Luận văn a study of common errors made by students in pronouncing english consonants at worldlink english centre

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, IIANOT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYEN THI THOM A STUDY OF COMMON ERRORS MADE BY STUDENTS IN PRO

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, IIANOT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYEN THI THOM

A STUDY OF COMMON ERRORS MADE BY STUDENTS IN

PRONOUNCING ENGLISH CONSONANTS AT

WORLDLINK ENGLISH CENTRE

(NGHIEN CUU NHUNG LOI PHAT AM THUGNG GAP KHI PHAT ÂM CÁC

PHU AM TIENG ANH CUA HOC VIEN TAI TRUNG TAM ANH NG

WORLDLINK)

M.A MINOR PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodalogy Code: 60140111

1LANOL, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, ITANOT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYEN THI THOM

A STUDY OF COMMON ERRORS MADE BY STUDENTS IN

PRONOUNCING ENGLISH CONSONANTS AT

WORLDLINK ENGLISH CENTRE

(NGHIEN CUU NHUNG LOI PHAT AM THUONG GAP KHI PHAT AM CAC

PHU AM TIENG ANH CUA HOC VIEN TAI TRUNG TAM ANH NGU

WORLDLINK)

M.A MINOR PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr 1a Cam Tam

1LANOL, 2014

DECLARATION:

I, Nguyen Thi Thom, certify that this thesis 4 sivdy of common errors made by students in pronouncing English consonants at Worldlink English centre is the result of my own research | confirm this thesis has not been published or submitted for any other degrees

Researcher's signature

Neuyen Thi Thom

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

T owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Ha Cam Tam for her great guidance, precious comments and continuous encouragement from the beginning and throughout the study process Without her help, | could not finish my

I also would like to send my appreciation to all of my students studying at

Worldlink English cenlro [tr their cooperation and enthusiastic help in recording the

tasks I am indebted to my colleagues there who always supported and stayed by my sides when I was in the most stuck

Tasi but not least, T wish to send the deepest gratitude lo my family for their endless love and support throughout my life Without the encouragement of my grandmother, parents and brothers, I could not have got this far

Tam grateful to all of those who contributed to the completion of this study

and it is an honor for me to receive any comments from the readers

ABSTRACT

The research was conducted to examine the most problematic English consonants facing the students at Worldlink English Centre Consonantal phoneme pronunciation error data was collected from the recording using two types of tasks, namely reading out loud single words and reading out loud a story and analyzed

‘using narrow IPA phonetic transcription

The findings indicate that leamers at the centre have a tendency to substitution, deletion and insertion of sounds in syllable-initial, middle and final positions of the words Spocifically, it was found that the most common error was

sound substitution which most often happened to the affricate, fricative and lateral

sounds: {f/, /3/ and 4/ The sccond most popular crror is called sound deletion,

which frequently occurred to three ending sounds: /y/, /3/, f/, Last but not least amost frequent error named sound insertion appeared when the parlivipanls added the sound /s/ at the end of many words in the study ‘he errors were identified in terms

of both the interference of the mother tongue and inadequate knowledge of the

articulation of the sounds From the results, some pedagogical suggestions were

offered to improve the Linglish prommeiation of students at Worldlink lnglish

Centre

TH

2 Aims of the study `"

3 Scope of the study

4 Method of the study

5 Design of the study, 220222 re

PART I: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER T: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 English Pronunciation 0 c0ccsssccussssessvesssseeessssesieesenseeteae

1.2 The English Consonants

1.2.1 General description of consonants cece cee ieee tees sec

1.2.2 Classification of Bnglish eonsonants

1.3 The Vietnamese Consonants

1.4, A comparison of English consonant and Victnamesc consonant

1.5 The interference of the mother tongue to students’ Linglish pronunciation

1.6 Intelligibility and Intelligibility problems in pronunciation

1.7 Preview of Previous studics

CILAPTER II: METIIODOLOGY

2.1 Selection of informants

3.2 Dalla collection THISTUHLCHIHS 222 255 5c 25x sec

2.3 Data collection procedure

2.4 Dala analysis procedure

CHAPTER IU: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Sound deletion 17088 s.csossessmsuetoieenneeetneitnieneneeinnenstnaessee eB 3.2 Sound substituHÏODS ái co tá in eo "

