to pay attention to study it

Age

Age influences the students in learning pronunciation Adults find pronunciation more challenging to learn than children do Plus, adult also believe that they probably will not achieve native-like pronunciation

Mother tongue

The first language of the learners influence how they pronounce a word It is normal for a non-native English speaker to often have mispronunciations of the sounds, rules, stress, and intonation of English pronunciation

On the other hand, Herman (2016:3) proposes six factors that should

be considered by teachers of pronunciation as follows:

Native language

This is the most influential factor when a learner learns a new language Specifically, a learner needs to discover their difficluties when studying the new langague in order to have a better communication

Age

Generally speaking, children under puberty stand an excellent chance

of "sounding like a native" if they have continued exposure to authentic contexts Beyond the age of puberty, while adults will almost surely maintain

a "foreign accent," there is no particular advantage attributed to age A year-old can be as successful as an eighteen-year-old if all other factors are equal

fifty-Exposure

It is not easy to define exposure One can live in a foreign country for some time but not take advantage of being "with the people." Since research seems to support that the more time people spend to communicate with foreiners, the less length of time the class time needs to focus on pronunciation improvement so that students can get the better pronunciation

Innate phonetic ability

It is often referred to as having an "ear" for language, some people manifest phonetic coding knowledge that others do not In many cases, if a person has had exposure to a foreign language as a child, this "knack" is present whether the early language is remembered or not Others are more attuned to phonetic discriminations

Identity and language ego

Another influence is one’s attitude toward speakers of the target language and the extent to which the language ego identifies with those speakers

Motivation and concern for good pronunciation

Some learners are not particularly concerned about their pronunciation, while others are The extent to which learners' intrinsic motivation propels them toward improvement will be perhaps the most substantial influence of all six factors in this list

In short, several factors influence someone's pronunciation, such as motivation and exposure, exposure to the target language, attitude, instruction, age, mother tongue, innate phonetic ability, identity and language ego, and concern for good pronunciation Those factors above can open the teacher's mind to understand learners' willingness to improve their pronunciation

2.1.6 Main Features of Pronunciation

Segmental Features

Pourhosein (2011:9) defines segmental as the basic inventory of distinctive sounds and how they combine to form a spoken language Segmental feature refers to individual phonemes that are consonants and vowels Kelly (2001:1) states that phonemes are different sounds within a language It means that each word in a language has a different sound There are consonant and vowel sounds from phonemes Consonants may voiced or

be voiceless Consonant voice occurs when the vocal cord vibrates, such as/v/

as in the ‘van’

On the other hand, voiceless consonants occur when there is no vibration in the vocal cord, such as /f/ as in ‘for’ In a word, a consonant maybe two or three consonant, for example, ‘space’, ‘blokes’, or ‘bottle’ All

of that consonants will be called as consonant clusters because two or three consonants stand together in the same word, and there is no vowel between them

While vowel sounds are divided into two categories, such as monothongs and diphthongs, a single vowel can be seen in /e/ as an ‘inlet’ They can be short (/kaet/ as in ‘cat’) or long (/ka:t/ as in ‘cart’) While diphthong is a combination of involving a movement from one vowel sound to another such as /ei/ as in ‘late’ The combination not only occurs between two vowels but also between three or more such as /aʊə/ in ‘power’

Suprasegmental Features

According to Kelly (2001), suprasegmentals are a feature of speech that generally applies to the group of that intonation can be thought of as the melody of the language – the way the voice goes up and down according to the context and meanings of the communication It means that intonation is the way the voice produces rises and falls for the particular purpose of the communication

On the other hand, stress combines length, loudness, and pitch applied

in a word There are two stresses in English such as sentence stress and word stress

Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that there are two features of pronunciation They are segmental features and suprasegmental features Both features are essential elements to improve someone's pronunciation ability

2.1.7 Consonant Clusters

Consonant clusters are consonants that stand together in the same word, and no vowel separates them when it is pronounced Dale (2005:236) states that “consonant clusters are two or more consonant sounds grouped together in a word” They are pronounced with no vowels between them It may be two, three, or more consonants, for example: ‘ask’, ‘sport’, and

‘splash’ The consonant cluster can appear at the beginning, middle, or end of the word There are consonant clusters appear in the front of the word such as