LIST OF TABLE, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATION

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Features of pronunciation

Jigure 2: ‘Yhe manner of articulation

Figure 3: The manner of articulation

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Bnglish Consonanl Phonemes

Table 2: Victnamese initial consonants

Table 3; Vietnamese final consonants

Table 4: The initial consoramis of the Hanoian varicly

Table 5: Similarities between English and Vietnamese

Table 6 Overview of the consonant errors found in the data

Table 7: Types of consonant crrars found in the data

‘Table 8: Sound deletion exrors

Table 9: Sound substitution errors

Tabic 10; Sound insertion exrors

vì

PART T: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

English has become the international language, which is popular all over the world In Vietnam, there is high demand for the language because more and more requirements about English are established such as University English Outcomes Standard or English Certificate to graduate or apply for a job Ihat is the reason why leamers go to English centers with the hope that they can gain knowledge and

get the best grades in the tests; as a result, English centers are getting popular in the

‘big cilies in Vietnam However, it is lhe fact that the serious problem of Victramese

Tìnglish learners is their prommeiation Noi enly does this restrict leamers in real communication bul also reduce their grades in important speaking and listening tests For such reasons, basic promunciation courses are provided to students learning at English centers Over several years of teaching English, especially basic pronuncialion courses to Vielnamese leamers at some English centers, lhe researcher of this paper has realized that many Vietnamese leamers of English made errors in pronouncing [nglish consonants, which feads them to the failure in

comprehension or musumderstanding in commumicalion The causcs of those

pronunciation errors are various, however, the influence of mother tongue is of

great concer to the researcher In attempt to find out common errors by students in

pronouncing English consonants and figure out whether or not the native language affects students’ pronunciation of the second language, the researcher carries out this study

2 Aims of the study

The aim of the study is mainly to figure out common errors in pronouncing English consonants by the leamers taking part in English basic pronunciation

courses al Worldlink English Centre Basig on Ihe identified errors, the causes,

especially, the influence of mother tongue on learners' pronumoiation will be discussed and some pedagogical suggestions will be provided to improve leaching and learning English pronunciation courses at the centre

‘the study, therefore, answers the following question: What common errors

do students at Worldlink English Centre have m pronouncing English consonants?

3 Scope of the study

‘the main foous of this study is on investigating common errors made by students in promouneing iwerly four English consonanis Basing on the results, the question of whether or not Vietnamese language influence the Lnglish

pronunciation of the students at Worldlink English Centre is also discussed

and answered,

Participams are 20 non-English major students who are leaming basic prommeiation courses at Worldlink English centre Textbook for teaching the course is English Pronunciation in Use — Elementary by Jonathan Marks

4, Methodology of the study

The data was collected by employing the tool of recording the participants! pronuncialion of single words and slory reading All the data collected are prosented

in the form of narrow transcription and then compared to the standard version to find out the errors Details of methodology applied in the study are discussed in Part THI - Methodology

5 Design of the study

To achieve the aims of the study, this paper is divided inla five chapters

Part I: Introduction: An introduction consists of the rationale, aims of the

study, scope of the study, method and organization of the study

Part II: Development

Chapter I: Literature Review: This chapter provides the relevant bodies of imowledge and gives a brief overview of the literature on the research topic ‘This includes key concepts of English pronunciation, intelligibility in prommeiation, English consonants, Vietnamese and English consonant comparison and contrast, Tnglish prommoiation errors and related key terms Besides, the viewpoints on the

titerference of the first language to the second language pronunciation are also

given ‘The last part is the review of previous related studies

Chapter II: Methodology: This part describes all the steps used to complete

the rescarelt including wedepth mformation of participant scleetion, applymg data

collection instrument, procedure of data collection and data analysis

Chapter I: Results and discussion: All the results regarding pronunciation errors made by students in pronouncing Lnglish consonants are presented To what extends the native language causing student's difficulty in pronouncing English consonants is also discussed in this part

Part III: Conclusion provides a summary of the significant findings in the paper The benefits as well as limitations of the study are discussed to draw out precious lessons and suggestions for further studies Bibliography and Appendices are included after this chapter

Tn this chapler, the rationale, aims, significant, scope and method of the sludy

are stated ‘he next chapter will be the literature review on topic related issues,

PART Tl: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER L LITERATURE REVIEW

The aim of (his chaplor is o analyze the relevant, bodics of knowledge and aive a brief overview of the literature on the research topic Firstly, key concepts of nglish pronunciation, intelligibility in pronunciation, Lnglish consonants, Vietnamese and English consonant comparison and contrast, English pronunciation errors and related key terms will be explained critically Secondly, the interference

of mother tongue in English promuneiation acquisition will be discussed to indicate the impacts on learners’ pronunciation leaming and sound producing Finally, an overview of studies related to common errors made by leamers in pronouncing English consonants will be given Throughout the review, gaps in the current

knowledge will be filled

1.1, English Pronunciation

In order to have an insight into the study, it is necessary ta understand the

main [catures of pronumeration Pronunciation refers ta the production of sounds

that human use to make meaning Generally, it includes segmental and

suprasegmental aspects Segmental fealures are the parlicular sounds of a language

(segments) while suprascgmental features are aspects of speech beyond the level of the individual sound, such as intonation, phrasing, stress, timing, rhythm ‘These are

differcnt aspeets of pronunciation but all work im combination when we speak

Regarding the combination of segmental and suprasegmental features in pronunciation, Jenkins and Setter (2005, p.1) provide a clearer definition of pronunciation:

“Pronunciation involves the production and perception of segmental (sounds), both alone and in the stream of speech, where they undergo number of

modifications and interacL with suprasegmental (prosodic) features, particularly

stress and intonation”

More particularly, Kelly (2000) presented the main features of English

pronungialion in the figure below:

Figure 1: Features of pranuncialion

(Adapted from Kelly, 2000)

1.2 The English Consonants

1.2.1 General description of consonants

Among features of pronunciation, the current study concerns with only sounds { or phonemes), particularly the consonants It is necessary to understand

what the term "consonant" exactly means

Roach(1983) gives an example in his book English Phonetics and Phonology

to define consonant “If we make a sound like s or d, it can be clearly felt that we

are taking it dilficull or impossible for the air to pass through the moulh” (p10)

Unlike vowel, consonants are the sounds in which there is obstruction to the flow of

air as i passes [ror the larynx to the lips

Sharing the same idea with Roach (1983), Kelly (2000) supposes that

“Consonant sounds are formed when the airflow is interrupted, restricted or diverted

in varicly of ways” (p10) The formation of consonarts is mentioned in this

definition

As cited in the book named The Cambridge Lincyclopedia of the Linglish Language written hy Crystal (2003), ‘Irom a phonetic point of view, consonants arc articulated in one of two ways: either there is a closing movement of one of the -vooal organs, forming such a narrow constriction that it is possible to hear the sound

of the air passing through; or the closing movement is complele, giving a Lolal

blockage ‘Ihe closing movement may involve lips, tongue, or throat, but in each

case the overall cffoct is very different trom the relatively open and unimpeded articulation found in vowels”{p.242)

Tn short, the “obstruction”, “interruption”, “blockage”, “resinction” of the

airflow is the key words to define consonant Specifically, consonants are the

sounds in the production of which one articulator moves towards another or two arliculalors come together, obstructing the air-strcam and the air-stream caw’l gel

out freely

1.2.2 Classification of English consonants

There are 24 consonant sounds in most English accents, conveyed hy 21

letters of the regular Lnglish alphabet “To differentiate the 24 consonants form

each other, phoneticians use a classification based on the place and mamner of

articulation, m addition to the criteria of whether they are voiced or voiceless” (