‘split’, ‘scream,’ or in the middle of the term, for example, ‘conclusion’,

‘sparkling’ The last is at the end of the word, such as ‘lips’, ‘milked’, ‘fixed’ Some of the consonant clusters at the end of the term can be said to be the suffix, for exmaple, there are some consonat clusters such as ‘milked’,

‘kissed’, and ‘waited’ Plus, these three forms have the same meaning

A morpheme is the smallest unit of the word in the language They can be two or three forms called allomorphs, such as /kickt/ in ‘kicked’, and /weitid/ in ‘waited’ They have different allomorph as /t/, /d/ and /id/ Three other morphemes have the regular allomorphs /iz, z, s/: plural number and possessive, which are attached to nouns, and third-person singular, attached to verbs

However, morphemes are divided into two categories: derivational morphemes and inflectional morphemes A derivational morpheme is attached

at the end of the word that can change the meaning of the word For example, when adding the suffix –er to the word ‘teach’, it will become ‘teacher’ and change the meaning as well as word form On the other hand, an inflectional ending is a suffix that is attached at the end of the word that will not change the meaning of the word, just the grammatical of the word The suffix –s attached at the word's end changes the word to become plurality

2.1.8 Inflectional Morphemes

2.1.8.1 Definition of Inflectional Morphemes

Inflectional morphemes modify the grammatical class of words by signaling a change in number, person, gender, tense, etc., but they do not change the meaning of something For example, when ‘pen’ becomes ‘pens’, it

is still a noun even though the plural morpheme “-s‟ has been changed in the grammatical categories According to Brown (2009:29), “an inflectional morpheme simply marks grammatical categories as plurality, tenses (pas, continuous, present), comparative, superlative, and third-person singular”

Inflectional morphemes are special suffixes, but they differ from other suffixes in one important respect For example, when adding the suffix –ment

to the word ‘manage’, it will create a completely different word, which is the noun management Adding an inflection does not create a new word but a different grammatical form of the same word

In English today, there are inflections for a tense ed) and an aspect ing), for a person (-(e)s), for plural (-(e)s), for the possessive (‘s) and for comparisons (-er, -est) Inflectional morphemes are used to show if a word is plural or singular, if it is a past tense or not, and if it is a comparative or possessive form

(-2.1.8.2 Eight Types of Inflectional Morphemes

In English, there are eight morphological inflections Thoese inflectional morphemes can change the form of a word grammatically and add information to it But these morphemes do not change the category of the word According to Katamba (1993) the eight types of inflectional endings and their examples can be seen as follows:

-s third-person singular present tense

Exampl: Aria loves me

The morpheme ‘visits; is a verb, and the suffix –s indicates the third person singular form of the verb in the present tense, which adds to the grammatical form of the simple present tense The –s ending in the third person singular has some way of pronunciation In the verb ‘visits’ the –s ending should be pronounced "visits /s/"

-ed past tense

Example: Aria loved me

The verb ‘visited’ consists of the morpheme visit and the suffix ‘- ed’, which marks the past tense form of the verb The ’–ed’ endings in past tense also has a variant pronunciation The ‘–ed’ ending should be pronounced visited /ɪd/ ending in the word visited

-ing progressive

Example: Aria is singing

The -ing at the end of the word consists of the morpheme and the suffix ‘–ing’, which marks the progressive Plus, it always consists of ‘ing’ pronounced /ɪŋ/

-en past participle

Example: Aria has stolen the cake

The suffix ‘–en’ of verb expresses the past participle in an irregular form There is no variant pronunciation for an ‘-en’ ending in an irregular past form

-s plural

Example: They ate the cakes

The plural marker ‘-s’ of a noun expresses the category number Cake means more than one Pronouncing -s endings in plural has the same pronunciation rules in the third person singular present tense

-‘s possessive

Example: Aria’s face is beautiful

The ‘-s’ possesive is used to show the thing that belongs to a person or

is part of them Possessive inflectional morphemes have the same pronunciation rules in the plural and third-person singular present tense forms

-er comparative

Example: Aria’s hair is longer than Min

The ‘-er’ marker is used to compare two things or persons that are different

-est superlative

Example: Aria has the longest hair

The ‘-est’ is used to compare something or someone has more of the particular quality than anything

From the eight types of inflectional morphemes, pronouncing the adjective (comparative and superlative) and present progressive does not have the variant While plural, possessive, third-person singular (-s endings ), past tense, and past participle (-ed endings) have variant pronunciations