Crystal, 2003,p.213) To be more specific, there are three ways of describing the

consonant sound, namely the manner of articulation (the interaction between the

various articulators and the

anore detailed information about what the various articulators actually do) and the

stream), the place of articulation (the description for

force of articulation (ihe stroryg or forlis and weak or lems form of the consomarits)

Kelly (2000) provides the detailed description of the manner of articulation, the place of articulation and voicing, as below:

1.2.2.1, The manner of articulation

The manner of articulation refers to how the sound is made, at the various locations in the vocal tract

Figure 2: The manner of articulation

Manner of articulation

Plosive A complete closure is made somewhere in the vocal

traot, and the soft palate is also raised Air pressure increases behind the closure, and is then released

“explosively”

“Affricate ‘A complete closure is made somewhere in the

mouth, and the soft palate is raised Air pressure increases behind the closure, and is then released

more slowly than in plosive

Fricative When two vocal organs come close enough together

Tor the movement of air between them to be heard

Nasal A closure is made by the Tips, or be the longue

against the palate, the soft palate is lowered, and air

Approximant Vocal organs come near to each other, but not so

close as to cause audible friction

1.2.2.2 The place of articulation

The place of articulation identifies where in the vocal tract the sound is

qmade, and which vocal organs are mvolvad

Figure 3: ‘The manner of articulation

Bilabial ‘Using closing movement of both lips

Labio-dental ‘Using the lower lip and the upper teeth

Dental The longue lip is used either between the teeth or close to

the upper tooth Alveolar The blade of the tongue is uscd close to the alveolar ridge

Palato-alvcolar | The blade(or tip) of the tongue is uscd just behind the

alveolar ridge Palatal The front of the tongue is raised close to the palate

Velar The back of the tongue is used against the soft palate

Giertal The gap between the vocal cords is used lo make audible

1.2.2.3 Voiced and Unvoiced

Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate Voiced consonants are produced when the vocal cords are vibrating while voiceless consonants are produced when the vocal cords are nol Many consonant, sounds come in paiss, ‘They are produced in the same place in the mouth with the tongue in the same position but the only difference between them is that one is an unvoiced sound (no vibration of the vocal cords) while the other is a voiced sound (vocal cords vibrate)

Voicing, manner and place of articulation are together summarized in the following

table:

Table 1: English Consonant Phoncmics

Place of Articulation Manner of | Bilabial Labio- Dent | Alveolar | Palato- | Palata | Velar | Glottal

when 4 sound changes and onc of iis features will be more similar to an adjacont

sound In other words, when two words come together, the sound of one word can cause changes in sounds belonging to neighboring words Roach (1983) emphasized

that assimilation "is more likely to be found in rapid, casual spocch and less likely

in slow, careful speech” (p.124) The final consonant /t/ in the word that, for

example, will become /p/ before @ bilabial consanani, as in: that person /Oaep

p3isen/, Secondly, in speaking, there arc a number of phonemes which are not actually pronounced and this is called clision For instance, im words like potato, tomato, today, the vowel in the first syllable may disappear; the aspiration of the initial plosive takes up the whole of the middle portion of the syllable resulting in

these pronunciations /p" wezteu, #'masteuy, A'der’ Thirdly, in real comected

speech, words would not be separate units placed next to cach other in sequence, but they are linked together For example, the linking sound r is found in many cases when {he final sour r is before a word begining with a vowel such as here are, /hisr a/, four eges four e gz’

‘The following, section indicates the rules for inglish consonant allophones which are variants of a phoneme The list of allophonic rules which is based on TLadefoged's A course in phonetics, page 271, makes clear how Lo wrile a consisiont

narrow transcription

1 Consonants are longer when at the end of a phrase

2 Voiocless siops (Le., /p, |, k/) are aspiraled when they are syllable witial, as in

words such as pip, test, kick [ p"tp, test, khTk ]

3 Obstruent -stop and fricatives classified as voiced ( that is, /, d, g, v, ð, Z/) are voiced through only a small part of the articulation when they occur at the end of an utterance or before a voiceless sound ( /v/ in try fo improve and /d/ in add pvo)

4 So-called voiced stops and affricates /b, dg, dg/ are voiceless when syllable initial, except when immediately preceded by a voiced sound ( as ina day compared with this day)

5 Veiceless stops /'p, t, k /are unaspirated after /s / in words such as spew, stew, skew

6.Voiveless obstrucnts /p, |, k, tf, 4,5, f/ are longer then their corresponding

voiced obsiruents /b, dg, dg, v 3, 7, 3/ when at the end of a syllable.