2.1.9 Inflectional –s Endings

Definition of Inflectional –s Endings

Inflectional is added at the end of the word to indicate the grammatical property One type of inflectional is -s inflectional ending The -s inflectional ending is added to mark grammatical properties such as regular plural, third person singular present tense, and possessive For example, ‘pens’ is regular plurality, ‘Joni’s book’ is possessive and ‘she likes me’ is third person singular present tense Additionally, all of –s inflectional endings have its own rule

Rules to Pronounce –s Inflectional Endings

When students pronounce something, they have to know the rule to pronounce it Therefore, to pronounce an inflectional –s ending, students must know what the rule of pronouncing –s ending is Before that, students should understand what voice and voiceless sound is Kreidler (2004:20) stated that

"Voice sound produced while the vocal cords are vibrating while those made without vibration are unvoiced, or voiceless." In comparison, Erlinda (2010:58) states, "When the vocal cords are spread apart, the air from the lungs passes between them unimpeded Sounds produced in this way are described as voiceless When the vocal cords are drawn together, the air from the lungs repeatedly pushes them apart as it passes through, creating a vibration effect Sounds produced in this way are described as voiced"

Voice and voiceless can be felt when putting the finger on the throat,

on each side of the Adam’s apple If a person say one of the sounds, such as zzz, then you should feel vibration; it means the sound is voiced On the other hand, if there is no vibration that you feel on your finger, it is a voiceless sound such as sss Another way to check is to put finger on the ears When the sound is voiced, it will feels the vibration when producing sound such as z-z-z/v-v; however, if people produce sound such as s-s-s/f-f-f, they could not feel vibration because the sound is voiceless

The chart of the English consonants below arranges the consonants according to the manner and points of articulation The chart also illustrates English voiced and voiceless sounds:

Table 2 English Consonants

al

Bilabial La

biodental

Dental/inter dental

- When the noun or verb ends in sibilant consonant (i.e., /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ʧ/, or /ʤ/ the inflection has epenthetic vowel and is realized as unstressed /ɪz/

- When the noun or verb ends in a voiced non-sibilant sound (/b, d, g,

v, ð, m, n, ŋ, l, r/ and vowels), the inflection involves progressive assimilation and is realized as /z/

- When the noun or verb ends in a voiceless non-sibilant consonant (/p, t, k, f, θ/), the inflection also involves progressive assimilation and is realized as /s/

Based on the rule of pronunciation said by Dale (2009:249), there are three rules in pronouncing –s inflectional ending To be more specific, it can

Palatal and

fricative

/s/

Voiced non

sibilant

sound

/b/

Vowels and

diphthongs

(all voiced)

/ɑ/

/i/

/e/

/o/

Straws Sourney Always Toes

Inflectional –s endings are divided into three forms: Regular plural, Third person singular present tense, and possessive The contractions follow the same pronunciation rules It can be seen as follows:

Table 4 Pronunciation of Inflectional –s Ending in Three Forms

Regular plural

Third person

singular present

tense

- When the plural form of the noun ends in –s (or –es), an apostrophe

is placed after the plural inflection to indicate the possessive in writing It should be noticed that there is no phonetic difference between the singular possessive and the plural possessive modifier in regular plural nouns, for

example, the girls’ book (sounds like the girl’s book), the neighbors’ house (sounds like the neighbor’s house)

- When the plural form of the noun is irregular and does not end in /s/

or /z/, the regular possessive inflection rule is applied, and the form is spelt with the apostrophe s’ the children’s toys, the men’s clothing

Description of Sounds /s/ and /z/

The sounds /s/ and /z/ are alveolar fricative consonant sounds (Brown

& Attardo, 2009) They are sounds that are produced when the point of articulation is at the tongue and the alveolar ridge and produced by having the air rub against some surface in the mouth or vocal passage, causing friction

As for Quote in Muslimah (2013), the following describes the production of alveolar fricative consonant sounds /s/ and /z/

Producing /s/

There are many words that have the sound /s/, such as: ‘start’, ‘stay’,

‘sound’, ‘sick’, ‘soup’, ‘miss’, and ‘disease’ In order to pronounce the /s/ sound, there are some following steps:

First, raising front part of the tongue, and raising the tip of the tongue towards the gum ridge without touching it

Second, pressing the side of the tongue against the upper teeth Then, focing the air to go through the opening the tongue and teeth There is not any vibaration in the vocal cords

Producing /z/

The sound /z/ is found in the following example of words: “zero, crazy, dizzy, noise, buzz, these, and cries” To produce a /z/ sound, the following processes are made:

First, raising the tongue‘s front, and the tip of the tongue towards the gum ridge without touching it

Second, pressing the upper teeth against the side of the tongue Then forcing the air is forced to go through the opening of the tongue and teeth However, there is vibaration in the vocal cords

2.2 Related Studies

Nurul (2013) researched the students' ability in pronouncing verb inflectional endings in the eleventh grade of Rantau academic The research discovered that the students' ability to pronounce an s inflectional ending in the third person singular present tense is excellent This research has the same objective as Nurul’s study: to find out the students' pronunciation in producing -s endings sounds However, this research has different purposes since Nurul only focused on students' competence pronouncing verbs with –s and –ed endings In contrast, this research concentrated on how students pronounced -s endings, including verbs and nouns

Pourhosein (2011) researched analysis of error in inflectional morphemes made by preparatory year Saudi EFL students at Al-jouf University the study showed that the students' ability to produce inflectional endings was low, as the total number of errors was 53 out of 75 sentences with 50.9% Most of the students in this research had overgeneralized the use of inflectional endings This research differed from Pourhosein’s research when

he researched writing s inflectional endings, focusing on the students' ability

On the other hand, this research concerns students' pronunciation of English inflectional -s endings The resemblance between the two research papers is that they both focused on -s endings

Venia (2018) examined students' pronunciation of English inflectional -s endings The students applied several variations in pronouncing -s endings

in plural nouns, possessive, and third-person singular forms There are six variants for pronouncing plural nouns, five for pronouncing third-person singular, and three for possessive Generally, the students still do not accurately pronounce s ending words There are still many mistakes in pronouncing -s endings sounds, especially in the sound /z/ This research had many similarities to Venia’s, especially in the research instrument However, Venia's research only focused on the pronunciation test, while this research applied both pronunciation tests and interviews

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter mentions the research design, followed by the description

of the participants Next, it discusses the research instrument and the data collection Then, it shows the data analysis and ends with the research procedure summary

3.1 Research Design

This research was considered a cross-sectional study because it collected data from many different individuals at a single point in time (Tran, 2019), and it compared the results from the production tasks of the students in the low English language experience group (L-group) and the high English language experience group (H-group) regarding the production of English -s endings pronunciation In addition, the sample was selected based on their English language experience questionnaire results The English language experience questionnaire was adapted from Nguyen (2019), while his version was adapted from the research of Pongprairat (2011).Then, purposive sampling was used to distinguish the L-group and the H-group for the production study tasks Furthermore, the research also employed quantitative and qualitative methods The quantitative data included the token amount and the percentage figure concerning the production of English -s endings , calculated in each of the two tasks Qualitative data about the common mistakes and the factors influencing pronunciation of -s endings were collected through production tasks and interviews

First, participants of this research were chosen by their questionnaire responses Then, these questionnaires were calculated and analyzed by the researcher Based on the calculated scores of the criteria (see appendix C), the researcher divided participants into two groups: the low English language experience group and the high English language experience group Particularly, low English language experience group included the participants with lower scores while high English language experience group with higher results

There were two tasks in this study, i.e text reading, wordlist reading, and interview, utilized for the production study in both groups First, the text reading was executed in each group, followed by the wordlist reading and interview This was based on the research design of Nguyen (2019), which was related to the current study since they both aimed to discover the common mistakes and influencing factors

In terms of transcription, the researcher’s concurence and the transcriber’s were 100%

co-3.2 Population

The population of the research was university senior English majors in AGU Specifically, the population of this study included 136 students from three classes DH19AV, DH19TA1, and DH19TA2

In these three classes, English was a medium of education in every course; however, it had exceptions for courses related to the Vietnamese language, applying technology, and other foreign languages such as French and Chinese Additionally, since the reasearch participants were four-year students majoring in English at AGU, they all had studied English pronunciation and phonetics and phonology in their previous year Therefore, most of them had common knowledge about how to produce the -s endings because the subjects related to pronunciation, phonetics, and phonology were compulsory courses