7.The approximants /w, 1, j, 1/ are at least partially voiceless when they ocour after initial / p, t, k /, as in play, twin, cuef pler, twin, kịu ]

8.The gestures for consecutive stops overlap, so that stops are unexploded when

occur before another stop in words such as apt] zt | and rubbed|rAbd |

9.In many

ents of Eughish, syllable Lal / p, t, k/ are accompanied by a glotal stop, as in pronunciations of tip, pit[t1p, prt] (This is another case where

transcription cannot fully describe what is going on.)

10.1n many accents of English, /t/ is replaced by a glottal stop when Wf occurs

before an alveolar nasal in the same word, as in besten|'bi2n]

LÍ Nasals are syllabic at the end of a word when immediately after an obstruent as

in leaden, chasm [‘ledn,'kazm |

12.The lateral /1/ is syllabic al the end of a word when immediately aller a

14 Alveolar consonants become dentals before dental consenants, as in eighth,

tenth, wealth [ert0, ten0, wel0], Note that this statement applies to all alveolar consonants, not just stops, and it often applies across word boundaries, as in at this [ wt Sus ] This is a statement that in English the gestures for these two consonants overlap so much that the place of articulation for the first consonant is changed

15 Alveolar stops arc reduced or omitted when between two consonants

16.A homorganic voiceless stop may occur (i.e., be inserted) after a nasal before a voiceless fricative followed by an unstressed vowel in the same word

17 A consonant is shortened when it is before an identical consonant

18 Velar stops become more front before more front vowels

10

19 The lateral ¿ 1 / is vclarized when after a vowel or before a consonant at the end

of a word

1.3 The Vietnamese Consonants

According to Doan ‘Thien ‘fhuat (1980), there are twenty two initial consonants ( at

initial position of syllable) in Vietnamese consonants Dr Duong Thi Nu (2009) also

states Uhal Vietnamese include twenty two initial consonants and six final

consonants according to the positions of them in a word Regarding the final consonants, Pham (2009) mentions in her study of "consonants in Lnglish and

Vietnamese" thal there are 8 ending consonants including 6 consonants and two

semi-consonants (end by changing timbre at the last phoneme due to closing of the

articulators) Those consonants are classified based on the following features:

Table 2: Vietnamese inilial consonants

Tr Place of articnlation | labial | Alveolar | Alveo- Palatal | Velar | Glottal

(Adapted [ram Duong, 2009)

‘Table 3: Vietnamese final consonants

(Adapted from Le Quang Thiem, p.101)

The Vietnamese phonetic system contains 22 initial consonant phonemes: fol, Af (phy), Av, And, Al, /d/ (đ), 47 0h), /S/ 00), /2é Cd), fn, AV, AY Cr), /5/ (8), /6/ (chì,

11

/p/ (nh), /k/ (ck, q), /¥/ (2), Ax/ (kh), /n/ (ng), ‘hy, // (Nguyen, 2009) According to

Duong (2009), three sounds ‡ (tr), § (s), Z are not used by Hanoian and the

neighboring provinces In this study, most of the subjects of this study come from

the Northern provinces such as Ha Noi, Hai Duong, Phu Tho, Therefore, it is necessary to include another table which presents the consonants of the Hanoian

(Adapted from Duong, 2009)

1.4 A comparison of English consonant and Vietnamese consonant

In order to find the background to answer the question of whether or not

Vietnamese language influences the English pronunciation of the students, a comparison between English and Vietnamese consonants system was carried out

According to Ivy (2011), it is significant to compare the structure of one’s native

language with the structure of the target language because the influence of native

language in the learners” target language can be positive and negative

Basing on the two English consonant and Vietnamese consonant tables, the

researcher found the following similarities and differences:

Generally, most Vietnamese sounds are not much different from English in

terms of pronunciation There are some initial consonants in English similar to Vietnamese ones

12

Table 5: Similarities between English and Vietnamese

AK! (c K gu) iki (c, &, qu)

(Adapted from Harvard edu, p.7) However, there are some distinctive differences that should be taken into consideration in this study Based on the munbers, Vietnamese sound systems have twenty two consonants compared to English which has 24 consonants Especially, Vietnamese consonants are represented by the same way they are pronounced while Fnglish consonants may be presouled by identical lelœx but different prommeiation This can be demonstrated by the example of the Viemamese word

"ta" (we) which is pronounced like / la/ and English word "differentiate" which is

pronounced like /drf.sren Jiert

‘There are some sounds that exist in English but not in Vietnamese, and vice

versa For example, Vietmamese consonant phanemes, especially Ilanoian varieties

do not inchide any afficates or dentals, therefore, the English consonant, sounds

/ds/, !0/, đồi, Aff are considered as clearly different consonants in comparison with

Vietnamese consonants ‘his may be the reason why leamers are not familiar with

those sounds and tend Lo make orrors pronouncing ther,

13

English consonants can be at initial position, medial position and final position while in Vietnamese, there are only eight consonants exist in word-final

position( lable 3) and twenly-Lwo ilems are imifial consonanls

Regarding initial-syllable consonants, Vietnamese and English share the

p.6)

However, the differences between the fve sound systems can be found im the

following consonant sounds: /p, k, b, đ, ru, m f, v, s, z, h, V (Tang 2007

similar sounds themselves

First, the sounds 4p, k/ in English may be aspirated relying on context (Harris 1994) while /p, k/ are unaspirated in Vietnamese (Doan 2006) These two sounds may sound like “b” and “g” to an English speaker (Nguyen, 2009)

Second, the voiceless sound “3” as in sang “morning” (in the southem dialect) is similar Lo the English “sh” However, this sound in the northern dialeel is totally different, which sounds like /s/ in sea with the blade of the tongue is used close to the alveolar ridge

Third, the sound /1/ in Victmamese-specilic consonanis, according to Nguyen

(2009), consists the dental “t” as in to “big” and the dental aspirated “t” as in

“rabbit,” which is similar to the English “1” but produced between the teeth Bink N

Ngo made a contrast between Victnamese and English sound /4/ The author states

that in Lnglish the unaspirated /t/ and the aspirated /?/ are the allophones of the phoneme A/ The aspiraled ‘UY oveurs al the boginming of a stressed syllable, the unaspirated /t/ in the other positions For example, in the word taskmaster, the first

consonant t is aspirated /t/, the second one is unaspirated A/ Unlike /t/ in Linglish,

the unaspirated /t! and aspirated /t/ are different phonemes in Vietnamese that distinguish the meanings of words: ta (we) £ tha (to forgive), to (silk) 4 tho (poetry), tu (private) # thu (letter) This may be the reason why leamers tend to

confuse Vielnamese aspirated consonant //, which is indicated by the combination

of the two characters th with the Linglish consonants /0/ and /8/

Apart from those similar sounds, there are some different sounds that also cause difficulty to learners in English pronunciation The palatal consonant /e/, for example, is another specific consonant in Vietnamese, which needs to distinguish with affricate sound /t{/ in English Nguyen (2009) indicates that in the production

14

of this Vietnamese consonant the tongue tip is down near the back of the lower teeth and contact is made by the tongue blade against the hard palate ‘he combination of the characters ch represenis the Vitnamese consonant /e/ This sound should nel be amixed up with the English voiceless palato-alveolar consonant /t//, e.g Vietnamese cha, chi, cho versus English char, choose, chop

Ti is possible to see that in the initial position, (he sounds that do nol exist in Vietnamese may be the most dominant consonant sounds causing difficulty for second language learners They include the sound ă in chair, /d3/ in jurlge, /f? in

if

English sytlable-final words are “fi, /d3/, /[/, 4’ wlich may be strange to

Victnamese students when pronouncing ending sounds

‘There are so many differences between Vietnamese and Jinglish that the

leamers have to overcome These differences will harm Vietnamese learners of Faglish, since they might not familiar with all of the English sound systems