Figures 3 and 4 present the participants' English Language Experience (years of learning English) and learning of English phonetics and phonology Most of the participants had studied English for 12 to 13 years, accounting for 83%, while the figure of the students having studied English for 14-15 years were 12% Moreover, there were 5% of students with more than 15 years of studying English, and none of the pariticipant have learned English for less than 11 years The participants who studied English phonetics and phonology courses made up 100%

Based on the result, it could be concluded that all participants had spent a considerable amount of time learning English In addition, since all participants were seniors, confirming that they had studied English phonetics and phonology courses as a compulsory subject, the participants were assured

of the most basic knowledge about the production of sounds in English

Figure 1 The participants' English Language Experience

Figure 2 Participants Studied English phonetics and phonology

grades were categorized from the lowest to the highest So, there were two groups: the high group (H-group) consisting of ten highest scores and the low group (L-group) comprising ten lowest scores Hence, 20 participants out of

136 senior English majors were selected as the sample, separated into the group and the H-group based on the grade from the English experience questionnaires

L-3.4 Research Instruments

3.4.1 English Language Experience Questionnaire

Based on a learner's experience, each person can perform significantly differently from others (Pongprairat, 2011) Thus, this study's English language experience questionnaire (see Appendix A) was adapted from Nguyen (2019) In order to improve the understandability of the items in the questionnaire, the researcher translated the English language experience questionnaire into Vietnamese (see Appendix B) so that participants did not have any trouble when filling the questionnaire

The questionnaire included two sections, i.e personal information and English language experience Specifically, the essential part was the 'English language experience,' graded based on Nguyen (2019) scoring criteria (see Appendix C) This section helped the researcher gain insight into the respondents' English language experience Plus, it focused on key elements such as beginning age, years of studying, formal and informal instruction, English using experiences, and English usage quantity

3.4.2 Wordlist

As mentioned in the literature review, many students tended to produce the -s endings s in one way /s/ or mispronounced and ignored them; therefore, the researcher chose the words and text from the research of Venia (2018) since the variety of -s endings s in these words would probably show the actual situation (See Appendix D) This wordlist was used for collecting data about how the students pronounced -s endings s with the most attention The participants read these 12 words once, and their reading was recorded They had two minutes to prepare for it During this period, if they did not know how to pronounce a word, they could ask the researcher about it The -s endings s consisted of plural nouns, third-person singular, and possessive Plus, the pronounciation of the -s endings s in the text had three different kinds which were /s/, /z/, and /iz/

3.4.3 Text

The participants were asked to read the text used for reading aloud This text consisted of the wordlist task words that appeared in a meaningful situation (See Appendix E) Therefore, reading the text audibly gave less attended data than those in the wordlist (Nguyen, 2008) As a result, the words

of the wordlist could be compared with each other in different contexts

concerning the production of -s endings s The subjects read this text aloud once, and their preparation time was three minutes During this time, the students could ask the researcher about pronunciations of unknown words The entire process was recorded

3.4.4 Interview

To get more insight into what factors impacted the -s endings pronunciation, the interview part was added after the production tasks This was an adapted from Nguyen (2019), and consisted of five questions (See Appendix F) The first question asked the participants about the opinion toward the accuracy of pronouncing English final consonants in communication The second question was conducted to collect data about their awareness of their own problems of pronouncing English final consonants The third questions could help the researcher confirm the sounds and the systematic mistakes found in audio recording section The next question was designed to help the participants review their own problems based on general information from the third question, since in the second question, the participants listed their problems The last question asked the participants about impacting factors

3.5 Collection of Data

The data was collected in January 2022, which was convenient as the development of all the instruments was completed It was also more convenient for the participants to join the study since they had completed their semester test Before the recording, there was a small discussion with each participant to provide instructions on each task All production tasks were completed in a day, and 20 recordings from the L-group and the H-group were collected Furthermore, each recording was listened twice to ensure that the researcher did not miss any information or mistake

3.6 Data Analysis

The researcher summarized all the data and start to analyze them to answer the research questions All the questionnaires was listed in Microsoft Excel to have clear and easy-to-follow charts and tables since this would be beneficial in discussing the answers to research questions Moreover, the two production tasks' speech data were transcribed and used in Excel to illustrate the research data Furthermore, the interview answers were compared and analyzed to answer the research questions Finally, the interview data were described by charts based on the number and the percentages of the participants

The current research adapted a framework from Nguyen (2019), which shared the similarities with the current research In the study, Nguyen (2019) found out that students of the FFL committed three types of errors Specifically, based on the transcription analysis, the variation of -s endings pronounced by participants could be classified into three types:

Table 5 Final consonant error types by Nguyen (2019)

Reduction

Reducing the -s endings final consonant

For example: /ˈsaɪən.tɪsts/ in ‘scientists’ was pronounced as /ˈsaɪən.tɪst/

Insertion

Inserting a consonant to the ending sound

For example: /suelz/ in ‘Cells’ was pronounced as /suelziz/

Substitution

Replace the target sound with another sound For example: /miːnz/ in ‘means’ was pronounced as /miːns/

In order to answer research questions 1 and 3, the pronunciations of –s endings were categorized into headings mentioned in Table 4 Next, the researcher counted tokens and calculated them into percentage scores to indicate how -s endings were pronounced Then, based on the calculations, the researcher gave a comparison between the L-group and the H-group as to

productions of –s endings sound

3.7 Validity and Reliability of the research instruments

Teachers inside (Mr Nguyen Duc Hanh, PhD) and outside (Mrs Truong Huynh Anh Thi, MA) AGU reviewed all the questions and items of three production tasks to ensure content validity Furthermore, all the feedback

or suggestions from the teachers evaluating the production tasks were considered to revise these research instruments Afterward, a pilot study for the production tasks had been conducted to ensure their reliability before the official research was implemented During the pilot study, none of the participants were confused about the contents of the research instruments ensuring the validity and reliability of the instruments

Second, the researcher delivered questionnaires to the three classes since the questionnaire strives to discover the English experience of the participants The questionnaire was collected immediately after the the participants had finished it

Third, the researcher calculated the scores from the questionnaires and divided them into two groups based on their results Then, 5 participants in each group were chosen and recruited for the production study

Finally, the production study including the reading of the wordlist and text occurred in convenient places, followed by the interview Plus, the whole process was recorded for further analysis

CHAPTER IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter gives findings to answer all research questions based on the source of the questionnaire, group interview, and audio recordings The result will be provided based on the research questions, which address three main features: (i) common mistakes in producing -s endings among senior English-majored students at An Giang University, (ii) the factors impacting their English -s endings production, (iii) the similarities and differences between Vietnamese learners of English with low and high English language experience regarding pronouncing English -s endings ?

4.1 What are common mistakes in producing -s endings among senior English-majored students at An Giang University?

The students applied several variations in pronouncing -s endings based on the research findings above: reduction, substitution, and insertion In general, the participants still had trouble pronouncing the -s endings accurately There were still many mistakes in pronouncing -s endings , especially in the sound /z/ They did not pronounce it as /z/ but with the sound /s/ or omitted it As in the finding, 57 /z/ sounds (73.01 of 121 substitution token) in the wordlist reading and 61 /z/ sounds (70.27% of 121 of 121 substitution token) were subtituted by the sound /s/ Similarly, the students did not precisely pronounce with sound /iz/ but pronounced it with the other sound, such as /s/ A study by Kenworthy (1987) stated that learners used a range of approaches to solve the issue, leading to intelligibility or sound variation in pronunciation

Figure 3 Results of the participants' production in -s endings in

Figure 4 Results of the participants' production in -s endings in text

reading task

Figures 3 and 4 demonstrate the participants' overall production, categorized by total correct words and variations It was clear that the variations percentage was higher in the text reading session, which was 58.13%

Table 6 Summary of Participants’ production of -endings

5.37

59.02

Table 6 illustrates the errors the participants made Among the 339 errors, the reduction mistakes accounted for 38.81% in the wordlist task while 35.61% in reading text In addition, during the two tasks, participants sometimes added more sounds at the end of the word Specifically, there were

4 mistakes (2.99%) in the wordlist and 11 (5.37%) in reading text Moreover, substitution errors had a considerable number in the table, and this happened because the participants replaced some of the final -s endings sounds in text reading and wordlist, which is 58.20% and 59.02% respectively

4.1.1 Reduction

It was found out that students often omitted the -s endings s Two sounds that were not shared between the two languages as final consonant sounds were the alveolar fricatives /s/ and /z/ While Vietnamese has these sounds as syllable-initial consonants, they never appear at the end of words (Tang, 2007) Ha (2005) asserted that the /z/ and /s/ sounds were most frequently omitted among Vietnamese speakers of English

Table 7 Reduction errors in the wordlist and text