1S The interference of the mother tongue to students' English pronunciation

The role of the native language influences in the target language has been a ountroversial topic The opponents of this issue suppose thal he mother longue decs not prevent leamers from pronouncing language correctly IIowever, most

vesearchers agree thal the learner’s nalive language has verlam impact on the

pronunciation of the targot language

ivy (2011) believes that the similarities of the two languages will facilitate

learrung whereas the differcrices will increase the learners’ diffeully to learn This

shows a both sides of positive and negative impact of the first language on the second language learning

Sharing the same opinion with Ivy but Leal: (2012) gives a clearer viewpoint which points out that learner's first language can have significant influence on the level of accent and intelligibility of the new language Tmerference which is negative transfer means that the features of the first language are carried into the second language With differences between the two languages, negative transfer can lead to crroncous production of aspiration, thythm, and intonation in the new language (Cunningham Florez 1998),

Regarding the interference of the Vietnamese to students’ English pronunciation, there are many studies confinuing this issue Cunningham (2009) supposes that the pronunciation of Lnglish presents severe challenges to Vietnamese- speaking leamers “Not only is the sound system of Vietnamese very different from that of Fglish, but there are also extremely Timited opportunities for hearing and speaking English in Vietnam,” She claims that one of the most striking features of Vietnamese-accented English is “the elision of consonants, in particular in the syllable coda” (Cunningham 2009) The reason might be related to the phonotactic constraints operational in Vietnamese, which is an isolating language (that is, one in which the words are invariable, and syntaclic relationships are shown by word order), and traditionally, Victmamese was regarded as monosyllabic because most Vietnamese words consist of single syllables (Taffalo, 2001) It is clearly a problem for Vietnamese learners when pronouncing Bnglish which places a ‘heavy semanlic load’ on the coda in verb forms and other suffixes (Cunningham 2009), The difference of the sound system, in particular in the consonants, between Viemamese and English may create errors and result in difficulties in speaking English for Vietnamese learners as well as for the intelligibility of Vietnamese-accented Englisl Tor example, single final consonants are often absent or substituted with another

consonant which is allowed in the coda in Vietnamese such as the substitution of 4b/ for the A/ at the end of the first syllable in the word if or often, as voiceless stops are permissible in coda position in Vietnamese while fricatives are not Moreover, there

is an clision of 4 in the word is or /d/ in the cluster nds of the word friends thai

Vietnamese leamers might face (Cunningham 2009)

16

In this study the question of whether or not Vietnamese language causes obstavies to students! pronunciation of Bnglish consonants will be answered basing

on the errors they made

1.6 Intelligibility and Intelligib' problems in pronunciation

The term intelligibility is regularly mentioned in studies aboul prormunciation

© Intelligibility is being understood by a listener ai a given time in a given

“understandability” In pronunciation learning, intelligible speakers are those who

can inaster thei pronunciation to communicale effectively Thimay nol really native

like pronunciation but the ability to make others understand the speech However, many leamers encounter intelligibility problems in pronunciation, Kenworthy (1987) pointed out some leamer prommeiation strategies which can lead to intelligibility problems They arc: sound substitutions, sound deletions, sound

insertion, inks between words, the use of stress, the use of rhythm, the use of

intonation Among them, the researcher pays much attention to three kinds of problems which are sound substitutions, sound deletions and sound insertion

a Sound substitutions

Tf a speaker substitutes one sound for another, this may cause difficulties for the listener For example, many speakers whose native languages do not have “th” sound as in “thick” will substitute the sound /s/ az in sick for it Therefore, the

listener will have to decide whether the speaker said “ My fnend is sick” or “My

friend is thick” (i.e stupid)

b Sound deletions

Another set of problems might be given the cover term “deletion”, where the speaker leaves out a sound In the case of consonants, a single consonant at the beginning, middle, or end of the word may be deleted, or one or two of the consonants ina group or cluster may be deleted An example would be the word

“hold” pronounced without the final ‘d’ — it would sound like ‘hole’

c Sound insertion

Nou-native speakers may add sounds For example, many leamers when

pronouncing words like ‘speak’, ‘spoon’ or ‘Spain’ add a short vowel sound al the

beginning of these words So ‘speak’ may sound like ‘a-speak’, a two-syllable word

1.6 1 English pronunciation errors

When Linglish is spoken worldwide and the term World Linglish is getting

popular, iL is necessary to understand what pronunciation error is Pronunciation

errors are “variants of pronunciation which prevent one communicator from

understanding the propositional content of the other's utterances” (Jenkins, 2

6, p 36) Therefore, the mispronoumeed sounds are those produced by learners so differently from how they are by the native speakers that they may affect listeners’ understanding,

17 Preview of Previous Studies

‘There have been great deals of notable works about inglish pronunciation issues: however, the researcher pays much attention to the following studies

Ta the study enlitled “Correeting Enghsh consonants commonly mispronounced by second-year non English majors at ULIS-VNUII”, Vu Doan Thi Phuong Thao indicated some English consonants which were often mispronounced

by her non-English major students Accordingly, the sounds /3//f/A[/, were

difficult to students ‘They often mistook /3/,/f/ for /2/ and /s/ and the sound /t{/ was replaced with /o/, spelled with c-h, in Viotnamese,

The article entitled “Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners of Fnglish” was writlen by Dr Ha Cam Tam to answer the question “wha are the most common pronunciation problems of the students in the English department”, The data was collected through an oral final examination which required the (ourth-year- suudenis to talk about a particular lopic im approximately five minutes ‘The findings of this study show three common errors of students in

pronouncing English consonants including sound omission, sound redundancy and sound confusion Particularly, it is difficult for learners to pronounce the sounds /3,

ds, tf /, especially these sounds are often replaced by /s/ when they occur at the end

of words,

Unlike the two studies above, which research the wide issues of

pronunciation problem, Dao Thi My Hanh(2007) only focuses on the six certain

18

consonants: 0/, /6/, Aff, édg/, /ƒí, /3/ in her study named “A study on pronunciation

of some English consonants by Vietnamese leamers” In order to find out problems

of the learners at IIPMLU in pronouncing the six studied consonants, the author

designed Iwo exercises which required students to read out loud and then recorded

their pronunciation With the support of two foreign teachers of Linglish and analyzing the data in the light of articulatory phonetics, the author figured out that

/d3/ was the difficult consonant that students encountered, particularly in the final position of a word and /0/ was the most common mistake that all of the subjects

made in every position of a word

To sum up all the studies above are meaningful to this study Especially, the study of Dao Thi My Hanh(2007) is a valuable reference for the researcher to carry out this study

Tn terms of causes to the problems, a variety of factors have been

invesligaled and identified im studics about pronunciation mislakes and difTicullics

First, in attempt to correct English consonants commonly mispronounced by second year non-Fnglish majors al, ULIS-VNUH, Yu Doan Thi Phuong Thao (2011) showed reasons that accounted for students’ misprommeiation including inadequate exposure to English language, inadequate understanding of English sounds, influcnce of mother tongue, influence of First foreign language, Lc major, influence

of hometown dialects, hesitation to express oneself and some other reasons such as lack of time or promunciation habit

Sceond, in the study named Mistake or Victramese English, Dr Duong Thi

Nu (2009) pointed out thai leamers' pronunciation mistakes are because of

“inadequate kmowledge of the articulation of the sounds and, more importantly, the interforence of the mother tongue” Specifically, she identified four main reasons that explain for leamers’ failure in pronouncing Lnglish consonant correctly: (1)

faihwe in distinguish the difference, (2) influence of the mother tongue, (3)

perception of mistakes, (4) imadequale drills and practice

Ispecially, the stady of Nguyen Thi Thu Iluong(2010) attracts much of the

researcher’s concern In her study, she found cut subjective and objective reasons

19